WWF Canada wants Canadians to fly more in order to save the planet

"Canadians need to take a stand against climate change, and joining Team Earth Hour is a great place to start."

Josh Laughren, Climate and Energy Director, WWF

WWF Canada has sent out an interesting press release about how they want Canadians to "take a stand against climate change", "the greatest threat facing our planet":  By taking more (polluting) jet flights!:

The first 100,000 Canadians who pledge to switch off their lights for Earth Hour can also earn 5 AIR MILES(R)(i) reward miles(i).
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With more than 10 million active AIR MILES accounts, the AIR MILES Reward Program has the ability to reach Canadians from coast-to-coast and inspire them to do their part for the planet every day.

"The notion that wind power can be cheap is just more hot air"

“People should believe that [wind power] is very, very cheap.”
Connie Hedegaard, EU Climate Commissioner

Another Dane, Bjørn Lomborg, who is not - like Hedegaard - acting as PR agent for the Danish wind turbine industry, does not agree:


In fact, this is a highly problematic claim. While wind energy is cheaper than other, more ineffective renewables, such as solar, tidal and ethanol, it is nowhere near competitive. If it were, we wouldn’t have to keep spending significant sums to subsidize it.


To prove his point, Lomborg refers to recent U.K. studies - and the IPCC(!):

The U.K. Carbon Trust estimates that the cost of expanding wind turbines to 40 gigawatts, in order to provide 31 percent of electricity by 2020, could run as high as $120 billion. And the benefits, in terms of tackling global warming, would be measly: a reduction of just 86 megatons of carbon-dioxide per year for two decades. In terms of averted rise in temperature, this would be insignificant. Using a standard climate model, by 2100, the U.K.’s huge outlay will have postponed global warming by just over 10 days.

Moreover, this estimate is undoubtedly too optimistic. Wind frequently does not blow when we need it. For example, as the BBC reported, the cold weather on Dec. 21, 2010, was typical of a prolonged cold front, with high-pressure areas and little wind. Whereas wind power, on average, supplies 5 percent of the U.K.’s electricity, its share fell to just 0.04 percent that day. With demand understandably peaking, other sources, such as coal and gas, had to fill the gap.
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Contrary to what many think, the cost of both onshore and offshore wind power has not been coming down. On the contrary, it has been going up over the past decade. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged this in its most recent renewable-energy report. Likewise, the U.K. Energy Research Center laments that wind-power costs have “risen significantly since the mid-2000s.”
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Like the European Union, the U.K. has become enamored with the idea of reducing carbon-dioxide through wind technology. But most academic models show that the cheapest way to reduce carbon-dioxide by 20 percent in 2020 would be to switch from coal to cleaner natural gas. The average of the major energy models indicates that, downscaled for the U.K., achieving the 20 percent target would imply a total cost of roughly $150 billion over the coming decade, and $29 billion every year after that. These figures include reductions in areas other than electricity, as well as higher energy prices’ total cost to the economy.

Nonetheless, the lesson is clear: If the goal is not just to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, but also to use renewables to do it, the models show that the cost balloons to $298 billion for this decade and $57 billion every year after 2020. In effect, insisting on wind power means using energy that is far from competitive, does not help to avert climate change, and costs an extra $146 billion for the U.K. alone.

Read  the entire article here

Fitch: Even with lower estimate shale gas could still be a game changer in Poland

Even with the new lower estimate Poland´s shale gas reserve could still  be a game changer, according to Fitch:

The PGI shale gas reserve estimate, made in conjunction with the US Geological
Survey, is still substantial. The shale gas reserves would be sufficient to
cover Poland's gas consumption for 25-55 years, in addition to 10 years coverage
by conventional gas reserves. Substantial shale gas production could lower
Poland's dependence on gas imports (currently covering about 70% of gas demand),
most of which comes from Russia. It would also shape Poland's future power
generation mix as the country aims to diversify from the dominance of coal in
power generation by investing in renewables, nuclear energy and gas-fired power
plants.

Read the entire article here

These are still early days for shale gas exploration in Poland, and in Europe in general. It is quite possible that there will be an adjustment upwards of the Polish reserve later on. So there is no reason for either Gazprom or the greenies to celebrate.

IKEA - hype and reality

On its internet page IKEA, the Swedish furnishings company, brags about its ethical management and its partnership with the WWF "to address climate change":

The hype:

Shared values

In the 21st century, the business winners will be those companies who look upon climate change as well as the need for reduced use of natural resources as a driver for innovation and a key to business development − including structuring business operations, setting targets and actively pursuing strategic partnerships. Both WWF and IKEA are convinced that through co-operation we will accomplish more.
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The Climate Positive project is an umbrella for all the climate projects that IKEA and WWF are working on. It is mapping various opportunities for IKEA to create a general positive climate impact in society, not only by reducing its own emissions, but also by thinking and acting on how IKEA´s impact effects others.

The reality:

Spying is not a secret to IKEA France executives:

Several Ikea France executives have been asked to cooperate with investigators on charges on illegal surveillance of employees and customers.
This week, French watchdog newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné published condemning emails showing that several high executives at Ikea France, a branch of the Swedish furniture giant, knew about illegal surveillance practices.
Ikea France is said to have set up an entire system for surveying customers and employees, buying information gathered by the national police through a private security company. Questions have also been raised about where this security company got these secret files.
Ikea France apparently also searched for information on employees and customers through records of driving licenses and permits and through mobile phone operators.
CNIL, the French commission on data privacy, will continue the search for internal documents proving acts of illegal surveillance within the company. This morning, they visited several Ikea stores in the Paris area to examine computers and other information storage systems. They were also checking to see if information on personnel was being stored by the company.
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this isn't the first complaint filed against the company that brags about its ethical management. American employees launched complaints in 2010. Also in 2010, a book was published recounting scandalous company practices.
In France, empoyees and union members have already said they will press charges.

Read the entire article here

Nigel Farage on van Rompuy and the euro

Nigel Farage´s video from last week is funny - and so true:

Senior Editor of Scientific American calls for world government and "species-wide alteration in basic human behaviours"

Gary Stix, Senior Editor at the Scientific American, confirms in his recent blog article what many have suspected; what global warming alarmists want is a Brave New World, ruled by a (socialist) World Government:

Effective World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate Catastrophe

I’ve come to the conclusion that the technical details are the easy part. It’s the social engineering that’s the killer. Moon shots and Manhattan Projects are child’s play compared to needed changes in the way we behave.
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To be effective, a new set of institutions would have to be imbued with heavy-handed, transnational enforcement powers. There would have to be consideration of some way of embracing head-in-the-cloud answers to social problems that are usually dismissed by policymakers as academic naivete. In principle, species-wide alteration in basic human behaviors would be a sine qua non, but that kind of pronouncement also profoundly strains credibility in the chaos of the political sphere. Some of the things that would need to be contemplated: How do we overcome our hard-wired tendency to “discount” the future: valuing what we have today more than what we might receive tomorrow? Would any institution be capable of instilling a permanent crisis mentality lasting decades, if not centuries? How do we create new institutions with enforcement powers way beyond the current mandate of the U.N.? Could we ensure against a malevolent dictator who might abuse the power of such organizations?
Behavioral economics and other forward-looking disciplines in the social sciences try to grapple with weighty questions. But they have never taken on a challenge of this scale, recruiting all seven billion of us to act in unison. The ability to sustain change globally across the entire human population over periods far beyond anything ever attempted would appear to push the relevant objectives well beyond the realm of the attainable. If we are ever to cope with climate change in any fundamental way, radical solutions on the social side are where we must focus, though. The relative efficiency of the next generation of solar cells is trivial by comparison.

Stix is calling for "Species-wide alteration in basic human behaviours" in order to achieve World Government. This is clearly in line with the kind of "human engineering" proposed by professor New York University professor S. Matthew Liao and his co-authors.

Something has clearly gone terribly wrong in some parts of the scientific community!

Catholic Bishops´ Conference of the Philippines endorses "Mother Earth"?

Strange things seem to be happening within the Catholic Church. Earlier today we reported about the San Jose bishop calling his parishioners to participate in the Earth Hour and "reduce our climate change impact". In the Philippines the Catholic Bishops´ Conference appears to have adopted a new deity, Mother Earth:

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) called on Filipinos to take part in the global campaign to combat climate change and promote energy conservation.

In a release, CBCP’s Commission on Youth (ECY) executive secretary Fr. Conegundo Garganta urged Filipinos, specially the youth to observe the Earth Hour on March 31, 2012 (Saturday).

Meanwhile, the cleric also urged young Filipinos to join the “I Will If You Will” campaign, wherein ECY will change its office light bulbs to compact fluorescent lights if others will switch off their lights on March 31.

“This campaign empowers people to share to the world their own personal contribution on how they can willingly do ways to save Mother Earth,” added Garganta.

Read the entire article here

The fundamentalists of the global environmentalist religion centered on Gaia worship and the uniting of all life forms around the goddess of "Mother Earth" certainly welcome the catholic bishops of the Philippines to their ranks, but one wonders whether the Vatican gives blessing to such a move?