Matt Ridley: "Global warming became climate change so as to be able to take the blame for cold spells and wet seasons as well"

Matt Ridley's review of Taxing Air, by Bob Carter and John Spooner is worth reading (and the book is recommended reading, too!):

WHEN the history of the global warming scare comes to be written, a chapter should be devoted to the way the message had to be altered to keep the show on the road. Global warming became climate change so as to be able to take the blame for cold spells and wet seasons as well as hot days. Then, to keep its options open, the movement began to talk about "extreme weather".

Part of the problem was that some time towards the end of the first decade of the 21st century it became clear that the Earth's average temperature just was not consistently rising any more, however many "adjustments" were made to the thermometer records, let alone rising anything like as rapidly as all the models demanded.

So those who made their living from alarm, and by then there were lots, switched tactics and began to jump on any unusual weather event, whether it was a storm, a drought, a blizzard or a flood, and blame it on man-made carbon dioxide emissions. This proved a rewarding tactic, because people - egged on by journalists - have an inexhaustible appetite for believing in the vindictiveness of the weather gods. The fossil fuel industry was inserted in the place of Zeus as the scapegoat of choice. (Scientists are the priests.)

71% of the people of Britain think the country should leave the EU and join EFTA instead

Another piece of great news from Britain:

THE majority of Britons believe the UK would be better off quitting the EU so the nation can trade more freely, a poll revealed yesterday.

Seventy-one per cent of people said Britain should join the European Free Trade Association instead.

The survey provides fresh evidence that most people in the UK want us to leave the European Union and adds further weight to the Daily Express crusade calling for Britain to quit the EU. Robert Oulds, director of the Bruges Group think-tank that carried out the poll, said: “This poll not only adds to the growing body of evidence that a majority of the British people are realising that Britain would be better off out of the European Union but it also shows there is a viable alternative to EU membership.

“The option of re-joining EFTA and becoming like Norway and Switzerland is very popular with the British public.”

EFTA differs from the EU in that it would not have jurisdiction over the UK’s agriculture, fisheries, home affairs or justice policies.

Britain would still have access to the single market – while having to implement 60 per cent fewer regulations and saving £3billion.

British solar scientist on the smallest solar maximum in 100 years: "It all points to perhaps another little ice age"

“It is the smallest solar maximum we have seen in 100 years” 
 Dr David Hathaway, NASA.

The current lack of solar activity could mean that we are in for another little ice age, according to British solar scientist, professor Mike Lockwood: 

 Research by Prof Mike Lockwood at the University of Reading showed how low solar activity could alter the position of the jet stream over the north Atlantic, causing severe cold during winter months. This was likely the cause of the very cold and snowy winters during 2009 and 2010, Dr Elliott said.

“It all points to perhaps another little ice age,” he said. “It seems likely we are going to enter a period of very low solar activity and could mean we are in for very cold winters.

Friendship in Putin's Russia

"Corruption has also reinforced Putin’s management principle number one: friends can have anything they want and the rest can go to hell. Obedience of the law and delivering any kind of justice do not form part of the deal for the civil servants of the Putin regime. The supreme principle is personal loyalty. The main guideline of the authorities today is: 'Stay loyal and you’re free to steal, let the side down and you go to jail'."

Putin. Corruption. An independent white paper


The Rotenberg brothers, Arkady and Boris, are typical examples of what it means to be friends with Vladimir Putin. They have been able to amass billions during the years their boyhood friend and judo partner from St. Petersburg has ruled Russia: 

Arkady Rotenberg, the boyhood friend and former judo partner of black-belt President Vladimir Putin, already is collecting his winnings from what promises to be the most expensive Winter Olympics ever next year.

Rotenberg’s companies have been awarded at least 227 billion rubles ($7.4 billion) of contracts for the 2014 Sochi Games, according to figures compiled from corporate and government filings. That’s more than the entire budget for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, though it represents just 15 percent of Russia’s latest estimate for the Sochi event.

Those contracts, which number at least 21, include a share of an $8.3 billion transport link between Sochi and ski resorts in the neighboring Caucasus Mountains, a $2.1 billion highway along Sochi’s Black Sea coast, a $387 million media center, and a $133 million stretch of venue-linking tarmac that will double as Russia’s first Formula One track.

“This is a monumental waste of public money,” Stefan Szymanski, a sports economist at the University of Michigan who tracks Olympic spending, said by phone from Ann Arbor. “A small number of people at the top have control of resources and there is no accountability.”

Read the entire article here

The independent white paper on corruption in Putin's Russia, published in 2011, gives some useful background information about the Rotenberg brothers' - now worth $2.97 billion each:

Little-known entrepreneurs in the 1990s, the Rotenbergs are now dollar billionaires, the largest suppliers of pipes to Gazprom, and major pipeline construction contractors. Having bought up Gazprom’s construction assets at a rock-bottom price, the Rotenbergs set up a company called StroiGasMontazh. By 2008, this company was winning tender after tender for pipeline construction. [Source: Gazprom Looks After Its Own, Vedomosti, 10.09.2009]. StroiGasMontazh won the tender to build the North Stream pipeline, despite the cost being three times that of building similar pipelines in Europe! Despite the fact that our workers are paid far less than European ones.

Without even going through a tendering process, the Rotenbergs were given the contract to build the epoch-making Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline – at the astronomical price of 210 billion roubles.

The Rotenberg were also given the Dzhugba-Lazarevskoye-Sochi Olympic pipeline contract without having to go to tender.

Last Sunday the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat published an in-depth interview with Boris Rotenberg's 32 year old son Roman, who has both a Finnish and a Russian passport. Judging from his reply to a question about whether the Rotenbergs have been given contracts without proper tenders, the London educated young man - now also vice president of Gazprombank - appears to have a sense of humor:

"The policy of the government is that everything is put out to tender. If we have the best bid, the government approves it."

Australia's former climate change minister derides opposition leader Tony Abbott for telling the truth about emission trading

Australia's socialist finance minister Penny Wong seems to think that opposition leader Tony Abbott is unfit for the job as Prime Minister because he said this:

“Just ask yourself what an emission trading scheme is all about”. “It’s a market, a so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance.”

This was "comrade" (that is how she used to address fellow Labor club members at the University of Adelaide)  Wong's response:

“Imagine Tony Abbott at an international meeting, talking to Barack Obama and David Cameron – both of whom believe in action on climate change – and telling them ‘look, this is just about the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one’.” 

Wong, Australia's first lesbian cabinet minister, is reported to be a practising Christian. But, as a former climate change minister, she is above all a member of the church of global warming, which explains her outburst against Abbott. 

One must hope that Australians are not yet so brainwashed by the global warming alarmists that they allow themselves to be misled by people like Wong. 

What a fresh breath of air it would be to hear an Aussie PM telling the politically correct climate hypocrates Obama and Cameron the truth about the emissions trading madness! 

François Hollande and shale gas

François Hollande, the French president, had this to say on 
Bastille Day:

 "As long as I am president, there will be no shale gas exploration in France."

Well, as long as Hollande is in office, France has not only one of the least popular presidents ever, but also one of the most stupid. 

Spain is again showing the way for the wind energy industry - without huge subsidies it ceases to exist

Spain, the former international "star" of wind energy, is now the the best example of what happens to an industry that is totally dependent on huge taxpayer subsidies:

Wearing face masks and wielding sanders, two workers smooth the surface of a massive fan for a wind turbine at the Gamesa factory in Aoiz, a town in Navarre, northern Spain.
But in hard times, it will be winds in Finland, not Spain, that make the finished product spin.
Last year, the plant delivered a wind turbine park to Malaga in southern Spain and another to Burgos, in the north, said factory manager Javier Trapiella.
"Now we don't produce for Spain," he added.
"It has all stopped."
For green energy producers, Spain has changed from a paradise with generous public support to a markedly less agreeable home.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government is imposing an austerity regime to plug an accumulated energy sector deficit of 26 billion euros ($34 billion).
On Friday, the horizon darkened further with the approval of reforms cutting annual state aid for renewable energies by more than one billion euros.


Read the entire article here

The Spanish wind lobby is of course whining, but the taxpayers are grateful. Now it is up to the Rajoy government to stop the remaining wasteful subsidies. 

Spain is again showing the way for the wind industry ....

A clear majority of Finns believe that the Eurozone will disintegrate within the next five years

The Finnish government still believes that the Eurozone is here to stay, but ordinary Finns are are much more realistic about the fate of the failed European common currency. A recent poll confirms that a a clear majority of Finns believe that the current Eurozone will disintegrate within the next five years:

Around 60 percent of respondents said they felt that in five years’ time the Eurozone will not have retained its present shape. Over a third responded that the current form of monetary union would not survive past 2018.

Lassi Ojala, a research leader at Think If Laboratories, the body that conducted the poll, claims that Finns seem to expect the weaker European countries to drop out of the monetary union.

New study: Air pollution (in contrast to "climate change") is a real problem that kills 2 million people annually

It is a well known fact that air pollution - as opposed to global warming - is a real problem, which kills a great number of people every year, particularly in Asia. A new study offers further confirmation:

Air pollution may be responsible for more than 2 million deaths around the world each year, according to a new study.

The study estimated that 2.1 million deaths each year are linked with fine particulate matter, tiny particles that can get deep into the lungs and cause health problems.

Exposure to particle pollution has been linked with early death from heart and lung diseases, including lung cancer, the researchers said; meanwhile, concentrations of particulate matter have been increasing due to human activities. The study also found that 470,000 deaths yearly are linked with human sources of ozone, which forms when pollutants from sources such as cars or factories come together and react. Exposure to ozone has been linked to death from respiratory diseases.

Most of the estimated global deaths likely occur in East and South Asia, which have large populations and severe air pollution, said study researcher Jason West, an assistant professor of environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Air pollution is an important problem. It's probably one of the most important environmental risk factors for health," West said. The study suggests that improving air quality around the world would increase life expectancy for some, he said.

While some studies have suggested that climate change can make air pollution more deadly, the new study found that climate change had only a small effect on air pollution-related deaths.

Read the entire article here

The researchers are to be congratulated for admitting that "climate change" (what ever they mean with it) has "only a small effect" on air pollution deaths. They will certainly face criticism from the global warming alarmist crowd, who will see to it that this new study will receive no attention in MSM media. Neither will this real problem be discussed by experts and politicians at large scale annual international mega conferences, in contrast to "climate change".