EclectEcon

The Perils of Forecasting

The next time someone mentions the inability of economists to forecast accurately, show them these computer models of where (hurricane/tropical storm) Hanna might go and with what intensity:

And then think about those computer models that attempt to forecast climate change over the next 10, 20, or even 50 years.

Addendum: On the weekend I discovered it was possible to bet at Intrade on whether Gustav would reach the LA coast as a category 2 hurricane or greater. As more information became available, the prices of the contracts adjusted to reflect the additional information, but it is a pretty thin market (with very few contracts being exchanged) and so just a few buyers or sellers can move the prices pretty substantially.

Gustav

Last night I would have been hesitant about evacuating if I lived in New Orleans, depending on where I lived in the area. This morning I would leave, especially if I lived in the low-lying areas. For one of the best, accessible, up-to-date sites about Gustav, see this.

Specifically, if Gustav’s eye comes ashore around Grand Isle, just west of that peninsular jut of land which is the Mississippi River delta, the storm’s right-front quadrant will track directly over New Orleans, bringing the strongest winds and — more importantly — the strongest storm surge right into the city. As Berger says, “Let us hope that is not the case.”

Indeed. Let us, in fact, pray that it is not the case. In such a scenario, New Orleans could see a storm surge far worse than Katrina, indeed worse than anything it has ever experienced. It would be so bad that, unlike in Katrina, the levees would be unable to protect the city even if they work as designed. The scenario envisioned long before Katrina would come to pass. Depending on how many people refuse to evacuate and foolishly stay in the city, thousands could die, perhaps many thousands. It would be a calamity of epic proportions.

It is for this reason that the slight rightward shift in the track — combined with the recently developed consensus that Gustav will not slow down before landfall, as had previously been anticipated (which means there will be a more powerful surge, and less time for weakening over the northern Gulf) — is so alarming. After a couple of days in which the smart money was on a “dodging the bullet” scenario, things are getting rather scary for New Orleans. You know it’s bad when Alan Sullivan, Mr. Anti-Alarmist, is sounding the alarm: “New Orleans is really at risk now.”

Update: That is putting it mildly. Here is the 4AM Sunday public advisory from the National Hurricane Centre. Note this section in particular:

AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS STORM SURGE OF 18 TO 25 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDAL LEVELS IS EXPECTED NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF WHERE THE CENTER OF GUSTAV CROSSES THE NORTHERN GULF COAST.   A STORM SURGE OF 1 TO 3 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE LEVELS IS POSSIBLE IN THE DRY TORTUGAS AS GUSTAV PASSES TO ITS WEST.

Construction

Pooh sent this recently:

As a man who once built this with one of his sons, you should appreciate this.

On a related note, last week, I spent a day at Ontario Place, in Toronto, with my son and granddaughters. One of the intriguing things we saw there was this pagoda, made of 250,000 pieces of porcelain dishware:

Brightly Coloured Band-Aids

I have it on good authority that one manufacturer of a line of band-aids produces some that are brightly coloured not just because children like them but also because food service workers like them, too -- they're easier to find in the food if they come off.

Arctic Ice

The Economist presents a graphic (map and chart) showing what appears to be a massive drop in the amount of ice in the Arctic, along with horror stories about climate change. When I asked Ross McKitrick about it, he replied,

It is indeed striking. Too bad we invented satellites in 1979 instead of 1909. The temperature record for the Arctic looks something like this

If we had satellites taking pictures of Arctic sea ice in the 1930s then today's ice record would not look exceptional.

 

However even with the striking visuals, the issue of how to explain decadal-scale changes is still entirely open, see

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-131

It's tough on a poor guy when you can't trust The Economist!

Update: Ross adds,

Also worth noting is that the Economist left off the 2007 data: see
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

While the summer isn't over, we are above last year's ice levels.

Sound Criticisms of Ethanol Policies

Doug Auld, an economist at The University of Guelph and former colleague (both recently and many years ago), published a scathing attack on Ethanol policies with the C.D. Howe Institute.

Federal and provincial policies that promote the production and use of ethanol fuel to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are misguided, according to a Commentary released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. The strategy should be recon-sidered, says the study, since the net environmental benefits of ethanol fuel are uncertain, and the costs to consumers and governments are high.

In The Ethanol Trap: Why Policies to Promote Ethanol as Fuel Need Rethinking, economist Douglas Auld of the University of Guelph notes that Canada has become a major booster of increased ethanol production. In addition to federal efforts, a number of provinces encourage ethanol production through similar capital and production subsidies.

Auld finds that:

• • There is no conclusive scientific evidence that ethanol reduces GHGs or energy use once the entire production cycle is taken into account.
• • Even assuming that the use of ethanol has a net positive impact on CO2 emissions, public funds contribute approximately $368 for each tonne of CO2 reduced, roughly seven times greater than the cost of alternative policy measures. Auld finds that cellulose-based ethanol blends and solid biofuels provide a more promising approach to reducing GHGs.
• • To the extent that ethanol policy is meant to act as a rural development tool, ethanol mandates and production subsidies provide benefits to some farmers while hurting others, with perhaps more being hurt financially than helped.
• • Increased domestic production of ethanol contributes to increases in food prices, both direct and indirectly, for Canadian and foreign consumers. Domestically, increased food prices cost consumers an estimated $400 million each year.

Auld concludes that the headlong thrust into corn ethanol as a GHG reduction policy cannot be justified once the significant price effects, economic costs, and consequences for income distribution in Canada and, indeed, globally are considered.

Most of the points made in his study have been made before, but they need to be made again (and again) even more forcefully. And one of his points that has received less attention is that current ethanol policies, by driving up the prices of grains, have hurt many cattle operations.

More Indications of Anti-Semitism in the UK's UCU

From Engage,

Engage has published David Hirsh's formal complaint to the UCU against his exclusion from the activists list and against institutional antisemitism in the union.  The full text of this substantial document is here: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2066

The union decided that "David Hirsh's complaints are unfounded and should be dismissed".  His exclusion was made permanent by the union.  In the official union response to the complaint there was no consideration or discussion of antisemitism. The word antisemitism did not appear in the response. David Hirsh's formal charge of institutional antisemitism was not investigated. The union's response did not say why it had decided not to investigate the charge of antisemitism.

Restaurant Bulemia

From the Trono Globe and Mail's Report on Business (note the headline):

After the binge, the purge

For the past five years, the U.S. restaurant industry has been on an expansion tear. Now, high fuel prices, a shaky economy and rising food inflation are keeping customers at home, sending four major chains running for bankruptcy protection so far this year

Unfortunately, the article names only one of the chains. Further, it doesn't tell how many chains have declared bankruptcy each year over the past decade or so, so we have no good basis for evaluating the number.

Also, it makes the odd statement,

More than a third of Americans are eating out less than they did a year ago, with most citing tight finances as the key reason, according to a recent Technomic survey.

Does that mean 2/3 are eating out more? If so, why are restaurant chains in trouble?

My point here is that these are poor ways to indicate that a slow-growth economy is reducing the demand for mid-range restaurant meals. For my earlier posting on this topic, see this.

Latte Art -- a Video

Recently I posted some photos of some exquisite designs in lattes. Here is a short video of how those types of designs are made [h/t to MA]:

Would You Holiday at a Campground in France?

Me neither.

If you agree, see this, and this comment:

I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who holidays, uncoerced, in France. Even less if they frequent a place named "Cevennes".

What Is the Externality Connected with Water Bottles?

The City of London, Ontario, has recently decided to halt the sale of water in individual plastic water bottles at city-owned and city-operated facilities. I am struggling to understand the rationale for this policy.

• Are plastic bottles more of a problem in landfill sites than any other garbage? First, I really doubt they are. But even if they are, why just water bottles? Why not other plastic bottles, too? And why not glass bottles? And if plastic bottles are more of a problem for landfill sites than any other garbage, why not impose a Pigouvian tax on the production of all plastic bottles, rather than try to ban the use of individual water bottles?
• Is it because plastic is produced from crude oil (and that is somehow bad?)? Again, why just water bottles? And why do prices not fully reflect the social costs of using oil to make plastic bottles? Unless the use of oil is somehow significantly under-priced, there is no externality involved with using oil to produce plastic bottles.
• As I wrote two years ago, unfiltered tap water is noticeably different from filtered water. Ever since the e coli water contamination in Walkerton, Ontario, killed seven people and seriously harmed many others, communities throughout Ontario and elsewhere have increased their use of chlorine in public water supplies to the point that the taste borders on being unacceptable. Tap water from drinking fountains is not "just as good" as bottled or filtered water.
• Using plastic bottles just seems so wasteful to some people. They think we should not use plastic once, as in individual water bottles, and then discard it. Quite frankly, I agree. I cannot bear the thought of paying so much for some filtered water, and I don't do it very often. Instead, I use stainless steel refillable bottles, which I fill with a concoction of filtered tap water, club soda, and a hint of lemon juice or Gatorade or something (We recently disposed of our bottles that contained BPA). But unless there are significant externalities involved, I am perfectly willing to let others spend their money on bottled water. Not using plastic single-use water bottles does not fall into the category of "merit goods", a concept which I find objectionable in its own right.
• Nevertheless, there are times when re-hydration is important. If you don't want to drink pop, getting enough water from a drinking fountain is not always possible, desireable, or convenient. Buying a bottle of water from a variety store or vending machine is sometimes an optimal choice.

I hate to say it, but it looks to me as if the London City Council has been dominated by control freaks who want to tell others how to lead their lives. (See this and other recent postings at London Fog for more). Without adequate justifications other than the vague and empty, "it's good for the environment", this policy is totally unacceptable. Let us hope it doesn't spread.

IAF Fly Over Auschwitz

A moving video followed by some amazingly disgusting comments [h/t to MA].

Note: The comments I'm referring to are at the YouTube site.

Get a Kindle for $100 off?

To get the discount, you have to sign up for a credit card (and I'm guessing the offer isn't available in Canada).

Update: Possibly one reason for the promotion is this?

Pharma Profits

The profits earned by pharmaceutical firms are good, not evil, says Stephen Pollard:

Somehow, the idea has taken hold that companies that make a profit by researching and conquering human illness are not a wonderful boon to humanity, but our enemy....

... Everything would be so much better, it is argued, if the state or charities took charge of research, instead of letting big pharma take us for a ride.

Yes, drug firms make profits. That's what makes worthwhile their extraordinary investment in research. In 2003 the Tufts University Centre for the Study of Drug Development calculated that the total cost to research and develop a new prescription drug is $897 million. Only 21.5 per cent of drugs that reach human trials will even be approved for marketing.

The idea that the state or charities can offer a serious alternative is risible. Look at the research record where profit is barred. It wasn't Cuban or North Korean researchers who turned HIV from being a certain death sentence to a disease that can be managed. It was research by pharmaceutical companies.

In all of the Soviet Union's existence, where research was considered a priority, not one [pharmacological] discovery was made that scientists in the free world considered worth using. The only Soviet discovery that had an impact in the West was weaponised anthrax.

Pharma companies are an easy target for some. But God help us if we have to live in a world devoid of their products, and get ill.

APSA Members Decry Lack of Freedoms in Canada

A working group of the American Political Science Association is lobbying to have next year's APSA convention moved from Toronto (Canada) because of the attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the press launched in (and abetted by) the various human rights tribunals in Canada.

A group of U. S. professors launched a campaign this week protesting plans by a prominent political science organization to hold its annual conference in Toronto next year, claiming that Canada's restrictions on certain forms of speech puts controversial academics at risk of being prosecuted.

Bradley Watson, professor of American and Western political thought at Pennsylvania's St. Vincent College, said he will present a petition calling for the American Political Science Association (APSA) to re-evaluate its selection of Toronto for its 2009 conference at this year's annual meeting, taking place over the Labour Day weekend in Boston. ...

Mr. Watson said that professors signing the petition are concerned that recent human rights commission investigations into Maclean's and Western Standard magazines over articles concerning Islam, and the conviction of pastor Stephen Boisson, who was ordered by Alberta's human rights tribunal in May to cease publicizing criticisms of homosexuality, suggest that professors risk being chilled from discussing important academic subjects, or ending up in legal trouble.

Let us hope that more people in the rest of the world take actions like these. Canadians need a wake-up call about how seriously the human rights tribunals are challenging our freedoms.

[h/t to Robert]

Teeswater Fair Update

The tractor square dancing was absolutely amazing. They did all the square dance moves on tractors, following a caller, and were loads of fun. Youtube has a number of videos from other fairs and venues here, if you would like to see what it's all about.

And our granddaughter was fabulous, singing "On my own" -- good enough to be invited to move on to the next level, singing at The Western Fair in London in two weeks. Her parents and grandparents all had tears in their eyes as she sang, and at least one of the judges confessed that she, too, had been moved to tears (in a positive sense!) by her voice and singing.

Latte Art

Last year I posted some photos of some lattes that Ms. Eclectic, The Chauffeur, and I had while traveling in Ireland (here and here). But here are some really amazing works of art (I have no idea who the artists are or who the photographer is; Judith sent these photos to me.)

Anti-Semitism in Lithuania?"Dodging the blame for Lithuanian collaboration in the Holocaust is shameful."

From The Economist,

... Targeting prominent local Jews looks selective, even vindictive. It also fits into a general pattern of what Dovid Katz, the Yiddish Institute’s research director, calls “Holocaust obfuscation”. This involves a series of false moral equivalences: Jews were disloyal citizens of pre-war Lithuania, helped the Soviet occupiers in 1940, and were therefore partly to blame for their fate. And the genocide that really matters was the one that Lithuanian people suffered at Soviet hands after 1944.

These arguments are as repellent as they are flimsy. Jews (perhaps 500 of them) comprised around a third of the pre-war Communist Party. But Jews also suffered disproportionately from the deportations of June 1941, aimed at the bourgeoisie of all races. The Soviet Union was profoundly anti-Semitic.

Dodging the blame for Lithuanian collaboration in the Holocaust is shameful. It also makes separating facts from Soviet-era smears (now enthusiastically repeated by Kremlin propagandists) more difficult.

Holocaust? What Holocaust?Jews? What Jews?

A couple of political parties in the UK are duking it out over the Holocaust. One denies it ever occurred, and the other appears to deny that Jews were affected by it. From Engage,

The Socialist Workers Party has put out a petition against a British National Party event in Derbyshire. They say that one reason that the BNP should be opposed is:

"They deny the holocaust where thousands of LGBT people, trade unionists and disabled people were slaughtered..."

This explanation of the Holocaust [with a small 'h'] makes no mention of Jews and it numbers the victims in the thousands rather than the millions. Jews are not mentioned at all in this anti-Nazi text.

What sort of mindset makes it possible to forget the Jews when explaining about the Holocaust and Holocaust denial?

A socialist could only make such a mistake if he or she operated in a profoundly antisemitic milieu.

Why does the fact that mistakes like these can happen not open peoples' eyes to the reality of antisemitism on the left?

Why will people fail to see the significance of this mistake and why will they accuse authentic antiracists and Jews of making mountains out of molehills?

Square-Dancing Tractors?

That's what the schedule says for 3pm tomorrow (Sunday) at the Teeswater Fair. I sure hope my granddaughter is finished with her spectacular performance of "On My Own" from this show by then so I can go watch this event.

Photos of the War in Georgia and Osetia

89 photos. Link courtesy of Jack. See this site for the photos.

Criminalizing CO2 Emissions

Canada's C.D.Howe Institute has published a study that says Parliament can (within the aegis of the constitution) pass legislation criminalizing CO2 emissions:

Professor Hogg reviews a string of court decisions that have a bearing on the issue of Parliament’s legal authority to enforce the regulations. He places emphasis on Parliament’s criminal-law power, because that is the constitutional basis for the current Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA). The government’s Regulatory Framework proposals will likely take the form of amendments to that Act, regulations made under that Act, or both. 

The author concludes that the proposals of the Government of Canada for the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in the Regulatory Framework paper are likely to be upheld as constitutional exercises of the federal criminal-law power.

My former colleague at The University of Guelph, Ross McKitrick, commented,

Parliament has power to do lots of scary things. This particular power came about by declaring CO2 a toxic substance. So we are permitted to inhale, but the courts may need to rule on the right to exhale. I have heard via the grapevine that because the emission reduction requirements are still vague and the noncompliance is a criminal matter, CEOs and Boards of Directors have told the feds that if they have any problems in compliance they will simply shut operations down, including power generating facilities if needed. It will be rather fun to watch.

His co-author of Taken By Storm, Chris Essex, a colleague at The University of Western Ontario, adds,

...[T]the whole enterprise is soon reaching political paradox, where the irresistible political force meets the unmovable political weight. It will be fun to watch indeed...from a safe distance.

May all those who have pushed creating limits on CO2 emissions be held liable for all the costs we bear if (possibly a big "if") we finally determine that past global warming was the result of sunspot activity and if (also possibly a bit "if") we continue to experience global cooling over the next two decades. (see this; but also see the comments there and in the original for a healthy dose of skepticism about global cooling.)

It would be especially delightful to sue Al Gore for negligence...

.

Math Camp, Revisited

Recently, I lamented the practice of many graduate economics programmes in requiring incoming graduate students to attend math camp, typically an intensive two- three-week course in mathematics prior to the commencement of the regular coursework. I suggested that it would be much more important for these students to take "Alchian and Allen" camp, by which I meant a course in applied price theory.

To my great delight, the graduate programme at The University of Western Ontario is doing something pretty close to this recommendation: students arrive three weeks before their regular, required coursework begins, and they are put through courses in math and courses in microeconomics and macroeconomics.

A great idea and a good step in the right direction.

Canadian Retail Sales Rose.... and Fell

From the RGE Monitor mailing,

Retail Sales rose 0.5 % to C$36 billion ($34 billion) in June as predicted (they rose a revised 0.3% in May). Sales rose in six of eight major categories including gains of 2.5% at clothing stores and 1.3% for food and beverages. But the increase was almost entirely attributable to the rise in the gas price. Stripping out price gains, retail sales declined 0.4%.

 

Diversity, Trade, and Risk

The Trono Globe and Mail understands the theoretical trade model...  sort of. But they don't understand it at all, really, as Stephen Gordon points out so eloquently:

But there are problems with this model. As we specialize, we become more dependent on other people, industries and regions in the global economy. That may be fine for non-essential goods such as children's toys and kitchen appliances, but should we depend on others for life's essentials such as food? Also, specialization at the global level tends to reduce the diversity of producers and products - a small number of large, highly efficient producers often comes to dominate the market for specific goods. In complex systems from economies to ecologies, however, lower diversity usually means lower ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. And, finally, all that connectivity among specialized producers around the world makes everyone more vulnerable to cascading system failures: a shock or failure in one part of the global system can propagate through the rest of the system in the blink of an eye, like a row of falling dominoes.

Taken to an extreme, the dominant economic model of specialization, connectivity and trade reduces the resilience of our communities and societies - our ability to take care of ourselves in volatile times.

This is exactly wrong. Specialisation and trade reduces exposure to catastrophic risk. In countries that insist on self-sufficiency, a bad harvest means starvation. In countries that participate in world markets, a bad harvest means a trade deficit in food.

Let me expand on this point. If the town of Clinton were forced to be wholly self-sufficient in food, we'd be in big trouble if we had a crop failure. In fact, if we had a crop failure, we'd start selling other things to buy food from Hensall or Exeter or other towns --- i.e., we would start trading. It is this possibility of trade that provides a cushion against the risk of crop failure for us.

In general, the more trading partners we have, the greater our ability to respond to natural risks.

US Foreign Policy:Speak Loudly and Carry a Small Stick

Tom Sowell, writing at Townhall, has a column which sets out in more detail what I was trying to say when Russia first moved into South Ossetia (even with a similar title!).

There are two problems: (1) What are we going to do? and (2) What are we going to say?

There are lots of things we can do, if we don't care about the repercussions-- but of course we do care. The only thing we have complete control over is what we say.

We have been saying far too much already, especially in proportion to what we were prepared to do. This is a problem that began long before this administration. Sometimes it has seemed as if our foreign policy is to speak loudly and carry a little stick.

American presidents, through several administrations, have been publicly commenting moralistically on the internal affairs of other countries around the world.

We have been criticizing friend and foe alike. Sometimes we have sounded like the world's nanny.

The rest of his column sounds naively isolationist. But it is worth reading.

The question in my mind is how often the US can say, "We really mean it this time," the way parents do when their children come to believe that they do not always mean what they say. To "really mean it" and take on Iraq and Afghanistan (and possibly Iran) is far different from "we really mean it" and taking on Russia as well.

As Sowell points out, the US won the cold-war battles in the late 1980s and early 1990s because Russia had no wealth. But they now have oodles of oil wealth; they will not be defeated or even stopped with the same strategies that worked back then.

Two From The Emirates Economist

The Emirates Economist is back from his summer hiatus with some excellent posts and links.

1. Has the phenomenal growth in the UAE been the result of trans-shipment of goods and a circuitous avoidance of the embargo on Iran?
2. People respond to incentives: since non-gubmnt organizations (NGOs) provide aid to groups instead of individuals, individuals form co-operatives that they probably would not otherwise create.

"Have Fell"?

From today's e-mailed NYTimes headlines:

Palm, Once a Leader, Seeks Path in Smartphone Jungle
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Palm is trying to revive itself as business users have embraced the BlackBerry and consumers have fell in love with the iPhone.

How NOT to Hot-Wire Your Car

After I posted a link several days ago on how to hot-wire your car, my younger son (Adam Smith Palmer) sent me this link:

“Wired Magazine” stuck some foot in a wrong pile today by releasing an article about how to “Hotwire Your Own Car“. If anyone actually follows this advice, they are an idiot. Not only will the directions they give not work, the attempt to make them work can ruin your car. [Emphasis added]

1. Their “what you need” list contains various tools and items. My “what you need” list contains 1 item: a spare key hidden somewhere on the car.

2. The screwdriver. This only works on 2 kinds of cars. The 20 year old Toyota pickup truck with the ignition so worn out that the key looks like a toothpick, and the 20 year old GM plasti-cars with the key that fits in a giant plastic wing-nut on the column, and happen to have a broken tumbler. In any other situation, forcing the ignition with a screwdriver will guarantee that when you do get the key, it wont fit anymore. End result: expensive repair.

3. Pulling off the panel. Nope, you need a screwdriver, and sometimes a special one. If your car has been sitting in a hot sun for a few years, pulling that panel down “carefully” will get it off, but it ain’t goin’ back on, cuz everything that holds it on is now powder. End result: expensive repair.  Or, adding other duct tape colored accents to your interior to match your new column. Oh, and forget the slightly painful electric 12 volt shock, how bout accidentally arc-welding the power wire to a chassis ground and blowing a super-fuse you don’t have or starting a harness fire.

4. Pairs of wires? Ha! this ain’t a phone system, they’re not in pairs, they are in one big shrink wrapped clump you’ll need to cut open. The way to tell the difference here is not the color. I have never seen a wiring diagram for the ignition key in an owners manual, except maybe for an old VW beetle. Your gonna need a Chilton book or something. A handier diagram would be directions to find your hidden key.

5. If your gonna start MacGyver-ing wires together, expect to blow fuses or possibly a computer. Oh, and expect an expensive repair bill.

6. Even if through some miracle, you get the car running, you cannot drive it, the steering will be mechanically locked. The only cars on the road without steering locks are older cars that have the keyhole for the ignition somewhere away from the steering wheel. when was the last time you saw that? for me, its usually older Porsche cars.

Others have probably edited more info into the article, but there is no circumstance in which even I, the Geekwrench, would choose hotwiring over a tow truck.

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!