When human cost of ‘going green’ can be far too high
Buncrana tragedy shows the banning of some unpopular chemicals, such as those which could have cleared pier of slippery algae, can be catastrophic
PUBLISHED11/07/2016
The Buncrana pier tragedy should give us pause. It’s a moment to consider life, hug our loved ones and contemplate how we might prevent such horrors happening in the future.
A major piece missing from the Buncrana pier discussion is how empty platitudes and feel-good environmental policies may have contributed to the death of five family members. We owe it to the McGrotty and Daniels families – and our own families – to take a hard look at the culture of dogmatic environmentalism.
You can’t ask basic questions of environmentalists anymore without being labelled a “denier”, or “anti-science” or, worst of all, a “conservative”. We’re supposed to “go green” without a second thought.
But when we turn off our brains for the sake of dogma – any dogma – we lose sight of the consequences of our choices. It’s likely the McGrotty and Daniels families weren’t thinking about environmental policy on their St Patrick’s weekend outing.
They were rightfully enjoying each other’s company, the weather and the beautiful view from Buncrana pier.
It was their last stop before the six of them were to return home.
But, as Sean McGrotty made a three-point turn on the pier, his tyres slipped on the dangerously thick layer of algae and never regained traction. The car plummeted into the water.
“The algae was absolutely lethal,” said Davitt Walsh, an eyewitness who, after seeing the accident, dived into the water and by sheer willpower, fighting the rising tide and exhaustion, was able to rescue four-month-old Rioghnach-Ann – the only family member to survive.
Hot Truth about Cold Weather- Peer reviewed papers Cold weather kills 20 times more people than hot weather
…Archaeology suggests no direct link between climate change and early human innovation
Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites suggest climate may not have been directly linked to cultural and technological innovations of Middle Stone Age humans in southern Africa, according to a study published July 6, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Patrick Roberts from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues.
The Middle Stone Age marked a period of dramatic change amongst early humans in southern Africa, and climate change has been postulated as a primary driver for the appearance of technological and cultural innovations such as bone tools, ochre production, and personal ornamentation. While some researchers suggest that climate instability may have directly inspired technological advances, others postulate that environmental stability may have provided a stable setting that allowed for experimentation. However, the disconnection of palaeoenvironmental records from archaeological sites makes it difficult to test these alternatives.
The authors of this study carried out analyses of animal remains, shellfish taxa and the stable carbon and oxygen isotope measurements in ostrich eggshell, from two archaeological sites, Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter, spanning 98,000 to 73,000 years ago and 72,000 to 59,000 years ago, respectively, to acquire data regarding possible palaeoenvironmental conditions in southern Africa at the time. For instance, ostrich eggshell carbon and oxygen stable isotope levels may reflect vegetation and water consumption, which in turn vary with rainfall seasonality and amount in this region.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-07-archaeology-link-climate-early-human.html#jCp…
Analysis: ‘The Link between Extreme Environmentalism and Hard-Core Racism’
By Jeffrey A. Tucker
Wednesday, July 06, 2016
In my reading and writing on the history of eugenics (here, here, and here), I’ve begun to discern a common trait between the people called environmentalists and racists from a century ago.
They share a common outlook that is illiberal to its core. They imagine that a wise and powerful state can better plan a future for both nature and man. Both groups were panicked about unplanned progress, assuming it could only resort in degeneration, mongrelization, and destruction. They dreamed of a future in which they and not the unwashed masses would be in charge of how resources are used and how the human race propagates itself.
Madison Grant Saves the Trees and the White Race
Thanks to Mother Jones, my suspicions have been confirmed. An essay that pleads with the progressive movement to deal forthrightly with its own grim history of racism discusses the life and work of Madison Grant (1865-1937). This bushy-lipped aristocrat was the hero of the environmentalists in the Progressive Era. He saved the redwoods of California from logging. He was the guru behind the creation of national parks. He undertook the most aggressive efforts ever to preserve species from extinction. He was handsome, urbane, ridiculously well educated and well connected, and “the greatest conservationist who ever lived.”
Also, Grant wrote the book that Adolf Hitler described as “my Bible.” The book is the 1916 The Passing of the Great Race. A bestseller for many years, on the coffee tables in all the fashionable houses, it is quite possibly the crudest, crankiest, and most bloodthirsty racialist tract ever written; and there’s a lot of competition for that title. He championed segregation, exclusion, sterilization, immigration restrictions, a welfare state (to keep women from working), a high bar for professional employment (minimum wages), and aggressive central planning.…
India delays ratification of Paris climate treaty indefinitely
http://junkscience.com/2016/06/india-delays-ratification-of-paris-climate-treaty-indefinitely/
More bad news for Obama.
From the Times of India:…
Obama warns poor nations will put planet ‘under water’ by using fossil fuels
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/25/obama-warns-poor-nations-will-put-planet-under-wat/
By Valerie Richardson – The Washington Times
Saturday, June 25, 2016
The world’s richest nations have long been fueled by oil, coal and natural gas, but President Obama warned Friday that less affluent countries trying to take the same path will put the planet “under water.”
In an interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Obama said he hoped social-media “connectivity” will help convince developing nations to eschew fossil fuels, which contribute to rising carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere but are also less expensive and more reliable than green energy alternatives.
“In terms of the problems we have to solve, energy is a classic example, the issue of climate change,” Mr. Obama said at the three-day Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University.
“There are entire continents, sub-Saharan Africa or the Indian sub-continent, where people are developing rapidly. They’re getting connected,” he said. “They’re going to need electricity, they’re going to need energy, but if they duplicate the ways that we produce energy here, or have in the past, then the entire planet is under water.”
The seventh annual summit, which ended Friday, hosted 1,200 entrepreneurs and investors from 170 nations, including for the first time Cuba. The Obama administration announced in December 2014 that it would restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and end a 54-year-old trade embargo with the communist island nation.…
Data reveals: Many, Many More People Die Of Cold Than Heat
Amidst all the talk of people dying in heatwaves, we need to remember that many, many more people die of the cold than the heat.
This is self evident in the UK, where the ONS routinely calculate excess winter deaths each year. They never count summer ones, as that is when death rates are lowest.
But what is maybe less well known is that the same applies even in hot countries, as this study published in the Lancet last year showed:
Cold weather is 20 times as deadly as hot weather, and it’s not the extreme low or high temperatures that cause the most deaths, according to a study published Wednesday.
The study — published in the British journal The Lancet — analyzed data on more than 74 million deaths in 13 countries between 1985 and 2012. Of those, 5.4 million deaths were related to cold, while 311,000 were related to heat.
Because the study included countries under different socio-economic backgrounds and with varying climates, it was representative of temperature-related deaths worldwide, the study said. The sharp distinction between heat- and cold-related deaths is because low temperatures cause more problems for the body’s cardiovascular and respiratory systems, it added.
“Public-health policies focus almost exclusively on minimizing the health consequences of heat waves,” Gasparrini said. “Our findings suggest that these measures need to be refocused and extended to take account of a whole range of effects associated with temperature.”
This report backs up a U.S. study last year from the National Center for Health Statistics, which found that cold kills more than twice as many Americans as heat.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/
Of course, we can’t get away without any mention of climate change, with the US Today article concluding:
…The most recent study doesn’t project what its findings could mean for the future, particularly with climate change warming much of the globe over the next century.
“Extrapolating the results of this study for this purpose would only provide speculations not based on evidence,” Gasparrini said. However, he has received a grant from the United Kingdom to study that and hopes “we will answer this question soon,” he said.
British news outlet says take the ‘no-shower challenge’
British news outlet says take the ‘no-shower challenge’
http://www.cfact.org/2016/06/16/british-news-outlet-says-take-the-no-shower-challenge/
The Guardian, Britain’s wildly anti-fossil fuel news site, floated the idea on Tuesday of taking the “no-shower challenge” as a way to alleviate water shortages and heal environmental degradation.
— gReader Pro…
$90 Billion Per Year: Africa’s Demand for Going Green
…‘The no-showering challenge’: ‘Why we should all take part’
James Hamblin, senior editor of the Atlantic, recently joined the unwashed masses. As part of his series If Our Bodies Could Talk, Hamblin, a relatively sane-looking man, took on a no-showering challenge to examine the effect of overcleansing the body. He reduced the number of showers he took and eliminated shampoo and soap when he did.
In doing so, he discovered what thousands of others have: the more we fervently try to clean ourselves with soaps, body washes, and those silly little body poufs, the harder our skin works to restore equilibrium, cueing us to begin the whole bewildering process again. Showering strips the skin of its own oil and bacteria – which, many would argue, is the whole point of showering – but apparently this sometimes works a little too well, especially when you add hot water and cleansing products to the mix.
You know that feeling after a shower when you feel like you’re stuck in a skin suit two sizes too small? That’s because much of your skin’s natural moisture has been washed down the drain. Additionally, our skin, much like our gut, plays host to millions of beneficial bacteria. Showering destroys these happy bacterial colonies; they’re completely wiped out by all of our frequent rubbing and scrubbing. And when the bacteria washed off by soap repopulate, they tend to favour microbes which produce an odor – yes, too-frequent showering may actually make you smell more. When you stop showering and using soap, however, your skin goes through an initial (likely gross) adjustment period, after which the skin typically restores balance, oil production slows, and healthy bacteria flourish.
After everything was said and done, Hamblin realised what other no-soap/no-shower devotees have known for years: that the human body, functioning on its own, is actually quite lovely.…