What food crisis? Global food prices drop 7% while UK study says half of all food is wasted

January 10, 2013

Back in July the World Food and Agriculture Organsiation was warning about run-away food prices and a potential world food crisis. Yet two reports today would suggest that alarmism about food is just as unreal as that about man-made global warming:

1. Economic Times: Global food prices fell by 7.0 per cent in 2012 from the level the previous year, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday, assuaging worries a few months ago that the world could be heading for a food crisis. 
The FAO added that prices had fallen in December for the third month in a row. 
The Rome-based FAO’s Food Price Index averaged 212 points in 2012, a drop of 7.0 per cent owing largely to falls in the prices of sugar, dairy products and oil. 
According to the FAO’s index, a monthly measure of changes in a basket of food commodities, prices dropped in December by 1.1 per cent to 209 points, down for the third month from the 263 points registered in August. 
“The result marks a reversal from the situation last July, when sharply rising prices prompted fears of a new food crisis,” said Jomo Sundaram from FAO’s Economic and Social Development Department. 

2. BBC: As much as half of the world’s food, amounting to two billion tonnes worth, is wasted, a UK-based report has claimed.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers said the waste was being caused by poor storage, strict sell-by dates, bulk offers and consumer fussiness. The study also found that up to 30% of vegetables in the UK were not harvested because of their physical appearance. The institution’s Dr Tim Fox said the level of waste was “staggering”.

The report said that between 30% and 50% of the four billion tonnes of food produced around the world each year went to waste. It suggested that half the food bought in Europe and the US was thrown away. Dr Fox, head of energy and environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering. This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as those in hunger today. …..

It only reinforces the view that the world will be well able to feed its 9 billion + people by 2050. But being able to will not ensure that everybody is fed. There will no doubt be distribution issues and food supplies may not be equitably available to all the world’s population. There will still be cases of starvation and malnourished children even if more people  than ever before will be adequately fed and clothed. But there will be no catastrophic global food crisis.

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World polar bear population is now up to 22,600 – 32,000

January 10, 2013

What’s going on? Suddenly”official” figures for global polar bear populations are being shown to be quite substantial and increasing. What happened to all the fanatics of the “endangered species lobby”? Where is the WWF? I don’t think polar bears are in any danger of extinction and their endangerment is greatly exaggerated,  but are they actually thriving? Are polar bear culls now on the cards?

Perhaps the “real” scientists are beginning to see that continuing with the alarmism touted by eco-fascists is not sustainable and is counter-productive?

PolarBearScience has the story:

According to a dynamic summary report on the home page of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group website  called State of the Polar Bear, there are now 22,600-32,000 polar bears worldwide, when tallied by nation.

Here are the numbers, by nation, listed in the State of the Polar Bearsummary report (see map below):
Canada                              13,300-17,500
USA                                   1,200-1,800
Russia                               2,700-4,800
Norway                             1,900-3,600
Greenland
(Denmark)                        3,5000-4,400
Total                            22,600-32,000

The “Nations” page of the Polar Bear Specialist Group’s “State of the Polar Bear,” a dynamic summary that can be launched from the home page of the IUCN PBSG http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/dynamic/app/ [published Oct. 15, 2012] Click to enlarge.

The “Nations” page of the Polar Bear Specialist Group’s “State of the Polar Bear,” a dynamic summary that can be launched from the home page of the IUCN PBSG http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/dynamic/app/

This is a big change from the 20,000-25,000 that has been touted as the global polar bear population since 2005.

……

If there could be as many as 32,000 polar bears worldwide, why have we not heard of this before? Is this another example of data being kept secret?[see previous discussion here and here]. Or is something else going on?

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China’s trade surplus in 2012 was 48% higher than in 2011

January 10, 2013

China’s role as a motor for the world economy continues.

In spite of sluggish world-wide demand, Chinese exports rose 7.9 percent in 2012 from the previous year, while imports climbed 4.3 percent year on year. Xinhua reports that “China’s foreign trade for 2013 will be better than that of last year despite uncertainties, a General Administration of Customs spokesman said on Thursday. Spokesman Zheng Yuesheng said global economies have launched stimulus policies to prevent growth rates from slumping, adding that China’s domestic efforts to boost the growth of foreign trade will have more visible effects this year”.

MarketWatch: China’s trade surplus soared to $31.6 billion in December, trouncing estimates and widening sharply from a $19.6 billion surplus in November, aided by a strong growth in the country’s exports. Official data released Thursday showed exports expanded 14.1% during the month from the year-earlier period, while imports grew 6%. A survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires estimated a trade surplus of $19.6 billion, exports growth of 4.6% and a 3.3% increase in imports. The steep increase in December’s positive trade balance boosted China’s full-year trade surplus for 2012 to $231.1 billion, 48.1% higher than the level recorded in 2011, according to a Xinhua news report.

 

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Ice-age coming: Heaviest snowfall in Jerusalem in 20 years

January 10, 2013

Not much comment needed.

The Jerusalem Light Rail on a snow covered Jaffa Road on Wednesday (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

The Jerusalem Light Rail on a snow covered Jaffa Road on Wednesday (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90 – The Times of Israel)

Jerusalem Post: 

Greatest snowfall since 1992 sees Jerusalem municipality announce closure of schools, kindergartens; police shut Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway as snow predicted to persist until afternoon.

.. Elisha Peleg, an official in charge of emergencies with the Jerusalem Municipality, urged the city’s residents to remain at home and stay off the streets, telling Army Radio the area had overnight seen its greatest snowfall since 1992. He said 10 to 15 centimetres (4 to 6 inches) of snow had piled up in the city center and more than that in outlying areas. “The downtown area is bathed in white,” Peleg said.

“The elders of Jerusalem don’t remember such a snowstorm in years,” Peleg also said.

 

 

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Posted in Climate, Israel, Weather, Winter | 1 Comment »

New Doomsday possible on 13th April 2036 when asteroid Apophis could hit earth.

January 10, 2013

Yet another doomsday for us to look forward to (it gets boring looking back at doomsdays from the past that have failed to come to pass). This time it is a 325 m wide asteroid – named Apophis (Apep) after the Egyptian God of darkenss and chaos – which could crash into the Earth on 13th April 2036 (a Sunday).

My own hypothesis is that if we can increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to around 1200 ppm, a collision could be avoided. All I need is some funding (just a few million would do) and I’m sure I could develop a suitable mathematical model to “prove” this. Maybe Greenpeace and WWF could contribute. After all it would save so many species on Earth – not to mention humans.

Daily Mail: The European Space Agency’s orbiting telescope has captured striking new images of the huge ‘Doomsday’ asteroid Apophis that could smash into Earth in 2036 – revealing it is larger than previously thought.

Long billed as a potential cause of an Extinction Level Event (ELE) for humanity, today ESA officials announced that its Herschel Space Observatory discovered that the asteroid is 1,066 feet wide, 20 percent larger than the previous estimate of 885 feet.

Whizzing past Earth at the relatively close distance of nine million miles tonight, Apophis is being closely tracked because of a 2004 study that predicted the rock has a 2.7 percent chance of hitting Earth in April 2029, which was later revised to 2036.

BBC: The large rocky mass was first discovered in 2004. At the time, it raised alarm when scientists calculated that it had a one-in-45,000 chance of smashing into the Earth in 2029.  Later revisions, lifted this threat; instead on the Friday 13 April 2029, it will make a close pass at a distance of about 30,000km. However, astronomers say there is still a one-in-200,000 chance that it could strike Earth in 2036.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, said: “In 2029, it will pass so close to us that Earth’s gravity will change its orbit. Most of the potential orbits it will end up on will mean we are safe for the next 100 years. But there is a small region of space – something we call a keyhole – and if it passes through that keyhole in 2029, it will come back and hit us on 13 April in 2036.”

If this happened, it would strike the Earth with 100 times the energy in our largest nuclear bombs, said Prof Fitzsimmons.

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Finally — a climate model is revised

January 9, 2013

UPDATE! The important point of this story is not whether global warming has stopped or is continuing or if the world is cooling. Climate will go the way it will. The real significance of this story is that climate models are not just far from perfect – they are plain wrong. And what is worse is that when a model is not borne out by reality, the “politically correct” but false assumptions (such as that man-made CO2 causes significant  warming or that solar effects are minor) are not even reviewed.

This has been doing the rounds for a few days now but the BBC – which tends to be one of the pillars of the Global Warming religion – has finally come round to reporting that the British Met Office has predicted that global temperatures could decrease somewhat over the next decade. Of course it is good to see that a climate model is being revised in the face of reality. Unfortunately most climate models just retain their assumptions and add fudge factors every time reality fails to meet their forecasts where – instead – they ought to be questioning the very assumptions their models are built on. But that loss of face would be too expensive in terms of the funding already flowing into continuing with discredited models and would be too much to take in one go. But the fundamental requirement of good science is that when models don’t fit it is time to question the assumptions in the model – not to find fudge factors.

BBC: Climate model forecast is revised

The UK Met Office has revised one of its forecasts for how much the world may warm in the next few years. …. If the forecast is accurate, the result would be that the global average temperature would have remained relatively static for about two decades.

…. Climate scientists at the Met Office and other centres are involved in intense research to try to understand what is happening over the most recent period.

The most obvious explanation is natural variability – the cycles of changes in solar activity and the movements and temperatures of the oceans.

Infographic (Met Office)

Infographic (Met Office): The forecasts are based on a comparison with the average global temperature over the period 1971-2000

Of course the BBC report then goes on to proclaim that this not a global cooling and that global warming will continue.

But of course neither this or any of the other exaggerated models will remove the assumed global warming – man-made carbon dioxide link for which there is no direct evidence whatever.

Tallbloke reported on the story here a few days ago.

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Features I would like to see in my next computer

January 8, 2013

I am replacing my old desktop and will also soon need a new laptop/tablet to replace my 3 year-old net-book but have not quite decided what to buy as yet.  The worst part is the temptation to keep postponing the decision in the hope that something new is just around the corner!

I keep looking for features and software which are not yet available but will surely be available in time. My top-10 wish list is here.

1. A mini- tablet which transforms into my desktop – whenever I am at a desk.

2. A device where the device manufacturer offers free, fast global wi-fi. (A vertical integration of internet service providers with the device manufacturers).

3. An instant connection to the cloud but yet with sufficient local Flash memory.

4. A device which – with certainty –  knows who I am and on which it is impossible for anybody else to log-on as me.

5. A satisfactory key-board which is both large enough for my thick fingers and small enough to be completely unobtrusive when not in use.

6. A wireless power connection.

7. Virus and malware protection built into the Operating System.

8. Reliable speech recognition not only for navigation but also for drafting complex text (passages and formulae).

9. A very large 3-D holographic display

10. A virtual large-screen alternative through spectacles. 

 

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Dreamliner still having electrical teething problems as fire breaks out in empty JAL aircraft

January 8, 2013

UPDATE! 9th January

(Reuters) – Boeing Co’s 787 Dreamliner jet suffered a third mishap in as many days on Wednesday, heightening safety concerns after a string of setbacks for the new aircraft.

==========================================

Some 800 Boeing Dreamliners have been ordered so far and the first Dreamliner entered commercial operation with ANA in late 2011. That was about 3 years later than planned following a string of production issues. The Dreamliner has had a number of teething problems – mainly with electrical systems. Qatar Airways had to correct electrical faults and a United Air flight had to make an emergency landing  because of power failure. The FAA had also found some faults with the installation of the fuel system and had called for all Dreamliners to be inspected. Now a JAL aircraft has had a battery fire after landing at Boston – but there were no passengers on board at the time.

A Japan Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet aircraft is surrounded by emergency vehicles while parked at Logan International Airport in Boston. AP/Stephan Savoia

But the problems experienced so far do not seem to be anything extraordinary compared  to what could be expected with a brand new aircraft. The Dreamliner has not – unlike the Airbus A380 – experienced any serious engine problems so far. Another year of flying will probably see all the initial bugs ironed out. Then it will probably take another 5 or 6 years before any generic design issues – due to materials choices for example – start showing up.

NY Times:  A Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft with no passengers on board caught fire at Logan International Airport in Boston on Monday when a battery in its auxiliary electrical system exploded, officials said.

A mechanic inspecting the Japan Airlines jet discovered smoke in the cockpit while performing a routine postflight inspection and reported it to airport authorities around 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, said Bob Donahue, the fire chief of the Massachusetts Port Authority.

A fire crew responded and determined that a battery used to power the plane’s electrical systems when the engines are not running had exploded, Chief Donahue said. The mechanic was the only person on board the plane when the smoke was discovered, and no one was hurt by the fire, he added. ….

…… The 787 relies heavily on electrical power to drive onboard systems that in other jet models are run by air pressure generated by the engines. It also experienced electrical problems during testing that prompted a redesign.

The Dreamliner has experienced a string of problems with its electrical systems in recent weeks. On Dec. 4, a United Airlines flight from Houston to Newark made an emergency landing after it appeared that one of its power generators had failed.

On Dec. 13, Qatar Airways said it had grounded one of its three 787 jets because of the same problem United experienced. On Dec. 17, United said that a second 787 in its fleet had developed electrical problems.

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Posted in Aviation, Business, Engineering, Technology | 1 Comment »

Delhi rape victim was moved to Singapore for political – not medical – reasons

January 8, 2013

Jyoti Singh Pandey, the victim of the horrendous rape and violence in Delhi on 16th December, has not been served very well by the Indian Government – in life or in her dying. Just to avoid having her die in the heart of Delhi she was thrown away by a cowardly government to die far away. It was Pilate all over again as the government tried to wash their hands of her death on their watch.

From Safdarganj Hospital in Delhi she was flown to Singapore on Boxing Day to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital which specialises in multi-organ transplant. The 4,000 km journey in an ambulance flight was made even though the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) is just one street-width away from Safdarganj Hospital and has itself a well deserved reputation for excellence. At the time I thought that it was a caring Government which had made the decision to take every possible action to try and save Jyoti’s life – but it appears that this was not so at all. It now begins to become clear that this was the action of a cowardly administration which just did not want her to be in the heart of Delhi when she died. Her life was already forfeit. It was an attempt at damage control. It was almost as callous an act of “throwing her away” to die far away in Singapore as that of the 6 rapists who threw her off that bus. It was entirely a political decision of an embattled and scared Government.

There was no real medical expectation that any intestinal transplant could even be contemplated to be done in Singapore. That was just a theoretical possibility and the cover story for political purposes. She had been written off before the move was made. The decision to move her was apparently made after a Cabinet meeting but I wonder which cowardly Minister(s) came up with this damage limitation plan?

Reuters reports:

… With a deadly infection seeping into her blood from damage done to her intestines during the assault, complicated by a cardiac arrest and damage to the brain, she was just clinging to life when she was flown 2,500 miles from New Delhi to Singapore late on December 26, doctors said.

“It was ethically and morally wrong to have taken her out, given that she was sinking and her chances of survival were next to zero at that stage,” said a doctor at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which was advising the team treating the woman at a sister hospital across the street.

“Such a thing raises false hopes in the minds of the family, the community. No doctor in his right mind would do this, unless you want to get the patient off your back,” said the doctor, who declined to be identified, saying colleagues at the government-run hospital who had spoken out had been warned of consequences in what has become a politically explosive case. ….

….. Another doctor who was consulted during the woman’s care at New Delhi’s Safdarjang hospital, where she was taken following the assault, said she had been getting the best possible treatment in India and the question of why she was shifted should be answered by the government.

Many security officials have said they feared the protests would escalate if the woman had died in New Delhi, but the government has said the only consideration was her wellbeing. …..

…… At the time of the transfer, authorities at Safdarjang said her condition was critical which was why they decided to move her to Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital, which specialized in multi-organ transplant.

But a transplant for her damaged intestine, if at all possible, was months away, doctors said. At the time of her transfer, the woman, unconscious since a heart attack the previous night, was in no condition to go through such an operation.

“One cannot think about intestinal transplant at this moment,” Samiran Nundy, the head of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation at the Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, was quoted as saying in newspapers.

“First, the infection spreading in her should be stopped, then one can think about transplant.”

Within 40 hours of her arrival in Singapore, doctors called her family and told them the end was near, even as millions prayed at home in the hope that she would pull through.

“Sepsis followed by cardiac arrest is a terminal event in 99 percent of cases,” said the doctor at AIIMS, referring to blood infection.

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US professors have the least stressful jobs

January 8, 2013

Of course many Professors are outraged but I find CareerCast’s list of The 10 Least Stressful Jobs of 2013 quite convincing. The most stressful job according to CareerCast is that of enlisted military personnel having a stress score of 84.72 compared to the 6.45 of University Professors.

The 3 least stressful are given below:

University professor tops the CareerCast.com Jobs Rated report of least stressful careers for 2013. The field’s high growth opportunities, low health risks and substantial pay provide a low-stress environment that’s the envy of many career professionals.

1. University professors are at the pinnacle of the education field. Their students are largely those who choose the classes they attend, and thus want to be in class. Unlike elementary and secondary educators, the performance of college professors isn’t evaluated based on standardized tests. University professors also have the opportunity to earn tenure, which guarantees lifetime employment. 

MEDIAN SALARY: : $62,050  

JOB OUTLOOK: 17%

JOBS RATED STRESS SCORE: 6.45

2. Seamstresses and tailors mend clothing to personal specifications. For that reason, they must show a great attention to detail, but have the ability to work creatively every day. Most tailors work in a peaceful atmosphere, allowing them to focus on the task at hand without distraction.

MEDIAN SALARY: $25,850

JOB OUTLOOK: 1% 

JOBS RATED STRESS SCORE: 6.5

3. Medical Records Technician. A growing profession in the stable healthcare industry is medical records technician. Medical records technicians work in the office side of hospitals, doctors and dentists practices. 

MEDIAN SALARY: $32,350 

JOB OUTLOOK: 21% 

JOBS RATED STRESS SCORE: 7.5

 

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