Friday, November 05, 2004

A TRICKY ONE FOR THE GREENIES

They're sure to hate Coke but they hate insecticides too. So which to choose?

"Indian farmers are reportedly spraying their cotton and chilli fields with Coca-Cola to protect them from pests.They say it's much cheaper than chemical pesticides and just as effective at controlling bugs, reports the Guardian. Hundreds of farmers are reported to have switched to cola in Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh states. Gotu Laxmaiah, a farmer from Ramakrishnapuram, said he was delighted after spraying cola on his cotton crops."I observed that the pests began to die after the soft drink was sprayed on my cotton," he told the Deccan Herald newspaper."






FRED SINGER PUNCTURES ANOTHER HOT AIR BALLOON

The perennial Bush-bashing target has been the climate issue - with the enthusiastic participation of UK chief science adviser Sir David King ("Global Warming is a greater threat than terrorism"). Now the New York Times has arranged to interview a notorious global warmer, Dr James E. Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan. He criticizes White House climate policy, claiming the "Bush administration has ignored growing evidence that sea levels could rise significantly unless prompt action is taken."

He apparently bases this assertion on his own publication [Proc Nat'l Acad Sci 2004] that to preserve global coastlines, global warming must not exceed one degree celsius. As sole support for this unusual claim, he cites there his recent article in the popular Scientific American vol 290, pp 68-77, 2004. But all evidence shows sea levels rising steadily - by about 400 feet in the past 18,000 years, since the peak of the most recent ice age. Significantly, the measured rate of rise did not accelerate during the substantial warming of the early 20th century.

In addition, as is well known, prompt policy action (by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases in accord with the Kyoto Protocol) would lower the calculated temperature rise for 2050 by at most a tiny one-twentieth of a degree C - too small to even measure.

Further, Bush did not "withdraw" from Kyoto - as his critics claim. While he has not submitted Kyoto for ratification, neither did Clinton - probably because the US Senate in 1997 had voted unanimously against such a treaty - including also Senator Kerry.

(Dr S. Fred Singer is an atmospheric physicist, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service. The evidence on sea-level rise is summarized in his book "Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate".)

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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