These articles could be subtitled “I knew I was right all along” and “since when did the Conservatives start producing recognizably useful and voter friendly policies?”
Who would have guessed that in 2008, a pledge to give British people flushing toilets would be a shock vote winner?
The Conservatives this week promised to scrap the Government’s plans for 15 “eco towns” which will potentially house 100,000 people. These have been heralded as a new era in design, but you need to take a closer look at both the theory and practice to see the full, grim picture.
But enough of me.
On with the fantastic frigid fun places that are the Labour government’s new “eco-towns”. Andrew Orlowski of “The Register” shows what fun places they will be:
“What are the responsibilities we each must share in return for the freedoms we enjoy?” asked Town and Country Planning Association chief David Lock last year when introducing a report. Lock and his quango are advising the Government on the initiative. What does he mean? He means freedoms you previously enjoyed have been clawed back.
Almost every aspect of life in the eco towns is minutely regulated. The streets are too small to drive around, and if you must drive the mandatory speed limit is 15mph. Planners are particularly excited about installing eco toilets that don’t flush. Because flushing is “the worst thing ever devised by modern man,” (according to one advocate), compost toilets may be mandatory. You won’t have a choice.
We took a look at one candidate loo, and the description gives us a whiff of this fragrant, low carbon future:
“The dry fecal matter is captured by a built-in teflon-coated bowl with a turning mechanism and is ‘flushed’ into wheeled bins in the buildings’ basements. ‘Flushing’ uses sawdust, dispensed from the back of the toilet, instead of water.”
Lovely.
I can hardly wait. We are obviously behind such Green propagandists luminaries like George Monbiot who put their names down first when eco-towns were first planned.
The Times describes more life in the eco-towns:
Motorists living in Gordon Brown’s futuristic green communities face fines for driving their cars out of town, under radical proposals being drawn up by ministers, The Times has learnt.
Residents of the largely pedestrianised eco-towns may also be expected to park their cars at the outskirts and walk or cycle to their homes, up to ten minutes away.
Oh the joy.
The proposals could include a fee for a permanent car space at the edge of town, charges for driving out at peak congestion times, or penalties for taking a car out of town above a set number of agreed journeys.
Yep. Free, democratic society in action. Better stay in the town then - or if you’re poor, you have no choice.
Town plans will differ, but most shops, schools and GP surgeries will be within walking or cycling distance. People usually reliant on cars will have a far more difficult journey — walking to the edge of towns to get their car, driving it back to pick up shopping, with few parking spaces available, unloading at home and then taking the car back to the edge.
I know. You’re thinking “where can I sign up for this green utopia?”
Other “eco-measures” include plans to install underground vacuum recycling, where residents have chutes for different types of waste, which is then automatically taken to a recyling centre on site. Solar panels and wind turbines will be used for power, as well as biomass boilers, fuelled by wood chips from the surrounding forests. Electric vehicles charged from shops and schools would also be encouraged.
Underground vacuum recycling? And you thought your town sucked…
Here is the brave new low-carbon world in bullet points:
Glimpse of future
— Penalties for cars driving out of eco-towns in peak times and exceeding journey limits
— Electronic noticeboards in homes to give bus times and locations
— Wood from local forests will be used to fuel biomass boilers
— Recycled waste will be processed underground after being sorted in household chutes
— Residents with electric cars will be able to charge their vehicles in shops and schools
It’s a Soviet planner’s wet dream only with even fewer employment opportunities. What brutalism did to city architecture, so eco-towns will do to town planning for decades to come.
It’s amazing to me that any progressive party, let alone one in power, would actually envisage such an appalling future, but then I live in interesting times, don’t I?
Well Piers did forecast a hurricane would form between the 18th and 22nd June, and as we can see from this Hurricane and Storm Tracking site, there are no storms at all.
Nada, zip, zilch.
So my verdict on Piers’ first hurricane prediction is: FALSE
Life’s pretty exciting these days when you’re a climate researcher, a lobbyist or an environmental activist. There’s a neverending schedule of conferences on climate change around the world to attend.
It’s a shame that very little science actually goes on at these conferences. Just lots and lots of shoulder-rubbing with politicians, scientists, writers, activists and the press. Especially press, because you can never have too much publicity.
As Bob Carter reports(pdf) on three such conferences held in Australia and New Zealand:
The three conferences shared the features of widespread pre-meeting publicity, and of sponsorship by major science organisations (CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, Royal Society of New Zealand), government departments (governments of Victoria, South Australia and New Zealand, foreign embassies (U.K., Holland), Greenhouse organisations and lobby groups (Australian Greenhouse Office, Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature, Pew Center for Climate Change), and a wide range of companies and business organizations.
Press coverage before and during each meeting often gave the impression that the science of climate change was to be the focus, but in fact the conferences were dominantly concerned with greenhouse politics and governance, with a special emphasis on the development of presumed environmental-good “command and control” measures such as carbon taxes. As the organizer of the Wellington meeting noted, “This is a policy conference, not a science congress or a diplomatic negotiation”.
I present here an analysis of the face that was presented to the public by the Wellington conference, Climate Change and Governance, hereafter often called simply the climate conference. The conclusions that I draw are, however, applicable also to the Melbourne and Adelaide meetings and to others of like kind. I assess the intentions of the Wellington conference organizers, the degree to which the general and policy discussions were informed by an adequate understanding of the science of climate change, the role played by the media in informing the public, and assess the outcomes. Troublesome ethical issues emerge, the most important of which include the role in society of scientific organizations and universities, and the way in which government-employed and other scientists are today constrained in the public comment that they can make on controversial issues of the day. Another major concern is the way in which scientific results are now routinely deployed into the public domain with a clear greenhouse propaganda intent.
That’s problem with being a skeptic - I just don’t get out enough.
The Drake Equation, according to the world’s worst encyclopedia is
… a famous result in the speculative fields of exobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
This equation was devised by Dr. Frank Drake (now Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz) in 1960, in an attempt to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy with which we might come in contact. The main purpose of the equation is to allow scientists to quantify the uncertainty of the factors which determine the number of such extraterrestrial civilizations.
Or at least, that’s what the article said at the precise moment I accessed the page. Who knows what it will say when you do the same?
The Drake Equation is given by the following formula:
where
is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might hope to be able to communicate
and
is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
is the fraction of those stars that have planets
is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
The Drake Equation has been criticized by many scientists as meaningless. Michael Crichton in his speech “Aliens cause global warming” says of the Drake Equation:
This serious-looking equation gave SETI [the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, founded by Frank Drake] a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we’re clear - are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be “informed guesses.” If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It’s simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science [my emphasis]. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion
Randall Munroe, who draws the consistently brilliant webcomic XKCD, has recently discovered that the Drake Equation is missing a term:
Just a note on an essay from George Mason University’s History News Network blog, on the symmetry between organized religion and environmentalism (or at least the catastrophic kind getting the headlines at the moment):
- Both are highly moralistic and use the language and strategies of “sinfulness.” This also involves an implied and often explicit claim to have monopolized the moral high ground.
- Both involve the idea that one must sacrifice now for some undetermined future reward. This makes the Lent connection very logical.
- Both have historically been very quick to label and condemn as “heretics” those who disagree with them.
- Both have a tendency toward irrationalism and mysticism, e.g. the Gaia strand of environmentalism.
Of course this has been noted before by Michael Crichton:
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday—these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don’t want to talk anybody out of them, as I don’t want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don’t want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can’t talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.
And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren’t necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them. [my emphasis]
I recommend both essays.
I remember Steve McIntyre noting that when Al Gore spoke at the AGU, he noted that the style of communication was that of a revivalist preacher - a remark which got him some flak at the time, until other commentators noticed it as well.
Al Gore was welcomed by a standing ovation from about 4,000 scientists from the AGU convention in the Salon 8 Ballroom at the Marriott San Francisco. He spoke for an hour and was a far more accomplished speaker than one remembers from Presidential debates, glancing only occasionally at notes. It was like a Southern Baptist orator had seamlessly changed texts. His speech was a type of sermon: a few well-practised jokes to start, a commentary on selected verses followed by a call to commit. Gore himself has gotten a little stout over the years (not that I can throw stones on this count) and a little jowly, so his presentation and appearance resulted in a type of secular avatar of Jerry Falwell.
And just to show that that observation is entirely valid, Al Gore went to the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta on January 31st and produced fire and brimstone:
“This is not a political issue,” Gore told a crowd of approximately 2,500 paying attendees. “It is a moral issue. It is an ethical issue. It is a spiritual issue.”
Gore quoted Scripture several times in his speech and repeated his views that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere are causing a global climate crisis. Gore produced an Academy Award-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which also dealt with global climate change and is being shown at the New Baptist Covenant meeting.+
In an introduction of Gore, Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, called the former Democratic presidential nominee a “Baptist prophet” and criticized the Southern Baptist Convention for its failure to commend Gore for his achievements. He also presented Gore with a “Baptist of the Year Award.”
Al Gore is “Baptist of the Year”. Whatever.
Back to the fire and brimstone:
Gore, citing Luke 12:54-57 for scriptural support, argued that it is dishonest for anyone to claim that global warming is merely a theory rather than a scientific fact.
“The evidence is there,” he said. “The signal is on the mountain. The trumpet has blown. The scientists are screaming from the rooftops. The ice is melting. The land is parched. The seas are rising. The storms are getting stronger. Why do we not judge what is right?
“I think there is a distinct possibility that one of the messages coming out of this gathering and this new covenant is creation care — that we who are Baptists of like mind, in attempting in the best of our human abilities to glorify God, are not going to countenance the continued heaping on contempt on God’s creation.”
Now I had to look up that passage that Gore quoted. In the New American Standard Version, it reads like this:
54 And He was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.
55 “And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way.
56 “You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?
57 “And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right?”
Now that passage looks like it was ripped from its context. The context is Jesus telling the crowds about his divine mission:
49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!
50 “But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!
51 “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division;
52 for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.
53 “They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
So the signs quoted by Gore are not about the weather, but about the divisiveness of Jesus’ message and the coming Judgment of sinners (that’s the context of the 12th Chapter). Real fire and brimstone stuff.
Gore concludes:
Gore said some Baptist spokesmen deny the reality of global warming because they are locked in a coalition with rich and powerful people who take advantage of the poor for economic profit.
“When did people of faith get so locked in to an ideological coalition that they got to go along with the wealthiest and most powerful who don’t want to see change of the kind that’s aimed at helping the people and protecting God’s green earth?” Gore asked
Now that’s rich coming from Gore, a man whose family fortune came from the oil industry and whose second fortune is being made by selling indulgences carbon credits to rich people to assuage their environmental guilt.
The article ends with something bizarre - who does Gore blame for this catastrophe?
Among the effects Gore cited of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are floods, tornados, hurricanes and droughts. Global warming affects the poorest people of the world most. He cited three factors responsible for recent increased levels of Greenhouse gases — population growth, the science and technology revolution and errant thinking by humans.
So Gore is in favour of ignorance and superstition after all. Science and technology are the problem, not the solution.
 Following on from yesterday’s trash piece from Richard Black comes yet another tissue of misrepresentation. Here is my reply, kept safe because I know that the BBC doesn’t ever allow criticism of itself on its own website.
Once again another piece of Black Propaganda:
“Of all the accusations made by the vociferous community of climate sceptics, surely the most damaging is that science itself is biased against them.”
Really? Where did any of the skeptics claim that “the science” was biased against them?
Nowhere. You made up a straw man right from the start. They did not claim that “science” was biased against them, they claimed that some scientific journals refused publication and some funding agencies refused to find research for spurious reasons to prevent the questioning of key studies which are foundational to the IPCC’s output.
“Nature’s refusal to publish a re-analysis by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick of the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) “hockey stick” graph has been so well documented elsewhere, not least in hearings instigated by US congressmen, that there is really nothing new to say.”
That’s fascinating. Of course, you covered the congressional hearings and made clear mention of the report of a highly distinguished and independent statistician Edward Wegman, who found Steve McIntyre’s criticism of the Hockey Stick to be “valid and compelling” and the the conclusions of the study that the 1990s where the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year of the millienium, cannot be sustained”?
No you didn’t.
What you did do was studiously ignore any findings which showed very clearly how false the Hockey Stick study really was and is. You did not write about the so-called “confirming studies” which were corrupted by use of the Hockey Stick as an proxy in itself and the Hockey Stick methodology which the NAS Panel specifically decried.
You even reported that the NAS Panel “backed the Hockey Stick” when in fact they demolished the methodology as flawed, recommended that bristlecone pine proxies should not be used as they are not temperature proxies and downgraded the Hockey Stick’s claims down to “plausible” which my dictionary defines as “Plausible … describe[s] that which has the appearance of truth but might be deceptive. The person or thing that is plausible strikes the superficial judgment favorably; it may or may not be true: a plausible argument (one that cannot be verified or believed in entirely).”
So it may be documented very well elsewhere, but not on the BBC, because the BBC is clearly not interested in science that disconfirms its prejudged views.
So once again, bias, censorship and straw man fallacies are the key ways that you continue to misrepresent scientific arguments that do not fit your pro-IPCC agenda. And it is an agenda, Richard. Please don’t confuse this continued bias with accurate journalism, because it ain’t.
More fun and games from the BBC as the IPCC report gets ever nearer.
PZ Myers comes unglued when Climate Audit wins a straw poll for Best Science Blog (the one PZ won last year):
Hi, Stan. You’re new here, like a whole lot of people. You’ve just shown up, and here’s your very first comment.
I noticed that this blog is in the running for a Best Science Blog award.
I’ve looked over the site. Cna someone point out where the science is on it. I have looked but I can’t find any.
Let me introduce myself. My name is PZ Myers. I’m an associate professor of biology at a small liberal arts university in the upper midwest. I make no grand claims for myself, but I have been exceptionally busy lately, with lots of travel and lectures, and it’s all on top of teaching two courses, one of which is both new to me and a new course in our discipline, so I’m writing lectures at a frantic pace and trying to keep up with 80 students. I’m also working on a book and have a magazine column to write, in addition to other irregular writing jobs. I’m stretched very, very thin right now, I’m a bit frustrated myself that I haven’t had much spare time for the blog, and I’m feeling extremely cranky.
Welcome, Stan Palmer, I’m going to unload on you as a proxy for all your fellow denialist idiots!
First, though, I’ll help you out. Look on the left sidebard, for A Taste of Pharyngula. If that’s not enough, there’s an archive of my Seed columns. You didn’t seem to look very hard before leaping to your rather clueless indictment; I suspect you were directed here by one of those right-wing sites and came here with preconceptions. I daresay you probably didn’t look at all, but instead simply scampered over here to toss off your petty, ignorant comment.
And then, of course, what’s bringing you and your fellow naive whiners here is the need to defend the climate change denialist, McIntyre — so many of you, after carping that I’m not meeting your demands, are protesting that he’s not a denialist, and you aren’t denialists, and you’re all here in the cause of good science.
Bullshit.
My expertise is not in climate, but in biology, and I’m familiar with his type — it’s a common strategy among creationists, who do dearly love to collect complaints. There are people who put together a coherent picture of a scientific issue, who review lots of evidence and assemble a rational synthesis. They’re called scientists. Then there are the myopic little nitpickers, people who scurry about seeking little bits of garbage in the fabric of science (and of course, there are such flaws everywhere), and when they find some scrap of rot, they squeak triumphantly and hold it high and declare that the science everywhere is similarly corrupt. They lack perspective. They ignore everything that doesn’t fit their search criterion, and of course, they’re focused only on putrescence. They aren’t scientists, they’re more like rats.
And the worst of the rats are the sanctimonious ones that declare that they’re just ‘policing’ science. They aren’t. They’re just providing fodder for their fellow denialists, and like them all, have nothing of value to contribute to advance the conversation. You can quit whining that you and McIntyre are finding valid errors; it doesn’t matter, since you’re simultaneously spreading a plague of lies and ignorance as you go.
So bugger off, denialists. I am not impressed.
Everyone else, please do vote for Bad Astronomy. Real scientists can see the big picture and understand that the real power of science lies in the explanations, not the pettifoggery with statistics — not that I expect the right-wing gomers at the Weblog Awards who nominated the purveyors of junk science for their award to to know that, or for the swarms of freepers and limbots to care.
Oh, and the next clueless ass to whine at me that they can’t find any science here will be disemvoweled. I’m feeling peevish, so it’s not a good time to prod.
More rats. Rats with their moldy flecks of rotting garbage. You guys don’t get it, do you?
Something tells me PZ needs a hug.
This just in to my mailbox:
George L. Savvides & Co,
Omega Court,
1st, 2nd and 4th Floors,
4 Rigas Fereos Street,
Limassol 3720.
Tel: +44 790-278-0943Dear John A .,
This is a personal email directed to you and I request that it be treated as such. I am George L. Savvides, attorney/sole executor to the late Mr Randolf  John, hereinafter referred to as ‘my client’ who worked as an independent oil magnate in my country and who died in a car crash with his immediate family on the 4th of oct, 1998. Since the death of my client in oct, 1998, I have tried to locate any of his extended relatives whom shall be claimants/beneficiaries of his abandoned personal estate and all such efforts have been to no avail.
Moreso, I have received official letters in the last few weeks suggesting a likely proceeding for confiscation of his abandoned personal assets in line with existing laws by the bank in which my client deposited the sum of 3.8 million USD.On this note I decided to search for a credible person and finding that you bear a similar last name, I was urged to contact you, that I may, with your consent, present you to the “trustee” bank as my late client’s surviving family member so as to enable you put up a claim to the bank in that capacity as a next of kin of my client.
I find this possible for the fuller reasons that you bear a similar last name with my client making it a lot easier for you to put up a claim in that capacity.
I propose that 35% of the net sum will accrue to me at the conclusion of this deal in so far as I do not incur further expenses.Therefore, to facilitate the immediate reprofiling of this fund, you need, first to contact me via this email signifying your interest and as soon as I obtain your confidence, I will immediately appraise you with the complete details as well as fax you the documents, with which you are to proceed and i shall direct on how to put up an application to the bank.
HOWEVER, you will have to accent to an express agreement which I will forward to you in order to bind us in this transaction.
Upon the reciept of your reply,I will send you by fax or E-mail the next step to take. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this proposal is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any fears as the required arrangements have been made for the completion of this transfer.
Like I said, I require only a solemn confidentiality on this.Best regards,
George Savvides,Partner Corporate & Fiduciary Group
I can hardly wait to claim my unexpected good fortune.
I don’t really want to focus too much on global warming, greenhouse gases and eco-Apocalypse on this blog, because there’s more out there to talk about. For those fascinated by the debate, there’s Climate Audit which does a much better job of understanding what is, and is not, real than I can.
But I was fascinated to read this article about Robert Geigengack, who is a) a geology professor and b) a liberal who criticizes Al Gore and his Oscar winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” as
… a political statement timed to present him as a presidential candidate in 2008….The glossy production is replete with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, and appeals to public fear as shamelessly as any other political statement that hopes to unite the public behind a particular ideology
Geigengack is on the same faculty as Michael Mann of the famous “Hockey Stick”. I wonder if they converse any on this subject.
I do agree with Geigengack though - there’s way too much politicking and trying to silence opposition than actual hard fact.
Bad Behavior has blocked 29 access attempts in the last 7 days.
