The Sun Has Gone Quiet

(I would like to thank Jim for sending this to me and allowing be to publish it. I would also like to thank him for keeping me straight on the science. For more information regarding James Maursek and his web site IPMACT, please read my article, Web Site Worth Exploring. 

By James Marusek,Nuclear Physicist, Engineer, U.S. Department of the Navy, retired

The sun has gone very quite as it transitions to Solar Cycle 24. As of the end of February, the cumulative number of spotless days (days without sunspots) is now at 558 days. The greatest number of cumulative spotless days during the solar minimums preceding solar cycles 16-23 was 568 days. This record will likely be broken during March. This is further evidence that the Grand Maximum state that has persisted during most of the 20th century is coming to an end.

The Ap index is a proxy measurement for the intensity of solar magnetic activity. The Ap index for February is "5" a slight uptick from the three consecutive months of "4's" (November 2008 - January 2009). An Ap index of "4" is the lowest recorded number since measurements began in January 1932.

Satellites provide generally the most accurate atmospheric temperature measurements covering the entire globe. Average yearly lower Troposphere temperatures (relative to the 1979-1998 average) were as follows: 1998 (0.512 degrees C.), 1999 (0.040), 2000 (0.035), 2001 (0.198), 2002 (0.311), 2003 (0.275), 2004 (0.195), 2005 (0.338), 2006 (0.260), 2007 (0.282) and 2008 (0.048) according to the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) LT5.2 satellite data. Comparing the peak year 1998 to the present, the lower Troposphere temperature has fallen approximately 1/2 degree Celsius. During that same time period, atmospheric carbon dioxide (at Mauna Loa) has risen 5% from 367 ppm to 386 ppm.

There will be some that might argue that the year 1998 was a temperature anomaly. Indeed, they would be correct. But the elevated temperatures observed that year were used to drive fear into the hearts of many people that the earth had finally reached a tipping point and this was proof-positive that man-made global warming was a hard fact instead of just a hypothesis based on untested computer models.

Sick, Irresponsible CSR

I would like to thank Mr. Driessen for allowing me to reprint his work. RK

By Paul Driessen:

“Corporate social responsibility” doctrine says companies must act ethically and further the well-being of society – not merely seek to improve market shares and bottom lines.

Ethical behavior is an essential element of business and capitalism. Companies that violate laws and societal norms are eventually found out – and punished, by courts and consumers.

But this raises an often overlooked question that all CSR advocates should ask:
Shouldn’t society demand that every corporation chartered under its aegis (for-profit and not-for-profit alike) will promote societal well-being? Shouldn’t charities, government agencies, legislatures and activist groups be held to the same CSR standards as profit-based industries?

By any rational standard, preventing dangerous diseases promotes societal well-being – and actions that perpetuate disease contravene basic CSR principles.

A century ago, Dr. William Gorgas eradicated yellow fever and dramatically reduced malaria in Panama. He eliminated or poured kerosene on standing water, to prevent malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes from laying eggs and larvae from developing; fumigated areas infested with adult mosquitoes; and used nets to isolate infected patients and prevent them from being bitten and spreading the disease.

But today malaria still infects 500 million people a year, leaving them unable to work for weeks, rendering many permanently brain-damaged, and killing over a million parents and children.

And yet, politicians, foundations, activists and bureaucrats continue to promote false solutions. If accepted CSR standards were applied to them, many would be bankrupt, ostracized or imprisoned.

The United Nations, Al Gore, Senator Barbara Boxer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Obama and others claim malaria is spreading due to global warming. The UN even pays African officials to host conferences that promote this party line.

The assertion boosts their anti-hydrocarbon agendas. It also shifts the blame and limited resources away from real solutions to pricey, politically correct schemes that actually perpetuate disease and death.

Malaria was prevalent in Virginia, Ohio, California the Netherlands and beyond, until DDT helped eradicate it. The disease killed 600,000 people in Siberia during the 1920s and 1930s. Obviously malaria's presence and geographical distribution is not defined by temperature alone.

Informed, comprehensive control measures reduce or eliminate malaria, note infectious disease experts Paul Reiter and Donald Roberts, even in tropical areas. When we let nature take its course, or apply partial or politically correct solutions, malaria spreads and people die.

With funding from San Francisco’s Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) helps nature take its course, by battling insecticide and DDT use. Their tunnel-visioned actions might protect the world’s most impoverished, disease-ridden people from minor speculative risks associated with insecticides – but they do so by imposing massive, immediate, life-threatening risks from diseases the insecticides could prevent.

The Gates Foundation supports fascinating research on anti-malaria vaccines and mosquitoes genetically engineered to be unable to carry malaria parasites. The work may pay off big time in a decade or two – assuming we can vaccinate 2 billion people who are at risk from getting malaria, or replace trillions of Anopheles mosquitoes with biotech varieties. But meanwhile, every year, a half billion people will become too sick to work, and a million will die, from a readily preventable disease.

“Nothing but nets” is a catchy basketball slogan, but a lousy disease prevention strategy. Bed net campaigns promise a few dollars will save a life, but actual malaria reductions are closer to 20-30% when recipients use their nets every night, no matter how sweltering it gets in their non-air-conditioned homes.

Truly comprehensive programs can slash malaria disease and death rates by 90% or even eradicate it completely. How is it ethical to promote anything less?
Yet, far too many companies, even ExxonMobil, won’t use or promote DDT, for fear of being attacked by PAN and its ilk. And some well-meaning innovators promote even more far-fetched “solutions,” like giant mosquito vacuums – for villages that don’t even have electricity.

These inadequate prevention strategies put the onus on often primitive clinics, overworked doctors and scarce, overused drugs to stop malaria. New Artemisia-based combination therapies (ACTs) have been a godsend, especially in Africa, where chloroquine is no longer effective.

But the more heavily they are used – because prevention efforts are constricted and misdirected – the sooner it is likely that malaria parasites will become resistant to ACT drugs. That likelihood is increased by companies like Erica in India that still distribute oral artemisinin mono-therapy tablets, which are more likely to result in resistant strains of malaria. Worse, increasing numbers of malaria medications distributed in Africa and elsewhere are substandard or even counterfeit knockoffs.

And too many governments of malaria-ridden countries do a horrendous job of safeguarding their people against these unscrupulous practices.

Malaria victims can ill afford such sick, fraudulent, irresponsible “social responsibility.” Human rights, and human lives, are at stake.

The world has limited money, especially amid this global recession. African nations are particularly destitute. Funds and resources need to be applied wisely, effectively and ethically.

First, we must do no harm – by focusing attention on bogus causes like global warming, for instance, or restricting malaria prevention to partial solutions like bed nets and drugs. Second, we must do actual good, by slashing malaria rates NOW.

It doesn’t take rocket science – just a modern version of what Gorgas used 100 years ago. Vastly improved tools are readily available. We need to use them.

Truly comprehensive programs include DDT on walls to keep mosquitoes out of houses, bed nets to further protect children and adults, and insecticides to control mosquito populations. These steps alone can prevent 80% or more of malaria cases. But other interventions must also be employed, if infections and deaths are to be eliminated.

Health ministries and aid agencies must help ensure that doctors have modern clinics closer to more villages, can quickly determine if a patient really has malaria, and have the proper ACT drugs to treat cases. They and field personnel must maintain systems to monitor mosquito populations and disease outbreaks on a continuing basis, and feed data into computerized command centers.

Communities must become better educated about the causes and symptoms of malaria, and how to eliminate brush and mosquito breeding areas from around homes. Larvacides can be used to kill mosquito larvae. Incentives and oversight must ensure that programs are working properly.

The number of nets distributed is irrelevant. The only valid test is malaria cases and deaths prevented.

A comprehensive program is a socially responsible program. Anything less is insufficient and immoral.

Scientist Tells Congress: Earth in ‘CO2 Famine’

(I would like to thank Mr. Morano for allowing me to reprint this information. RK)

‘The increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind’

‘Children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science’

Posted orginally HERE By Marc Morano – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov

Washington, DC — Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer declared man-made global warming fears “mistaken” and noted that the Earth was currently in a “CO2 famine now.” Happer, who has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, made his remarks during today’s Environment and Public Works Full Committee Hearing entitled “Update on the Latest Global Warming Science.”

“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) – 280 (parts per million - ppm) – that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that,” Happer told the Senate Committee. To read Happer’s complete opening statement click here:

Also: See Inhofe Warns of Costs of Massive $6.7 Trillion 'Climate Bailout'

'Consensus' in Collapse: Japanese scientists make 'dramatic break' with UN hypothesis of man-made warming! (UK Register)

$ave the Planet? 'Four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress' – Number of Lobbyists Up 300%

“Earth was just fine in those times,” Happer added. “The oceans were fine, plants grew, animals grew fine. So it’s baffling to me that we’re so frightened of getting nowhere close to where we started,” Happer explained. Happer also noted that “the number of [skeptical scientists] with the courage to speak out is growing” and he warned “children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science.” [In December, Happer requested to be added to the groundbreaking U.S. Senate Minority Report Update: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims Happer was pressed by the Committee on whether rising CO2 fears are valid. “I don’t think the laws of nature or physics and chemistry has changed in 80 million years. 80 million years ago the Earth was a very prosperous palace and there is no reason to suddenly think it will become bad now,” Happer added. Happer is a professor in the Department of Physics at Princeton University and former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993, has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Sciences. Happer was reportedly fired by former Vice President Al Gore in 1993 for failing to adhere to Gore’s scientific views.

“I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind,” Happer told the Committee. “What about the frightening consequences of increasing levels of CO2 that we keep hearing about? In a word, they are wildly exaggerated, just as the purported benefits of prohibition were wildly exaggerated,” he explained. “At least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player,” he added. “But the climate is warming and CO2 is increasing. Doesn’t this prove that CO2 is causing global warming through the greenhouse effect? No, the current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2. There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. The current warming also seems to be due mostly to natural causes, not to increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Over the past ten years there has been no global warming, and in fact a slight cooling. This is not at all what was predicted by the IPCC models,” Happer testified. (Note: See: An abundance of peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears)

“The existence of climate variability in the past has long been an embarrassment to those who claim that all climate change is due to man and that man can control it. When I was a schoolboy, my textbooks on earth science showed a prominent ‘medieval warm period’ at the time the Vikings settled Greenland, followed by a vicious ‘little ice age’ that drove them out. So I was very surprised when I first saw the celebrated ‘hockey stick curve,’ in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. I could hardly believe my eyes. Both the little ice age and the Medieval Warm Period were gone, and the newly revised temperature of the world since the year 1000 had suddenly become absolutely flat until the last hundred years when it shot up like the blade on a hockey stick. This was far from an obscure detail, and the hockey stick was trumpeted around the world as evidence that the end was near. We now know that the hockey stick has nothing to do with reality but was the result of incorrect handling of proxy temperature records and incorrect statistical analysis. There really was a little ice age and there really was a medieval warm period that was as warm or warmer than today,” Happer continued.

“The whole hockey-stick episode reminds me of the motto of Orwell’s Ministry of Information in the novel 1984: ‘He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.’ The IPCC has made no serious attempt to model the natural variations of the earth’s temperature in the past. Whatever caused these large past variations, it was not due to people burning coal and oil. If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future?” he stated.

“I keep hearing about the ‘pollutant CO2,’ or about ‘poisoning the atmosphere’ with CO2, or about minimizing our ‘carbon footprint.’ This brings to mind another Orwellian pronouncement that is worth pondering: ‘But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving ‘pollutant’ and ‘poison’ of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth. Commercial greenhouse operators often use CO2 as a fertilizer to improve the health and growth rate of their plants. Plants, and our own primate ancestors evolved when the levels of atmospheric CO2 were about 1000 ppm, a level that we will probably not reach by burning fossil fuels, and far above our current level of about 380 ppm. We try to keep CO2 levels in our U.S. Navy submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million, about 20 time current atmospheric levels. Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels.”

More selected Happer excerpts:

“I do not think there is a consensus about an impending climate crisis. I personally certainly don’t believe we are facing a crisis unless we create one for ourselves, as Benjamin Rush did by bleeding his patients. Many others, wiser than I am, share my view. The number of those with the courage to speak out is growing. There may be an illusion of consensus. Like the temperance movement one hundred years ago the climate-catastrophe movement has enlisted the mass media, the leadership of scientific societies, the trustees of charitable foundations, and many other influential people to their cause. Just as editorials used to fulminate about the slippery path to hell behind the tavern door, hysterical op-ed’s lecture us today about the impending end of the planet and the need to stop climate change with bold political action. Many distinguished scientific journals now have editors who further the agenda of climate-change alarmism. Research papers with scientific findings contrary to the dogma of climate calamity are rejected by reviewers, many of whom fear that their research funding will be cut if any doubt is cast on the coming climate catastrophe. Speaking of the Romans, then invading Scotland in the year 83, the great Scottish chieftain Calgacus is quoted as saying “They make a desert and call it peace.” If you have the power to stifle dissent, you can indeed create the illusion of peace or consensus. The Romans have made impressive inroads into climate science. Certainly, it is a bit unnerving to read statements of Dr. James Hansen in the Congressional Record that climate skeptics are guilty of “high crimes against humanity and nature.”

Even elementary school teachers and writers of children’s books are enlisted to terrify our children and to promote the idea of impending climate doom. Having observed the education of many children, including my own, I am not sure how effective the effort will be. Many children seem to do just the opposite of what they are taught. Nevertheless, children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science. Many of you may know that in 2007 a British Court ruled that if Al Gore’s book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was used in public schools, the children had to be told of eleven particularly troubling inaccuracies. You can easily find a list of the inaccuracies on the internet, but I will mention one. The court ruled that it was not possible to attribute hurricane Katrina to CO2. Indeed, had we taken a few of the many billions of dollars we have been spending on climate change research and propaganda and fixed the dykes and pumps around the New Orleans, most of the damage from Hurricane Katrina could have been avoided. See also: Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’

To read complete opening statement click here:





____________________________________

Book Reviews From "Environmentalism is Fascism" Web Site

By Rich Kozlovich

I have decided to add some book reviews that are not my own. The web site "Environmentalism is Fascism" has some of the most expansive reviews I have read. They also have commentaries worth reading. You may wish to peruse that site...however, be prepared...these are in depth commentaries.


Review of Paul Driessen's Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death

The following is a review of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death by Paul Driessen, published in 2002 by The Free Enterprise Press of Bellevue, Washington. At the time of the publication of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, the author, Paul Driessen, was looking back on a 25-year career including staff tenures with the US Senate and Department of the Interior. He is presently a senior fellow at the Atlas Economic Review Foundation and the Centre for the Defence of Free Enterprise. Driessen has a BA in Geology and Field Ecology and a JD in Law. Like others in the movement resisting environmentalism, he did not start out in life as an eco-basher. He is a former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth.

Editor's Note:  No wonder the greenies are so mad at him. He used to be one of theirs and he abandoned them, and probably for the same reason that Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder and Bjorn Lonborg did. They have become irrational and misanthropic. RK

Review of Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature

After eight years of work Thoemmes published the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2005). The project was conceived during a 1997 American Academy of Religion conference when Professor Jerry Kaplan expressed interest in the “religion of nature” after noticing it was a worldview common to both his specialty, the racist right, and radical environmentalism, a specialty of the Encyclopedia’s editor Professor Bron Taylor.

The Encyclopedia, a manifesto of sorts, has 1,000 entries from 500 academics. Many entries were written by key movement personalities such as Arne Naess, Jane Goodall, and Steven Rockefeller. Taylor stresses, “every standard entry in this encyclopedia was fully peer reviewed”.

(1) The Encyclopedia affirms a wide connection between a “religion of nature” and fascism and an equally broad overlap between a “religion of nature” and environmentalism.

The Encyclopedia betrays environmentalism as a social movement lousy with neo-Nazis, devil-worshippers, superstitious lunatics, pseudo-intellectuals, history fabricators, saboteurs, murderers and genocidal maniacs, narcotized youth, romantic primitivists and perniciously elitist anti-democratic religious nutters who corrupt science and slander technology while offering no realistic way to live in the modern world…….

Ecology is sometimes called “the subversive science”. This is too generous because Ecology should not be grouped with the sciences at all – it is a religion.

Ecology is Pantheism and Pantheism is nature worship. Among the sciences and humanities, this highly political “religion of nature” functions like a computer virus. Many faculties over the last 40 years have imparted sub-disciplines led by the “eco” prefix or the “environmental” adjective. Ecology aspires to theocracy – to Pantheocracy. This is not some distant dystopia. Already, across the West development proposals are routinely vetted through environmentalist inquisitions where the precautionary principle, the rights of migratory animals, complexity theory and the sacrality of nature are within the realm of legitimate discourse.

Editor's Note:  And to think that some of you thought that I had strong opinions. RK

The Real Face of DDT

By Rich Kozlovich

All the nonsense about raptors, game birds, song birds and whole eco-systems being wiped out by DDT is just that….nonsense. All of the information that I have presented is public information and is readily available to anyone who really wants to know what the “true” DDT story is; so I am not going to waste my time providing anything for those who make a career out of attacking pesticides. And why? Because they can’t be swayed no matter what anyone says! Dealing with them is a Sisyphean task.

Normally I don't explain myself, but I am going to make an exception this time.
Rachel Carson and I have a great deal in common. We both grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania. We both saw the irresponsible behavior industry and government demonstrated to the environment. We both saw the coke ovens bellowing dark smoke so thick that it would denude hillsides of greenery and even make it hard to see while driving along the highways near them. We both saw creeks that were colored a yellowish orange from the sulfur pumped out of the coal mines so thick that you couldn’t see the bottom, known commonly as “sulfur creeks”. We both saw the blacked walls of Pittsburgh from the smoke stacks of the furnaces that made steel. We both knew pollution up close and personal and resented it.

I believed all the things that were said about DDT. I believed that Rachel Carson was a truly brave and brilliant scientist. I believed that the EPA was a wonderful beneficent agency devoted to the well being of humanity; until I started researching the information for myself.

Being a pesticide applicator I wanted to make sure that what I was doing wasn’t hurting people and the environment. The more I read the more I became startled to find that everything I believed was complete nonsense; and nothing upsets a person more than being told that everything they believe is complete nonsense. Fortunately, I am only concerned with the facts, and I am prepared to go where the facts lead, and that is where Rachel Carson and I parted company. Rachel Carson, it turns out, was the mother of junk science, the EPA is a virtual lava flow of scientifically dubious regulations and DDT was one of the greatest discoveries ever in mankind’s history.

We need to see the face of DDT. We need to face the facts about DDT. We need to come to grips with the consequences of "going green" in those areas of the world that don't have the financial ability to use more expensive products, and yet still have mosquito pressure and diseases as we have never seen. And those consequences have a face. A face that is replicated to the tune of about a million a year!

Here are two articles that I have linked for this purpose. One is an oldie but a goodie and the second one is a heartbreaker. I have saved that one for last.

DDT-eating scientist exposes eco-fraud, By Jack Cashill
Posted: June 30, 2005
© 2009 WorldNetDaily.com
Editor's note: The following commentary is excerpted from Jack Cashill's eye-opening new book, "Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture," where he shows how, over the last century, "progressive" writers and producers have been using falsehood and fraud as their primary weapons in their attack on America.

If there is any one man who defined the word "environmentalist," it is the recently deceased J. Gordon Edwards. Edwards was an author, a park ranger, a legendary mountain climber, and an esteemed entomologist. In 1962, when Rachel Carson published her breakthrough book on the environment, "Silent Spring," Edwards was delighted. The young scientist eagerly raced through the first several chapters, but as he did, his anticipation eroded into uneasiness: "I noticed many statements that I realized were false." Attracted by Carson's message, Edwards tried to overlook the misstatements or to rationalize them away, but increasingly he could not. "As I neared the middle of the book," he adds, "the feeling grew in my mind that Rachel Carson was really playing loose with the facts.

This Post Brought to You By the Green Movement, By iowahawk
This is Bakouma Kpatekatola, a young man from the West African nation of Togo. In 2003, when Bakouma was 9 years old, my family became his sponsor through the Childreach-Plan USA organization. In the years since we became occasional pen pals; a few times a year we'd get a letter from him, in his native French, along with an English translation from his caseworker. Sometimes he spoke of coming to America. At Christmas the letters would contain a photo, which we ritually magnetted up on the fridge to chronicle his growth. We reciprocated with our family pictures. I sometimes wondered if he wondered about us like we wondered about him. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't really notice when we didn't receive his annual Christmas letter last year. Yesterday we received a letter from his caseworker explaining why: Bakouma died in December of malaria. He was 14 years old.

DDT isn't a dead issue...it is the only issue. There will come a day when something will be as cost effective and efficacious as DDT, and I will be happy to support that in place of DDT. However, it will still be THE issue. Why? Because the lies told about DDT gave impetus to a movement that is irrational and misanthropic. It is the emotional basis for every outrageous claim made against pesticides and chemicals in general. Does anyone really think that whatever is used in place of DDT, now or in the future, will please the greenies? They will work just as hard to ban those products also.

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. The people of the world live longer, healthier lives than at any time in recorded history and chemistry is the reason for it. That is a reality we should appreciate and embrace. This is a reality that should cause us to challenge the very idea of "going green". "Going Green" isn't about responsible environmental behavior in support of humankind. It is about elevating the environment above humankind. To mankind’s detriment! And when we embrace “going green”; we are enablers to a philosophy that is irrational and misanthropic.

The Secret of Success

By Alan Caruba

(I would like to thank Alan for allowing be to reprint this article. Alan has been a staunch defender of our industry for many years. RK)

Unless you are a pest control professional, it is unlikely you ever heard of Norm Ehmann. Those of us who were fortunate to know him, however, just loved the man. He passed away recently at the age of 84 and everyone in America owes him a huge debt of gratitude.

Every business and industry in America has a handful of men who transform it and always for the better. They come to their daily tasks with a personal integrity and an enthusiasm that is irresistible.

There was a time when, if people had a pest problem, they asked the local pest control provider to park his car or truck around the corner so others would not know. The inference was that you were not keeping a clean house. People who engaged in pest control had a handful of products and devices to get rid of insect and rodent pests. Their business practices frequently involved a low-ball price for dubious services and results.

Norm Ehmann was instrumental in changing that. He was involved in pest control for more than fifty years and he was passionate about it. What he and others did was introduce educational seminars to the profession. He understood that the most important element of eliminating insect and rodent pests was a thorough-going knowledge and understanding of their habits, life cycles, and harborages.

I knew Norm because, back in the 1970s I participated in the introduction of a remarkable new insecticide called “Ficam.” It was applied with water. It was lethal to a wide variety of insect pests, but virtually harmless to human beings. You’d think this was a good thing, but many years later, the Environmental Protection Agency demanded that the product undergo a repeat of the multi-million dollar registration process and the manufacturer decided it just wasn’t worth it.

I tell you this because it reflected what happened to DDT. During WWII, DDT successfully saved the lives of countless American soldiers and refugees from insect-borne diseases. People were literally dusted with DDT and, then as now, they lived because of this remarkable insecticide. Then Rachel Carson wrote a book, “Silent Spring”, that defamed DDT and, in time, it was banned. Every year now, in Africa alone, five million people die from Malaria for the lack of this miracle insecticide.

Norm worked for Van Waters & Rogers, a leading distributor of pest control products that purchased the company for which he was a salesman. He helped take VW&R from a $3 million operation under its previous owner to a $200 million enterprise. The introduction of new pesticides is the reason that Americans do not have to fear the diseases that insect and rodent pests spread whether it be in a supermarket, a hospital, a school, a hotel, or anywhere else professional pest control services exist.

For Norm, pesticides, used properly, were the answer to the threats of disease and property damage that had always plagued mankind. Over his life he was instrumental in creating 8,000 insect slides and specimens to help train pest control operators, owners and technicians.

That’s why people greet “the Orkin man” and other pest control folk with a smile. Most arrive in a clean uniform, have a professional demeanor, and all are licensed and certified by state agencies.

Norm didn’t just give sales talks. He helped train thousands of men and women to be effective, to understand the products they were using, to understand the pests to be exterminated, to project pride in their profession, to regard and respect each customer as essential to their own success.

Such people transform their industries and, as a result, improve the lives of all Americans.


"Alan Caruba has been the PR Counselor to the New Jersey Pest Management Association since 1986. He is the founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about "scare campaigns" (www.anxietycenter.com) and blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com."

Following Europe ’s lead on climate change

by Paul Driessen

EU countries are having second thoughts about Kyoto . Whose lead should we follow?

There is no “consensus” on the “problem” or “solution.” Over 31,000 scientists, including hundreds of climate scientists, vigorously disagree with the assertion that human carbon dioxide emissions will cause a climate cataclysm. Many express concern that climate legislation would cost jobs and punish families and businesses, to reduce global temperatures by perhaps 0.1 degree.

Long ago ice ages and interglacial periods, the Sahara’s shift from verdant valleys to parched desert, and protracted droughts in the Yucatan and American Southwest had nothing to do with humans, they note. Sunspot counts are now at a 50-year low, indicating reduced solar activity and possibly explaining why planetary temperatures haven’t risen in a decade, despite soaring CO2 levels, say solar experts. Some computer models predict major climatic shifts, but they don’t include solar and other natural factors.

Hydrocarbons provide 85% of all US energy. They are the foundation of an economy that has been shaken to its core and may be entering a recession. Wind and solar represent less than 0.5% – and provide only intermittent auxiliary power. The new “Lights out in 2009?” study warns that the United States “faces potentially crippling brownouts and blackouts,” beginning in 2009, especially in regions that experience prolonged hot spells during summer months, due to insufficient generating capacity.

A bank that wanted to install solar panels found it would cost $850,000 – but would cut only 12% off its electricity bill. That meant it would take 90 years to pay off panels would last only 30 years.

Climate change alarmists ignore inconvenient truths like these, and say Europe signed the Kyoto Protocol and agreed to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. They don’t even mention the troublesome realities of current European and global climate politics.

As of 2008, many EU countries’ actual emissions are well above their Kyoto targets. Italy ’s were 14% above, Portugal ’s 17%, Denmark ’s 19%, Austria ’s 30%, Spain ’s 37 percent. (By comparison, US emissions are some 23% above target levels we would have agreed to, had we signed Kyoto . But America ’s carbon dioxide emission growth rate has been just 0.2% per year since 2000, notes University of Colorado climatologist Richard Keen.)

Last year, the European Union solved its predicament by agreeing to slash emissions 20% by 2020. Now, because of the global financial crisis, many EU countries and industries want to back away from even that. Perhaps they will agree to 30% by 2030 – or perhaps 40 by 40.

In 2006, Chancellor Angela Merkel promised to eliminate coal and nuclear power in Germany . Today she wants to keep nuclear power, build new coal-fired plants, and shield chemical, steel, manufacturing, cement and auto industries, by reducing emission goals or providing free cap-and-trade permits.
Austria and Italy also want EU climate restrictions eased to help industries that are struggling with high energy prices, the economic crisis, and competition from less regulated overseas competitors that rely on coal for power generation and easily undercut European production costs.

Italian ministers have called the EU climate action plan “politically correct garbage” that “would kill any economic improvement” and “achieve very modest environmental benefits” – on the order of reducing projected global warming by 0.1 degrees or less. Prime Minister Berlusconi insists that any EU climate deal be revisited in late 2009, after its real economic and employment costs have been fully analyzed.

Poland and other former Eastern Bloc nations strongly oppose any EU climate change plan that doesn’t exempt them, because they depend on coal for up to 90% of their electricity and on Russia for up to 97% of their natural gas. They were held back for 50 years under Communist dictators – and now are loathe to have development restricted by dictates from Brussels .

Britain is likewise reexamining its commitments, because punitive climate taxes and energy prices have forced 5.5 million households to live in “fuel poverty” – and factories are saying they may have to close their doors and furlough workers all winter, because of high fuel prices.

In Australia , public opinion has shifted from 55% in favor of taking action on climate change in 2007, to 55% opposed to such action in 2008 – before the global financial meltdown. And a recent poll found that 78% of Canadian citizens feel they have been mislead about the costs and benefits of Kyoto , and want fair and objective information from the media and politicians.
Meanwhile, China and India are building new coal-fired power plants every month. They put reducing rampant poverty ahead of the speculative effects of future climate change – and say they will be better able to adapt to climate changes (natural or human) if they are rich and technologically advanced.

Impoverished African nations also want abundant, reliable, affordable energy, to ensure safe water, refrigeration and modern hospitals, and reduce lung and intestinal disease and death. But US and EU greens say they must be satisfied with pitiful amounts of intermittent energy from “sustainable” sources like wind and solar.

Al Gore prophesies ecological doom – but flies only private jets, owns a fancy houseboat, and uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans together use in a year. NASA climate scold James Hansen wants to silence any debate on global warming science and economics.

California gets much of its electricity from coal-fired power plants located 600 miles from Los Angeles – enabling it to claim it’s “a leader” in curbing carbon dioxide. It also gets substantial electricity from a nuclear power plant in Arizona , and most of its oil from Alaska .

Utah, on the other hand, generates most of its electricity from coal-fired plants within the state. That helps ensure more affordable electricity, enabling poor families to live better on lower incomes – and still have money left for rent, college, retirement, healthcare and charity.

Which policies are more responsible, humanitarian, ethical and sustainable? Which should we follow?

In the midst of all this debate, rancor, economic chaos and power plant construction, Senator Obama, House Democrats and others are nevertheless promoting new cap-and-trade legislation that could be even more damaging than Warner-Lieberman, which even sponsors admitted would have cost nearly $7 trillion. They oppose oil and gas drilling, and new coal, nuclear and hydroelectric plants.
Many want to “transform” our energy and economic system – from one that works to one based on heavily subsidized “renewable” technologies that aren’t ready for prime time, and likely won’t make a significant contribution for decades.

Morality, environmental justice and corporate social responsibility are too often defined by narrowly-focused environmental ideologies. They pit rich countries and eco-elites against poor families and nations that worry more about immediate life-or-death concerns than speculative human-caused climate chaos. They replace rough-and-tumble debate over science and economics with dogmatism and intimidation.
We need to protect our economies, jobs, poor families and planet. We need conservation and all forms of energy: whatever works best, at lowest cost, for particular cities, states, regions and nations.

We cannot afford policies that roll back economic and civil rights gains – or reflect the “leadership” of increasingly isolated environmental activists who insist that punitive climate policies must be adhered to, for tiny environmental gains, even in the midst of fiscal, employment and public health disasters.
___________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power ∙ Black death.




(I would like to once again thank Mr. Dreissen for allowing me to reproduce his work. RK)


_____________________________________

Mr President, DDT will end malaria

(As you can see, this was originally published in 2006 and permission was given to me by Mrs. Kobusingye to reprint it in my old blog. I believe it is worth reprinting. Ridiculous claims are constantly being made by the anti-pesticide crowd about DDT; I think we need to put a face on the need for DDT. Let us open our eyes to what people living in these countries are really suffering and recognize that this is what the anti-pesticide green crowd would promulgate in the whole world; dystopia. RK)

By Fiona Kobusingye

Thursday, 8th June, 2006

DEAR Mr. President, in recent days the business community has written to you and even taken out newspaper ads opposing your carefully considered decision to fight malaria using indoor residual spraying with DDT. We are deeply concerned that this could undo years of hard work, undermine new USAID policies and programs, and result in needless deaths.

These businesses are worried about threats to ban exports from Uganda if traces of DDT are found in food products or flowers. We believe these fears are misplaced. Exports to European and other countries are vital to the nation’s future as they bring jobs and revenue to Uganda. However, other considerations are equally important:

Nothing is more important than protecting our people’s lives and health against the impact of malaria is. By contrast, concerns about revenue losses are speculative. They assume the European threats will be carried out and fail to recognize that international support is growing for indoor spraying with DDT, while pressure is building against anyone who threatens actions against life-saving insecticides and anti-malaria programs.

• The stigma and loud condemnation will come not from using DDT but from failing to use it; from putting profits and baseless fears about insecticides like DDT ahead of human lives. The stigma will go to former colonialist powers that are now malaria-free (thanks to DDT and modern housing which only wealthy people can afford), and that now demand environmental purity from poor people who still suffer and die from malaria.

• Indoor residual spraying does not contaminate the environment with DDT. Small amounts are used, by trained specialists, under carefully controlled programs that also safeguard the supplies, transportation and use of the insecticide. Only the walls and eaves of houses are sprayed; the chemical is not sprayed outdoors, the way it was in Europe and the United States years ago. So the chance of any DDT getting onto crops or flowers is almost zero.

• Concerns about DDT being harmful to wildlife or people are also misplaced. Despite decades of studies, no one has ever shown that DDT causes cancer or anything worse than skin rashes on people. Most claims about harm to animals have also been disproven – even when large amounts of DDT were sprayed on trees and fields.

• Past aid agency efforts simply have not worked. Bed nets, education and other “approved” programs have done little to reduce malaria — which is why South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and now Uganda and Tanzania are turning to DDT and other insecticides, which do work.

• Contrary to what the business ads say, DDT does not attack malaria parasites; it attacks mosquitoes. The parasites do not build up resistance to DDT, though they have to chloroquine. And while mosquitoes can build up resistance to DDT’s killer properties, if the insecticide is overused (which would not be the case in IRS programs), they do not build resistance to DDT’s amazing repellent properties, which in effect put a long-lasting net over an entire house and all its occupants.

• Businesses would be much better off if their workers and the business executives’ own families were not at constant risk from malaria. By using DDT in conjunction with modern ACT drugs, we can eliminate malaria from most parts of our country and population. People could work, attend school, care for their families, have money to spend on things other than anti-malaria medicine, make our country prosperous, and address our energy, transportation and other health problems.

Mr. President, I myself have suffered many times from malaria, and now my internal system is totally out of balance. I lost my son, two sisters and three nephews to this vicious disease. In one year, 50 of the 500 orphan children who attended the school that my husband and I help sponsor died from malaria! There is probably not a single family in Uganda, or all of Sub-Saharan Africa, that has not lost loved ones to this disease.

Caring people have been working for years to change policies about the use of DDT. Finally, just a few months ago, USAID decided that the disease and death tolls were unconscionable and intolerable. USAID changed its policies. It is now supporting and paying for indoor spraying with DDT and other chemicals. Other agencies are also thinking seriously about supporting indoor spraying with DDT.

Mr. President, the business community fears losing export markets and money. But we must not lose sight of our single most important objective: protecting the health and lives of our precious, irreplaceable people. I therefore beg you, Mr. President, please ignore the newspaper ads. Listen to us, the people whose lives are in danger. Please don’t give us a death sentence. Give us life and good health.

Mr. President, my experience and suffering allowed me to testify in 2004 at a Martin Luther King Day conference in New York and present my statement to a US House of Representatives committee hearing. These actions, and the efforts of many others, have brought many allies to our side. President George Bush and USAID are supporting and paying for DDT. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and hundreds of clergy and doctors have signed a declaration supporting DDT to control malaria. They have been joined by renown international researchers, civil rights activists, NGO leaders and environmentalists, policy analysts and authors. Mr. President, if we join with them, we will become an unstoppable force.

Organisations that fund health and development programs will follow USAID’s wise example, including WHO, World Bank, UNICEF and European Union. Uganda will become like the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and China – all of which once had malaria but eradicated it using DDT.

Mr. President, I have suffered so much from malaria. Whenever I think about the possibility of a malaria-free Uganda, I am overjoyed by the vision that one day Ugandans could wake up to lives freed from constant fear of disease and death to lives where good health brings prosperity, when we no longer have to spend our hard-earned money on treating this disease and burying its victims. That will be a day when we can compete equally with farmers and businessmen from other nations and take our rightful places in a fair and just world.

With the help of your good government, we have registered as an NGO here locally called CORE Uganda Chapter. We believe that global racial equality is possible, that the same rights enjoyed in other parts of the world should be accessed freely by all, and that God has given our leaders the power and obligation to fulfil this for their people.

Mr. President, I am a woman with a big, but simple wish: That you will hear the voices of people who want to be safe in their homes from mosquitoes that would sentence them to death by malaria. That you will empower your supporters even more strongly, and unite all Ugandans to fight our common enemies – the mosquitoes and the malaria they carry. And that we will all join in using sound science, good health practices and the great power of God to bring a new future to Uganda.

Thank you for considering our views, hearing our pleas and doing so much for all the people of Uganda. For God and my country!

The writer is the Regional Coordinator, Great Lakes, and Chairman of CORE Uganda


_____________________________________

Heterodoxy Is Not For The Faint of Heart

By Rich Kozlovich

It was reported on February 4th that Bill Gates released mosquitoes in the conference room of a “well heeled crowd” of attendees at a technical conference in Calfiornia; proclaiming that “Malaria is spread by mosquitoes; I brought some. Here, I’ll let them roam around – there is no reason only poor people should be infected.’

Needless to say the crowd wasn’t happy, even after he assured them that these mosquitoes weren’t carrying malaria parasites, but I thought the whole irony of this stunt was rich in symbolism. The “rich” and I include everyone living in the first world, including you and me because we benefit from the realities of first world economics generally don’t worry about mosquito borne diseases because we can afford to spray for them and we do. First it was DDT, and now we have a host of products that are used (none of which the greenies support by the way, so whether it is DDT or anything else it just doesn’t matter to these misanthropes). Yet so many in the first world stand against the use of products, including DDT, that will save millions of lives. However, what if it was different?

Secondly we have expensive medications. David Gardner makes this point, “Although pills exist that can help prevent malaria, there is currently no vaccine. Preventative medication is used mainly by travelers and is not available to the vast majority of people living in the Third World.” Although he goes on to note that, “Resistance to antibiotics by the malaria parasite is also becoming a problem, with some preventative medications no longer effective in certain parts of the world.” However, what if it was different?

So why did Bill Gates “perform” this stunt. To advertise the disaster that malaria is to the rest of the world…to shock the “rich” out of their sense of complacency and help them to understand what it is like when it really is different and it is very different in the third world.

Gates quit Microsoft to work on his charitable programs. One of them is malaria, and he wanted to “hammer home the importance of malaria prevention.” He and his wife donated almost 170 million dollars last year to a program that is working to develop a vaccine for this nightmare disease.

In Africa there isn’t a family that hasn’t suffered from the tragedy of malaria and its overall effects; death, retardation, reoccurring afflictions, not to mention the economic impact of having so many sick people in a society all the time. No society can overcome poverty when so much money is devoted to caring for the sick. No economy can overcome poverty when so many are unable to work. No economy can overcome poverty when so many healthy people have to devote so much time to care for their loved ones. No economy can overcome poverty when the healthy will themselves be struck down by this disease and they all know it is just a matter of time before it is their turn. According to Gardner, “Up to 2.7 million people a year still die of malaria each year, 75 per cent of them African children”.

Gates has been criticized for not recognizing that DDT is still the number one product in malaria prevention, however I am not going to beat on him over this. He at least recognizes that the problem exists and how severe it is. He at least is putting his money where his mouth is. He at least is advertising how serious a problem this is and I have tremendous respect for him over this. Still…this is a case of not seeing the whole problem. Malaria isn’t the only disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Let’s review! I have logged onto two web sites; one from the CDC and one from the state of Minnesota. Why Minnesota? Because it is so far north…it isn’t a subtropical or tropical area. Let us review Minnesota's problems first.

West Nile Virus (WNV)
West Nile virus is a disease transmitted to people, horses, and birds. It is the most commonly reported mosquito-transmitted disease in Minnesota. Most people infected with West Nile virus show no symptoms or flu-like symptoms, but some (primarily elderly) have more severe illness.

LaCrosse Encephalitis (LAC)
LaCrosse encephalitis, which is transmitted by the Tree Hole mosquito, is responsible for 3 to 13 cases of severe illness (primarily in children) each year in Minnesota.

Western Equine Encephalitis (WEE)
During 1941, there was a large regional outbreak of Western equine encephalitis. There may have been as many as 791 cases in Minnesota that year with 90 deaths. In more recent years, Minnesota has had infrequent and smaller outbreaks of WEE (15 human cases in 1975, single cases in 1983 and 1999).

Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) Eastern equine encephalitis is a rare illness in humans, and only a few cases are reported in the United States each year. EEE is quite severe and typically fatal among infected horses.

St. Louis Encephalitis (SLE)
CDC; Cases of St. Louis encephalitis are usually the result of unpredictable and intermittent localized epidemics. Attention: Non-MDH link

Along with those listed above the CDC listed a few more.

Arboviral Encephalitides
Causes aseptic meningitis or encephalitis. Many cases have only fever with headache, but can progress to focal paralysis, intractable seizures, coma and death. Varies with occurrence and intensity of epidemic transmission; usually 150-3,000 cases/year.

Japanese encephalitis
Mild infections occur without apparent symptoms other than fever with headache. More severe infection is marked by quick onset, headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, occasional convulsions (especially in infants) and spastic (but rarely flaccid) paralysis.

Dengue Fever
Also known a break bone fever because of the pain the symptoms of dengue include, fever, severe headache, pain behind the eye , joint and muscle pain, rash. Usually dengue fever causes a mild illness, but it can be severe and even cause dengue hemorrhagic (bleeding) fever (DHF), which can be fatal if not treated. People who have had dengue fever before are more at risk of getting DHF.

No vaccine is available to prevent dengue, and there is no specific medicine to cure dengue. Those who become ill with dengue fever can be given medicine to reduce fever, such as acetaminophen, and may need oral rehydration or intravenous fluids and, in severe cases, treatment to support their blood pressure.

Rift Valley Fever
RVF virus can cause several different disease syndromes. People with RVF typically have either no symptoms or a mild illness associated with fever and liver abnormalities. However, in some patients the illness can progress to hemorrhagic fever (which can lead to shock or hemorrhage), encephalitis (inflammation of the brain, which can lead to headaches, coma, or seizures), or ocular disease (diseases affecting the eye). Patients who become ill usually experience fever, generalized weakness, back pain, dizziness, and extreme weight loss at the onset of the illness. Typically, patients recover within two days to one week after onset of illness. The most common complication associated with RVF is inflammation of the retina (a structure connecting the nerves of the eye to the brain). As a result, approximately 1% - 10% of affected patients may have some permanent vision loss. Approximately 1% of humans that become infected with RVF die of the disease. Case-fatality proportions are significantly higher for infected animals. The most severe impact is observed in pregnant livestock infected with RVF, which results in abortion of virtually 100% of fetuses.

It is easy to see that the picture is much larger than malaria. The best prevention against malaria and all the other afflictions that mosquitoes can transmit is to avoid getting bitten by a mosquito. Although that isn’t entirely possible, it can be seriously reduced by the appropriate application of pesticides. Pesticides that work and are affordable in the third world! I applaud Bill Gates: I just hope that he can begin to really see the whole picture and begin to realize that those who oppose pesticides can never be appeased because they are irrational and misanthropic.

The Boyd Principle states that at some point in our lives we come to a fork in the road and must make a decision. If you take one path you will be popular and you will be rewarded. If you take the other path you will be criticized, ridiculed and scorned. However, you won’t have to turn your back on your friends or your principles. If you are more concerned with accomplishing that which is right and best the satisfaction for having stood against the conventional wisdom on right principles will be your reward, and you may actually accomplish something worthwhile.

Legacy for our Children

by James Marusek

(I would like to thank Mr. James Marusek for sending this to me and allowing me to publish it. Jim is retired from the U.S. Department of the Navy, a Nuclear Physicist & Engineer. He is also the publisher of a fascinating web site that is really worth exploring, IMPACT. You may wish to read the articles in the following link The Legacy of the Environmental Movement, which you will find to be extremely well done. RK)

There is a lot of talk these days about the legacy we will leave our children and our grandchildren. When I stare into the immediate future, I see a frightening legacy caked in darkness and famine. Instead of intelligently preparing, we find ourselves whittling away this precious time chasing fraudulent theories. We have a decade to prepare, but have a misguided sense of direction and urgency.

Climate change is primarily driven by nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his father and all those that came before us. Because of science, not junk science, we have slowly uncovered some of the fundamental mysteries of nature. Our Milky Way galaxy is awash with cosmic rays. These are high speed charged particles that originate from exploding stars. Because they are charged, their travel is strongly influenced by magnetic fields. Our sun produces a magnetic field that extends to the edges of our solar system. This field deflects many of the cosmic rays away from Earth. But when the sun goes quiet (minimal sunspots), this field collapses inward allowing cosmic rays to penetrate deeper into our solar system. As a result, far greater numbers collide with Earth and penetrate down into the lower atmosphere where they ionize small particles of moisture (humidity) forming them into water droplets that become clouds. Low level clouds reflect sunlight back into space. An increase in Earth's cloud cover produce a global drop in temperature. These periods of quiet sun are referred to as a Grand Minima. The Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) and the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830) are examples.

During a Grand Minima the Earth begins to slowly cool. The start of the planting season is delayed and in the fall early frost limits the harvest. Earth’s abundant bounty is put on hold and starvation takes its ghastly grip. Historian, John D. Post, referred to the last Grand Minima, the Dalton Minimum, as the “last great subsistence crisis in the Western world”. With the cold came massive crop failures, food riots, famine and disease.

Several scientists including David Hathaway (NASA), William Livingston & Matthew Penn (National Solar Observatory), and Khabibullo Abdusamatov (Russian Academy of Science) have forecasted that the sun may enter a Grand Minima a decade from now in Solar Cycle 25. A few scientists including David C. Archibald (Australia) and M. A. Clilverd (Britain) have warned this might even begin in Solar Cycle 24. We are at the transition into Solar Cycle 24 and this cycle has already shown itself to be unusually quiet. The number of spotless days (days without sunspots) during this solar minimum appears to be tracking 3 times the typical number observed during the last century (Solar Cycles 16-23).

There are some in the U.S. that urge us to follow Europe’s lead. On January 13, 2009, the European Parliament adopted a regulation dramatically restricting the number of pesticides allowed. This move is based on the precautionary principle and on junk science. According to Dr. Colin Ruscoe, chairman of the British Crop Production Council, "If farmers are forced to stop using certain products, crop yields would halve. There would be such huge losses in the yields of potatoes, carrots, peas and parsnips that it would become uneconomical to farm them." Is this the kind of lead we should be following? Europe is also leading in another area - in its opposition to genetically modified (GM) crops. In Europe, environmentalist have driven fear into the hearts of their citizens by labeling GM food as “Frankenfood”. In our country, we have been using GM crops for almost two decades without any ill effects. GM crops hold the promise of helping us survive the next Grand Minima by offering crops that can grow under extreme weather conditions. North American is currently a leader in this technology. Should we follow Europe’s lead and ban GM crops? And in ten years from now when the next solar cycle begins, if the sun goes quiet, who will comfort the starving children who cry out in the middle of the night for a small piece of bread? These will be our children. So what legacy will we leave behind?


_____________________________________

Some Resemblance to Reality

by Rich Kozlovich
Science fiction writers are an interesting lot. They do seem to have an innate ability to see farther into the future than most. They can take seemingly innocuous trends and extend the potential effects of these trends beyond the horizon. Forty some years ago I read a science fiction short story that dealt with the concept of risk mitigation.

As the story went, there was some scientist on another planet who created robots whose sole purpose was to keep people safe. Although this scientist's motives were of the highest order, his creation got away from him. Naturally, these robots had difficulty determining what exactly "safe" meant, and interpreted their programming far beyond anything he had intended or wanted. They extended risk mitigation to a computers logical extreme and stifled all activity.

They increased in number and eventually discovered the Earth. They started out quietly by creating an automobile that was called (if I remember this correctly) the Everlasting Car. Safe, efficient, cost effective wouldn’t rust (that was a big deal in the 50’s and 60’s), and they were, most importantly, very inexpensive. Soon they put all other car companies out of business. This gave them enormous capital and credibility and they soon took over more and more of mankind’s responsibilities.

There was to be no war, no dangerous jobs and no risk to mankind of any kind. Naturally everyone thought this was a great idea. Everyone was to be safe! Except that the robots would be the ones to determine what constituted "safe". Since these were robots with computer brains, “safe” became extreme, and now this “great idea” wasn’t so great anymore….but it was too late. They now controlled every aspect of human life.

The state of New York has banned total release aerosol cans because some idiots blew up their houses with them. I am sorry that people do stupid things….it is unfortunately part of what it means to be human. It is unfortunate that homes have been destroyed and extremely unfortunate when someone is hurt. I have to ask though; over the whole of this country; in how many houses has this happened over the last 60 years? I would bet that the number is remarkably low compared to the number of aerosol cans sold.

Although I have used them I've never been a big fan of total release aerosols, but when these products are removed from the market, “for our own good”, are we not now depriving responsible people of the ability to control pests in their homes. Are they all that effective? I don’t think so, but they do have their place and people should have the choice and option to use them or not as they please.

Risks are definable and there are charts that list risks. Approximately fifty thousand people are killed on the nation’s highways every year. Between ten and fifteen thousand children are hurt by lawn mowers each and every year. Each and every year approximately three million adolescents will contract a sexually transmitted disease and thousands drown every year. These are very high on the risk charts and yet we find it necessary to ban total release aerosol cans.

Our view of risk has been molded by misinformation through a corrupt media. We worry unendingly about theoretical risks regarding genetically modified foods, food additives, hormones in milk, electromagnetic radiation, fluoride and chlorine in our water and most importantly, pesticide residues on our fruits and vegetables. These have been shown to be extremely low on the risk charts.

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. In reality we live longer, healthier and more satisfied fulfilling lives than ever in human history. In 1945 the world’s population amounted to two billion people, and it took thousands of years to attain that number. During the time when modern chemistry came into its own, mankind’s numbers grew at an unprecedented rate, with people living longer to boot. The greenies constantly spew out all forms of claptrap about how dangerous chemicals and modern living are; and yet if all that they claim was true; do we really believe that we would have increased the world’s population to over six billion in less than 75 years?

Make no mistake about this. The patterns of history will repeat over and over again. Starting with the Progressive movement of Teddy Roosevelt, which laid the ground work for Woodrow Wilson's (whom historians call the first Fascist president)massive government programs, which was the basis for FDR’s New Deal (same people and programs as Wilson’s with different names), to Nixon’s massive regulatory factories at EPA, OSHA, and the Wildlife Service enforcing the Endangered Species Act, we see that very same extreme computer like mentality. We know best! Only we can protect you from yourself! Perhaps they really are from another planet.

We need to stop emoting and start thinking. That starts by reading something besides the lava flow of misinformation put out by the EPA and the green movement. I would like to recommend the book "Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals", by the American Council on Science and Health.


_____________________________________

"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."

By Rich Kozlovich
We are an industry that is beset with an overwhelming need for regulations. How did all of this come about? It is bad enough when government bureaucrats make all sorts of demands, but now we are hiring our own bureaucrats to create regulations that will eventually be more egregious than the governments. Recently I commented on Frank Andorka’s blog “One More Thing”, (which I have added to my blog role) regarding these organizations that are setting up standards for companies to become “green” certified. I would like to share those comments with some additions.

We need to go back to 1933. “In May and June of 1933 the Congress and Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the National Recovery Administration as a key measure in a program of national recovery from the depression. NRA demanded that business, though its trade associations, establish codes of fair trade practices which had provisions for minimum wages, determine the number of hours per week an employee could work, insure fair prices for and industry and prevent “unfair” competition within an industry.” (It might be noted that economists now believe that this, along with other such programs extended and worsened the Great Depression)

“The belief was that if an industry couldn’t produce a code acceptable to the NRA administrators that they would impose one of their own.” SCOTUS found this to be unconstitutional two years later. However, the “Trade Associations Industry” as we know it today was created.

“Some believe that the short-lived NRA proved to be a blessing for the pest control industry, because it fostered a national organization which led a mixed assortment of rat catchers and exterminators from novitiate to professional status in a relative short span of years.” This was true, but all of our trade associations (not just pest control) are designed to be handmaidens of government compromise and a easy and efficient way for those with agendas to implement regulations that could never have passed muster if they had been submitted to a vote.

“The Federal Register, which lists all new regulations, reached an all-time high of 78,090 in 2007, up from 64,438 in 2001.” I have some questions.

• Does anyone really believe that government regulators believe there are too many regulations?
• Does anyone believe that no more will be passed?
• Does anyone believe that some should be eliminated?
• Why then do we need to impose our own regulations on ourselves?
• Would someone tell me what regulations are not already covered under Common Law?
• If they are already covered under Common Law, why then is it necessary to have so many?
• Why do they keep increasing?

Those 78,090 pages only cover federal regulations. That doesn’t even begin to cover local and state regulations. The last figure that I read was about 10 years ago which stated that all of these regulations cost each family in America between 10and 15 thousand dollars a year. Do we really believe that cost is worth it?

Let us not lose sight of reality….regulations are a way around Constitutional protections for those with an agenda. The Fourth Amendment says that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Fifth Amendment says among other things that, “No person…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Yet we are forced to allow regulators to enter our businesses and search through the building (inspect) and go through our records (inspect) to see if we have committed some technical violation. Can anyone explain to me how calling a “search” an “inspection” changes the Constitutional standard? No policeman or investigator in the country can do that without a warrant.

To be Green is to be irrational and misanthropic! This leads me to ask some questions.

Question - Why do we keep failing to realize that there is no way to appease the greenies?
Answer –It is either a matter of complacency, or because of incredible short sightedness and we keep thinking that we can benefit from this stuff.
Question - Why do we want to be green?
Answer – It isn’t just because we have been misled, which we have; it’s because if feels good! We get to go along to get along. We get to be lauded and praised for being on a higher moral plane than our peers.
Question – Is it a failure of information?
Answer - Not for those who have been reading more than just the newspaper. The amount of information on any given subject today is almost staggering. There is no excuse for not knowing all sides of a subject. Everything we are told, everything we see on the news, everything we read in the newspaper or on the internet should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality.
Question - Is it a failure of intelligence?
Answer – Yes and no. Some just can’t grasp what is really happening. Others refuse to grasp what is happening. Those who do grasp the entirety of it all are either appeasers or adversaries.
Question - Is it a failure of courage?
Answer - _____________________________Fill in the blank.

Setting up outside non-governmental organizations who will sit back and determine whether we meet some sort of arbitrary standard for “green” (or anything else for that matter) is an invitation for more and more intrusive behavior and demands to jump through unnecessary hoops to appease these private “for hire” bureaucrats. Eventually each will, in order to appease the greenies, compete to see who can be the most oppressive in their demands. Once certified, you will have to keep making changes to maintain that certification. That is what regulators do. Whether they work for the government or they are “regulations for hire” regulators. They create regulations…because if they don’t….they aren’t necessary and they would have to go out and get a real job.

This is a Paraphrased quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero (who didn't really say this by the way) (106-43 BC):

 “An industry can survive those who are foolish and careless. It can survive the overly ambitious, but it cannot survive those who attack an industry and what it stands for from within. The activists are more to be desired because they present themselves as the enemy at the gate. Although they may use deceit and cunning they are known because they carry their banner openly. 

No matter how formidable they may be they cannot be as serious a threat as those who wear the garments, speak the language and share the customs of those within an organization while secretly working that which is harmful. They rot the heart of an industry, undermine the pillars of support and infect the industry with their treason to the point that those who see clearly and understand what is really going on are left standing alone. 

That industry will no longer be able to resist those who would destroy it. Can any crime be feared more?”

When we adopt these programs, whether it is through a private “non-profit” group or through some government agency, or through our trade associations we are just like the Trojans dragging the horse into their city. We become enablers to those who would destroy us.



______________________________________

In Defense of Science -

(I would like to thank Mr. Roy Tucker for his permission to publish his commentns. Mr Tucker was a member of the Memphis Astronomical Society, received a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Memphis State University (now The University of Memphis). He received his Master's degree in Scientific Instrumentation from The University of California, Santa Barbara and a was graduate student for three years in Planetary Sciences at The University of Arizona. RK)

by Roy Tucker

It has been my experience that serious discussions should be preceded by definitions of important words that will be used in those discussions so that all of the participants will be using those words with a common understanding of their meanings. I have found that many disagreements have originated from people using the same words but with differentunderstandings of their meaning.
Science

Definition from the Random House College Dictionary - "Systematic knowledge of the physical or material world". This word is derived from the Latin, "scio scire scivi or scii scitum, to know, understand" (Cassell's Latin Dictionary). The most successful acquisition of this knowledge has been through the application of the Scientific Method. Generally, this method consists of the following steps:

(1) Observation of a natural phenomenon.
(2) Clear statement of a hypothesis that may perhaps explain that
phenomenon.
(3) Development of a test to disprove or falsify predictions based upon that
hypothesis.
(4) If the hypothesis is disproven, go back to step one or two. If repeated
efforts to disprove a hypothesis fail, then it may possibly be correct.

A hypothesis that stubbornly refuses to be disproven may even be dignified by calling it a "theory". To assert that anything is a "fact" or "proven" is very risky. Consider the example of Newton's "Laws of Motion". Repeated experiment and successful use of these "laws" in mechanics and the description of the motion of celestial bodies gave physicists, engineers, and artillerymen great confidence that the velocity of a body was a simple function of the force applied to it and the duration of that force. Newton's laws became accepted as a proven fact. That is, until Einstein began to ponder what happens as the body's velocity began to approach the speed of light. According to his 'hypothesis', it is the momentum of an object that increases as long as a force is applied to it. Newton's Laws are but the low-speed approximations of Einstein's relativistic expressions. Is Einstein's Theory of Relativity a fact? Is it proven? Not if some experiment in the future falsifies it and leads to an even better understanding of how the universe works.

My education has been in science and engineering. I have a great reverence for the Scientific Method because I know the history of how humanity has laboriously, painfully gained the body of knowledge upon which our civilization is founded. The Scientific Method has been our most powerful tool in learning how the universe works. There is one very important thing required of those who would seek knowledge by means of the Scientific Method and that is honesty. If one cannot report the results of observation accurately, how can ignorance be dispelled? How can a hypothesis be falsified?

Climate science has become politicized. People who profess to be practitioners of science are using the authority of their offices to assert that "the debate is over" and "the science is settled" when it never is in the proper conduct of Science. People who claim to be educators of the public dismiss inconvenient facts and propagandize in support of the "politically correct" dogma.

In the January 16th CCNet, Dr. David Appell, who describes himself as a "science writer", suggested that readers of CCNet might find his article, "Climate change: The last, final problem", of interest. Indeed I did. I consider it an excellent example of the environmentalist propaganda pervading the media these days that seeks to persuade scientifically unsophisticated readers that anthropogenic global warming is absolutely a fact and we must all sacrifice our hopes and dreams to "save the planet" from a hellish future. It was quite a remarkable screed, a recounting of all of humanity's alleged environmental sins, totally devoid of any real discussion of scientific issues or comparison of competing explanations of climate variability. This is a continuing pattern since Dr. Appell has also written in defense of the thoroughly discredited Michael Mann "Hockey Stick" temperature curve and has claimed that the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age were localized events.

Let us compare two of the current competing explanations of climate variability: Anthropogenic Global Warming as the result of human combustion of fossil fuels and the Svensmark hypothesis that suggests solar activity and the galactic cosmic ray environment modulates cloud formation in the lower atmosphere and therefore the earth's albedo. "In astronomy albedo is the ratio of the light reflected by a planet or satellite to that received by it. Editor"


In its early documents, the IPCC asserted that solar activity is of no significance in determining earth's climate and has concentrated on claiming that increasing levels of CO2 raise the temperature of the earth by reducing the radiation of thermal infrared energy. Computer models have been concocted that supposedly support this hypothesis. These computer models are tremendously simplistic compared to the complexity of the actual climate system of the earth. They do not reproduce some of the very robust oscillatory variations of the earth's climate such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or the El Nino - Southern Oscillation. If they are run backwards, they fail to accurately reproduce past climate states. They predict a warming of the equatorial mid-troposphere but such warming is not seen. Those who argue in favor of the AGW hypothesis use the output of these models as if it was real data and ignore the actual measurements from satellite microwave radiometers which show no warming at all in spite of the increasing abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Svensmark's hypothesis

says that as solar activity declines the interplanetary magnetic field weakens and galactic cosmic rays penetrate more deeply into the inner solar system and eventually into the lower atmosphere of earth where they produce cloud-seeding ions. These ions promote a greater abundance of clouds, raising the earth's reflectivity and reducing the warming of the surface of the earth by sunlight. Solar activity has been falling in recent years. Today, the 19th of January, a small sunspot was seen near the sun's equator, an indication that it may be a remnant of the old Cycle 23. If so, then Cycle 23 is 19 years old. Long cycles precede weak cycles, suggesting continued low solar activity. The interplanetary magnetic Ap index is the lowest that it has been in many years and the neutron count from cosmic rays has increased as expected. The earth's temperature has been either steady or declining for the past eight years. Based upon the data, there is more falsification of the AGW hypothesis than of the Svensmark solar activity hypothesis.

Dr. Appell, the above is an example of real "science writing". I have presented an explanation of the Scientific Method and I have presented information about two conflicting hypotheses in an effort to educate the readers so that they may make better decisions. Any presentation of "Gloom-and-Doom" has been with regard to the politicization of Science and is indisputably a valid concern. I encourage you to return to the practice of science writing instead of environmental propagandizing. You would better serve your readers.

The Coming Green Tsunami

by Nancy Videdo

As a record breaking cold front envelops the United States, another front is picking up steam in Washington D.C. The 'global warming' front.

Despite the record-breaking extreme cold that is freezing the Midwest and dropping temperatures close to 50 below in spots, the incoming Obama administration continues to appoint, enlist and enable global warming warriors in the highest echelons of government.

In opening remarks at her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State on Tuesday, Hillary promised that she would shape foreign policy that would fight climate change. “At the extreme it threatens our very existence. But well before that point, it could well incite new wars of an old kind over basic resources – like food, water and arable land.”

Like her long time colleague Rahm Emanuel, Hillary knows how to make the most of a crisis, either real or manufactured. With her old slogan 'for the children' worn from overuse, Hillary has jumped aboard the global warming bandwagon, astutely recognizing that labeling an issue or policy 'green' will virtually ensure speedy passage and unlimited funding.

Ditto for the nominations of Lisa Jackson to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Nancy Sutley to be chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality. Jackson tells the committee that cutting emissions of toxic chemicals and pollution that contribute to global warming will be among the new administration's top environmental goals.

Steven Chu, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be U.S. energy secretary, said Tuesday that he will tackle the threat of global warming by seeking a cap-and-trade system to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which would require power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to buy and sell pollution permits to spew global warming emissions. Translation: redistribution of wealth from wealthy countries to poor countries.

Even GOP Governors have signed on to the green agenda, urging their congressional colleagues to start the new Congress with unprecedented dedication to addressing global warming.

The green tsunami is about to sweep America. The chairman of a key committee promises to move “quickly and decisively” to push legislation curbing greenhouse gases with a goal of passing climate legislation out of his committee before Memorial Day.”

Bureaucrats at the EPA are chomping at the bit, eagerly paving the way for more regulation over ever increasing segments of the economy by seeking to have water vapor classified as a pollutant. This would result in government control over such common activities as watering the lawn, or using a hot tub or swimming pool. Even breathing.

Imagine, the government could soon regulate any conceivable activity under the rubric of either harming the environment or endangering national security.

Taking a cue from the Feds, cities across the nation are eagerly anticipating the imminent green tsunami, with Madison, Wisconsin leading the pack. Currently under consideration in Madison, are new zoning regulations – needed to fight climate change, doncha know.

These onerous new restrictions include limiting waterfront development in the name of water sustainability, limiting fast food restaurants in the name of public health and limiting private parking option, in favor of public transportation. Virtually anything may now be 'eliminated' under the heading of saving the earth. And the public is buying it.

If news doesn't fit the new green template, its simply not reported by the American media. Like the news that a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science suggests that the earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age.

Or the Belfast Environmental Minister, who recently stated flatly that "Spending billions on trying to reduce carbon emissions is one giant con that is depriving third world countries of vital funds to tackle famine, HIV and other diseases"

Or President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, the European Union's new figurehead, who believes that climate change is a dangerous myth and has compared the EU to a Communist state. Just so.

Also swept under the rug is the credible and serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore.

Three years ago, it was estimated that, if passed, the Kyoto Treaty would cost every American app $7,500.00, one of the reasons it wasn't even considered by the Senate. The present day costs involved to fight this imaginary foe are quadrupling as we speak. What do we get for this money? We'll never know, as the results and/or outcomes are impossible to calculate. Can you spell unaccountable?

The subject of global warming is a complicated one, with valid arguments on both sides. It should be cause for alarm, however, that the government, the media, academia and world elites are all speaking in one voice, with no dissenting viewpoints allowed.

Another cause for alarm is the fact that all the proposed solutions to this faux crisis just happen to coincide with every issue dear to liberals: i.e.: more government, more regulation, wealth distribution, population control, and global governance.

The 'global warming crisis', as it is being used today, is the perfect vehicle to impose Soro's goal of a one world government. Virtually any liberal policy may now be enacted, in the name of Mother Earth. And unless someone starts fighting back, America may very well end up as green toast.

Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for RightBias.com

She lives in South Carolina

Article may be reprinted, with above attribution