Weekend edition 3rd - 5th August

Friday 3rd August

I think everyone is aware of my thoughts on AGW. This weeks Discovery TV hostage drama in the USA is something I’ve thought was going to happen sooner or later.

Tom Fuller posted a really good article in WUWT on Thursday, I’ve put it in here.

It is past time all the disaster scenarios published by the IPCC, and the looney green fringe parties, the WWF, Greenpeace, the doomsday scare tactics, were all scrapped and some sensibility crept in to the discussion.

The world is not going to heat up and fry everyone, there won’t be a global catastrophe, there will be weather as usual, hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, floods and droughts, as usual. Sunshine and rain, the sea isn’t going to rise 2 inches, 2 feet, 20 feet and flood the world.

If you really want to stop over population, you provide or make accessible cheap effective energy, and if that means using coal to provide the 3 rd world economies with energy, then we do it. Populations stabilise once people improve their lives, when you live in poverty, and 60% of the children born die of malnutrition, malaria, dengue fever, measles, chicken pox, flu, and every other disease of poverty, polluted water, insufficient food, it is natural for the constant increase in births.

Here is Toms post from http://www.wattsupwiththat.com/

Stop the Hysteria
Posted on September 2, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
After the tragic events in Maryland on Wednesday of this week, where a man took three hostages and tried to make The Discovery Channel a vehicle for publishing his manifesto, there have been accusations and counter accusations in the global warming world about taking advantage of this to advance political goals.
In particular, Joe Romm of Climate Progress harshly criticized Anthony Watts for the title of his blog post alerting readers to the situation. Personally, I think Anthony’s choice was mistaken, but not malicious–I’ve made worse editorial decisions myself.
And this may be one of them. The deluge of catastrophic predictions regarding global warming and its consequences have reached almost everyone on the planet, and perhaps unintentionally have replaced Cold War bomb scares as the primary source of doomsaying.
The messages are well-thought out and prepared by professional communicators, with disturbing and graphic images of a post-apocalyptic scenario lifted from Mad Max, and with about as much connection to reality.
In March of this year, a couple in Argentina shot their two children before committing suicide over fears of global warming. On Wednesday, in Maryland, James Lee apparently committed ‘suicide by cop’ after taking three hostages in an attempt to force the Discovery Channel to alter its programming to suit his fears over the environment.
At what point will we call to account those who have preached ‘the end of the earth as we know it’ to countless people? How many people will be driven to desperation by those who distort the science?
The IPCC’s AR4, published in 2007, painted a future with global warming as a serious, multinational problem that we should face together. You may agree or disagree with their findings–I agree with most of it, not all.
But nowhere does the work of thousands of scientists in peer-reviewed literature say that we are doomed, that civilization is at risk, that there is no future for us.
That falls to several groups of committed lobbyists, scientists, environmentalists and politicians who began saying the IPCC report was too conservative almost the day it was published. The evidence they bring forward for that claim is nowhere near as robust as the science referenced by the IPCC.
They are scaring people to death. How many more lives will be blighted or destroyed before they understand that their propaganda has real world effects?
It’s hard to work up too much sympathy for Mr. Lee–he took hostages, threatened to detonate an explosive device, and pretty much guaranteed his fate. And his worries weren’t confined to global warming. He was equally concerned with overpopulation, another scare story put out by some of the same people pumping hysteria over global warming.
At any rate, what these people are doing is despicable, if not murderous.
Sea levels are not going to rise by 20 feet. Or 10. Or five. There is not going to be a climatic tipping point that pushes our planet into a spiral of ever-increasing temperatures. Global warming is not going to cause the extinction of half the species on this planet, or even 1%.
And it is long past time that respected members of the scientific community publicly acknowledge those facts and helped bring this debate back within the realm of reality.
My father met Jim Jones briefly before he moved to Guyana with his flock, and described him as intelligent and persuasive, able to talk reasonably about a multitude of subjects. We don’t need more smooth talkers preaching the language of despair. We can now see the results. In their zeal to communicate their fears of the effects of global warming that go far beyond the predictions of mainstream science, those who Anthony called ‘warmistas’ in his blog title and who I call alarmists and sometimes hysterics have created a library of disturbing words and images that can influence the vulnerable.
Are these people responsible for the tragedies in Argentina and Maryland? No. But did they act responsibly, caveating their predictions as personal fears instead of the verdict of science. No. They were trying to scare you. They succeeded too well.
It’s time to stop the hysteria.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller

All of this over a rise in “global” temperature since the Little Ice Age ended ca 1850. A rise of 0.6 * C. in 150 years. And which has flattened out since 1999, to the extent that with the present Solar Minimum and the PDO and ENSO being affected by the coming La nina, we are experiencing falling temperatures, and a possibly 30 year cooling period again.

And whoever decided that the world should only warm up to 15*C? The average high temp is 22*C, at which stage the oceans take over as a gigantic heat engine, and shift the heat by evaporation, and deflect incoming Solar radiation by increasing cloud cover.

Google “The Thermostat Hypothesis” by Willis Eschenbach, then sit down and think about it all.

And write to John Key and tell him that the ETS scheme is a fraud.


Saturday 4th September

I’m almost over my rant from last night, although it doesn’t take much to get me going whenever anyone mentions AGW. Especially living here where the school kids are being fed AGW hysteria from the time they start school. The British High Commission here put together a dvd that is doing the rounds of the schools. I haven’t seen it yet, I’m hoping to get a copy and find out exactly what is in it, I can use the Environmental Discussions I’m doing around the schools as a reason for wanting a copy.

Until I’ve seen it I don’t want to get involved in an argument over it, but the publicity that the High Commission put out about it states it shows rising sea levels, heat waves, drought and flooded Islands, so I take that to mean it is no better than Al Gores comedic masterpiece.

I’ve decided to apply for an extension for next year. I know I’m going to have all the same frustrations again, but the good part is that the nursery will actually be working, and I will be training people, instead of dealing with stupid bloody minded people in various Govt Depts.

I’ll take another month off next year to catch up with everyone, Al and I were hoping to do a tour of NZ but I won’t have the time available for it. 2012 it will have to be now.

It’s settled into the Dry season here, high dry temperatures, 35*C most days now, and only 40 – 50 % humidity. Although we are getting impressive thunder storms a couple of times a week now as the thunderclouds build up over the mountains. We’ve had predominately south easterly winds lately, which push the rain clouds over West Guadacanal from the Weather Coast, and Central and East Guadacanal have been missing the rain.

We had a busy couple of days at the nursery Thursday and Friday. The guys have been steadily catching up with the compost, and Sheron and I managed to get 12 Archontophoenix palms bagged into 75 litre bags for growing on for next year to plant at City Centre once they are above head and car height. As well as 15 Jacaranda seedlings bagged into 5 litre, and a lot of seeds started, silverbeet (Chard), Canterbury bells, Digitalis rubea, Cordyline australis, Tamarillo.

A few of the last lot of Cordyline did sprout, I get the feeling the potting mix wasn’t the best, but we have a few that grew, including a red tinged leaf which I was hoping for. The seeds came from one of my Cordylines I grew at Tokoroa and planted at Mums. And those seeds came from the plant at the house in Tokoroa which threw up a wide range of colours from green to brown and khaki, plus striped leaves. Hopefully the latest lot of seeds produce better.

I’m glad the Jacaranda grew, apart from the seed coming from the one in Mums garden. Tiff said there used to be two in Honiara, but both got cut down for firewood during the civil war, so we can replace them now. As soon as we can be sure they can have a good place to be planted where they will survive the bush knife attacks and drunken drivers.

We lost another 5 palms over the week to drunken drivers and a couple of bush knife attacks. I’d write another letter to the Sol Star, but I’m on a promise not to get involved or get contentious stuff into the paper again.