Yes, it’s Easter. Happy Easter to those in the “Christian world”!
It’s been a great weekend for climate change at the Beeb. Good Friday saw headline after headline drawn from the pre-release of one of the IPCC’s four reports expected this year. Now the main pre-report report is lurking both under Science and Nature and also under the Americas section, for some reason, although the IPCC met in, guess where? Brussels.
April 4th saw them see fit to report Scotland basking in warmth ahead of this Easter weekend; as if to show that weather stories arestories, even if they can’t boast any records.
Then we have, currently, a report from Mexicodetailing the drying up of a lake there. This begins with citing that well-known source of water disappearance, God, as one possible explanation, and then posits the alternative – man-made global warming. Yeah, that’s balance. The same source who cited God as the main culprit, a Ms Ortega Torres, also claims a dramatic reduction in rainfall and blames this on anthropomorphic global warming:
“Ms Ortega Torres has no doubts why the lake has shrunk so much.
“It’s because of climate change,” she says. “This area used to get around 300 days of rain a year. Now we are lucky to see 100 to 150 days. So the lake cannot be replenished.”
Faith abounding, apparently.
Because lost in the rest of the text, concealed as a contributing factor, is the massive increase in Mexico’s population and the demand that has placed on agricultural production and water consumption.
Worth investigating, I’d have thought- especially the source and specifics of the rainfall claim. I’d have thought that’s what editorial meetings are for.
But no, probably they’re for deciding not to cover record-breaking cold weather across much of the United States. And when I say record-breaking, I mean, RECORD BREAKING. That is to say, daytime historic lows in cities like Atlanta (1886), Augusta (1981), and Charlotte (1961). And it’s also pretty chilly in Nashville (hat-tip, Insta).
Bad timing, Auntie. High time to manage the news. I notice that the unwisely opened Have Your Say is dominated by MMGW sceptics, like this chap from Lithuania who comments:
“I dont like BBC as it provides us information about global warming. It provides us all arguments for, however, almost all arguments against are kept quiet.”
Indeed, Mr Kinselis, indeed.
[nb. all the above is not an argument against global warming per se, but against the dramatic claims made for MMGW. Evidence that record low temperatures are possible in this carbon benighted world needs to be carefully recorded and studied, and noted by both public and politicians worldwide. How are the BBC helping that along, I wonder?]
I am Maltese and this week I could not believe it when I listened to a BBC report from Malta saying that, because of rising sea levels, the water we get from underground is becoming saltier and the EU is taking action against Malta because we have fossil-fueled desalination plants that are contributing to climate change! We in Malta have not noticed at all any rise in sea levels. So many of us live close to the sea that someone should have noticed. No one did, except the BBC reporter. And desalination plants in Malta contributing to global warming?!
The BBC has now dropped even the pretence of objectivity about GW.
I don’t mind, as I’m old enough to have watched other scientific ‘truths’ come and go several times, so I know that if I sit and wait it out, there will be a complete volte face sooner or later.
What I will mind, however, is that we won’t have public show trials, followed by satisfyingly televised executions of the ringleaders of this hysteria – among whom should feature prominently many from the BBC.
And yesterday on Radio 4 one of the IPCC scientists was interviewed (actually a member of the Antarctic survey group, so no conflicts of interest there on gaining funds to measure the disappearing icecap etc). He stated clearly that GW will lead to more deaths due to the heat (as he opined: remember Paris a few summers ago?).
But on the other hand, what about all the lives saved when it gets warmer, as many MORE people will not die of exposure. Of course this latter point was not aired by interviewer or interviewee.
What a charade – political jibbering dree=ssed up as balanced scientific comment. The BBC wont get away with this for ever.
Stick:
“William Gray” hurricane
into google news.
Now add “bbc” to that!
Funny how a large proportion of US outlets mention Gray’s views on grant grabbing meterologists and Al Gore’s scaremongering but the beeboids don’t report it…
The only results on BBC’s search for the worlds preeminent hurricane forecaster, other than the recent story that google comes up with, are matter of fact pieces from BBC weather. Funny how his views are never mentioned in the usual global warming scare stories!
Bbc bias at its most pure. A statist broadcaster doing everything in its power to push the case for statist politicians to push up “green” taxes and statist scientists to get “research” money.
Paris a few summers ago? As I recall the deaths were caused by human incompetence and complete heartlessness on the part of families who had abandoned their elderly relatives and did not bother to find out what was happening to them. Had there been more doctors, nurses etc etc on duty and not on vacances annuaires; had there been more fans in homes and air conditioning in hospitals; there would have been far fewer deaths. But no, it could not be that. It has to be the wicked Americans or the Maltese desalination plants (haven’t heard that one before).
Billions face climate change risk
“It’s the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit,” said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Mr Pachauri said those people were also the least equipped to deal with the effects of such changes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6532323.stm
Dr R K Pachauri is from India and India..
“The world’s fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases lies outside the Kyoto accord. Environment secretary David Miliband and Nicholas Stern, the climate change economist, have been attempting to convince New Delhi to take part in a new Kyoto-style treaty. India is likely to be badly hit by global warming, but New Delhi insists that it should not have to pay for a problem created mainly by rich nations.”
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1999961,00.html
Dr R K Pachauri is also a non-official part-time Director of NTPC
“NTPC Limited, incorporated in 1975 as a public sector company wholly owned by Government of India, is the largest thermal power generating company of the country, with a generating capacity over 26,000 MW.”
http://www.ntpctender.com/
31st January 2006
“Following non-official part-time Directors (Independent Directors) have been appointed by the President of India on the Board of NTPC Limited w.e.f. January 30, 2006 for a period of three years or until further orders, whichever is earlier:
Prof. Ashok Misra, Director, IIT, Powai, Mumbai
Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Director-General, The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi
Shri M.I. Beg, Ex-Chairman, Central Electricity Authority
Shri G.P. Gupta, Ex-Chairman & Managing Director, IDBI ”
http://www.ntpc.co.in/companyperformance/message_2005.shtml
“National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd expects to produce 50 million tons of coal by 2017, meeting 20-25 percent of the coal requirement, said Chairman/Managing Director T. Sankaralingam in Delhi. NTPC plans to triple its power generation capacity to 75,000 MW by 2017. NTPC has been allotted eight coal mining blocks including two blocks to be operated by a 50:50 joint venture with state-owned Coal India Ltd.”
http://www.coalpeople.com/worldwide_news.htm
“India is the world’s most underestimated coal market. Yet in the next ten years it will be the country to which more and more coal producers will look as they develop new markets
India’s dependence on coal, which currently accounts for over half its commercial energy needs, is certain to continue in the near future. The country’s coal production has risen fourfold in the last 25 years so that today it is the third-largest global producer after China and the United States. Much of it may be low-quality, but it is low-cost too, especially compared to oil (70 per cent of which is imported) and gas (half of which is imported). And the economic and strategic benefits of coal over other forms of energy assure it of its central place in the Indian economy for many years to come. ”
Just think if NTPC can limited the capacity of other countries to produce coal and energy this will leave a vast market for India in South east Asia. At present coal is imported from Australia and they are hoping to increase this trade, but if the Greens manage to curtail any expansion of Australia’s coal fields this would help India’s exports immensely.
“Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd today spoke as one in slamming Greens Leader Bob Brown’s proposal to end all coal exports in three years.
Mr Howard said this would cost thousands of jobs, while Mr Rudd said it was just plain absurd.
But an unchastened Senator Brown said jobless coal workers could easily find new work in a rejuvenated solar power industry, which the government had starved of funds for years.
The row surfaced yesterday when Senator Brown advocated phasing out of all coal exports – Australia’s largest export dollar earner which employees 26,000 workers – within the three year term of one government.
Earlier, Australian of the Year Professor Tim Flannery said the social licence of coal was rapidly being withdrawn globally because of its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-rudd-blast-greens-coal-plan/2007/02/10/1170524334316.html
And who says that the chairman of the IPCC does not have a vested interest?
Could someone please explain something that has been bothering me for a long time. It is the impression that the MMGW media preachers are the same as the anti-American anti-Israeli smooth-over-Jihadis crowd.
So my question is:
1) Is this impression correct.
2) If so, why this corresondence between apparently separate issues? Is this a coincidence or what?
Helen | Homepage | 08.04.07 – 2:08 pm
We went to the South of France that year and stopped of in one of those cheap Formula 1 places at Tours. The heat was stifling and made a thousand times worse by the French habit of transporting rubbish by lorry and leaving it over-night inside towns. The stench was unbearable, even with the windows closed in was hard to breath.
To give the French their due, they coped as well as we cope with sudden cold snaps. i.e they take long term financial decisions (not to cover staff on holidays/ not to buy in enough grit) and hope for the best. Occationally they, like we, are caught out.
As I recall there was little criticism of the French for not planning properly on the BBC. Every time there is a bit of snow here the BBC are declaring a state of emergency and trying to stop kids going to school, whilst all the time decrying the English for failing to cope.
Ho hum.
This is the link of the BBC report I referred to above:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6525069.stm wherein the BBC reporter gives the impression that Malta is investing now in desalination plants because of global warming. This is a lie. Malta has been investing in desalination plants since the early 1980s because we used to have severe water shortages then. The BBC reporter also gives the impression that desalination plants are powered directly by fossil fuels. They are powered by electricity. As usual, the BBC reporter (Malthuslike) assumes that technological advance will stop and that we will never be able to harness the abundant sunshine we enjoy for at least 300 days yearly here. The biggest lie, of course, is that the sea water level around us has been increasing. No one of almost half a million people who live here (most near the sea) has noticed, except the BBC reporter on his short visit. He can now be appointed as the Maltese high priest of the new global religion called Man-Made Global Warming that has a Pope (Al Gore), many apostles (journalists) and an Inquisition as well (EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas) who can all condemn you to eternal damnation (in hell’s warming fires, of course) if you become a heretic and disbelieve what they so zealously preach.
On India:
“The country’s coal production has risen fourfold in the last 25 years so that today it is the third-largest global producer after China and the United States. Much of it may be low-quality, but it is low-cost too, especially compared to oil (70 per cent of which is imported) and gas (half of which is imported).”
Surely because of the low-quality of Indian coal AS MINED, the technology which GWB was advising as the best defence against pollution could be released to India in order that their low-grade coal could be treated (pre-combustion pulverisation etc so as to remove sulphur and other real pollutants) so that its use for power would not cause environmental degradation. I wonder if the BBC would agree?
BTW, when does it become economic for coal to be converted to car fuel in the same manner as (the white regime of) South Afica did?
Joe: ‘The biggest lie, of course, is that the sea water level around us has been increasing. No one of almost half a million people who live here (most near the sea) has noticed, except the BBC reporter on his short visit.’
I would assume around Valletta quayside there are things like watersteps that would be flooded if the sea was rising. Any evidence of this?
Anat:
Could someone please explain something that has been bothering me for a long time. It is the impression that the MMGW media preachers are the same as the anti-American anti-Israeli smooth-over-Jihadis crowd.
So my question is:
1) Is this impression correct.
2) If so, why this corresondence between apparently separate issues? Is this a coincidence or what?
Anat | 08.04.07 – 4:10 pm | #
It is quite possible that you are correct – the people in the Stop Climate Change last year were clearly anti-american (more specifically anti Bush). Because it is difficult to track down any specific members (the wiki – only lists organisations) it is dificult to be precise – you may want to check out this website which clearly shows a tentative link.
http://www.resist.org.uk/
Ralph, of course there are steps into the sea around Valletta and other towns that are at sea level. Hundreds of ordinary people have boats moored in the inlets and creeks around Valletta and the two harbours surrounding our capatal. No one has noticed anything. We go to swim in the same spots in summer. We jump into the sea from the same rocks. All are at the same sea level. No one has noticed anything. Hundreds have yachts in several marinas around Malta. They haven’t noticed anything.
But, according to the new MMGW religion, we have to believe what our eyes cannot see! As long as the BBC says it, it’s gospel truth.
On another matter, today on the World Service there was an interview in Heart and Soul with Archbishop Rowan Williams by John Humphrys, an avowed agnostic. Mr Humphys challenged Dr Williams to convince him (Mr Humphrys) that God does exist. Now, John Humphrys wanted the impossible, because this is a question of faith. Regardless of this, even if one is agnostic, even an atheist, for the BBC to choose the greatest feast for Christians, Easter, to air such sheer anti-religious arrogance from a BBC journalist is unbelievable.
Everyone here and the BBC should go and down load Richard Muller’s “Physics for future presidents” lectures from the Berkley Universtiy site.
Muller actually deals with the overselling of climate change as man made a number of times including his discoveribg that he isnt a reasonable scientist due to his lack of willing to accept it’s all mans fault (changes of climate have in the past been shown to correspond to the relative orbits of the other planets). He also charaterises Al Gores movie as an “election” movie which ignores inconveinient facts.
He also deals with oil production, and how because of the demand of China and India the price of oil is going to reach a point where it is economical to open other avenues of production (converting coal to oil costs $50 pbb).
Saudi had been keeping the price down for years so they had controll of the market and to keep the price of fuel below the point at which pther countries stocks and alternate technologies became useable.
Now it has been reached Canada and other countries are finding getting oil out of the ground is once more cost effective. Next time someone says a war is “just” over cheap oil, they should really look a bit deeper into the economics.
When I listened to these lectures China where opening about one fossil fuel powerplant a week. The price for pumping a barrel in Saudi was $2-3.
The question he posits, that I dont think I have heard the bbc posit is how to controll CO2 production whithout essentially peanalising developing countries. How to have a clean economy full stop?
In the first couple of lectures he goes through the varrying “energy ” methods including the “beloved” and essentially makes it clear why petrol is just a more efficient method of energy production… So why dont they discuss that.
Maybe its just a lot more complicated than blaming America.
“Briny future for vulnerable Malta”
Joe Borg:
I read that piece and it comes across as mere speculation – there is not a single piece of fact in it. I suspect if the sea is rising around Malta the BBC would have given us some figures. We do however get this:
“According to recent studies the water will rise about 96cm by the year 2100,” he told the BBC.”
But there is no mention of which studies he is alluding to. Have you any idea?
Jon @ 08.04.07 – 5:26 pm
Your link to resist.org.uk indeed shows that the impression of a corresondence between MMGW and anti-Americanism is correct, but I still can’t see why it should be so.
Falsehoods like “The war in Iraq was and is being fought for oil” (Ibid) clearly arise from such correspondence in these people’s mind, but it does not account for the correspondence itself.
Anat | 08.04.07 – 6:09 pm |
shows that the impression of a corresondence between MMGW and anti-Americanism is correct
Could it be because the US is the worlds largest producer of MMGW gases (allegedly) and so another stick has been found to beat it with?
Extra conspiracy theory No. 2245
The BBC and it’s fellow travellors are lefties, China is communist and therefore OK. US is capitalist so not OK. China wants to catch up with US on production – what better way than to get your ‘dupes and fools’ to hobble the opposition by trying to limit industrial production …
Anat – most of these “movements” are not interested in “the cause” they are latching onto – their cause is anything that will further their socialist ideals. It is all a legacy of the CND movement. They are the anti-democratic brigade who get a kick out fostering their twisted ideals on the “masses”. Don’t expect to get any resonable debate from them because they have’nt the capacity for resonable thought.
Jon:
There seems to have been some international study that predicts a sea-level change of between 23cm and 96cm in sea water level by 2100. I presume he is quoting that, but only the higher parameter given. The problem here is that these very biassed reporters hear something in Brussels, come to a small place like Malta to report about their pre-set ideas rather than on what they find (here he must have found the contrary) and then in Malta people are impressed because it’s not us but the BBC who said it!
Also remember that in PR/media studies (propaganda) they learn that giving an exact number is better believed than giving a range. So they use that: 96cm, not 95 or 100.
Do you remember the hole in the ozone layer? Here in Malta we thought we would all be dying of skin cancer and tourists would stop coming to the Mediterranean because of the big scare. It was supposed to be enlarging dramatically. Then all of a sudden, they stopped talking about it. Did it close all by itself?
“And who says that the chairman of the IPCC does not have a vested interest?
Jon | 08.04.07 – 3:38 pm ”
WELL spotted. best post on MMGW i’ve read in ages.
archduke – and he is not the only one who has a vested interest.
“Climate Panel Charged with Conflict of Interest”
http://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/co2/climatepanel.htm
Joe, quite the opposite in fact. It should have closed up by now, but it’s not. In fact it got bigger. Then smaller, then smalelr stil, then bigger again. In essence it defied their predictions.
Truth is the ozone thing was another scam. Whilst there’s a mechanism for CFCs to react with ozone and destroy it, the mere presence of CFCs with ozone isn’t enough. Added to this is the fact that there’s an antarctic hole. This one simply shouldn’t be there at all because the CFC concent of the southern hemisphere’s atmosphere is a tiny fraction of that in the north. The evidence is increasingly that the ozone hole is caused by solar particle radiation being funnled in to the north and south poles by earths’ magnetic field. This is a known phenomenon, but it’s more fun to blame humans for it.
Now they’re ignoring it.
Joe Berg – This was another contreversial scare that was taken up by the UN, where politics were more important than the science – an interseting note is who was scaremongering from the hilltops.
“In 1992 a United Nations report predicted 1.6 million new cases of cataracts and 300,000 new cases of skin cancer each year. Vice President Al Gore wrote that human immune defenses would weaken, implying that the AIDS epidemic might worsen. Time warned of “horrendous long-term effects on human health, animal life, the plants that support the food chain and just about every other strand that makes up the delicate web of nature.”
Welcome to the ozone scare, the fear that the world’s ozone layer is being eaten away by manmade chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).”
“Responding to a United Nations report concluding that “ultraviolet radiation leaking through the ozone layer by the turn of the century could cause 1.6 million additional cases of cataracts and 300,000 additional skin cancers a year worldwide,”15 then-Senator Gore within days introduced a bill calling for a ban on CFCs by 1995. The bill passed unanimously. According to the Washington Post, the indications of ozone depletion were so “alarming” that NASA decided to release its findings before the data were analyzed. But a major northern ozone hole never materialized.”
“Most scientists believe that the high levels of chlorine monoxide measured in early 1992 were due to the 1991 volcanic explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. The sulfur it emitted formed sulfuric acid droplets around the world. They temporarily prevented the normal chemical reactions that would have tied up chlorine, preventing it from depleting the ozone. Strangely enough, many scientists suspected this effect long before NASA made its announcement. ”
Gore doesn’t seem to learn from history.
Anat writes:
“Your link to resist.org.uk indeed shows that the impression of a corresondence between MMGW and anti-Americanism is correct, but I still can’t see why it should be so.”
If you widen your terms of reference you will see that there is no apparent common link between the causes per se . Indeed, what we have on the liberal-Left is the famous ‘ loose association of jarring incompatibles’, united more by what they oppose than what they support.
To put it another way, their enemy’s enemy is their friend, thus anyone anti-American, be it Castro or bin Laden, is a pin-up – even though the two probably have little in common, save sociopathy and halitosis.
But then there’s the question: why America in the first place? The protracted teenage rebellion that is ‘further education’ has a lot to do with it, but the American humorist Evan Sayet has a nice line in reducing it to moral relativism. I recommend a look at this – and give him a few minutes to warm up: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/220315.php
Thanks to those who responded about the ozone hole. Interesting knowledge.
I’m new to this blog and I came in because I’m so angry at what the BBC said about Malta and global warming and rising sea levels – just a pack of lies.
I’m sure other people around the world on whose countries the BBC reports can also attest to the BBC’s evident bias.
April 4th saw them see fit to report Scotland basking in warmth ahead of this Easter weekend; as if to show that weather stories are stories, even if they can’t boast any records.
Yes. I wonder if they’ll have a report tomorrow on Scotand being cold and wet?
“After a minor heatwave which suggested to the gullible that global warming was having an impact on Scotland, the weather returned to normal over the weekend, with average seasonal temperatures and rain. Commentators said that this showed there probably wasn’t much to worry about after all.”
I won’t hold my breath.
Joe Borg: If you look through the thousands of postings on here and similar blogs you will find that you are not alone.
Joe: ‘As long as the BBC says it, it’s gospel truth.’
Not for long.
The problem for the BBC and their ilk is while once checking their claims involved visits abroad, or to libraries, now we have the internet.
When enough people find out what they are doing out goes the TV tax and the BBCers world comes crumbling down.
The trouble with propaganda is that you can end up believing it yourself” I read somewhere today.
What does the BBC say about itself ?
Joe,
I was staying in Sliema last year at the same hotel as an undergraduate geography degree course from a British university and heard their lecturers discussing the relative merits of Maltese desalination plants. As I recall there was a shade more complexity to the debate than the following gem from the BBC article:
“But desalination plants contribute significantly to global warming as they are powered by fossil fuels.” I would be fascinated to know just how “significant” an affect Maltese desalination plants have upon global warming. I’m sure Matt McGrath or someone else at the Beeb must have the figures somewhere…
and then, the bbc radio homepage has this:
BBC World Service
World Debate
What is the role of big business in addressing the growing threat of global warming? What is big business, which is after all a key source of much of the pollution, planning to do about it?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/
This article is plain stupid:
“Global warming” is documented scientifically as being responsible for more extremes of temperature. The average global temperature rise doesn’t result in the temperature rising everywhere, but in extremes of temperature variation and other extreme weather changes (e.g. more tornados in the Mexican Gulf).
Get with it!
John writes:
“”Global warming” is documented scientifically as being responsible for more extremes of temperature. The average global temperature rise doesn’t result in the temperature rising everywhere, but in extremes of temperature variation and other extreme weather changes (e.g. more tornados in the Mexican Gulf).”
Really? That’s quite amazing information and you absolutely must make sure your data proving this sent over to William M. Gray, head of Colorado State University’s Tropical Meteorology Project.
You see, he’s only the world’s foremost expert on hurricanes and, clearly, is lacking the benefit of your recent research and consequent insight.
Why, old Gray is so ignorant, he says: “I’m quite sure that in 15 to 20 years, everyone will look back and see what a phony issue this was… Most of my colleagues, who have given their careers to study this, are skeptical as hell.”
Still, poor lamb – unlike you, he wasn’t educated at the University of White City, so I suppose we should make allowances.
Guy R:
Matt McGrath’s claim that “… desalination plants contribute significantly to global warming as they are powered by fossil fuels” shows his obvious bias. In Malta we are 20 years in advance of many other countries in desalination plants that work via a technology that is called ‘reverse osmosis’. Cyprus and Mauritius that have water shortage problems we used to have a quarter of a decade ago, want to learn from us. Reverse osmosis plants are powered by electricity that can come from renewable sources. In Malta we have huge potential for solar power. We can also buy electricity from Italy that could be using nuclear powered plants in future. But go and tell that to Matt McGrath!
The environment reporter of the BBC could have concentrated on the very simple fact that lack of abundant and clean water supplies in many countries around the world kill many more people, especially children, than even the most apocalyptic suppositions of MMGW high priests. He should have concentrated on how the Maltese desalination model could help so many countries save millions of lives. But that’s too positive for the BBC, isn’t it?
(e.g. more tornados in the Mexican Gulf).
Should that read hurricanes?
Joe Borg
Welcome to the forum!
You’re absolutely right.
I spend four or five months each year in Gozo and keep a boat there.
The old stone dock where I fill up with diesel must be at least 100 years old and the max tide level is where it’s always been – just below road level.
I also collect old photographs and postcards of the area, going back more than 100 years, and none of those show any increase.
Similarly in the UK, I do some boating around Dartmouth in Devon – one of the oldest ports in the UK – where there are old wharves, steps and slipways which have been in use at the same sea level for nearly 1000 years.
Nobody I know who actually spends time around the sea thinks that sea levels are rising significantly.
It’s really hard to understand how politicians and journalists can get away with this rubbish when all people need to do to is to visit an old harbour and check it out for themselves.
Joe B/GC/Guy R
Matt McGrath’s :- “desalination plants contribute significantly to global warming…”
I decided to check this out.
A modern desal plant uses 4.5 kilowatt hours of electricity per 1000 litres of water (Australian figures).
The average UK family of four uses 140,000 litres of water excluding gardening.
They also use around 6000 kilowatt hours of electricity (4 bed house excluding heating).
So if our average family lived in a hot country like Malta and used all desalinated water it would add around 600 kWh or 10% to their electricity demand – about the same as adding one new appliance.
Not really a planet consuming scenario.
The problem with beeboids like McGrath (and most politicians ) is they tend to be the sort of arts graduate types who quite enjoy boasting about not being able to put up a shelf, wire a plug or put oil in their car.
It was bad enough when they hassled us with their political theories – but now they’ve decided they can all be scientists as well we’re in serious trouble!
Foxgoose | 09.04.07 – 12:36 pm |
It’s really hard to understand how politicians and journalists can get away with this rubbish when all people need to do to is to visit an old harbour and check it out for themselves.
It’s quite simple, most people do not visit the coast enough to know. They don’t have to convince everyone, just enough.
It’s the same with their attitude to EU countries. According to the BBC, no matter what the subject, it’s always done better in an EU country than here. Of course not many people will know whether this is true or not as they may have no experience of EU countries outside of the beaches.
Foxgoose writes:
“It was bad enough when they hassled us with their political theories – but now they’ve decided they can all be scientists as well we’re in serious trouble!”
And a big B-BBC welcome please, ladies and gentleman, for the saviour of our planet, Mr Al Gore!
The Fat Controller writes:
“It’s quite simple, most people do not visit the coast enough to know. They don’t have to convince everyone, just enough.”
As you may recall, we recently took the BBC to task over a fatuous piece of scaremongering about cliff erosion in Norfolk. The imbecile presenting the feature waffled on about ‘global warming’ as if the coastline of Norfolk had been fixed for thousands of years.
Even Mr Belam admitted that was rather a lame effort.
Foxgoose and all:
I am checking as well with some contacts I have at the water company how much electricity is actually needed to produce say 1000 litres of water in the desalination plants we have here. That will perhaps take some days.
It’s unbelievable how these MMGW-enamoured reporters present their facts. A reporter I know told me he read in some website that the production of 1000 m3 per day of fresh water requires 10 000 tons of oil per year. That sounds impressive (and is already probably some gross exaggeration in some proselytising website).
But what they do is that they present the amount of water in m3 per day, minimizing the amount, yet tell you how much oil is needed, according to them, per year, maximising that. It’s not comparing like with like.
I told my friend reporter that 1000 m3 of fresh water per day is 1000 tons per day. 10 000 tons of oil per year is 27 tons per day. So, to produce 1000 tons of fresh water per day, you need (always according to them) 27 tonnes of oil. It doesn’t look and sound as impressive like this, does it? He agreed.
And this is always assuming that the desalination plant is running on fossil-fuel generated electricity and not on some other source. Where there is a water shortage, you would probably have abundant sunshine that can be harnessed to produce electricity and have your water on no oil at all.
Again, I will check with our water company and get the facts right.
John:
This article is plain stupid:
“Global warming” is documented scientifically as being responsible for more extremes of temperature. The average global temperature rise doesn’t result in the temperature rising everywhere, but in extremes of temperature variation and other extreme weather changes (e.g. more tornados in the Mexican Gulf).
Get with it!
John | Homepage | 09.04.07 – 10:02 am | #
There are always extremes of temperature on the earth – does this mean that CO2 is responsible for every extreme recorded? Are there any extremes that are natural? That the earth is warming at present is probably beyond dispute (but this is based on average global temperatures ) – some places are presently experiencing hotter temperatures and some colder. Can you tell me how this is linked to Man made CO2?
“anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only about 3% of the natural carbon cycle and less than 1% of the atmospheric reservoir of carbon.”
And on the subject of ‘”Global warming” is documented scientifically as being responsible for more extremes of temperature.’
“Global warming will result in more extreme weather events. Nothing could be further from the truth, as de Freitas demonstrates. Whether it be extremes of heat and cold, droughts, floods, hail, tornadoes or hurricanes, there is absolutely no evidence that these phenomena have increased globally over the twentieth century. In fact, there is much empirical evidence to suggest that more warmth leads to a more stable climate.”
http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Environment/debunking.htm
C.R. de Freitas of the School of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Auckland in New Zealand is I admit only one source – If you insist I will list many more sources from leading scientists in the field. Can you list me the 2500 scientists who agree with the IPCC and your view, because try as I might it is very difficult to find even a handful leading scientists who take your view. Also can you show me the peer-reviewed scientific paper (not Greenpeace or friends of the earth, or for that matter Christian aid) that backs the view on GW causing “more tornados in the Gulf of Mexico”?
And lastly I see you use the battle cry of all the so-called “enviromentalists” “Get with it!” – in other words don’t question what I say just do it.
John | Homepage | 09.04.07 – 10:02 am | #
I suggest you read this
“According to Kent Moore, a professor in UTM’s Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, there will likely be more storms before the hurricane season ends next month, but whether these storms are linked to global warming is still in question.
“It’s premature to say the storms are linked to global warming,” says Moore. “You can never relate a single storm to global warming. It’s important that we look at trends — at changes over time. If we get five or six Category Five storms per year, then we can start to hypothesize, but one or two in a single year is not enough to draw any conclusions.”
http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/4184.0.html
You are quite right to highlight the example of a Mexican lake as an example of BBC bias in favour of manmade climate change. As a Mexican I can confirm that the country suffers greatly from problems related to water supply. Mostly this is the result of a growing population, poor investment and perhaps most importantly large populations in places unsuited to large populations (Mexico City is a good case in point). The fact that none of these were even alluded to as potential factors reveals this report to have been misleading at best and a out-and-out attempt to lie at worst. Knowing the Beeb it is safe to assume the latter.
“Mexican Gulf?” Could that be the Gulf of Mexico?
As the hours pass it’s starting to look as if our “John” was that all too common thing here: a hit and run Leftie.
Funny how they never stay to continue the argument once they are confronted with a few facts, isn’t it?
GCooper: You’re right- but what frightens them most of all is when you ask them to substantiate their “facts”
An interesting study not mentioned by the BBC is that the area around Lake Patzcuaro has seen decades of de-forestation.
“In 2001, above the famous Lake Patzcuaro (Michoacan), I studied another consequence of “Free Trade ” policies: a stupendous rate of deforestation that transforms the mountains into deserts, destroys the water supply and fills the lake with mud (Chodkiewicz 2003). ”
http://artsandscience.concordia.ca/cmll/spanish/ach/Congreso_abierto/2005/J.-L.Chodkiewicz.htm
Could the de-forestation be the more likely cause of changing rainfall patterns than CO2 – well
“Now, a new study is offering insight into the long-term impacts of these changes, particularly the effects of large-scale deforestation in tropical regions on the global climate. Researchers from Duke University, Durham, N.C., analyzed multiple years of data using the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies General Circulation Computer Model (GCM) and Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) to produce several climate simulations. Their research found that deforestation in different areas of the globe affects rainfall patterns over a considerable region. ”
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/deforest_rainfall.html
“Rain forests help generate rainfall in drought-prone countries elsewhere. Studies have shown that destruction of rain forests in such West African countries as Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire may have caused two decades of droughts in the interior of Africa, with attendant hardship and famine.”
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/deforestation/effect.html
This has been known or suspected for years – but because Ms Ortega with the help of the BBC can now blame CO2 and western industrial nations for this. There is blame to be had though and the western world does play a part – and this is in their search for cheap timber – this is the news – not MMGW.