Organic Foods Have Downsides? Who'Da Thunk It?

Life is a balance between all the choices we have presented before us and all the decisions we make. Yin and Yang, karma, The Secret, et cetera, all speak to this idea that everything has an effect (and affect?) on something. I have written before about our hubris in toying with nature, and our old friend The Law of Unintended Consequences.

Here's an interesting look at the research from some sources (and I am sure that there are others with different results) from a writer at the UK Telegraph, or, more appropriately, a professor that has been known to write about how the environmental/climate movement doesn't pay attention to the above-mentioned Law. I say that to be sure that you read this with a critical eye, knowing that I feel the same way he does and could be experiencing some Confirmation Bias (as I admittedly do, do you?).

Norman Borlaug, who got the Nobel Prize for starting the Green Revolution, liked to point out that organic farming on a global scale would leave billions without food. “I don’t see two billion volunteers to disappear,” he said.

Exactly. That's just one zinger, read the article to see the research about how organic fails at feeding large numbers. Here's an interview with this guy, Bjorn Lomborg, called The Reasonable Environmentalist, which I love, as that's exactly how I've described myself (conserve! reduce, reuse, recycle!), indeed, I try to be reasonable above all else.

His recent column, Trump’s climate plan might not be so bad after all, lays it out. The pledges agreed to in the Paris treaty would cost $1 to $2 trillion a year by 2030 to implement, with virtually no impact: At most it would reduce global temperature by a fraction of degree by the end of the century.

He says money would be better spent developing breakthrough technology that would truly be transformational to our economy (not solar and wind, which are piddling) and funding efforts to combat malnutrition and provide safe drinking water in the developing world.

The upshot is, if you truly care about two billion people living in dire poverty, the Paris treaty is the wrong way to help them.

THIS!!!! I once had an article from the "founder of Greenpeace now a skeptic" that had a great chart about the costs/benefits of spending allllll that cash on AGW versus not that came to the same conclusion, a reduction of a fraction of a degree. I can't find it!!!!

Oh, here's another article of his about the fact that there are good things about a warming world that don't get discussed because of HOW DARE YOU. I have said this as well, that fewer people will die because cold kills more people than heat....

Don't be led around by your nose, think, doubt, and verify from scientific sources not PuffHo, or WinfoArs and their ilk.

Happy Belated Earth Day, George Carlin Style.

I can't believe how many things he says here that I say as well. Maybe I've seen this before and forgot?

Hubris, As I Have Often Said.

"Your time on earth is barely the size of a head of a pin, if that big. In 10,000 years or a billion years of the existence of the earth, what is the normal temperature? What kind of vanity does it take to think that the state of perfection, the state of perfection and normalcy happens to be when you're alive."  -Rush

How many times have I said as much?

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here is a page of mine with a bunch of "here" links in it already....

Oh, and the data we use is Unreliable, anyway.

Unreliable

Not me!

The US temperature data. Thanks to Joe Bastardi's twitter stream for this one, and feel free to go to his site for all kids of weather data.

From the report:

"During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found.

We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.

In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source.

In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.

It gets worse. We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend. We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher.

The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable."

So, The Science Is Settled....

I love when we discover stuff. Really! I love science. We are such curious beings, yet, we fall into the trap of complacency so easily, don't we? One of the many conundrums of humanity.

Here is a Yahoo! story about a bunch of previously undocumented species (they call them "new") that reminds me of my favorite word when I read stories about how much we pretend to know: hubris.


"More than 1,700 new species have been described by science in the Greater Mekong since 1997. In 2011, 82 plants, 13 fish, 21 reptiles, five amphibians and five mammals were discovered."

We just don't know what we think we know, you know?

What? No Warming? For How Long?

Glad somebody is willing to report this kind of stuff:


The opening:

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.


Here's the conclusion, read the middle for yourself at the link!

Why all this matters should be obvious. Every quarter, statistics on the economy’s output and models of future performance have a huge impact on our lives. They trigger a range of policy responses from the Bank of England and the Treasury, and myriad decisions by private businesses.
Yet it has steadily become apparent since the 2008 crash that both the statistics and the modelling are extremely unreliable. To plan the future around them makes about as much sense as choosing a wedding date three months’ hence on the basis of a long-term weather forecast.

Few people would be so foolish. But decisions of far deeper and more costly significance than those derived from output figures have been and are still being made on the basis of climate predictions, not of the next three months but of the coming century – and this despite the fact that Phil Jones and his colleagues now admit they do not understand the role of ‘natural variability’.

The most depressing feature of this debate is that anyone who questions the alarmist, doomsday scenario will automatically be labelled a climate change ‘denier’, and accused of jeopardising the future of humanity.

So let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed – a conclusion with enormous policy implications.

Wait, the Earth Regulates its Temperature?

"For humans to presume that they are more than a gnat on an elephant’s rump in terms of impact on climate change is vain and delusive."    Or, as I like to say, Hubris.

 

Greenland Was Called That For a Reason

Okay, folks, here's one from Yahoo (new link, old one expired) today, and as noted in the comments, it's an old story, and the writer desperately tries to come to a conclusion that isn't supported by the story, which is funny to me.

"Scientists fear that the 21st century warming is caused by climate change, stoked by a build-up of greenhouse gases from human activities. An acceleration of warming could cause a meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, raising world sea levels."

Dunce. After recounting all the changes to the climate of Greenland (and therefore the planet) over the centuries, to add that sentence is, well, stupid.

Climate Changes. It's What It Does, All On Its Own, Folks.

hat tip goes to Reboot Congress for the twitter link to this fantastic article about how Climates change, all the time, and we know it.

How 'bout some science?


"For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century."

To which I say "blam!"

I've written about this in layman's terms here, here, here, and here, here, here, here, and I'll stop here. Let's just say I have a thing against junk climate change science, ok?

Climate gate continued

Sorry to just post someone else's stuff (one Adam Collyer) but this is too good:

The Chairman of the independent review into the science published by East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit has been appointed.

He is Lord Oxburgh.

Lord Oxburgh is President of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, and Chairman of Falck Renewables, a wind energy company.

No conflict of interest there then.

If that’s what East Anglia University think is meant by an “independent review”, then it really sheds some light on why their Climate Reasearch Unit is now discredited.

Do they think we’re stupid?

Yes, yes, they do