Electricity destroys the planet

Dear W.A. – My children are urging me to lower our carbon footprint by reducing our use of electricity. They are being told at school that electricity is a bad invention, as it destroys the planet. We have already replaced our incandescent lightbulbs with ecobulbs, we make sure to switch off lights when we leave a room and to switch off computers and TVs when not in use. What more can I do? Signed: Switched-off

Dear Switched-off. Yes, the Warmaholics are telling the public that the two worst planet-damaging technological developments of the Industrial Revolution have been electricity and the internal combustion engine. The use of the demon electricity is already being curbed by Warmaholics actions such as Earth Hour. But they want you to do more than just switching off for only one hour per year.

There are about two billion people on this planet who do not have electricity. They want to do their utmost to prevent them from ever getting electricity.

But everybody on this planet should wean themselves off electricity. For instance, by not using electric washing machines, but going to a local river, lake or creek and do the laundry there, like our forebears did. The picture at the beginning of this blog is a copy of a 19th century painting of washer women by Jean-François Millet. It illustrates the point. Without electricity people can go to bed at sundown and get up at sunrise. The light of the sun is free (like wind) and harmless. What could be more satisfying then plowing the fields with plows pulled by oxen? Dentists should use pedal-powered drills, like they do in areas without electricity. There are so many things one could do.

Doing away with electricity will drastically reduce life expectancies and reduce the world population to manageable proportions. Average life expectancy in 1900 was about 30 years. It is now 67. It was probably less than 30 in the Middle Ages.

Such actions would herald the dawn of a bright future. But much more can be done, such as banning the fiendish internal combustion engine. Or ship's diesel engines (I love sailing). Air travel is an absolute no-no. Even bicycles should be banned, as their production emits lots of greenhouse gases. Walking or riding a horse is all one needs to get from point A to B. And don’t forget that one only should eat food that is produced within a circle of less than 100 km radius from one’s home.

But then again, you may decide to become acquainted with the science behind the man-made climate scare and realise that it is the biggest scam in human history. It will be an epiphany to realise what untold benefits the Industrial Revolution has brought to mankind. You then may want to bring those benefits to poor countries, realising that improved prosperity will also result in a reduction in population, as shown by wealthy countries.

350 International Day of Climate Action

Dear W.A. – 24 October was “350 International Day of Climate Action”. According to the 350.org website there were more than 5200 events in 181 countries. The aim was to convince politicians, meeting in Copenhagen in December, that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels should not rise above 350 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to prevent catastrophic man-made global warming. There were various 350 activities in my hometown. They say that the 350 safe level is based on science. Is this so? Signed: Low Carbon Footprint.

Dear Low Carbon Footprint. Don’t worry, it Ain’t So. Climate scientists in our organization have not been able to find any scientific evidence that 350 ppmv is a critical level. This idea seems to come from NASA’s Dr James Hansen. He is a well-known propagandist of the catastrophic man-made global warming dogma. The number 350 is based on ideology, not science. At the G8 meeting in L’Aquila in Italy last July, government leaders suggested that a level of 450 ppmv was required to prevent warming to go beyond 2 degrees Celsius. Like the 350 level, this was an arbitrary figure, not based on science. At best it may have been based on some climate computer models. But such models are just “what if” exercises. That such models cannot predict future warming is born out by the fact that the range of temperature increases predicted for a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere obtained by different models varies from 1.4 to 11 degrees Celsius!

It is sobering to study carbon dioxide levels over geological time. For instance, about 170 million years ago (during the time of the dinosaurs) levels were about 2,500 ppmv. Since that time levels have been steadily decreasing to the present low level of about 385. As carbon dioxide is essential for plant growth (it is NOT a pollutant), some botanists even think that plants are now starved of carbon dioxide.

W.A. members have been attending 350 climate action events in our local town in New Zealand. The two photographs above this posting were taken then. What struck us was the participation of groups like vegans, vegetarians, Morris dancers and the like. We did not come across anybody we knew. This seems to confirm what many observers have been commenting on, that the man-made global warming hysteria is being driven by groups collectively know as the “Liberal Left”. Under this umbrella can be found organizations such as peaceniks, flower people, vegans, (some) vegetarians, new agers, organic food growers, Greenpeace members, Green parties, some feminist elements, etc. They are the “foot soldiers” being manipulated by unscrupulous politicians like Al Gore and unscrupulous scientists like James Hansen.

We found a very good description of “Liberal Left” characteristics on the Internet, written by TYSK:

“Most individuals afflicted with a liberal mindset would be unable to name any particular goal for their beliefs. It is in many ways like a religion … a set of pre-defined attitudes and opinions by which they make decisions in life. Most often these attitudes and opinions are not of their own formation or arrived at through considered thought. Instead, they are learned from others’ repeated pronouncements of them. Those making these statements often have come to learn them in the same way. Much the same as fables and the Bible stories are passed down from generation to generation. Unfortunately many of the “proclaimers” are entrenched in the schools and colleges and their views are imbedded in impressionable minds not yet skilled in giving these ideas critical examination.”

“The key to the successful spread of liberalism is specifically its lack of critical thought on the results of liberal ideas and solutions for society’s problems. In fact, to be judgmental or to offer analysis of liberal prescriptions is in itself considered being anti-liberal. Just as a critic of any religious denomination is labelled a heretic, so too critics of liberalism are labelled uninformed or unenlightened. In other words, you must take their beliefs and accept them even if they are contradictory or counterproductive.”

The biggest threat from liberal leftists in the context of the man-made global warming dogma is to democratic freedoms. Many of liberal left organizations would like to control all aspects people’s lives. And all this is done under the guise of “saving the planet”. Incidentally, the planet is well able to look after itself. It has done so for about 4.5 billion years.

Carbon Footprints

Dear W.A. My children are indoctrinated about global warming and saving the planet in school. They harass us constantly that we should reduce our carbon footprint. What should we do? Signed: Worried Mother.

Dear Worried Mother
Yes, it is very common these days that children are indoctrinated about the alleged global warming caused by humans. For instance, in the UK the government has distributed Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to all high schools. In New Zealand there are people, trained by Al Gore, who are going round schools to “spread the message”. They are modern-day evangelists. No contrary views are allowed. Children are urged to pressure their parents “to save the planet” by reducing their carbon footprint.

Common suggestions for reducing one’s carbon footprint are:
Replace all incandescent light bulbs with so-called “eco-bulbs”. These are fluorescent bulbs that use less electricity for the same light output. That would be fine, were it not that these bulbs are filled with mercury vapour and become a health hazard when broken or dumped in refuge pits.
Electricity is being demonised as harmful to the environment. This ideology is highlighted by the annual Earth Hour action, when people are urged to switch of all electricity for an hour.

Use cars as little as possible. If you can afford it, buy a hybrid car (which are a lot more expensive than comparable petrol or diesel cars). This advice is strengthened by the Peak Oil scare. Environmentalists like to tell us that we have reached Peak Oil, meaning that from now on we will be using more oil that is being discovered. This is more ideological-political that real. There is still plenty of oil to last us one to two hundred years (some think even longer). Major new hydrocarbon field are still being discovered, like a huge oil field in Brazil and a huge gas field in Western Australia. This is not to say that we should not be prudent in the use of these resources. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with global warming.

Don’t use air travel. Certainly not for long trips. Take your holidays close to home. Some governments are planning to impose an eco-tax on air travel. This was tried recently by the Dutch Government. But after a few months they had to abandon it. People just drove across the border to Germany or Belgium to board planes in those countries who do not have a compulsory eco-tax. The effects of this ideology is that the tourist industries in many countries will suffer, especially in poor countries that depend on the tourist dollar.

One of the most mindboggling and disturbing ideas is to do with food. People are urged to only eat food that is produced within a radius of about 100 kilometres. Food from further away is tainted by food miles. Deep greenies who are promoting this obviously do not realise, or couldn’t care less, that this would have a disastrous effect on poor countries that depend on food exports. How can they square this with their call “to make poverty history”? If this absurd idea is taken to its logical conclusions, people should stop drinking coffee or tea, stop eating rice, bananas, pineapples, coconuts, peanuts, etc, etc .

To really reduce one’s carbon footprint one should stop breathing. Every time one exhales one produces carbon dioxide. One should also stop using electricity. Return to doing the laundry in rivers and creeks. Stop cooking food - electricity is out, as are charcoal or firewood. Only eat directly edible food like our hunter-gatherer forebears did. Meat and fish can be eaten raw. The Dutch have been eating raw herring for centuries. Cows must be milked by hand again and sheep sheared with scissors. No tractors are allowed. Ox-drawn plows should be used. Dentists can use peddle-powered instead of electric drills. Modern medicines and anaesthetics are out as producing them emits carbon dioxide. What is wrong by pulling teeth the old way, as was done in markets in the Middle Ages?

What really would reduce emissions is to prohibit all scientists, politicians and environmental NGO’s (like Greenpeace) to continuously fly around the world to attend endless climate conferences. The annual UN climate conferences, for instance, have attracted between 8000 and 12000 people! It is expected that the upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen will attract record attendances.

Dear Worried Mother - the only advice I can give you is to acquaint yourself as much as possible with arguments against the belief that your carbon footprint is contributing to catastrophic man-made global warming. IT AIN’T SO. There are plenty of good books explaining that this apocalyptic belief is the biggest scam in human history. This scam is based entirely on non-validated computer models.
Moreover, the planet has stopped warming for the last ten years. Many scientists expect the planet to cool over the next few decades.
A good book to start with is Ian Wishart’s Air Con. But the most authoritative and definitive book is the recently published Climate Change Reconsidered, by the Nongovernmental International Panel of Climate Change (NIPCC). It is a hefty tome of 868 pages. However, it reads easily and would give you all the information necessary to tell your children that IT AIN’T SO. Both books can be ordered from Amazon.com.

Limiting global warming to not more than 2 degrees C above pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures

Dear W.A. – I read that the European Union wants to limit global warming to maximal 2 degrees above pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures. What does that mean? Signed: Curious.

Dear Curious

Yes, the EU Environment Commissioner has indeed stated that the EU wants to get an agreement at the upcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius, compared with pre-industrial revolution (IR) temperatures. Environmental organizations are saying the same thing. They are obviously not aware that before the IR, the world was in the Little Ice Age. Temperatures were at times about 1.5 degrees Celsius lower than now. The consequences of the Little Ice Age were disastrous. This is well described in Barbara Tuchman’s famous book A Distant Mirror – The Calamitous 14^th Century (pages 24-25). Polar and Alpine glaciers advanced. Some villages in the Alps were destroyed by the advancing glaciers. Harvests failed all over Europe, resulting in famines. A weakened population were more prone to diseases, like the plague. There are reports of cannibalism. Norse settlements in Greenland perished. Cultivation of grain disappeared from Iceland and grain harvests in Scandinavia were severely reduced. There were also far more severe storms and floods than in the preceding Medieval Warm Period. For instance, according to the British Professor Lamb, probably as many as 400,000 people perished in the 1570 All Saints Day storm in NW Europe. Two catastrophic storms hit the Netherlands in 1404 and 1421, the so-called “St Elisabeth Floods”, during which tens of thousands of people drowned. It is a myth that man-made global warming will cause more extreme weather events. The opposite is true.

It is obvious that global warming zealots would like the planet to return to those Little Ice Age conditions.

Three points about the 2 degrees maximum dogma:

1. The dogma states that carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere should not rise above 450 ppmv (parts per million by volume) to prevent temperatures rising more that 2 degrees above pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures (others say 350 ppmv). As we have explained above those are Little Ice Age temperatures. However, this dogma is not based on scientific evidence. It is entirely arbitrary. It is mainly based on (non-validated) computer models. As the saying goes rubbish in, gospel out.

2. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at present almost the lowest in the entire history of our planet. Plants are starved of carbon dioxide. This is clearly shown by many experiments that show plants thriving under elevated carbon dioxide levels. If carbon dioxide levels would go much lower, say to 200 ppmv, plant growth would stagnate.

3. Global warming advocates are saying that, to reach these 2 degrees and 450 ppmv carbon dioxide aims, we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Apart from the fact that such a reduction, if it would be possible at all, would not have the slightest effect on the climate, it would have disastrous effects on the well-being of billions of people. Many of the fantastic and beneficial achievements of the Industrial Revolution will be undone. The man-made-global-warming would like a return to pre-Industrial Revolution conditions. There are now 1.6 billion people without electricity. That number will swell enormously, as electricity is being demonised as contributing to catastrophic global warming (as exemplified by the ludicrous Earth Hour). Replacing coal fired and nuclear power stations with wind turbines and solar panels will lead to severe electricity shortages. Agriculture will have to return to the ox and plow. Transport will be by foot, horse and donkey. Sea travel will be by sailing boats. No more modern medicine. Back to extracting teeth without anaesthetic. Lifespans will decrease to the good old days.

Recently, a major authoritative and definitive answer to the IPCC dogma has been published in the US. It is a hefty 868-page tome from the NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change), titled Climate Change Reconsidered, published by the Heartland Institute. It is well-structured and reads easily. Every statement and argument is extensively backed up by referring to peer-reviewed scientific publications. However, I don’t think that this book will have the slightest influence on the present extreme political agendas and manipulations in the lead-up to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December. Too many reputations and too many financial interests are at stake.

Therefore, dear Curious, I hope that you are old enough not to have to experience this calamitous future.