EclectEcon

Will Graphene Really Change Desalination?

Desalination (and other processes to derive potable water) are expensive and use a great deal of energy. If the process of using graphene can be perfected, the cost of producing potable water will plummet. People will be better off, especially those who live in areas where fresh water is both scarce and under-priced and salt water is plentiful. Here is a recent article about the possibility of using graphene in desalination filters. An excerpt:

Graphene researchers won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for developing the wonder-material.

In addition, the film is super thin — just a single atom thick — so that the water simply "pops through the very, very small holes that we make in the graphene and leaves the salt behind," said Stetson [of Lockheed, which is working on the project].

Lockheed anticipates that their filters will be able to provide clean drinking water "at a fraction of the cost of industry-standard reverse osmosis systems," their press release says. Water-poor regions of the world will be the first to benefit.

... Perforene isn't a game-changer, yet. Lockheed is still in the prototype stage. One challenge is figuring out how to scale up production. Graphene is cheap but it's very delicate because of its thinness, also making it difficult to transfer.

There is undoubtedly much to perfect yet, and this announcement from Lockheed may well be unduly premature. But here's hoping. Something like this would really benefit the poor of the world. And it would be a game-saver for Florida, California, Hawaii, and probably the US Southwest, indirectly. Is it real, or will it go the same way as the various attempts to revive the steam automobile?

Addendum: I really doubt that using graphene-based water filters would do much to alleviate the low-water-level problems in the Great Lakes, however.

Related articles

Lockheed Patents Graphene Water Desalination Filter

Graphene with nanometer holes could be super efficient for desalination and drop in replacement at existing desal plants by the end of 2013

Lockheed Martin Moves Closer to Affordable Water Desalination

The Future of Desalination: Graphene and LENR?

Would I Look Younger with Dark Hair? (as if it matters)

People who have seen me with dark hair tell me it takes years off my appearance.  Here is one example:

So maybe there's hope? From Gabriel,

"For generations, numerous remedies have been concocted to hide gray hair," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, the editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal, "but now, for the first time, an actual treatment that gets to the root of the problem has been developed. While this is exciting news, what's even more exciting is that this also works for vitiligo. This condition, while technically cosmetic, can have serious socio-emotional effects of people. Developing an effective treatment for this condition has the potential to radically improve many people's lives."

I expect none of this stuff will be commercially viable while I'm alive. Or if it is, I'll probably be too old to care. Oh well, the rest of you have so much neato stuff to look forward to.

Related articles

Aging and Life Expectancy

Gray hair and vitiligo reversed at the root

Graying of hair can now be reversed - Zee News - Zee News

Short-Term Memory Test

Some time ago, Jack sent me this message and link. It's a short-term memory test having to do with pictures of people -- when and whether you saw each picture.

I did okay (which is reassuring), but then I didn't wait between the parts nearly as long as they say you should, so maybe my results aren't valid. This is a hard test. Try to remember which photos you have seen in which part of the test. Good luck....

Short Term Memory Test

You'll be shown 12 photos in the first part,  You'll be shown another 12 photos in the second part, You'll be shown 48 photos in the third part and asked if you saw them in the first part,  the second part - or never saw them at all. When you have finished the third part, your results will be given to you. Click here to begin. .... My scores were reported like this: Recognition score ( if you saw it ) Your score: 100% Average score: 92% This is a measure of your ability to remember the photos you've seen, regardless of the part in which you saw them. From all 24 photos shown in Parts 1 & 2, you recognised: 24 photo(s).     Temporal memory score  ( when you saw it ) Your score: 79% Average score: 68% This is a measure of how often you recognised a photo and matched it to the correct part, instead of just remembering which ones you'd seen. From all the photos you recognised, you matched: 19 photo(s) to the correct part.

 

Music for Meteors

We will be in Houston during the Lyrid Meteor Shower on April 21-22, visiting my son Adam Smith Palmer and family. He has suggested (probably not seriously) that they might hold a large, loud backyard party (no lamps or lanterns, please) at 4am to watch the meteors.

I have offered to provide music for the occasion. 

Here are some of the suggestions so far (please post other suggestions in the comments):

• Catch a Falling Star and Put It in Your Pocket - Perry Como
• Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
• Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes
• Star Light, Star Bright
• Stardust - Hoagy Carmichael
• Swinging on a Star
• others? 

and maybe at the end of the party (as the sun rises), The Animals version of The House of the Rising Sun.

Addendum: An internet acquaintance sent me these suggestions as well. I especially like "Starry, Starry Night".

Stars fell on Alabama

Stars in your eyes

A handful of stars

Follow a star

I saw stars

It was written in the stars

Lost in the stars

Serenade to the stars

Shakedown to the stars

The stars will remember

Starry starry night

You're the only star in my blue heaven

Global Warming "Scientists" Cooked Their Data

Every time I think maybe there really is something to the concerns about global warming, I find out that the people claiming that global warming is or will be serious cooked/fudged/lied about their data. Thank goodness for people like Ross McKitrick (a colleague when I visited Guelph a few years ago). His recent piece in the Financial Post highlights more highjinks:

In recent years there have been a number of cases in which high-profile papers from climate scientists turned out, on close inspection, to rely on unseemly tricks, fudges and/or misleading analyses. After they get uncovered in the blogosphere, the academic community rushes to circle the wagons and denounce any criticism as “denialism.” There’s denialism going on all right — on the part of scientists who don’t see that their continuing defence of these kinds of practices exacts a toll on the public credibility of their field.

Cooking the data is simply not legitimate, and it looks as if that's what too many people in the global-warming non-skeptic camp have been doing.

Update:  Harold Brooks writes "McKitrick knows a great deal about cooking data. He was involved in cherry picking the 1% most sensitive artificial time series from an experiment and treating them as random selections. See http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/ and Mashey's other analyses of Wegman, McIntyre, and McKitrick."

I wish I understood the nature of the debate better.

Aging and Life Expectancy

As I have aged and as my body has continued to remind me of that fact, and as friends younger than I have died recently, like many seniors I have become increasingly intrigued (some might say obsessed) with data on life expectancy. Jack recently sent me these tables from Statistics Canada (males and females). 

Ms. Eclectic is older than I am, but according to the tables, if we were average, she'd outlive me by about half a year.

How long do we have? Well, there's no point in being explicit. Last fall when a young actress asked me, "How old ARE you? Really." 

I gave my standard response (which I now use on forms asking my age): "Less than 90."

That means I probably can expect (if I'm average) to have another 5+ years.

You know what? Aside from the (comparatively minor) aches and pains and having to slow down a tad, I'm loving it and looking forward to it.

The Use of Fossil Fuels and the GREENING of the Planet

 In this 18-minute video, Matt Ridley explains why and how the use of fossil fuels is contributing to the greening of the planet:

From Reason magazine (h/t JB):

Over the past three decades, our planet has gotten greener!

Even stranger, the greening of the planet in recent decades appears to be happening because of, not despite, our reliance on fossil fuels. While environmentalists often talk about how bad stuff like CO2 causes bad things to happen like global warming, it turns out that the plants aren't complaining.

Related articles

Global Warming: It is NOT Settled Science

A must watch - Greening the Planet - Dr. Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley: Burning fossil fuels is greening the planet

Matt Ridley on How Fossil Fuels are Greening the Planet

Molokai, Addendum

The morning of the day we left Molokai, I went back to Popahaku Beach, partly to linger, partly to hold onto the memories. 

And, of course, I couldn't leave without doing some stomp art in the sand. 

Our flights home took us via Chicago O'Hare, where it was snowing when we landed. It was a wet snow, and it didn't seem all THAT serious, but I guess it was. When we landed, we had a very smooth landing, but the plane seemed to slide sideways a bit. And once we landed, we had to join a queue just to get to our gate. Meanwhile, we got to watch the snow-removal teams of vehicles at work. I counted 12 of them in a row, ploughing and blowing the snow from the taxi strips.

Because of weather issues and mechanical issues with a plane ahead of us, we waited on the tarmac for nearly two hours before we could disembark. If our other plane was on time, we had 10 minutes to get to it. But the minute we got off the plane we checked the board and saw that our next flight (direct from Chicago to London, Ontario) was delayed an hour, so we relaxed a bit and found our way to the proper gate. 

It turned out that about every 15 - 20 minutes, the flight to London was delayed again, just a bit more, "awaiting inbound aircraft" which, it turned out, had never left London to get to Chicago.

During the wait, this sign really tickled me:

The rescheduled departure time was 4:15 CST; the flight was due to arrive in London at 4:24 EST (which is 3:24 CST). And the flight was expected to take an hour and 14 minutes. I assumed that meant we'd be traveling faster than the speed of light.

That flight was eventually cancelled. So we rescheduled for the later flight. Then 20 minutes before it was due to depart, it too was cancelled. So we tried to rebook. It turned out there was no way to get out of Chicago that night to London. Furthermore, every conceivable way of doing it the next day was completely booked up. We were going to have to spend two nights in Chicago.

So I called a number provided by the airline, and they automagically booked us into the Intercontinental Hotel at O'Hare for about $80/night. Ms. Eclectic and I looked at each other and agreed; I pronounced, "hurt me some more." The rack rate of the room we had was $500, and the currently listed internet rate is about $170/night. 

We relaxed. We drank. We ate. And we enjoyed ourselves in our corner room with a funky bathroom:

It sort of reminded us of the Old Dominion Hotel in the lower old village in Quebec City. 

Finally, after two nights, we boarded a flight from Chicago to Toronto, were pleasantly surprised to see our checked bags were with us, and from Toronto flew home. 

Overall, it was a pleasant, relaxing holiday, even with the flight cancellations in Chicago. 

Aloha!

 

Related articles

Molokai, Part I (of 11?)

Molokai, Part 2 (of 11)

Molokai, Part 3 (of 11); Hiking in the hills

Molokai, Part 4 (of 11); More hiking in the hills

Molokai, Part 5 (of 11); Still more hiking in the hills

Molokai, Part 6 (of 11); On the beach

Molokai, Part 7 (of 11); Sunsets, beaches, and abandonment

Molokai, Part 8 (of 11); 2.4-mile beach

Molokai, Part 9 (of 11); Some Island features

Molokai, Part 11 (of 11); Hiking north

Environmentally Friendly Vatican Smoke?

From the BBC: (via Jack)

The smoke comes partly from the burning of ballot papers in a special stove in the chapel. But to colour it white or black, this smoke is mixed with that from chemical additives burnt in a second stove. Traditionally the Vatican produced the different colours by burning wet straw for white and tarry pitch for black.

Anyone who has ever made a bonfire knows that damp grass will work for the former; the less responsible of you will know that chucking old tyres or roofing felt into the flames will turn the smoke black – and what’s more, noxious, because it is then full of sooty carbon particles that can clog the lungs and are potentially carcinogenic.

It’s not concern for the environment that has led the Vatican to change its ways, however. Rather, the smoke in some previous elections came out an ambiguous grey, prompting the decision for the last conclave in 2005 to use a more reliable method based on chemical ingredients.

The Vatican has now revealed what these are. For black, it uses a mixture of potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulphur; white comes from potassium chlorate, lactose and the conifer resin called rosin, which is often rubbed on violin bows to increase friction.

 

 

The Sky Is Falling (maybe)

An football-field-sized asteroid has been discovered that this weekend will sort of pass near the earth (actually, 2.5 times the distance from the earth to the moon, so not all that close). The neat thing is that it was discovered a week before it reaches a spot closest to earth. See this (h/t Wendy).

Finding this asteroid a week before it flies by us is close to the goal of astronomers that are in the process of building early warning systems, but they want to get a week's advanced warning for objects half the size of 2013 ET, and probably up to 2 weeks for something of its size.

 

Global Warming: It is NOT Settled Science

Long-time readers of EclectEcon know that I am what is called a Global-Warming Skeptic. Check the links here, for example.

I'm not a denier; I'm just not sure. For example, when I look at how far the Athabasca Glacier has receded, it is impossible to deny that at in some parts of the world average temperatures seem to have risen. 

At the same time, I know there are parts of the world where ice continues to build up. And the year-to-year variation in temperatures is so big that discerning longer-term trends and cycles is quite difficult (sounds like economics!). Furthermore, the temperature evidence for so many years was being taken from weather stations that were located near expanding cities where temperatures tend to be higher even if global temperatures are not rising.

But anytime I would express skepticism, or anytime I would suggest maybe the costs due to global warming might be much less than the costs of trying to prevent it, I'd be met with assertions that "it is settled science."

It isn't, as this survey of earth scientists reveals [h/t Jack].

Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

And people claim that economists can't agree on anything! hunh.

Related articles

More on Global Warming

More on the IPCC's Latest Leaked Document on Global Warming

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis

Money, Politics and the Science of Global Warming

Alarmists Change the Data to Support Global Warming Claims

More Criticisms of the "Science" of Global Warming and the IPCC

Be skeptical. From The Economist (which has, until recently, been quite mainstream in its lack of skepticism about the science of global warming):

Perhaps the most worrying thing about the PBL [Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency] report, though, is a rather obvious one about which its authors say little. In all ten of the issues that the PBL categorised as major (the original errors on glaciers and Dutch sea level, and the eight others identified in the report), the impression that the reader gets from the IPCC is more strikingly negative than the impression which would have been received if the underlying evidence base had been reflected as the PBL would have wished, with more precise referencing, more narrow interpretation and less authorial judgment. A large rise in heat related deaths in Australia is mentioned without noting that most of the effect is due to population rather than climate change. A claim about forest fires in northern Asia seems to go further than the evidence referred to—in this case a speech by a politician—would warrant.

The Netherlands look more floodable, Asian glaciers more fragile. A suspicion thus gains ground that the way in which the IPCC sythesises, generalises snd checks its findings may systematically favour adverse outcomes in a way that goes beyond just serving the needs of policy makers. Anecdotally, authors bemoan fights to keep caveats in place as chapters are edited, refined and summarised. The PBL report does not prove or indeed suggest systematic bias, and it stresses that it has found nothing that should lead the parliament of the Netherlands, or anyone else, to reject the IPCC’s findings. But the panel set up to look at the IPCC’s workings by Dr Pachauri and Mr Ban should ask some hard questions about systematic tendencies to accentuate the negative.

Cosmology and an Infinite Universe

After a series of e-mails on this and related topics, Jack wrote:

I can't even get my head around the concept of a universe without borders/end. One would think a deity would at least create borders for the playpen.

String Theory: what does it imply

According to many string theorists, one implication of the theory is that we live in one of many multiverses and there are really 11 dimensions. I doubt if that's a testable hypothesis (See Peter Woit's criticisms of string theory), which made me laugh at this xkcd cartoon (h/t Ricardo):

 

Update: Peter Woit writes, "... it is a real classic, summarizing the situation about as succinctly as possible."

The Full Popular Science Archive Is Available On-Line

I used to read Popsci now and then as a teen. I don't know that I'd have much interest in this now, but some of you might.

The Holographic Universe: An Extrapolation from Flatland?

Ever since I read some popular works for non-physicists about string theory and the possibility that there might be multi-verses and many more dimensions than just three or four to our known universe, I have been increasingly impressed by the imagination shown in the 19th century novel Flatland.

But now the concept of the universe (as we ordinarily might perceive it) as a holographic projection from more than just four or more dimensions seems like a similar mind-bending exercise [h/t Craig Newmark].

More importantly, confirming the holographic principle would be a big help to researchers trying to unite quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity. Today the most popular approach to quantum gravity is string theory, which researchers hope could describe happenings in the universe at the most fundamental level. But it is not the only show in town. "Holographic space-time is used in certain approaches to quantising gravity that have a strong connection to string theory," says Cramer. "Consequently, some quantum gravity theories might be falsified and others reinforced."

Hogan agrees that if the holographic principle is confirmed, it rules out all approaches to quantum gravity that do not incorporate the holographic principle. Conversely, it would be a boost for those that do - including some derived from string theory and something called matrix theory. "Ultimately, we may have our first indication of how space-time emerges out of quantum theory." As serendipitous discoveries go, it's hard to get more ground-breaking than that.

This is mind-blowing stuff, well beyond my ability to comprehend. And yet I find it terribly exciting.

[Reminder: If you're skeptical about string theory, or just want to learn more about some of the controversies, be sure to read Peter Woit's blog, Not Even Wrong]

When you read Flatland, just skim over the bleeding-heart socionomology of this book and revel in the mathematical imagination:

Perseid Meteor Shower Last Night and Tonight

From CBC:

The Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak at about 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, but for viewers in Canada the annual event is still expected to put on a show Wednesday night.

About 100 meteors per hour can be seen streaking across the sky during the shower's peak, NASA astronomers say.

The peak, however, is at about 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, meaning people in Canada won't get to the see it at its zenith.

But the meteor shower did put on a show Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning and is expected to do the same Wednesday evening.

NASA astronomers recommend watching the shower between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., when both the moon and the constellation Perseus are low on the horizon, though the number of meteors will be fewer than at the shower's apex.

So we'll have to tear ourselves away from the television set this evening and drive out into the country somewhere to watch this.

Official Time, Atomic Clocks, and Absolute Zero

The official time in the US is provided, by time zone, at this site. For the Eastern time zone, perhaps this link will be direct.

I came across these links after watching this wonderful lecture, "The Coolest Stuff in the Universe" by William D. Phillips and presented by TVO. Slightly geeky stuff at a level that smart undergrads can probably understand covering time, space, atoms, and absolute zero. Too bad it is difficult or impossible to make the video full screen, but it is still worth an hour of your time.

Dark Energy: Makes about as Much Sense as Macroeconomics

From the Washington Post,

"Even nothing, even empty space, weighs something, and because in our universe we've got a lot of nothing, it has a major effect on our evolution and causes space itself to accelerate," said David Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton University.

What remains unclear is what dark energy is, exactly.

Nothing weighs something? What is this, a love song? Magic? Voodoo? Inferential science? Ontological epistomology? Whatever it is, it sounds a lot like macroeconomics to me.

Global Warming? Biases on The Weather Network

The Weather Network in Canada often makes references to global warming and the human causes of the warming. I've written to them several times, asking them why they never interview people like Ross McKitrick or Chris Essex or many of the other reputable scientists who have raised serious questions about the views presented with such confidence on The Weather Network. Not surprisingly, they have not responded to my queries.

Here's another item that appeared last week that I never saw mentioned on The Weather Network [see here and here; h/t to Eva and Ricardo]:

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record....

GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

I've tried to keep an open mind about global warming, but things like this make me even more skeptical. As Alex Jones says,

Whether such “mistakes” are made in genuine error or are part of a politicized push for man-made global warming to be universally accepted, and the evidence clearly suggests that latter is the case, the fact is that we can no longer tolerate the cry that “the debate is over” on man-made global warming in light of such gargantuan falsehoods.

Likewise, the push for carbon emissions to be reduced by 80 per cent or more, a figure that would completely cripple western economies and lower living standards to a near third world level, can no longer be accepted as a reasonable course of action now that the primary authority on man-made global warming, the UN IPCC, has been proven to be using fraudulent data to make its case.

Foisted upon the public by means of giant multi-million dollar PR campaigns and brainwashing mandates that have worked themselves into every sector of society, including education, movies, television the arts and culture, all the attention and funding is being lavished upon a manufactured hoax, peddled with the aid of phony data, as governments prepare to suck what’s left out of the middle class and poor with carbon taxes that do nothing to help the environment, while all the real environmental problems are left in the shadows.

It must be time to challenge all the public school and high school teachers who are hammering home the GISS received doctrine about global warming without even acknowledging the serious questions that are emerging. My experience is that nearly everyone who thinks the received doctine is "settled science" has an anti-consumer political agenda behind their thinking.

Amazing Image of Saturn

From this site [h/t to Jack]:

The camera exposure times were just right to capture the dark-side of its rings, but longer than that required to properly expose the globe of sunlit Saturn. Consequently, the sunlit half of the planet is overexposed. Between the blinding light of day and the dark of night, there is a strip of twilight on the globe where colourful details in the atmosphere can be seen. Bright clouds dot the bluish-grey northern polar region here. In the south, the planet's night side glows golden in reflected light from the rings' sunlit face.

Saturn's shadow stretches completely across the rings in this view, in contrast to what Cassini saw when it arrived in 2004.

Ike, the _______ of All Storms

From Eric Berger's chat at the Houston Chronicle:

In honor of Ray Nagin, please fill in the blank. Ike will be the ____________ of all storms.
mother-in-law

( 15% )

ugly sister

( 26% )

grandaddy

( 8% )

annoying little brother

( 19% )

obnoxious uncle

( 29% )

infant

( 3% )

Let's Hear It for Probability Distributions!

My younger son, Adam Smith Palmer, lives south of Houston, Texas. Recently, I have been a bit more than curious about Hurricane Ike and what the forecasts say. The typical forecast says, "We expect Hurricane Ike to be a category 3 hurricane with winds approaching 125 mph when it reaches the Texas coast." That doesn't tell me as much as I would like to know. For example, what are the odds it might be stronger or weaker?

Well, hallelujah, the National Hurricane Center (US) provides a probability distribution of its forecasts. As an example, this is the table that was posted yesterday afternoon:

Wouldn't it be wonderful if Environment Canada made similar tables available in their snowfall predictions in the winter?

Can We Rescind Gore's Nobel Prize?Over the next few decades, we may need all the greenhouse gases we can get

To the extent that global warming is related primarily to sunspot activity, we may well be in for some serious global cooling, not global warming over the next few decades [h/t David Ricardo Palmer]:

“The sun’s surface has been fairly blank for the last couple of years, and that has some worried that it may be entering another Maunder minimum, the sun’s 50-year abstinence from sunspots, which some scientists have linked to the Little Ice Age of the 17th century,” reports one science blog.

Long-time man-made global warming advocates NASA assure us that significant sunspot activity will return in 2012, but a recent a paper on recent solar trends by William Livingston and Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, predicts that sunspots will all but vanish after 2015.

Since the sun, and not carbon dioxide, is the principle driver of climate change, a dearth of sunspot activity would herald a repeat of the Maunder Minimum, the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots became exceedingly rare and contributed to the onset of the Little Ice Age during which Europe and North America were hit by bitterly cold winters and the Thames river in London completely froze. ...

“Based on the past Armagh measurements, this suggests that over the next two decades, global temperatures may fall by about 2 degrees C — that is, to a level lower than any we have seen in the last 100 years….“Temperatures have already fallen by about 0.5 degrees C over the past 12 months and, if this is only the start of it, it would be a serious concern,” concludes David Watt.

Such predictions are of course of little interest to a global PR machine that butters its bread on attributing every weather event, be it droughts, floods, volcanoes or earthquakes, to man-made global warming.

No matter that the last ten years have showed no global warming and the next 10 years are predicted to show no global warming, the fact that temperatures are clearly dropping in correlation to the lack of sunspot activity means nothing to people who are already committed to a quasi-religious belief system and governments that have resolved to squeeze the middle class citing fraudulent claims of eco-apocalypse as an excuse, while the real environmental crises - deforestation, GM madness, cell phone tower radiation, genetic splicing and chemtrails go almost completely ignored.

Thank goodness the US refused to ratify Kyoto. Thank goodness Canada (and most other countries) did virtually nothing to honour their Kyoto commitments. Over the next few decades, we may need all the greenhouse gases we can get!

Genetically Modified Crops and Climate Change

Tim Worstall shows how increased use of genetically modified [GM] crops leads to reduced carbon emissions. Quoting from the Telegraph,

In 2006 alone, the permanent carbon dioxide savings from reduced fuel consumption since the introduction of GM crops was equal to removing 25 per cent of cars from Britain’s roads for a year.

Contrast the above with the ignorance of our future King.