Image via WikipediaInternational Conference on Climate Change | Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute will host its Sixth International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, DC on June 30 – July 1, 2011 at the Marriott Wardman Park, 2660 Woodley Road NW.
Dozens of think tank cosponsors and hundreds of scientists will gather in an effort to “restore the scientific method” to its rightful place in the debate over the causes, consequences, and policy implications of climate change.
The theme of the conference, “Restoring the Scientific Method,” acknowledges the fact that claims of scientific certainty and predictions of climate catastrophes are based on “post-normal science,” which substitutes claims of consensus for the scientific method. This choice has had terrible consequences for science and society. Abandoning the scientific method led to the “Climategate” scandal and the errors and abuses of peer review by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The scientists speaking at this conference, and the hundreds more who are expected to attend, are committed to restoring the scientific method. This means abandoning the failed hypothesis of man-made climate change, and using real science and sound economics to improve our understanding of the planet’s ever-changing climate.
Warm Air Over Eastern Shores Draw In the Cold
In the Journal Nature, comes a new idea based on large waves in the atmosphere of the planet. According to modeling work at the California Institute of Technology, the sharply contrasting winter climates are the result of waves of thermal energy rising from the warm Atlantic Ocean in a pattern that pulls colder air farther south over the eastern continental boundaries of North America. These semi-stationary waves in the atmosphere, rather than the ocean itself, shape the patterns of winter on both sides of the Atlantic.
Cosmic Rays and Climate
....imply that on various time scales were solar activity variations or changes in the galactic environment prominent, if not the dominent climate drivers, it offers an explanation to at least some of the climate variability witnessed over the past century and millennium. In particular, not all of the 20th century global warming should be attributed to anthropogenic sources, since increased solar activity explains through this link more than half of the warming.
The Milky Way Galaxy's Spiral Arms and Ice-Age Epochs and the Cosmic Ray Connection
a more active sun which accelerates a stronger solar wind, would imply that as cosmic rays diffuse from the outskirts of the solar system to its center, they lose more energy. Consequently, a lower tropospheric ionization rate results. Over the 11-yr solar cycle and the long term variations in solar activity, these variations amount to typically a 10% change in this ionization rate.
Moreover, it now appears that there is a climatic variable sensitive to the amount of tropospheric ionization - clouds.If this is true, then one should expect climatic variations while we roam the galaxy. This is because the density of cosmic ray sources in the galaxy is not uniform. In fact, it is concentrated in the galactic spiral arms (it arises from supernovae, which in our galaxy are predominantly the end product of massive stars, which in turn form and die primarily in spiral arms). Thus, each time we cross a galactic arm, we should expect a colder climate.
If this galactic-climate picture is correct it implies that we are at the end of a several 10 million year long "icehouse" epoch during which we have ice-ages come and go, and gradually over the next few millions of years, the severity of ice-ages should diminish, until they will disappear altogether.
On the Role of Cosmic Ray Flux variations as a Climate Driver: The Debate
Anthropogenic or Solar? - More on the attribution of global warming.
An independent analysis of the link between CO2, cosmic rays and climate over the Phanerozoic: Impact of atmospheric CO2 and galactic cosmic radiation on Phanerozoic climate change and the marine δ18O record", by K. Wallmann.
Table of Contents: A Layman’s Guide to Anthropogenic (Man-Made) Global Warminghttp://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/07/table-of-conten.html
Whatever happened to the original post in this cache with notes on the Global Research.ca information and CFACT and more I don't know. Editing to add to the file caused the contents to disappear during a time when Blogger had miseries. I had to try and patch the 'Law' file too.
Climate Change Image via Wikipedia |
| Climate Change: Concocting the “Consensus” - by Andrew Gavin Marshall - 2010-08-21 | |
While science can reveal great truths to be used in the advancement of society, it can also be used against human society | |
 |
| Global Warming: "Fixing the Climate Data around the Policy" - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2009-11-30 | |
Both the concepts and the data have been adjusted and shaped to fit the agenda of the UN Panel on Climate Change. | |
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| How to Reverse Global Warming: 21st Century Climate Blueprints - by Dr. Andrew Glickson - 2009-07-26 | |
Perspectives from the Recent History of the Atmosphere | |
|
| Global Cooling is Here - by Prof. Don J. Easterbrook - 2008-11-02 | |
Despite no global warming in 10 years, the IPCC still predict the Earth is in store for catastrophic warming. | |
|
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=newsHighlights&newsId=24
Climate change: evidence from the geological record
http://suzukielders.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/climate-change-evidence-from-the-geological-record
The geological record contains abundant evidence of the ways in which Earth’s climate has changed in the past. That evidence is highly relevant to understanding how it may change in the future.
Earth’s temperature and weather patterns change naturally over time scales ranging from decades, to hundreds of thousands, to millions of years1. The climate is the statistical average of the weather taken over a long period, typically 30 years. It is never static, but subject to constant disturbances, sometimes minor in nature and effect, but at other times much larger. In some cases these changes are gradual and in others abrupt.
The last century has seen a rapidly growing global population and much more intensive use of resources, leading to greatly increased emissions of gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, from the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), and from agriculture, cement production and deforestation. Evidence from the geological record is consistent with the physics that shows that adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere warms the world and may lead to: higher sea levels and flooding of low-lying coasts; greatly changed patterns of rainfall2; increased acidity of the oceans 3,4,5,6; and decreased oxygen levels in seawater7,8,9.
There is now widespread concern that the Earth’s climate will warm further, not only because of the lingering effects of the added carbon already in the system, but also because of further additions as human population continues to grow. Life on Earth has survived large climate changes in the past, but extinctions and major redistribution of species have been associated with many of them.
The Earth’s climate has been gradually cooling for most of the last 50 million years. At the beginning of that cooling (in the early Eocene), the global average temperature was about 6-7 ºC warmer than now10,11. About 34 million years ago, at the end of the Eocene, ice caps coalesced to form a continental ice sheet on Antarctica12,13. In the northern hemisphere, as global cooling continued, local ice caps and mountain glaciers gave way to large ice sheets around 2.6 million years ago14.
Over the past 2.6 million years (the Pleistocene and Holocene), the Earth’s climate has been on average cooler than today, and often much colder.
About 55 million years ago, at the end of the Paleocene, there was a sudden warming event in which temperatures rose by about 6ºC globally and by 10-20ºC at the poles22. Carbon isotopic data show that this warming event (called by some the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM) was accompanied by a major release of 1500-2000 billion tonnes or more of carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. This injection of carbon may have come mainly from the breakdown of methane hydrates beneath the deep sea floor10, perhaps triggered by volcanic activity superimposed on an underlying gradual global warming trend that peaked some 50 million years ago in the early Eocene. CO2 levels were already high at the time, but the additional CO2 injected into the atmosphere and ocean made the ocean even warmer, less well oxygenated and more acidic, and was accompanied by the extinction of many species on the deep sea floor. Similar sudden warming events are known from the more distant past, for example at around 120 and 183 million years ago23,24. In all of these events it took the Earth’s climate around 100,000 years or more to recover, showing that a CO2 release of such magnitude may affect the Earth’s climate for that length of time25.
Over at least the last 200 million years the fossil and sedimentary record shows that the Earth has undergone many fluctuations in climate, from warmer than the present climate to much colder, on many different timescales. Several warming events can be associated with increases in the ‘greenhouse gas’ CO2. There is evidence for sudden major injections of carbon to the atmosphere occurring at 55, 120 and 183 million years ago, perhaps from the sudden breakdown of methane hydrates beneath the seabed. At those times the associated warming would have increased the evaporation of water vapour from the ocean, making CO2 the trigger rather than the sole agent for change.
( Understand. This is - like all my posts - extracted material from the original. Nor are the Elders treating the wild possibility of deliberate rupture of the Earth's mantle so as to release quantities of methane and cause an extinction event. Yet the actions on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico have been so extreme that I cannot preclude the possibility. )
Alexander Cockburn writing in The Nation called it "one of the best essays on greenhouse myth-making from a left perspective" ("Dissidents Against Dogma", The Nation, 25 June 2007).See several related articles at ACTIVIST CLIMATE GUY.
[Recent development (Macrh 2011): Incisive deconstruction of the dominant climate science narrative - HERE.]
Alarmism
Should temperatures pulled out of a hat be the basis for energy and economic policies?
News |
0 by Paul Driessen | December 14, 2010An Australian software developer grew tired of debating climate realists on Twitter so he created spambot to wear down his opponents. The bot responds to anyone who expresses skepticism about man-made global warming by posting one of hundreds of canned replies in an attempt to frustrate skeptics.
News |
The federal government has spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on research that has completely failed to affect temperatures or demonstrate an empirical link between human CO2 emissions and global warming.
Insights |
1 by CFACT User | August 12, 2010Monckton asks difficult questions of Dr. Pachauri after a speech at the University of Copenhagen
News |
Long and the short of it was there is no proof of anthropogenic ( caused by man )global warming nor a proven mechanism of co2 caused warming. Nada. Zilch. All I could find were claims of scientific agreement. That and 2 bucks might get you a coffee. However, proof of representation of different ideas as "rightwing climate change denialists" is as close as
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming
http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics
What we have and haven’t learned from ‘Climategate’http://www.grist.org/climate-skeptics/2011-02-28-what-we-have-and-havent-learned-from-climategate/N70#c901333
The Link Between Deadly Weather and Global Warming Is Real -- and Conservatives Can't Just Wish It Away
http://www.alternet.org/environment/150865/the_link_between_deadly_weather_and_global_warming_is_real__and_conservatives_cant_just_wish_it_away/comments
DISCLAIMER: I do not believe in man-made global warming, but I do strongly believe that we need to stop the destruction of the Earth. CO2 is not poisonous. Everything we are legislating to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a joke: THE CARBON TRADING MARKET ALLOWS LARGE CORPORATIONS TO PURCHASE CREDITS FOR THEIR POLLUTION. AGAIN, THE SYSTEM WE ARE CREATING GIVES CORPORATIONS A LOOPHOLE TO CONTINUE TO POLLUTE AS MUCH AS THEY WANT. WE NEED A SYSTEM THAT REDUCES POLLUTION, NOT ONE THAT FACILITATES IT THROUGH TRADING 'CREDITS' ( Illustrative story )
Let's focus on the real problems our world faces: deforestation, desertification, the pollution and destruction of our water supply, the use of fossil fuels (not because carbon dioxide is poisonous, but because the emissions and byproducts produced by burning petrochemicals are toxic), and the increased strain we put on our delicate ecosystems.
Here are some facts you can easily find with a little patience and some fooling around on Google:
Mars has shown evidence of melting ice caps. This was reported by National Geographic.
http://news.nationalgeographic...
Neptune's largest moon, Triton, is heating up. The frozen nitrogen on its surface is turning to gas. This link is a poor reference, but this was reported in 1998. Other sources can be found.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/ne...
Image via Wikipedia
All of this evidence, of course, points to the fact that the sun is getting hotter.
http://lubbockonline.com/news/...
Take a look at the film 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. Make up your own mind, but you can literally watch the scientists who create our temperature records: drilling for core samples, accessing samples from their storage room, and disseminating the raw data of temperature over the last 10 000 years. A copy can be easily found on any torrent site.
A fact worth noting: in the late 1800's we hit the lowest recorded average temperature in the last 10 000 years. THEREFORE: it is logical that temperatures will go up. Also, there have been points in our recent past where temperatures were much higher than they are now (see the Medieval Warm Period), and man-made CO2 emissions can not account for this. The IPCC NOW denies the existence of the Medieval Warm Period, however THE DATA IS STILL ON THEIR WEBSITE.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...
There is a viable solution that would put an end to deforestation, desertification, food shortages, fuel shortages, poverty, and reduce the overall amount of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides used in our world. It's called hemp, and it's not marijuana. The male version of the marijuana plant contains trace amounts of the psychoactive THC (more specifically, delta-9-tetrahydracannibinol) and is therefore benign. The stalk of the plant contains the strongest natural fiber known to man and can be used to make a wide variety of textiles. The soft inner core of the stalk, the herd, can be used to make animal feed, bedding, and most importantly, biodegradable sulfur-free paper. The seed from hemp is viable as one of the highest quality food sources on Earth, and the OIL CONTAINED WITHIN THE SEED CAN BE USED TO MAKE ANY PRODUCT WE CURRENTLY CREATE WITH PETROCHEMICALS. Hemp can be used to create composites stronger and lighter than steel, environmentally safe carpets, insulation, particle board, and more. Biodegradable paint, plastics, and fuels can be derived from hemp seed oil. Not least of which, everything made from hemp removes carbon from the air (an argument of use for those who buy into the global warming myth). Lastly, hemp requires no fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides, can grow anywhere in the world, aerates soil, and returns more nutrients to the earth than it leeched out while growing. It is also the highest quality naturally occurring protein, and contains the right proportion of 3 essential fatty acids (Omega-3, 6, and 9) of which 80% of North Americans are defficient.
Once again, the carbon trading market allows corporations to BUY more credits instead of REDUCING emissions. Watch 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', then attack my logic. I've read every study I can get my hands on, that's why I NO LONGER believe in this junk science. Try and research my point of view and make up your own mind instead of following the accepted dogma like sheep.
Look into:
- Cosmic radiation in relation to cloud cover (cloud cover affects temperature), and how our data on solar flares coincides with this perfectly.
- The fact that 95% of greenhouse gases is water vapor. This isn't included in scientific models and our industrialized CO2 makes up less than 1% of total GHG emissions.
- The cycle of Ice Ages. It's been much colder and much hotter than this before. AT LEAST 6 times.
- The increased temperature observed throughout the solar system.
- The fact that the sun has seasons. Yes, the giant ball of gas that heats the entire planet has a very big impact on our temperature.
- The number of scientist who have disavowed the IPCC but still remain listed as authors.
- The selective data taken from tree rings (with some samples removed) that have been extrapolated backwards to give us the Hockey Stick Graph (hence, no more evidence of the Medieval Warm Period)
That's just a start. INFORM YOURSELF before following blindly.
Let's focus on the real problems our world faces: deforestation, desertification, the pollution and destruction of our water supply, the use of fossil fuels (not because carbon dioxide is poisonous, but because the emissions and byproducts produced by burning petrochemicals are toxic), and the increased strain we put on our delicate ecosystems.
Here are some facts you can easily find with a little patience and some fooling around on Google:
Mars has shown evidence of melting ice caps. This was reported by National Geographic.
http://news.nationalgeographic...
Neptune's largest moon, Triton, is heating up. The frozen nitrogen on its surface is turning to gas. This link is a poor reference, but this was reported in 1998. Other sources can be found.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/ne...
Image via WikipediaAll of this evidence, of course, points to the fact that the sun is getting hotter.
http://lubbockonline.com/news/...
Take a look at the film 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. Make up your own mind, but you can literally watch the scientists who create our temperature records: drilling for core samples, accessing samples from their storage room, and disseminating the raw data of temperature over the last 10 000 years. A copy can be easily found on any torrent site.
A fact worth noting: in the late 1800's we hit the lowest recorded average temperature in the last 10 000 years. THEREFORE: it is logical that temperatures will go up. Also, there have been points in our recent past where temperatures were much higher than they are now (see the Medieval Warm Period), and man-made CO2 emissions can not account for this. The IPCC NOW denies the existence of the Medieval Warm Period, however THE DATA IS STILL ON THEIR WEBSITE.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...
There is a viable solution that would put an end to deforestation, desertification, food shortages, fuel shortages, poverty, and reduce the overall amount of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides used in our world. It's called hemp, and it's not marijuana. The male version of the marijuana plant contains trace amounts of the psychoactive THC (more specifically, delta-9-tetrahydracannibinol) and is therefore benign. The stalk of the plant contains the strongest natural fiber known to man and can be used to make a wide variety of textiles. The soft inner core of the stalk, the herd, can be used to make animal feed, bedding, and most importantly, biodegradable sulfur-free paper. The seed from hemp is viable as one of the highest quality food sources on Earth, and the OIL CONTAINED WITHIN THE SEED CAN BE USED TO MAKE ANY PRODUCT WE CURRENTLY CREATE WITH PETROCHEMICALS. Hemp can be used to create composites stronger and lighter than steel, environmentally safe carpets, insulation, particle board, and more. Biodegradable paint, plastics, and fuels can be derived from hemp seed oil. Not least of which, everything made from hemp removes carbon from the air (an argument of use for those who buy into the global warming myth). Lastly, hemp requires no fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides, can grow anywhere in the world, aerates soil, and returns more nutrients to the earth than it leeched out while growing. It is also the highest quality naturally occurring protein, and contains the right proportion of 3 essential fatty acids (Omega-3, 6, and 9) of which 80% of North Americans are defficient.
Once again, the carbon trading market allows corporations to BUY more credits instead of REDUCING emissions. Watch 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', then attack my logic. I've read every study I can get my hands on, that's why I NO LONGER believe in this junk science. Try and research my point of view and make up your own mind instead of following the accepted dogma like sheep.
Look into:
- Cosmic radiation in relation to cloud cover (cloud cover affects temperature), and how our data on solar flares coincides with this perfectly.
- The fact that 95% of greenhouse gases is water vapor. This isn't included in scientific models and our industrialized CO2 makes up less than 1% of total GHG emissions.
- The cycle of Ice Ages. It's been much colder and much hotter than this before. AT LEAST 6 times.
- The increased temperature observed throughout the solar system.
- The fact that the sun has seasons. Yes, the giant ball of gas that heats the entire planet has a very big impact on our temperature.
- The number of scientist who have disavowed the IPCC but still remain listed as authors.
- The selective data taken from tree rings (with some samples removed) that have been extrapolated backwards to give us the Hockey Stick Graph (hence, no more evidence of the Medieval Warm Period)
That's just a start. INFORM YOURSELF before following blindly.
So. What did I post in my collecting of 'climate crisis' articles about The International Tax on the Use of Fire reposted at link ?
6 Dec - ClimateGate Notes & Open Systems
Information Control | UFOs and Climate Chimeras
Image via Wikipedia( I'm fond of this shot from the ISS. It was one that headed opit.wordpress.com Oldephartteintraining. The moon 'disappears' from plain sight.)9 Dec - About That 'Climate Consensus'
15 Dec - Reality Check
20 Dec - The Mission in Afghanistan,etc.
( Huh ? What ? The 'Foreign Policy' {war} link to AGW )
23 December - Climategate Isn't All There Is
27 Dec - Anti "Global Warming" Heats Up
12 Jan - Science, Spies, Lies, Denies
19 June - Assassinations,Reserves,Climate
1 July - Article Excerpts | Methane Release From t..
( a little off topic )
31 Aug - A Climate of Change
25 February - Global Cooling Post
27 April - Politicized 'Science' and BBC 'Climat...
So. I had gone from
1975 'Endangered Atmosphere' Conference: Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born
by Marjorie Mazel Hecht
"Global Warming" is, and always was, a policy for genocidal reduction of the world's population.The preposterous claim that human-produced carbon dioxide will broil the Earth, melt the ice caps, and destroy human life, came out of a 1975 conference in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, organized by the influential anthropologist Margaret Mead, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in 1974.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/12/4-dec-following-trail-climate-fraud-and.html
and feedback from Dr. John v. Kampen which included links to videos on Prof. Monckton
My Hiding Place http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/prof-ian-plimer-the-missing-science-a-final-word-on-the-nonsense-about-cli
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/global-cooling-are-things-going-too-fast
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/when-the-sun-is-playing-hard-ball
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/headline-no-global-warming-the-truth-is-out
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/goodmorning-global-warming-lovers
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/the-riddle-of-the-in-de-creasing-polar-caps
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/global-cooling-is-upon-us-if-the-sun-doesnt-shine
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/noaa-admits-contribution-to-global-warming-scam
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/nasa-expects-super-storm-from-the-sun
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/modern-cosmology-behind-a-massive-winter
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/the-sun-in-a-strange-light-jhelioviewer
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/unseasonable-jetstream-cold-everywhere
A special related piece and thread
Happy New Year... Zeitgeist, but keep it cool !
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/let-it-rain-the-mystery-of-water-from-air
Making rain, not by dancing, but with electromagnetic waves, still is a controversial subject. 
Daily Mail and several other sources reported t
Image via Wikipediaoday that Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the UAE, funded a semi-secret rainmaking project in Abu Dhabi's Al Ain Yet, the region. About 100 transmitters were used to beam ions in the blue skies over the desert, which -as was told- resulted in some 52 downpours. Why this is surrounded with so much secrecy, is a mystery to me. Using electromagnetic waves to influence regional weather isn't that new after all. Russian scientists were amongst the first to test this.
Image via Wikipediahttp://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/the-sun-is-waking-up-spaceweather-storm
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/latest-space-weather
http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/double-suns-and-tilting-earth
and articles on earthquakes in archives too. The earthquake monitor on the RSS SnapShot! is taken from his feed.
Once I surfed not just mainstream sources dealing with Climategate but JoNova, The Reference Frame and http://rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com among many others...any acceptance of AGW was almost impossible. After all, before I even started - right on my bookshelf was a sci-fi novel by futurists with fearsome reputations...postulating a coming Ice Age. Even Grist is publishing stories based on promotion of propaganda....proper BBC fare fronted by Tony Blair ( yep. The 'religious convert' ex-PM and war criminal / liar of 'Leading to War' ) and Prince Charles.
Is There Global Cooling?
http://www.isthereglobalcooling.com
Image via Wikipedia'And the Beat Goes On'
Gore’s Well Trained Army Of Useful Idiots ( Real Science )
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/gores-well-trained-army-of-useful-idiots/#comment-57798
Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com
The Climate Science weblog has been successful in communicating climate
change issues. The comments have almost always been collegial and
constructive. We will continue to post information on the weblog that is
not readily accessible elsewhere. The hope is that your views on climate
science are broadened as a result of reading the weblogs. Please continue
to submit comments as appropriate.
Politicization of Science
The best results followed the 'Carbon Tax' fraud, however. I'll have to think about the trail to the scams of trading a chimera prosecuted in court starting in 2005.
On 'Science Denierism'
One favourite trope is to claim people who admittedly do not have a science degree cannot have valid opinions. Some things aren't too tough to figure out without that distraction from who is proposing what; especially if you remember unmitigated brass and gall employing 'projection' are standard.
Reasoning by comparison...
Can Drug Policy Really be Evidence-Based?http://www.reclaimingfutures.org/blog/comments/?q=node/1156
If you have not heard about the ongoing controversy surrounding drug policy in the U.K., you might want to read about it. It's a fascinating example of the troubling incompatibilities between science, politics, and morality.
Professor David Nutt was recently fired from his position as chair of the British government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).His problems began when he agreed to publish a report through the widely regarded Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at Kings College London.
The report, "Estimating drug harms: a risky business," based on a lecture from this past July, discussed the relative risks posed by various forms of drug use.
Nutt is a professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. Naturally, he approaches the issue of drug use as a scientist. He weighs the evidence about harms caused by various forms of drug use and he assumes that public policy should be consistent with that evidence. In other words, severe harm should prompt an aggressive policy response, while less severe harm can be dealt with less aggressively.
Professor Nutt got himself into trouble when he drew a number of conclusions based on his knowledge of the science of drug use harms.
But you think this practice of not worrying about health effects on people changes when the environment is involved ?
BP’s beach clean-up ‘contaminated clean sand’
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/04/bps_beach_cleanup_contaminated.html
deep cleaning broke up large chunks of oily sand and mixed them with clean sand, spreading small fragments of oil across the beaches. BP’s tactic of digging and sieving “unquestionably homogenized and distributed a considerable fraction of the remnant oil over a larger beach volume”, Hayworth and Clement write in Environmental Science and Technology.
The paper adds, “the efficiency and effectiveness of the deep clean strategy is questionable. ... The methodologies employed by BP were new, unproven, and based upon optimistic expectations.”
Speaking to Nature, Clement said that the deep clean did remove some oil from the beaches. It may even turn out to be beneficial, he says, with the more widely distributed oil being likely to degrade faster and the risk of people or animals encountering large fragments of oil reduced.
But, Clement says, it might have been preferable to do a smaller feasibility study, followed by a more targeted approach, deep cleaning fewer areas: “Where you are not 100% sure it’s going to be effective, probably leaving it alone is not a bad strategy.”
Nature has asked BP for comment on this issue. Operation Deep Clean officially ended last month (WKRG).
BTW The effects of Corexit mixed with water ....provide a dispersant effect increasing effective surface volume of contamination coincident with multiplying toxicity by a factor of 4.
I commonly promote danger to drinking water supply as being much scarier than AGW.
Posts
And a nice blog it is, too : with a popular science style of coverage.
ReplyDeleteThe index of categories is based at http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/links
Heading over to http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/07/blogging-news-sites-and-some-msm.html