So the UN, what does its record look like?

Before we hand over global governance to the United Nations under the guise of a global climate deal we should take a little time to examine how it has performed in the past and use this as a likely indicator for future performance.

• Iraqi sanctions in the 1990's  - RESULT total failure to bring Sadaam to heel and resulting in a blood soaked illegal war. No points
• Bosnia - UN soldiers stood by while Serbian militia massacred thousands of Muslims under their very noses. No points
• Rwanda - Stood by while the world's largest manual genocide took place. I call it a manual genocide as the majority of killings were carried by hand with small arms or machetes. No points
• The Security Council - The five permanent members of the security council can veto any resolution, even if agreed on by the majority of members, and they also happen to be the world's biggest arms exporters. No points.
• Terrorism - The UN does not formally recognise any state as a terrorist state.
• Cost - The UN costs a fucking fortune to run and as anyone who has had the misfortune to even deal with them is one of the world's most bureaucratic and corrupt organsiations. No points
• Prevention of War - Since the 1950s, more wars have started than have stopped. By the end of 1995, wars had been running in Afghanistan for 17 years, Angola, 30; Liberia, 6; Somalia, 7; Sri Lanka, 11; Sudan, 12.  Increasingly, wars are fought in precisely those countries that can least afford them. Of more than 150 major conflicts since the Second World War, 130 have been fought in the developing world. The per capita gross national product (GNP) of war-torn countries in 1994 included: Afghanistan (US$280M), Angola ($700M), Cambodia ($200M), Georgia ($580M), Liberia ($450M), Mozambique ($80M), Somalia ($120M), Sri Lanka ($640M), the Sudan ($480M).  Hmmmm - No points
• Refugees - The number of refugees from armed conflicts worldwide increased from 2.4 million in 1974 to more than 27.4 million today, the report notes, with another 30 million people displaced within their own countries. Children and women make up an estimated 80 per cent of displaced populations.  No points

So do we still thin k that handing over the world's energy resource management to the UN is still a good idea?

Has the BBC had an Epiphany on Climate Change?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

Well probably not but it is encouraging that this article managed to get though the editorial policy that states that only catastrophic arcicles and nonsense article like the coverage of the Catlin Arctic Expedition are permitted.

As some one recently said this is "like the Catholic Church denying the existence of God".

Will more and more mass media outlets go off message and start doing their fucking jobs? By that I mean actually doing some journalism and not simply parrotting the most recent press release from greenpeace, the Un and the WWF.

I am hopeful: Some more examples:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/warming_emperor_suddenly_naked#61844

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2644/BBCs-Richard-Black-is-asking-the-right-questions-Has-climate-change-hijacked-the-wider-environmental-agenda

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1220052/Austria-sees-earliest-snow-history-America-sees-lowest-temperatures-50-years-So-did-global-warming-go.html

http://features.csmonitor.com/discoveries/2009/10/10/biggest-news-youve-never-heard-earth-isnt-warming/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/6207647/Climate-change-campaigners-should-not-have-fixated-on-carbon-dioxide.html

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1805/BBCs-Richard-Black-Sees-The-Light--Asks-Does-climate-cloud-the-bigger-picture

Irish History Revisited

was educated by the military wing of the Catholic Church otherwise known as the Christian Brothers, and not surprisingly their version of irish history was fairly one-sided in its delivery. To paraphrase “It is all the fault of the godless English”.

I currently commute by driving up to London so am doing 500+ miles a week, in a effort to make that time slightly less dead I am listening to audio books which I think I might find interesting. One such is “A Short History of Ireland” produced by BBC Radio Ulster. I would certainly recommend it.

Fascinating is not the word, it’s riveting and has given me a whole new perspective on what I was taught (indoctrinated) in school.
Some interesting facts:

• Captain Blyth (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) was responsible for dredging the River Liffey to allow large ships to reach the quays.
• William of Orange was a small Dutchman who spoke little English and despite the antics of the Orange Order was not rabidly anti-Catholic and favoured liberalisation of the Penal Laws.
• The Orange Lodge was formed out of a gang of vicious thugs called the Peep o’ Day Boys.
• The United Irishmen, widely acknowledged as the antecedent of Sinn Fein and the Fenians in later years was established for the most part by Protestants, Theobald Woolf Tone for example was a protestant and the United Irishmen started and were strongest in Ulster. Republicanism is always presented as being entirely sectarian but when you look at the history this is not the case.
• The Penal Laws were not only targeted at Catholics they were also aimed at Presbyterians and other non “Established” religions.
• The French invaded Ireland to assist the locals in rebellion 3 times.
• Over half the troops who fought at Waterloo with Wellington were Irish and the Duke of Wellington himself was born in Ireland, He is famously quoted as saying “Just because you are born in a stable does not mean that you are a horse”

Wind and Hot Air

There is an interesting arcticle by Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times today which looks at the government's latest green intiative and their plans to encircle the country with wind turbines the size of Blackpool tower.

Taking the example of other European countries that have embarked on a similarly expensive exercise in tokenism, the action did absolutely nothing to reduce carbon emissions and any unused carbon credits were quickly snapped up by other neighbouring and more polluting countries.

The country will pay and absolutely vast price for this action and the benefits will be close to zero. Already energy intensive manufacturing industries are voting with their feet and movig overseas or shutting up shop completely. The vast increase in energy costs this will cause are akin to the oil shock of the 1970's and that was not exactly beneficial to the world economy.

The fact to keep in mind is thet this expenditure of billions of our hard earned pomds will achieve nothing, nada, zilche, fuck all.

If Ed Milliband and this governmet of all the wankers is seeking a new moral cruscade might I suggest they start with solving sme problems that will make a real difference. Clean drinking water for those deprived of that basic amenity, univeral access to education or a thousand other ways to spend the money so it actually demonstrably changes people's lives today.

April 2009 - Ninth warmest April this Century

Actually could also be the 100th warmest April in the past 100 years in the US.

Now you know whay we hear of "Climate Change" and not "Global Warming" anymore. Pesky instrumental readings, model are so much more compliant.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/13/will-april-be-the-100th-warmest-on-record/

A Real Climate Catastrophe?

Bear with me whilst I throw out a heretical thought or two relating to climate change.

What if it turns out that man made CO2 emissions have only a negligible effect on global temperatures and other naturally occurring processes are the major drivers of global temperatures. There has been a recent period of zero temperature growth and at least two years of recorded cooling. It is not clear at this time whether this indicates that the cooling trend will become more established but just for minute let’s look at the world if this actually does come to pass.

So what is CO2 and is it a pollutant when its role as a climate change driver is much reduced or eliminated? CO2 is a colourless odourless gas which forms a natural part of the Earth’s atmosphere and on the whole is beneficial to life on Earth as it is used by plants when the respire and they emit Oxygen as part of the same process. Plants have been show to display improved yields and more vigorous growth in atmospheres rich in CO2. Contrary to the image portrayed in the media, particularly the recent UK Government’s carbon footprint TV Adverts, it is no a sticky black goo which looks similar to crude oil.

So if CO2 is not a pollutant and in reasonable concentrations is beneficial then where is the driver to reduce carbon emissions if it has been exonerated as the main cause of climate change? The simple answer is there is no driver and that changes everything.

An immediate effect is the freeing up of several billion dollars which is currently spent on researching this issue. That money could be spent on more directly useful and pressing needs such as the provision of clean drinking water to the portion of the world’s population currently deprived of this basic right.

Carbon trading would become unnecessary and the structures put in place to enable this to happen could be disbanded and the money saved used to aid development in the Third World.

The IPCC could be greatly scaled down.

Green lobbyists could concentrate on issues that are actually and demonstrably damaging to the environment.

Last but by no means least; Al Gore would need to find another life’s mission. Global cooling perhaps?

Sources:
Global Temperatures: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
CO2 described: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
TV Advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCJotacAmo4

A lament for my Homeland and the Eejits who run it

This is a sobering account of false promises and utter betrayal. I thank God that I never bought into all that Celtic Tiger shite that the Irish Government was peddalling in the 90's. I feel so sad for the people who will have to once again flee from a broken homeland, the problem is that time around the places they are fleeing to are not in much better shape that Ireland. Brendan Landers explains the feelings of betrayal beautifully.

I know I may appear to have a hard-boiled shell, and usually I have, but this account really got to me, there but for the grace of God go I...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0211/1233867931066.html?via=mr

Another Inconvenient Truth?

Personally I did think that this year (2008) was colder than recent years and we had snow in the UK in October for the first time in over 70 years. It now transpires that this anecdotal observation has been confirmed by observation data which show that 2008 is the coldest year so far this century and barely above the 1960 - 1990 average.


I have always been on the skeptical wing of this issue not least because I remember the scare stories of the early 70's about an impending ice age and the havoc that would bring. many of the scientists behind that scare seamlessly moved to global warming as soon as the temperature readings went against the theory. Sir Crispin Tickell is a good example of this. His seminal 1977 book "Climate Change and World Affairs" warned of an impending climate crisis due to a cooling climate, it was edited and re-released in 1986 but this time warned of the consequences of a warming world.

The world warmed in the early part of the 20th century from 1900 to about 1940, this was despite the fact that industrial development was in its infancy and man-made carbon dioxide emissions were on a negligible scale. Then quite unexpectedly temperatures began to fall in the 1940s and continued to fall for some 35 years despite the world experiencing its most intensive economic boom in recorded history. This fact led directly to the dire warnings of a global freeze in the late 60s and early 70s. Then, again quite unexpectedly, temperature trends altered again and began to rise again. Enter anthropogenic global warming as the clear and present danger.

Is is a coincidence that the most recent shift in global temperature trends was 35 years or so ago, and the one before was 35 years or so before that, and the one before was about 35 years before that... you get the idea?

Now I know that one swallow does not make a spring but it is still interesting to observe that none of the computer models used to create the IPCC's most recent assessment predicted and period when temperatures would actually fall in the way we are currently observing. You may resonably say thet these models are too unsophisticated to predict such a variation and I would respond by saying that they were so unsophisticated that we were not proposing to "bet the farm" on measures such as Kyoto and the even crazier EU proposals.

Regardless of the side of this debate you may find yourself I hope you will join me in wishing that this is indeed a sign that the direst predictions of the effects of AGW have been overstated and we are not in fact facing a human induced climate Armageddon. As a human you must hope for that surely?

If 2008 does indeed prove to be the year that the theory of anthropogenic global warming was disproved the only thing we need worry about in terms of global warming is the glow from the red faces of all the scientists, media pundits and politicians who promoted the scare on the back of what was proven to be the flimsiest of evidence.