COP-17 - World leaders stay home, but Hollywood celebs jet into Durban

"Bono is an active member of Greenpeace and drives a car which runs on ethanol"

Most world leaders have decided to scrap the Durban COP-17, but the organisers can count on a host of celebrities, who never want to miss out on a genuine beach party.

The usual host of Hollywood "activists", led by Angelina Jolie, U2´s Bono and Leonardo DiCaprio, among others, are are expected to jet in to provide the glitz and glamour for the gathering. They will be joined by the likes of Al Gore and Richard Branson, who never miss an opportunity to advance their business interests at this kind of celebrity gatherings. And, of course, "the terminator", Arnold Schwarzenegger and Monaco´s operatta prince Albert will be there, too.

The Times Live added this on Sunday:

Umhlanga's Oyster Box Hotel - the new playground of the international jet set - will again play host to Monaco's Prince Albert and his South African wife, Charlene Wittstock, and, it is whispered, Hollywood stars Angelina Jolie and Leonardo DiCaprio .
The two stars are expected to arrive in the city next Sunday. It is understood "discreet" reservations were made for them.
The Monaco royals threw a lavish cocktail bash at the hotel in July to celebrate their wedding.
Wittstock has apparently reserved the Buthelezi suite, which is usually priced at between R8630 and R11890 a night. Billionaire businessman Richard Branson has apparently booked into the presidential suite, at R50000 a night.
The city's other top hotels - the Beverly Hills and Hilton - are the likely venues for former US vice-president Al Gore, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and a number of heads of state attending the 17th Conference of Parties (COP17), which will run from tomorrow to December 9.


But there is bad news for ordinary South Africans:

"For those hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite celebrity, don’t count on it. Word has it that they’re here strictly for business purposes".

PS

Many of the more than  20.000 COP 17 climate tourists delegates are certainly planning to enjoy the beach parties and nightlife on offer. Hopefully somebody has informed them about this, less pleasant side of life in Durban :

 Durban, and our province of KwaZulu-Natal, has the world's highest levels of HIV. With less than one percent of the global population, South Africa has 10 percent of its HIV infections, and our province has 10 times more HIV than anywhere else in the country

And this:

Harassment by police and humiliation at clinics mean just 5 percent of sex workers are getting health care.

This is according to research by the Sex Worker Education Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat), which says up to 60 percent of sex workers nationwide were HIV-positive and nearly 20 percent of all new infections were related to the industry through clients, partners, abuse and rape, according to its research.

Only a handful heads of state attending the Durban COP-17 gathering

The annual UN mass gathering of warmists is to open within a couple of days in Durban, South Africa. Over 20.000 climate tourists delegates are expected to attend the COP-17, but only eight heads of state have so far confirmed their attendance.

Compare that with more than 100 heads of state and government at the Copenhagen COP-15 in 2009. The almost non-existent interest among heads of state is maybe the best illustration of the fact that the game is over for the high priests of AGW.

But in spite of the absence of the world leaders, the UN Climate Beach Party offers a lot of activites for the attending taxpayer funded climate tourists, starting with a beachfront parade along the city´s iconic Golden Mile:

Inspired by urgent and righteous panic, dignitaries, activists, artists and various other members of the global warming jet set will open the festivities of the COP17 UN Climate Beach Party by walking three kilometres up Durban's iconic Golden Mile, following a blue line which represents the high water mark should sea levels rise by one metre.
The Blue Line of Durban is to be “artistically rendered” along Oliver Tambo Parade by “one of South Africa’s internationally renowned public artists, Strijdom van der Merwe”. It ends, appropriately enough, at the local tourism office.
The walk is described as a “social mobilisation project”, and organisers expect that Kwazulu-Natal premier Zweli Mkhize will be joined on the walk by deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe, environmental affairs minister Edna Molewa, and the city's mayor, James Nxumalo.
Mkhize told the Mercury the project hoped to raise awareness about some of the “devastating impacts” of climate change.
Which won't happen. Sea level is highly unlikely to rise by a metre for at least several centuries, by which time the city really should be able to do something about Durban's crumbling beach-front infrastructure.

 The "The Durban Green Festival" is said to include "an exciting array of activities", including "roving entertainers and troubadours":

The Green Hub will also be hosting a number of sporting and nature-based activities and events that will look to take advantage of the natural beauty, rugged terrain and multicultural character of the uMngeni Valley.

These will include a raft race, an amazing race, hiking, trail running, mountain biking, canoeing, guided walks and birding tours, said Evans.

“The festival will showcase live music, a KidZone and fun educational activities, film shows, and an art and craft market,” said Joanne Hayes, publicist for the event.

Roving entertainers and troubadours, she said, would be in action from Snake Park to New Beach.

The KidZone will most certainly be a great hit among the delegates, maybe also the "amazing race".

The European Union´s überwarmist Hedegaard gives an interview

German Der Spiegel has inteviewed the European Union´s überwarmist, Danish climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard in advance of the soon to open COP 17 in Durban. The lady still babbles about a new "binding road map", but her unconvining answers clearly show, that she does not really believe in what she says. Hedegaard obviously realises that the game is over.

The former journalist, with a Master´s degree in literature and history, probably is already planning where to retire when the years wasted in Brussels are soon over.

The EU´s more than generous retirement benefits will of course be a nice consolation when its time to go.

Here is part of the Spiegel interview:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What is he EU's ultimate goal in Durban?
Hedegaard: The EU is pushing for a binding road map in which all countries would commit to take some action by 2015.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Road maps from previous UN conferences have had little success, though.
Hedegaard: Without a road map we will not see a second Kyoto commitment period. In Durban, we must bring the most important states to agree to a binding road map. The states would then have until 2015 to introduce CO2 monitoring.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How is that expected to work when most of the countries didn't even adhere to the Kyoto requirements?
Hedegaard: The difference is that this time all countries are to participate, including developing countries and emerging economies. I think most countries will follow a broad approach. The aim for this road map should be covering 80 to 85 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The problem with the current contractual position is that soon two-thirds of the anthropogenic emissions are not part of the Kyoto Protocol.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How likely is the US to support this road map?
Hedegaard: The US has signaled that they would participate if China does too. But so far in this matter there is actually little sign of progress from the US.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you expect a true breakthrough at the 21st United Nations climate conference in 2015, then?
Hedegaard: In 2015 the discussions should be finished, details should be settled and an international commitment on climate action should be signed. It will then still take years until the arrangements for CO2 reduction are implemented.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do you feel as you prepare for the negotiations in Durban?
Hedegaard: Concerned. Concerned that we're putting the environment at risk.

Read the entire interview here

China´s dark secret: Millions of prisoners in state sponsored slave labour camps

"We were not paid at all, we were forced. If anyone refused to work, they would be beaten, some people were beaten to death."
Charles Lee, former prison inmate

Al Jazeera is to be congratulated for producing and showing one of the most important investigative television documentaries in recent years: Slavery: A 21st Century Evil - Prison slaves 

The documentary shows how communist China - the world´s number one exporter of consumer goods - is running a system of state sponsored slavery consisting of more than 1,000 slave labour prisons with more than five million prisoners. Tens of thousands of these slave workers are political or religious prisoners:

Once an isolationist communist state, over the last 20 years China has become the world's biggest exporter of consumer goods. But behind this apparent success story is a dark secret - millions of men and women locked up in prisons and forced into intensive manual labour.

China has the biggest penal colony in the world - a top secret network of more than 1,000 slave labour prisons and camps known collectively as "The Laogai". And the use of the inmates of these prisons - in what some experts call "state sponsored slavery" - has been credited with contributing to the country's economic boom

Read more here

The Chinese state sponsored slavery is wellknown to the US and the European governments, but they all choose to ignore it, because they do not want to disturb the trade and political relations with the eastern giant. "They just care about the money", as one of the persons interviewed in the programme puts it.

Shame on Obama, Merkel, Sarkozy, Cameron and all the rest!

Watch the programme, if you have not already seen it, and you will most likely agree.

PS

The Laogai Research Foundation site has a lot of useful information about the slave labour camps here.

Warmist Tyndall Centre is trying to prevent Britain from joining the shale gas revolution

The warmists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research are desperately trying to prevent Britain from joining the shale gas revolution. A new report by the Tyndall Centre warns that shale gas extraction would 'would wreck UK's climate change targets' and prevent the creation of "hundreds of thousands of jobs" in wind, solar power and other green energy projects:

Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the Tyndall Centre, at the University of Manchester, said: "The government faces a difficult choice – to lead a new and low-carbon energy revolution or stick with high-carbon fossil fuels, forgo its emission targets and relinquish its hard-won international reputation on climate change."

Tony Bosworth, energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, had this to say:

"If ministers give shale gas the green light it could wreck UK climate targets and keep us all in hock to soaring energy bills. The only solution to our broken power system is to develop the nation's home-grown clean energy supplies and cut energy waste. David Cameron must free us from the shackles of the big energy companies keeping us hooked on dirty fossil fuels – and support clean British energy providers instead."

Read the entire article here

One must hope that serious politicians in the UK put the Tyndall Centre report where it belongs - the dustbin. To relinquish its "hard-won international reputation on climate change" should not be too difficult, because the fact is that this "reputation" is totally worthless. And to maintain that wind, solar and other green energy projects will create "hundreds of thousands of jobs" is of course also nothing but rubbish. (Take e.g. Spain, where unemployment has risen to 22% since they switched to a "green" economy.) 

Shale gas is the best hope for Britain and many other countries to produce future energy at prices that are affordable. Highly subsidised wind and solar energy projects that create only a few permanent jobs are the ones pushing energy prices higher.

Putin praised by German executives - booed by Russians

The Moscow Times reports about the recent visit of a group of German business exectives. The Germans, who were trying to improve their chances at Russian tenders, did not forget to show servile deference to the country´s de facto dictator:

In the opening remarks, Cordes also wished Putin, who already served two terms in the Kremlin from 2000 to 2008, success in the presidential election in March.
"It was a very gratifying news for the German economy to know that you decided to run for the post of Russian president in 2012," he said.

Read the entire article here

The words of Eckhard Cordes, chairman of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations again show that German business leaders - like so many executives from other Western countries - are happily willing to forget about human rights, democracy and decency if there are new, lucrative export contracts in the pipeline.

However, in Russia not all people are as servile as the German business executives. In a rare display of displeasure, Vladimir Putin was booed after the fight Jeff Monson vs Fedor Emelianenko a couple of days ago:

The Duke of Edinburgh on wind power: "absolutely useless"

A car trip through Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France and southeastern England last weekend confirmed one of the many problems with wind energy: Probably over 90% of the wind turbines did not produce any electricity at all due to lack of wind. They huge turbines were just standing there as monuments of modern lunacy.

In the UK the Duke of Edinburgh made the headlines with his spot on comment on wind energy as "absolutely useless":

Former Chancellor Lord Lawson yesterday led the backing for Prince Philip after he branded wind farms ‘absolutely useless’.

In a scathing attack, the Duke of Edinburgh said the turbines were ‘completely reliant on subsidies’ and ‘would never work’.

His comments are a rebuke to the Government, which is trying to increase the amount of energy generated by wind farms and other renewable technologies.

Last night Lord Lawson said the Duke was ‘spot on’ and speaking on behalf of ordinary people in fuel poverty.

Philip made the remarks to Esbjorn Wilmar, managing director of Infinergy, which is building offshore turbines around Britain.
Mr Wilmar said he introduced himself to the 90-year-old Duke at a reception and suggested he put wind turbines on royal property.

‘He said that they were absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace. I was surprised by his very frank views,’ he said.

When Mr Wilmar tried to argue that onshore turbines are one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy, the Duke apparently replied: ‘You don’t believe in fairy tales do you?’

The Telegraph´s editorial on the Prince´s comments is worth reading.