Environmental Protection Ad Absurdum

Envirozealots are now moving against street sweepers, burning firewood and wood floors, claiming they emit dangerous aerosols. Expect microscopic aerosols to become the next environmental catastrophe.  

The Swiss online news magazine Die Weltwoche has a report by journalist Alex Reichmuth called Environmental Protection Ad Absurdum (in German). 

Environmental protection in Switzerland, like much of Europe,  has fallen into the hands of envirozealots. European ministries of environment are increasingly becoming armies of white-gloved snoopers in search of single molecules of contaminants. And the envirowacko journalists are chiming in, of course.  

In Switzerland the latest environmental catastrophe are airborne microscopic aerosols ( now joining biodiversity, ocean acidification, water consumption and climate change). It’s gotten so bad that now even environmental groups are now getting annoyed.

For example since 1988  it has been a tradition for environmental awareness group Alps Initiative to light a bonfire every August to remind people to protect the Alps from air pollution. This year, however, the event has been banned by the local environmental authorities. The reason, reports Reichmuth:  

The bonfire would harm the climate and pollute the air with microscopic aerosols.  

The Alps Initiative reacted:  

This is making a mountain out of a molehill.  

Indeed it is. But modern environmentalism has always been about making molehills into mountains, hasn’t it? Just look how life-giving CO2 has been made the culprit for the coming global Armageddon.  

Reichmuth serves up more ad absurdum cases.  

Another example: residents in small villages in Graubünden and in Tessin have been discovered to be suffering from microscopic aerosols emitted by homes burning wood in fireplaces in the wintertime. Yes, it’s about time to close up them romantic fireplaces in Swiss chalets.  

Even street sweepers are now deemed a microscopic-aerosol producing problem. A local newspaper wrote:  

When sucking up dirt, dangerous fine particles are emitted into the air by the sweeper’s air exhaust. And depending on the manufacturer, at alarming rates!  

Wait, it gets worse! That beautiful flooring you have in the rooms in your home? It may be emitting fine aerosols that are dangerous to your health too. Reichmuth writes:  

Anyone with wood or wood laminate floors is living dangerously. According to a German study, rooms with smooth floors produce concentrations of microscopic aerosols that are considerably higher than rooms with carpeting. Concentrations on average were even higher than Swiss daily limits. Taking into account all the victims who have died as a result of the aerosols, then we have to call manufacturers of natural wood floors and wood laminate mass murderers.  

Sounds loony, but let it be a warning of what can happen if you don’t stand up and push this movement back. Although Cap & Trade is in a coma in the US, waiting to wake up after the November elections, the EPA is waiting to swoop down and run every aspect of your lives.

Oreskes At Deutsche Welle’s Journalism For Dummkopfs Conference

Oreskes instructs international journalists to call sceptics "contrarians" and to not use the term "climate debate".

Ulli Kulke of the German online Die Welt national newspaper has written a piece: How Sceptics Are To Be Converted. He reports on the recent Global Media Forum held by German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle dubbed “The Heat Is On – Climate Change and the Media”, see here for background and here. According to Kulke the real objective of the forum: 

The media are to warn the public of the dangers of climate change even more effectively and powerfully than before, and of course to make it even more clear that it’s the fault of man. 

One well-attended workshop was: How To Deal With Climate Scepticism. Its own stated objective: 

This workshop aims to point out what journalists must know about climate change policy, whom to trust and when to question their own professional procedures. 

and warned: 

Falling back on a “neutral” journalistic position can mean playing into the hands of the skeptics at the expense of the basis of life. 

According to the workshop’s moderator, Bernhard Pötter of the newspaper Tageszeitung, 

For journalists, climate change is the most important topic of the 21st century. 

The “How To Deal With Climate Scepticism” workshop was designed to provide assistance to frustrated editors, authors and other journalists on how to best deal with the unwanted confrontation with a climate sceptic. 

Oreskes’s Propaganda 

One notable speaker at the workshop was Naomi Oreskes, who, according to Kulke, requests journalists eliminate the use of the word “scepticism” from their reporting. Kulke reports on Oreskes: 

‘Scepticism” is too positive, and is indeed even a virtue in science. It’s better to use the word “contrarian’, which one can translate as ‘adversary’ or ‘dissenter’, says Oreskes. ”Also it’s a no-no to use the term climate debate’. 

‘It’s no wonder,’ complained Oreskes, ‘that people think science is still debating climate change when everywhere in newspapers one reads about a ‘debate’. Debate has long been in the history books. Climate change is a scientifically proven fact.’ It’s important for journalists to stress that the debate is over. 

Ulli Kulke wonders what newspapers Oreskes could be possibly reading out in California, which would lead her to conclude the press is playing down climate change. Kulke writes: 

In the years leading up to and after the last IPCC assessment report in 2007, the press and television reported daily on the coming end of the world in America and Europe. 

But this has changed over the last half-year. Inconsistencies, cover-ups, big blunders and, most of all, exaggerations by climate scientists have been exposed. Some have admitted their errors. Even plots by scientists against their sceptic colleagues came to light. As a result the media have toned down their alarmism a little. And one even gets the impression that, since Climategate, journalistic principles have made a comeback. But some people have got a problem with that. 

Like Oreskes. 

Much to her chagrin, parts of the German press, such as Ulli Kulke, are not ready to abandon the principles of journalism. That’s good news.

Expect scepticism contrarianism to grow in Europe.

Deutsche Welle Gone Rogue – Pushes One-Sided Journalism, But Denies It

Deutsche Welle denies one-sidedness, but asks journalists "to question their own professional procedures".

Here’s a story on how a publicly funded broadcaster in Germany has abandoned obeying the laws of the Land, and succumbed to the temptation of practicing activism instead of journalism (a violation of German law). All of this of course on the premise of the fantasized urgent need to rescue the planet.

On June 9 the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE)  based in Germany sent a Letter of Protest to the Intendant of German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle demanding that it refrain from the illegal use of public funds by canceling its one-sided alarmist conference for journalists called: The Heat Is On – Climate Change and the Media. 

Background here:
1. Journalism For Dummkopfs 
2. From Journalism To Thought Control
3. Protest Begins To Mount!
4. EIKE Sends Letter Of Protest 

Well, EIKE has received a reply from Deutsche Welle Intendant, Erik Bettermann, and the reply couldn’t have been more mind-blowing. Certainly makes one appreciate the frustration Steve McIntyre must feel at times. 

First recall one workshop at the conference: How to professionally deal with climate scepticism, has the stated objective: 

This workshop aims to point out what journalists must know about climate change policy, whom to trust and when to question their own professional procedures. 

The panelists at the conference go on to warn: 

Falling back on a “neutral” journalistic position can mean playing into the hands of the skeptics at the expense of the basis of life. 

Obviously this conference has nothing to do with balanced journalism, rather just the opposite. So how did Intendant Bettermann respond to EIKE’s request they obey the law and return to balanced journalism? 

Deutsche Welle director Erik Bettermann asking publicly-funded journalists to question their principles, and urges them to violate German law that requires them to be fair and balanced.

 
Easy – Bettermann simply denied any one-sidedness, and asserted they are being fair and balanced. Bettermann’s letter starts with:

In response to your letter dated 9 June 2010, we would like to inform you that Deutsche Welle neither influences the global discussion on climate development in a one-sided manner, nor does it intend to, through its reporting or through the international convention Global Media Forum.

That’s a flat-out lie. And later writes: 

As we have already mentioned, we enable representatives of a wide range of viewpoints and opinions to discuss in an international forum. And we will report on these discussions with our media in an honest, comprehensive and balanced manner. 

That’s untrue as not a single non-alarmist view is included in the conference. He then adds: 

In these discussions Deutsche Welle is only offering a forum and does not represent a decided point of view in one direction or the other. 

Yet, just compare the contents of the conference announcement with the statements made by Bettermann. They could not be more diametrically opposed. The conference’s own program announcement is proof of its total one-sidedness, which means publicly funded Deutsche Welle is actively violating German law by not remaining balanced in its journalism. 

Let’s be honest. Bettermann is no fool. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He has no intention of being fair and balanced on the climate issue. He’s hoping EIKE will give up trying to take on the state-funded Deutsche Welle and all its legal counselors, and simply go away. 

Deutsche Welle has de facto gone rogue. It has long since abandoned journalistic principles. Rather, the broadcaster intends to shape political opinion and public policy in Germany. Now that’s real power! Boring journalism be damned. 

But EIKE is not about to back down, and has sent a reply and intends to turn up the pressure. It’s a battle between David and Goliath. It’s a battle they will probably lose, but it’s certainly worth fighting. There’s simply too much at stake. 

Tomorrow, EIKE’s reply to Bettermann’s denial. 

Googlegate!

No. Don’t get all your hopes up, all you conspiracy people out there. This is nothing really big and probably just has to do with how the mysterious inner machinery of Google works. I have absolutely no idea about how it works. To me it is just an amazing piece of machinery.

We know Wiki is infamous for its gatekeeping of climate content. But can we trust Google to deliver fair and balanced information searches? I bring this up because on the 31st of May I wrote a harmless blurb about Naomi Oreskes Naomi Oreskes Denial of Nonconsensus. After I posted it, I googled “Naomi Oreskes Denial” and my post appeared on page 1 at position 5 or 6, meaning anyone googling those words would have found it easily – right there on the first page. I remember feeling quite pleased about it.

But if I had been Ms Oreskes, I probably would not have been too happy about that. After all, in her world, there’s nothing but consensus out there, and so we can’t have any dissent, now can we?

A day later on June 1st I googled it again, and this time I was relegated to page 2, position no. 17 – meaning at that point I had already been put on the Google conveyor belt to obscurity. Today, 5 days later, I googled “Naomi Oreskes Denial” again. This time Google had moved my post down to page 5 position 56, meaning most searchers probably would not find it. Moreover, clicking on the link they provide no longer takes you directly to the post itself, but to my homepage instead. This assures that over time the post eventually gets buried. Naomi Oreskes’s illusion of consensus thus stays undisturbed.

I don’t know if other bloggers have had similar experiences. If so, it could be interesting to hear about them. There are lots of experiments we could try, like applying various inputs and to see what outputs are produced.

Try googling Googlegate! and see what happens.

As this is a harmless post, and I think Google may leave it at the top of their search results. Right Google?

Update: Many have already written about Googlegate. This is interesting: nationalpost lawrence-solomon

Naomi Oreskes’ Denial Of Non-Consensus: A Look At A Failed Historian

Naomi Orsekes

My how the times have changed. Climategate, and all the other gates surrounding it, have turned things inside-out. The science is far from settled, as many of us have long suspected. The ranks of sceptic scientists are swelling, public opinion has swung; even the Royal Society has adopted a new position on climate science –  by George, there might be more to it than CO2 molecules after all!  The mainstream media is slowly coming around, too.

Yet, others refuse to hear it. 

Here’s a Youtube clip of Naomi Oreskes’ Truth About Denial presentation in 2007. Some of you may have watched it already. That presentation is in two parts.

Part 1: The Truth Part (CO2 drives global warming, there’s a consensus, science is settled).
Part 2: The Denial Part (There’s a disinformation campaign out there, denying it all).

Okay, that was back in 2007. Back then global warming science looked convincing, and so maybe such a position was plausible.

But here’s Oreskes in March 2010  in a presentation called the Merchants of Doubt, which is pretty much the same as her 2007 Truth About Denial. Despite all the new revelations, scandals and shifting scientific viewpoints, Oreskes continues to play the same music.  In the 2010 presentation she continues to ask (paraphrasing):

How can there be so much scepticism in the public when there’s consensus among scientists?  Where does all the public doubt come from?

And answers by claiming it all stems from a tiny few merchants of doubt, who she describes as:

…a small but powerful group of people aided and abetted by well-funded think-tanks and a compliant mass media…not for money, but in defense of an ideology of laissez-faire governance, opposition to gevernment regulation in all forms.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Oreskes still believes, despite all the new revelations we’ve seen over the last few months, that all the scepticism and denialism out there today is still coming from the same sinister merchants of doubt. You’d think she’d would step back for a minute and re-evaluate her position. No chance.  Instead her reaction is to drive her head yet further into the sand.

Oreskes claims to be a science historian. My question is: Will she wake up and start a new chapter for the science history books? Or will she continue repeating her fairy tales? Don’t hold your CO2 breath.

UPDATE: Yesteday this post appeared at position No. 6 when one googled “Naomi Oreskes’ Denial”. Today it has dropped off to No. 17.

Casus Belli – Suspend Democracy!

Trust me

Here’s another excellent post by Eduardo Zorita at the Klimazwiebel.  

In this BBC podcast (takes a minute or so to load), the view of green elitists is that we have casus belli. Thus democracy has to be suspended and common sense authoritarianism has to take over – just for a while, until things are put back in their proper order. The general population is just too stupid to understand it, and is only getting in the way. (Actually, and thankfully, they’re too informed and many people understand precisely what this is about).  

“The situation is urgent, the world is going to hell in a handbasket – let us rescue the planet. Trust us,” we are constantly told.  

I’m trying to think of a veggie or fruit that’s green outside and brown inside. The closest thing I can think of is a rotten avocado. For me it’s even disturbing that the BBC even gives equal time and weight to the green nutjobs who propose suspending democracy and taking us back to the German Democratic Republic – East Germany, behind the Berlin Wall, for those of you who may have already forgotten. “Trust us” just isn’t good enough. History shows that populations have been burned by this all too often.  

The good news is that authoritarianism only works if there’s consent. But there can be no consent unless there is a genuine debate. That’s where the problem lies for the kook warmists. They’ll never win this debate, and they know it. Indeed consent has been massively eroding lately. Their science has been exposed as a hoax. They’ve lost the case and their desperation has caused them to lose any rationality they may have once had.

Update: Bishop Hill has found the perfect food staple to symbolise enviro-leftists: pistachios. Green only on the surface, brown inside, and in total, a nut throughout.

Action Hero Lewis Gordon Pugh

Super Pugh

Faster than a speeding bullet…more powerful than a locomotive…able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look, it’s a bird! No it’s a plane! It’s Super-Pugh!

When evil threatens the planet Earth, then it’s Super Pugh to the rescue.

Now Super Pugh is in Nepal, where he just completed a 1 km swim across an icy 2″C lake to save the planet from, yes, you guessed it, manmade global warming read here.

One or two summers ago, publicity-monger and Mr Save-The-Earth Lewis Gordon Pugh attempted canoeing to the North Pole to draw attention to the problem of AGW (not to himself). He didn’t make it, probably too much kryptonite up there.

But now, in Nepal, according to his Hero Website, this was a “Swim for Peace. It is a plea to every nation, to do everything it can, to put a stop to climate change.”

Who knows, maybe Super Pugh will get the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

How did he get to Nepal? Like everywhere else his expeditions take him, it’s up up and away – in a jet! (Surely he offsets his super carbon footprints).

Action hero Pugh is concerned that AGW is not being taken seriously enough. According to the Daily Planet, er, the Beeb: 

He urged governments to make tackling climate change a priority and said he was disappointed the issue did not feature more prominently in the UK election. 

It’s not easy being an action hero when nobody cares. Finally, here’s a video of Super Pugh in action!

My hero.

The Attraction Of The AGW Religion

Jo Nova found this jewel of a parody (mentioned in my previous post): http://www.pjtv.com/v/3485

Life is beginning to lose all meaning and purpose for some, as their religion collapses. For the AGW alarmists, it was so good despising and feeling superior to all the unenlightened flat-earthers and the rest of the planet-destroying humanity, and punishing them for their behaviour.

Sadly, the infliction of punishment is one primary element that makes the AGW religion so attractive for some, especially its leaders. In this religion it’s actually a virtue to seek ways to punish and control people instead of loving them. Those who join it are promised rescue, esteem and acceptance.

Inflicting punishment is a position of power. And when it comes to inflicting punishment, there’s an eerie thing about how people just queue up to do it – especially if there’s a social mechanism in place to reward it. Psychological experiments have confirmed this time and again, just as a recent French experiment on inflicting torture on pleading victims shows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYHRq7oMnZQ

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1972981,00.html

In the experiment, those who inflicted the punishment eventually came back to their senses and were later horrified to see how they had been duped into taking it to such extremes. They even had to be psychologically debriefed.

Big Pile Of Steaming Hoo

Life has lost all meaning: http://www.pjtv.com/v/3485

h/t: http://joannenova.com.au/2010/05/shattered-warmers-become-global-mourners/

WWF: Expect Snowfalls in July!

In Russia’s German edition of Ria Novosti online, a Russian WWF climate expert claims that the recent “climate anomaly” of winter weather and a hurricane strength storm occurring in southern France in late spring confirms the anthropogenic impact on global climate. http://de.rian.ru/science/20100505/126183713.html.

Ria Novosti interviewed WWF climate expert Alexei Kokorin, who says:

The situation in France fits right in with the theory of anthropogenic climate change. We are now able to observe marginal climate change. Temperature and precipitation fluctuations have increased 10-fold. In Russia the number of dangerous hydrometeorological events have increased 10-fold in the last 15 years.

Nothing you wouldn’t expect from an alarmist. But then he adds (original German):

Wir können in Zukunft mit einem etwas wärmeren und zugleich weitaus instabileren Klima, darunter mit Schneefällen im Mai und Juli, rechnen.

In English:

In the future we [Russians] can anticipate a somewhat warmer and much more unstable climate, including snowfalls in May and July.

Warmer and yet snowfalls in the summertime? You gotta be kidding.

But do expect the IPCC to cite them in its upcoming 5th assessment report. The chances of being cited are quite good – Alexei Kokorin is the director of the Russian WWF Climate Protection Program.  In the past the IPCC has had no qualms about citing such sources.