Monday, June 25, 2007

Kate Blames Suzuki For Her Lousy Search Skills

...or that is what I assume to be the lesson of this post, which links to an interesting article in Solid Waste Magazine re. a project in Saskatchewan where they are pumping liquefied carbon back into a barren oil field for storage, and then links to the results you get when you run "CO2 Sequestration" through the search engine at David Suzuki's website, which are Zero.

Apparently, we are supposed to be appalled at Suzuki's lack of interest in the topic. But of course if you run a less technical phrase like "carbon sequestration" through the same engine, you get plenty of hits.

Although you don't get material on this particular type of project at Suzuki's site, and in fact I suspect that Suzuki would look upon schemes which hide the results of emissions as expensive gimmicks that merely serve to delay action on actually cutting emissions. Indeed, there exist severe mid to long-term problems associated with carbon burial.

However, I would point out this recent statement from the National Academies, which represents scientists from 13 countries, including Canada, on tackling AGW:

... it will be necessary to develop and deploy new sources and systems for energy supply, including clean use of coal, carbon capture and storage,unconventional fossil fuel resources, advanced nuclear
systems, advanced renewable energy systems (including solar, wind, biomass and geothermal energy), smart grids and energy storage technologies.


In other words, the NAs are suggesting we will have to throw pretty much everything, including clean coal, carbon storage, and nuclear power, at the wall to get a handle on the issue, and hope that something sticks.

13 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

That's what I love about racists...their ignorance is multi-dimensional. If you need to catalogue all the ways human ignorance manifests itself, just find a racist.

Anonymous said...

Malpractice in Science
Where are the Truth Police?
By Michael R. Fox Ph.D., 6/20/2007 8:19:56 AM

I was writing at my laptop on Saturday, June 16, while watching television and the disbarment proceedings of the lawyer and prosecutor Mike Nifong of Raleigh, North Carolina.

The proceedings were led by the chairman of the disciplinary committee, F. Lane Williamson, who stripped the prosecutor of his lawyer’s license and disbarred him.

According to Williamson, Nifong had broken North Carolina’s rules of professional conduct more than two dozen times. Stunningly he had also withheld exculpatory DNA evidence showing that all 3 of the defendants were innocent.

The legal process of exoneration of the 3 young men had taken more than a year, destroyed their lives, and sullied the entire lacrosse team, the reputation of Duke University and its hate-filled faculty. It directly impacted the families, friends, and the community not to mention the several million dollars spent in the defense of innocent young men.

At least we can acknowledge that in the legal systems in our nation we do have an appeals process for legal malpractice, however slow, ponderous, and costly it is.

Unfortunately, we do not have such a corrective system to appeal scientific malpractice, no fixed rules for scientific misconduct and few penalties of any significance. A few get noticed, a few are embarrassed, but serious sanctions are rare and are quite sporadic (http://tinyurl.com/plsbn).

Examples abound in environmental science, regulation, and litigation. Adding to this are too many editors of science journals who have assumed advocacy roles for promoting specific agendas, as well as the failure of the peer review processes.

DDT is one of the most effective tools ever in the fight against malaria (http://tinyurl.com/2xzquc). Yet it was banned in 1972 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is still banned and the malarial death rates continue by the thousands.

And talk about the repression of evidence. During the DDT hearings of 1972, some scientists stated that DDT was a human carcinogen. This was shown to be untrue. Some scientists said that DDT caused eggshell thinning in birds. This was also shown to be untrue. Some scientists said that DDT caused declines in bird populations. This was untrue. A number of bird populations increased many times during the periods of DDT use. Even with substantial contrary evidence available at the time, the EPA proceeded to ban DDT.

And talk about scientific malpractice ruining lives. The EPA ban with full support of the environmental movement has led to the malaria deaths of more than 30,000,000 people since then. Additionally, hundreds of millions suffer from the non-fatal effects of the disease.

Yet we have no appeals process for such scientific malpractice, not even follow-up activities to determine impacts of the decision to ban DDT.

There are many other environmental issues as well which have involved heavy use of scientific malpractice, with no threat of scientific review or penalties. Without any viable process for appealing the malpractice of science, the nation and the world continue to suffer egregiously both in horrendous wasted costs and millions of lives lost.

The global warming issue is just the latest in a long series of pseudo-alarms involving scientific malpractice.

And talk about the misrepresentation of data. The ‘hockeystick” issue is but one. The irresponsible research paper which developed the hockeystick chart was presented by the authors as representing the last 1000 years of global temperature data. In actuality it did not do this. Problems were found immediately. The chart did not show, for example, the well-known Middle Age Warming which peaked around 1100 AD at a warmer time when Vikings were farming in and raising sheep in Greenland.

It did not show the Little Ice Age which lasted for centuries and extended into the 1800s. Yet this chart was approved by the IPCC editors and reviewers, was embraced by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and incorporated into its 2001 Third Assessment Report (TAR). Based in part on these findings the IPCC had urged the nations of the world to embrace these findings and use them to formulate crippling multi-national energy and emission policies.

Only with great diligence and phenomenal computer and statistical skills by two men, was the fraud discovered. Without them this may never have been discovered, certainly not by the IPCC and supporters. See for example, (http://tinyurl.com/2echm7). All of those parties above, the authors, the IPCC editors, the peer reviewers, and the IPCC itself are culpable in promoting the fraud of the hockeystick.

The warmer times of the Medieval Warming Period and the cooler times of the Little Ice Age and the million years of earlier global climates all tell a different story of climate change and its likely causes. And these didn’t involve mankind, CO2, or the so-called crimes of capitalism. Talk about withholding exculpatory evidence.

And talk about harmful agendas and the ethically challenged among the warmers. In December, 2006 Dr. David Deming, a geophysicist at the University of Oklahoma, gave testimony to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (http://tinyurl.com/yf9q8t). In 1995 he had published an article in Science on borehole data which indicated a slight warming in North America over the past 100 to 150 years.

And talk about media bias. The week his Science article appeared he was contacted by a reporter at National Public Radio (NPR). He offered to interview Dr. Deming only on the condition that Deming state that the warming was due to human activity. Deming refused and the reporter hung up.

Talk about the suppression of information. In that same testimony Deming said he got an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. The researcher said “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warming Period”. The MWP was inconsistent with the warming agenda. “An Inconvenient Truth”, one might say.

Such unscientific and irresponsible behavior can go unchecked and uncorrected indefinitely because there is no formal corrective structure in place in science, as there are in the legal community.

There is no price to be paid by abusers. Orchestrating pre-determined scientific outcomes is dishonest, unethical, costly, and dangerous.

We saw this in the DDT fiasco. In fact it is not science. It is naked dishonesty. In promoting the case of “man-made global warming” which specifically targets and limits the US capacity to produce energy from fossil fuels (providing transportation and 55% of our electricity), it is also treasonous.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., a science and energy reporter for Hawaii Reporter and a science analyist for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, is retired and now lives in Eastern Washington. He has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. He has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level. His interest in the communications of science has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. He can be reached via email at mailto:mike@foxreport.org

Ti-Guy said...

One of Kate's North Dakota fans.

Rosie said...

The Malaria argument is right out of Ann Coulters "I don't know how to do research" and "bend the facts to suit my ideas" handbook. She claims that "leftists" (like rachel carson) are responsible for all the malaria deaths since 1972 due to the banning of DDT.

She forgets to mention that DDT wasn't totally banned by the EPA-you can look on their website for this information, its there.

Second of all, they had reduced the number of malaria deaths in sri lanka for example, to such a low number that they stopped spraying it and used it as a crop protector instead. Lo and behold the rates of malaria went up again. But when they started using it again to control malaria in third world countries, the bug had developed a resistance, kinda like bacteria in response to too many unnecessary antibiotics. I guess thats the socialists fault too.

And by the way, there is PLENTY of evidence that DDT acts as a carcinogen and is toxic to our organs. Just do a pubmed search.

If Malaria is so bad and as important a disease that has the entire political right blaming Rachel Carson for all these third world deaths since 1972, then why aren't they blaming the drug companies who aren't handing out free drugs.....Malaria is a curable disease.

bigcitylib said...

I might write about the whole maleria/ddt thing one day. Basically, the whole "R. Carson killed billions" argument was whomped up by big tobacco. WHO was turning the heat on 3rd world smoking, and they needed a diversion.

Ti-Guy said...

Every sensible person knows this already about the false DDT-ban/Malaria scandal. Don't waste any time over it...delete the troll comment and move on. They'll never run out of ignorant liars to copy and paste from.

Rosie said...

it rots me when they use it to denounce global warming.

I might post on it too, i started reading about it when some rethug banned a memorial to her. Its really interesting how its still a popular fact today even though its not true.

Anonymous said...

Hummers off the hook . . . its the worms !!

Scientist Implicates Worms in Global Warming


Jim Frederickson, the research director at the Composting Association has called for data on worms and composting to be re-examined after a German study found that worms produce greenhouse gases 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Worms are being used commercially to compost organic material and is in preference to putting it into the landfill. The German government wants 45% of all waste to be composted by 2015.

"Everybody... thinks they can do no harm but they contribute to global warming. People are looking into alternative waste treatments but we have to make sure that we are not jumping from the frying pan into the fire," said Frederickson.

Ti-Guy said...

When I was your age, Ding-dong, I was dating and going to parties.

What's the problem with you?...Zits?

Anonymous said...

Carbon sequestration is a fraught subject, but we are painfully aware that our search engine is not as good as it could be. We're working on it!

--
Elijah van der Giessen
Outreach Coordinator, Communications Department
David Suzuki Foundation
604-732-4228 x 228 or 1-800-453-1533 x 228

Take the Nature Challenge at www.davidsuzuki.org

bigcitylib said...

Elijah,

the website is wonderful. But it would be useful if David et al did lay out in some detail what they think of carbon storage projects like the one mentioned. As the Academies statement suggests, environmentalists may have to make peace with some of this stuff.

Unknown said...

Quite a few things are worse than CO2 and are themselves part of Greenhouse Gasses. Methane is 21 times worse, Nitrous Oxide 310 times and some HFC's 1300 times. But all the lesser gasses amount to only a small part where CO2 is 95% of GHG. Alas the people who make cars want to chatter on about what business as usual will do to the 5% items but have 0 to say about CO2 except that there is no known technology that will fix that as it comes out the tailpipe, and it is just a question of miles and litres of fuel.
This is where it bites and where the big problem is. We are not really regulating at all on stuff that cannot be disputed. The hopeless muttering about old lost causes by Deniers surely do show up in SDA which caters to troglodyte artifacts, but why both with it otherwise?
The numbers and the facts are available, should we not start chopping up the auto makers BS?

Unknown said...

Quite a few things are worse than CO2 and are themselves part of Greenhouse Gasses. Methane is 21 times worse, Nitrous Oxide 310 times and some HFC's 1300 times. But all the lesser gasses amount to only a small part where CO2 is 95% of GHG. Alas the people who make cars want to chatter on about what business as usual will do to the 5% items but have 0 to say about CO2 except that there is no known technology that will fix that as it comes out the tailpipe, and it is just a question of miles and litres of fuel.
This is where it bites and where the big problem is. We are not really regulating at all on stuff that cannot be disputed. The hopeless muttering about old lost causes by Deniers surely do show up in SDA which caters to troglodyte artifacts, but why both with it otherwise?
The numbers and the facts are available, should we not start chopping up the auto makers BS?