A bright spring Sunday with blue skies over this part of Sweden.
But the skies over Europe are still closed due to the largely invisible ash cloud.
Lufthansa and KLM have made some test flights in the ash cloud with no sign of any damage. KLM hope to fly seven planes back from Germany during today (Sunday). Lufthansa flew 10 test flights bewteen Frankfurt and Munich on Saturday at 3000m and 8000 m altitude without incident.
Perhaps sanity will prevail and common sense will return.
It is primarily a political device and has little to do with science.
The closing of air space in Northern Europe and the massive disruption to travellers is totally unnecessary and is justified on the grounds of the precautionary principle. But it defies common sense. Eurocontrol rules are being applied blindly without using any common sense.
Swine flu vaccinations were imposed under the guise of the precautionary principle, but were unnecessary and, it now appears, promoted by the manufacturers of flu vaccines.
The banning of ordinary filament light bulbs and the imposition of the so-called low energy lamps is another misuse of the precautionary principle (and in this case a pandering to a particular industrial lobby under the guise of being environmentally friendly)
The entire Y2K and global warming circuses were other examples.
As Daniel Henninger notes the precautionary principle is damaging the credibility of science.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574572091993737848.html
It is claimed in its defence that it is common sense but, of course it is not.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/prec.php
Common sense does not need the cloak of being labelled a “precautionary principle”. It is what allows politicians and politically motivated scientists to stop or do what is otherwise unjustifiable in the name of common sense.
k2p — knowledge to people
The ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano has disrupted air traffic across Northern Europe.
This is an intensity one volcano and puts the impact of man into perspective. It occurs to me that to believe (since there is insufficient evidence) that anthropogenic effects can overshadow clouds and solar effects on global warming is just a little arrogant.
The k2p blog 