Oxford professor mesmerizes "progressive" theater audiences with one-man global warming and overpopulation show

"Ten Billion isn’t quite a play but it’s certainly the most scary show in London"
Mail on Sunday


The winners of UK Theatre Awards 2012 will be announced on October 28. In the category "Best Horror Performance" Oxford professor Stephen Emmott, head of Microsoft's Computational Science Laboratory, should easily be the winner. Emmott's one-man show "Ten Billion", devised by theater director Katie Mitchell, has had a successful two-week run at the Royal Court Theater in London.

Liberal and "progressive" audiences were apparently mesmerized by professor Emmott's tale of an "unprecedented planetary emergency" (due to human induced global warming and overpopulation):

“I’m here because I’m concerned,” the computer scientist began his presentation in somber tones to hushed, expectant audiences in London. “I’m concerned about the state of the planet.”

He proceeded to narrate his vision of a world that is a “living hell” in which we are at war over land, food, and water as a world population of 10 billion scrabbles over resources.

Indeed, migration will be motivated not by choice or economic necessity by the end of the century, but by human survival.

“By 2100, the terms ‘climate conflict,’ ‘water wars,’ and ‘resource conflict’ will become highly likely in parts of the world,” Emmott told CNBC. “I envisage a world of severe land, agricultural and water stress as a result of population growth, land degradation, and climate change.”

Emmott believes global average temperatures could rise by as much as 6 degrees Celsius (around 11 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, an “utterly catastrophic” possibility.

As people flee to cooler climes, Britain will develop militarized borders to stave off mass immigration. “Climate migrant” could become an everyday term, he said.

Indeed, "we are screwed” when the world population hits 10 billion unless we stop having children and curb our rampant use of energy and water, Emmott said, reeling off everyday facts to exemplify the energy use we take for granted every day.

The production of a single cup of coffee requires 100 liters (26 gallons) of water, while a chocolate bar draws upon 27,000 liters (7,132 gallons). Even a simple computer search for www.CNBC.com consumes the same energy as boiling a kettle.

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“People say we can ‘technologize’ our way out of this, but I am unconvinced of this ... to avoid some catastrophic outcome, we are going to radically change the way we live, and our economies, principally, consuming much, much less."

He added: "[I’m not] confident at all, to be honest.”

Read the entire article here

PS

If professor Emmott's chocolate bar computation is true, Greenpeace, the Friends of the Earth and other envirofundamentalist NGO's should immediately stop their campaigns against fracking (which they are blaming for wasteful use of water) and start a global anti-chocolate movement instead. After all, the water needed for fracking pales in comparison with the production of choco bars!

Of course Dr. Emmott's show also has an official sponsor, the European Commission, an institution that lavishly supports almost any project featuring human caused "climate change" .  

Corruption in China "goes right to the top"

The leaders of China's Communist Party are  nothing  but  bunch  of  corrupted  thugs

For years apologists for the Chinese communist government have been spreading the myth that massive corruption in China is only a local problem and that the people at the top are squeaky-clean and unselfish managers of the common good. The Bo Xilai scandal has put an end to that kind of propaganda:

From revelations of massive corruption to the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood by Mr Bo’s wife Gu Kailai, the sordid affair has shown the Chinese people and the world that the rot goes right to the top.

For the last three decades, the party has carefully cultivated the perception that, while there may be corruption and wrongdoing at lower levels, the system is governed by clean and selfless elites who live only to serve the masses.

China’s spectacular rise and its success in lifting hundreds of millions out of abject poverty combined with the intense secrecy surrounding senior officials have convinced many to accept this vision of a just and benevolent emperor calling the shots from Beijing….

When historians look back on the Bo Xilai scandal they will almost certainly identify this as the moment when China’s vicious backroom political battles spilled into the open and the myth of the good emperor was shattered.

Far from revealing authoritarian China’s meritocracy and ability to self-correct, the Bo Xilai saga underscores how its leaders believe they are above the law and how little accountability there actually is.

Read the entire Financial Times article here

The Peking Duck blog has a good point:

There is plenty of corruption to go around in China, and it is not confined to local officials. It’s those at the top whose kids drive Ferraris and who own homes in the US and who funnel large quantities of cash out of China. The Bo Xilai scandal simply makes it more obvious. It pulls the curtain on a topic the CCP wants to keep removed from public discourse and exposes the good/bad argument as total hogwash. The government never wanted the story to gain public attention; as the reporter says, “Chinese, British and US officials say privately that without the involvement of foreign governments Heywood’s murder would probably never have been uncovered and Mr Bo would still be a frontrunner for promotion when the party anoints new leaders at a once-a-decade conclave next month.” So don’t go arguing that the fact that we know so much about the scandal is due to transparency on the part of the powers that be. I agree with the article’s conclusion, that there are plenty of officials at the top who are no different than Bo Xilai when it comes to corruption and amassing illegal fortunes. 

New study: Electric cars are toxic

A toxic mix

A new Norwegian study confirms that electric cars - the darlings of all "progressive" greenies - are not very green at all:

Questioning thoughts arise from a bracing study from Norway. The electric car might be a trade-in of an old set of pollution problems for a new set. Thanks but no thanks to a misguided cadre selling on the green revolution. Electric cars will eventually be one more pollutant source to campaign over. The study, "Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Electric Vehicles," appears in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology declared in the study that "EVs exhibit the potential for significant increases in human toxicity, freshwater eco-toxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and metal depletion impacts, largely emanating from the vehicle supply chain."
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Earlier this year, reports of a study of vehicle types in China concluded that electric cars have an overall impact on pollution that could be more harmful to health than conventional vehicles. The researchers in that study examined pollution in 34 Chinese cities and they found that the electricity generated by power stations to drive electric vehicles led to more fine particle emissions than petrol-powered transport. They analyzed five vehicle types—gasoline and diesel cars, diesel buses, e-bikes and e-cars.

Read the entire article here

Only the exit of dictator Putin will bring back Russia to the camp of energy winners

 

Russia's propaganda radio, The Voice of Russia, is to be congratulated for publishing an (almost) objective article about the game changing shale gas and oil revolution: 

Ten years ago, it was impossible to imagine that the United States would become a major producer of natural gas and overtake Russia for first place in volume of production. Now, it is a fact. Many countries have begun to develop shale gas, including Poland, Ukraine, Australia, the UK and China. According to media reports, by 2032 the United Kingdom will be able to meet a quarter of its needs with this type of fuel.

New technologies have been developed that make it feasible to extract shale oil in many countries. For example, according to available information, Japan is betting on it. Japan Petroleum Exploration Company has managed to extract liquid shale oil, which may solve the country’s acute power shortage, exacerbated by Tokyo’s decision to abandon nuclear energy in the future.

The shale revolution, if it happens, will inevitably have a major impact on international relations. Imagine a purely theoretical scenario: the USA, Western Europe and China stop importing oil and gas, or at least dramatically reduce imports. It is safe to say that the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf would be among the biggest losers in such a scenario. Demand for their products would plummet, and they would have to significantly scale back their geopolitical ambitions.

The United States would become less interested in Central Asia, and pipeline projects bypassing Russia would likely come to a halt. The future of Caspian Sea development would be in question. Perhaps, instead of trying to gain access to foreign energy reserves, Washington would focus its efforts on other areas, such as restoring its position in the Western Hemisphere (i.e. Latin America), which has weakened in recent years.

China, which is also planning to start domestic production of shale gas and oil, would very likely lose interest in Central Asia. Chinese expansion into Africa would also peter out, and Beijing’s dependence on oil supplies from the Persian Gulf would diminish.

At first glance, if shale technology lives up to the hype, Russia would appear to be in the camp of losers. This, however, is not quite true. First, the country has a more diverse economy than, say, Saudi Arabia. It is of course heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues, but a fall in the latter would provide a further powerful stimulus to economic diversification.

The fact is that, due to dictator Putin's and his money machine Gazprom's complete failure in anticipating the shale gas revolution and its strategic importance, Russia is most certainly in the camp of losers. With the amateur "economist" and "energy expert" Putin and his henchmen in charge, Russia will not be able to diversify its economy, which is still heavily dependent on the income from gas and oil exports. (Oil and gas revenues, including mining and quarrying taxes as well as export customs duties on oil and gas, together constitute almost half of the federal government's revenues). Russia will be able to leave the losers' camp only when Putin exits. 

Opposition against "Super Mario's" bond bying programme is growing

Super Mario may end up as a loser

It is becoming more and more apparent that ECB President Mario Draghi's intention to embark on unlimited purchaes of sovereign bonds from crisis stricken euro countries is not only unwise but also illegal. Particularly in Germany the criticism of "Super Mario's" model is growing: 

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann. Weidmann believes that, with its bond purchases, the ECB will help euro-zone governments gain access to funds at attractive rates by pushing down interest rates on those bonds. But that, in Weidmann's view, is fiscal policy rather than monetary policy and is thus outside the ECB mandate.

The duel between Draghi and Weidmann is not new, but it has become more pointed of late. And its importance would be difficult to overstate: It has to do with the future course of the ECB and, with it, one of the world's most important currencies. Does the ECB's bond-buying program fall into the category of monetary policy consistent with the bank's mandate of maintaining price stability? Or does it step over the line into fiscal policy by intervening in countries' efforts to obtain capital, which it is expressly forbidden from doing?

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"The ECB's argument that the bond purchases have to do with monetary policy is a pretext," says Jürgen Stark, the central bank's chief economist until the end of last year. "If the transmission mechanism of monetary policy is indeed disturbed, the ECB must intervene, irrespective of whether or not a country has subjected itself to a bailout program."

For Stark, who resigned in protest over the ECB's first bond-purchasing program, a red line has been crossed once again. "We are talking about the financing of governments here," he says. That, he points out, is in violation of European Union treaties. "The ECB is operating outside its mandate," he concludes

Academics share his assessment. "Common sense tells us that the ECB, with its purchasing program, is doing something completely different from expressing its concern over price stability," says Clemens Fuest, a professor of economics at the University of Oxford. According to Fuest, the ECB, following the example of the International Monetary Fund, is upgrading itself to a European bailout institution, which provides assistance based on certain conditions. It loses its independence as a result, says Fuest, because it can hardly refuse to provide assistance if its conditions are met. "The ECB has overstretched its mandate," Fuest believes.

Read the entire article here

Groundbreaking global warming research by a Boston University team

Did human induced global warming slow down  Tom  Longboat,  the winner of the  1907  Boston  Marathon?
(image by wiki)

Here is a hint for the guys choosing next year's Nobel Peace Prize, or alternatively one of the science prizes. A Boston University team has just published some sensational results, based on their groundbreaking new research:

Led by BU biologist Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, the scientists analyzed weather data alongside men's winning times in the Boston Marathon from 1933 to 2004 and women's winning times from 1972 (when women first officially participated) to 2004. They found that a 1.8 degree F (1 degree C) increase in temperature slowed the winning time, on average, by 20 seconds for men and 21 seconds for women. Strong headwinds had a similar effect. But overall, the researchers found that warming trends did not seem to affect the winning times of the marathon between 1933 and 2004, likely because there is still large variation in marathon-day temperature over that period.

"The authors are not saying that a warm temperature on race day on any given year won't affect race performance," said Scott Montain, a physiologist with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine who was not involved in the study. But the BU data suggests it will take "considerable time" before year-over-year warming will result in predictable and consistent slowing of race times, Montain explained to LiveScience in an email.

The BU researchers said if the race-day temperatures warmed by an average of 0.050 degrees F (0.028 degrees C) per year, they would expect a 64-percent chance that winning times would consistently slow by 2100. But even if Boston saw predictably rising temperatures on the third Monday of every April going forward, marathon runners will likely avoid any long-term climate-caused drag because race organizers have moved up the start time, researchers said. Through 2005, the race kicked off at noon, but since then, it has started in waves beginning at 9:00 a.m.

"By changing starting times for the race to earlier in the day when temperatures are cooler ... race organizers have effectively counteracted any effects that long-term warming would have had on winning times," the authors wrote. "If this change had not been made, we would have expected that warming would likely lead to fewer record-breaking times in the Boston Marathon."

Read the entire article here

It is of course of utmost importance that the distinguished BU research team is awarded extensive new funding for a comprehensive follow up of this exciting new research project. 

EU handing out "climate aid" to China (while begging China to rescue the euro)

Record unemployment, recession, austerity measures, budget cuts and violent mass demonstrations - those are the grim realities European Union member countries have to face right now. And what's worse, Europe's problems are dragging down the entire world economy. 

Desperate EU leaders have been begging China's communist rulers - who have been able to amass the biggest foreign exchange reserves in the world - to rescue the crisis ridden euro. So far, the Chinese have only offered friendly words.

But the Brussels bureaucrats, who live in a cosy, recession free parallel world of their own, are clearly not bothered by the sad state of affairs in their "empire". While Merkel and the rest are begging China to "bail out" the euro, the European Commission is handing out free "climate change" aid to the same People' s Republic! The Chinese must be laughing. 

The European Commission is giving millions in aid to China to help the world's second biggest economy combat climate change, a move critics questioned at a time when most European Union member states are imposing budget cuts.
The European Commission, which manages policies and funds for the European Union as a whole, has signed a "financing agreement" with China to promote "lowcarbon urbanization and environmental sustainability." Under this arrangement, EU taxpayers will give China $32 million Cdn over the next four years.

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Andris Piebalgs, the European Commissioner for Development, said the aim was to help China's cities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through a variety of schemes, notably a carbon trading mechanism.

"If we can build strong partnerships, we can improve the life of billions of Chinese and Europeans by getting the most and the best from all our efforts to stimulate sustainable urban development," he said.

The huge growth in Chinese exports has allowed Beijing to amass the biggest foreign exchange reserves in the world.

Its coffers now hold $3.2 trillion - a sum 33 per cent larger than the entire British economy.

Given that China commands such immense financial resources of its own, critics questioned whether the country should receive aid from the EU.

Martin Callanan, the leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, described the decision as "very odd, particularly at a time when we're trying to cut the EU budget."

He added that it was "typical" of the commission. "Climate change is a trendy subject so they'd give money to anything to do with it," he said. "Why on earth are we giving money to the country with the biggest foreign exchange reserves in the world?

It's clearly a nonsense and it should be a prime candidate for the savings the commission are supposed to be making."

Member states have demanded that the EU freeze its budget for this year.

Catherine Ray, a spokesman for the development commissioner, said that helping China to fight climate change was "definitely in the interest of EU - and UK - citizens as much as China's."

Read the entire article here