GREENIE CORNER

A nasty dilemma for the Greenies: "an MIT study says a global tripling of nuclear power generation could avoid nearly 2 billion tonnes of carbon emissions annually".

Why Greenies like to forget that water vapor is a "greenhouse gas" "Just how much of the "Greenhouse Effect" is caused by human activity? It is about 0.28%, if water vapor is taken into account-- about 5.53%, if not. This point is so crucial to the debate over global warming that how water vapor is or isn't factored into an analysis of Earth's greenhouse gases makes the difference between describing a significant human contribution to the greenhouse effect, or a negligible one. Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect"

The Latest "Kyoto" nonsense, aid to Saudi Arabia: "Delegates said that Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, wanted promises of aid if Kyoto spurs a shift to renewable energies like tidal, solar or wind energy at the expense of fossil fuels"

GM crops becoming accepted: "The debate over Genetically Modified Organisms usually focuses on their safety. However, as study after scientific study continues to find that no unique or inherent risks arise from biotechnology, people will slowly but increasingly come to accept GM foods. Earlier this month, for example, the European Food Safety Authority announced that a particular variety of GM maize was perfectly safe for human consumption."

Unshakable Greenie religion: "Alarming predictions of mass extinctions due to future global warming, forthcoming in this week's edition of the journal Nature, represent yet another salvo in the ideological battle to frighten the public into believing in a future of catastrophic climate change. ... 'Not only are the conclusions outlandish, but the theory upon which the entire article rests has been itself thoroughly disproved,' said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Iain Murray."

Crackpot Radio: "It is one thing to lean left politically. It is quite another to look the other way in the face of out-and-out lies, fraud, and misinformation in the arena of environmental science. The other day, I listened as my local National Public Radio (NPR) station gave a complete pass to a crackpot telling everyone in the listening audience that wind, waves, photovoltaic cells, and solar energy could easily replace fossil fuel."

A few days ago I noted with approval Randall Parker's comments on soot as a cause of global warming and had a laugh at how inconvenient it is for Greenies that it is mostly poor countries that produce lots of soot. A reader confirms that: "In 1988, at least, I would have classified Hungary as third-world. I happened to be there on a smallish economic visit. The low technology that they were using at the time made breathing the Pest air a challenge; the Buda air was better, since it sits on a bluff overlooking the Danube (Donau) .... Ditto for Bangkok, at least in the mid to late '60s. I suppose that most Asian cities are still that way". I commented jokingly in my post that Randall might end up wearing cement shoes for speaking so much truth and I am sad to say that there was an element of truth in that. Randall has emailed me to say that he has at times got hate-mail and abuse as a result of his attempts at objectivity.

*********************************