Climate Change Wack Jobs Are Commies - Confirmed

[Check Pilot]

Icebound and the rest of you Climate Change Whackos,

Where's your response refuting the facts that global warming is not happening. Or for that matter that global cooling for the last 9 years is if you really believe i tis, really GLOBAL WARMING IN DIGUISE".

That evil CO2 CRISIS must be cleverly disguising itself.

Or is it going to be like the rest of the poor misguided folks that won't get on a public forum other than some little inconsequential site like here, especially like a United Nations forum and participate in any debate? Where's your balls other than here? I don't see you out getting the attention of the stupid and little watched CBC on public television.

Tell me why not? Anyone?

[Sulako]

PM trumps Lord. The poor, uninformed British PM is apparently also duped by the commie pinkos? You're telling me that the PM of Britain, one of America's staunchest allies, is saying "Guys, we have a serious problem here that we need to address" for no reason? Give me a break. If we do nothing, one of two things will happen: maybe we'll be fine, or maybe the entire freakin world as we know it will end. If we act, we'll likely be fine. Wake up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/8313672.stm


PM warns of climate 'catastrophe'

The UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.

He told the Major Economies Forum in London, which brings together 17 of the world's biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, there was "no plan B".

World delegations meet in Copenhagen in December for talks on a new treaty.

'Rising wave'

The United Nations (UN) summit will aim to establish a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto treaty as its targets for reducing emissions only apply to a small number of countries and expire in 2012.

Once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice

Mr Brown warned that negotiators were not reaching agreement quickly enough and said it was a "profound moment" for the world involving "momentous choice".

"In Britain we face the prospect of more frequent droughts and a rising wave of floods," he told delegates.

"The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.

Grim warning

"On current trends, such an event could become quite routine in Britain in just a few decades' time. And within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe."
Protest at coal power station
Many campaign groups say the UN talks are stalling

The costs of failing to tackle the issue would be greater than the impact of both world wars and the Great Depression combined, the prime minister said.

The world would face more conflict fuelled by climate-induced migration if a deal was not agreed, he added.

He told the forum, on the second day of talks in the capital, that by 2080 an extra 1.8 billion people - a quarter of the world's current population - could lack sufficient water.

Mr Brown said: "If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice.

"So we should never allow ourselves to lose sight of the catastrophe we face if present warming trends continue."

Agreement at Copenhagen "is possible", he concluded.

"But we must frankly face the plain fact that our negotiators are not getting to agreement quickly enough. So I believe that leaders must engage directly to break the impasse."

In recent days there have been a number of warnings that progress is stalling.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told Newsweek magazine "the prospects that states will actually agree to anything in Copenhagen are starting to look worse and worse".

The Major Economies Forum is not part of the formal UN process and so firm commitments are unlikely to come from the meeting.

It is seen instead as a gathering where countries can explore options and positions in a less pressured environment.

[JakeYYZ]

Experimenting with planetary climate would make sense only in desperate circumstances. Because no one knows for sure or can predict with any certainty the harmful side effects of experimental climate cures. And the harmful side effects might turn out to be worse than the disease. Not even scientists know the truth about climate changes for the Earth. Doom Sayers have existed long before science & they exist now in the Global Warming–formerly the Global Cooling–zealots. No one knows for sure or can predict with any certainty the harmful side effects of experimental regulation on economic systems. And the harmful side effects might turn out to be worse than the disease.

It's not ethically acceptable to give experimental drugs to people who are still relatively healthy and coping well. But when someone is dying and doesn't have much hope. Then the ethics committees and government agencies sometimes approve the use of experimental and unproven drugs.

If these are the ethics for helping individuals. Then at least similar ethical standards need to be applied to helping the whole humanity and other species that live on Earth. Although I would say that the ethical standards for tinkering with Earth's climate need to be even more stringent than this. Because there is a big difference between possibly harming a few individuals with experimental cures and possibly harming the whole humanity and other species on Earth with experimental climate cures.
An idealist with a correct ideal supported by more correct ideas is a beautiful thing. An idealist with an incorrect ideal or one who has attached incorrect ideals to a correct ideal can be deadly. Poverty is deadly. Increasing poverty to decrease CO2 will be deadly.

[The Old Fogducker]

Now here's the kind of alarmist bull-roar that I'm talking about with these clowns ... only 50 days remain to save the world .... yah sure. Another one that's listened to too much Ted Danson.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8313672.stm


Here's the headline from BBC News ....
PM warns of climate 'catastrophe'

Brown: '50 days to save world'

The UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.

[BibleMonkey]

...///...Following the appearance of Mokton's article in July 2008, A. P. Smith pointed out 125 errors
http://www.altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html...//...

There's quite a few errors in his error corrections, e.g

..E2..When you look at 20-year or 30-year averages, the temperature rise through the present is extremely clear...........E3...Phenomena on less than a 20-year time scale are not relevant to a climate discussion.

( battle of the cherry pickers ) but that would stretch this thread out on minutea...

( There are long debates on Smith vs Monckton ) .

---

"He wrote an article for the American Physical Society newsletter, which newsletter is open to non-peer-reviewed articles. (They have a separate journal for scientific peer-reviewed papers.)

Monkton's anti-climate-change article appeared with a disclaimer specifically stating that it was not peer reviewed...."

It was Peer-reviewed , Monckton wrote a letter , and the offending "not Peer reviewed" disclaimer was removed-when it was pointed out that all policy statements of the APS in support of the IPCC claims receive less peer-review from rank and file American Physical Society Members than did Moncktons paper ...


" Lord Monckton’s letter in response to APS web page statement:

19 July 2008

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, UK
monckton@mail.com

Arthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,
President, American Physical Society,
Wallenberg Hall,
450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.
By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu

Dear Dr. Bienenstock,

Physics and Society

The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008 edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.

I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to all of the reviewer’s requests for revision (see the attached reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC evaluates climate sensitivity – a method which the IPCC does not itself clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC’s viewpoint. Some days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website of Physics and Society:

“The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.”

This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.

Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur’s findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council’s decision, together with the names of those
present at the meeting.

If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the “overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community”; and, tertio, that “The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions”? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?

Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?

Yours truly,
THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY "

=========

"But even if I WANTED to disprove the concept of global-warming-climate-change-whatever.... I think I would want to hook onto something a little more substantial than this."

The Co2 model is assumed to be linear , and has no predictive value.


" Pielke was awarded a B.A. in mathematics at Towson State College in 1968, and then an M.S. and Ph.D. in meteorology at Pennsylvania State University in 1969 and 1973, respectively.

From 1971-1974 he worked as a research scientist at the NOAA Experimental Meteorology Lab, from 1974-1981 he was an associate professor at the University of Virginia, served the primary academic position of his career as a professor at Colorado State University from 1981-2006, was deputy of CIRA at Colorado State University from 1985-1988, from 1999-2006 was Colorado State Climatologist, at Duke University was a research professor from 2003-2006, and was a visiting professor at the University of Arizona from October-December 2004. Since 2005, Piekle has served as Senior Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at UC-Boulder and an emeritus professor of the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He retired from CSU and in post-retirement is a CIRES researcher.

Pielke has served as Chairman and Member of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Weather Forecasting and Analysis, as Chief Editor of Monthly Weather Review, was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 1982 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2004, has served as Editor-in-Chief of the US National Science Report to the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, as Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, and as Editor of Scientific Online Letters on the Atmosphere[1]."

http://www.climatesci.org/publications/pdf/R-260.pdf
from
http://climatesci.org/2009/03/06/ness-r ... l-warming/

There are at least two empirically measurable but as yet not understood climatic impacts overwhelming those hypothesized in the carbon model.

There is a difference between popularity ( and media exposure )-which speak to psychological persuasion, and the scientific method- which has produced several peer reviewed papers directly contradicting the carbon model.

But we hear about the "ICEBERG THAT BROKE OFF THAT IS THE SIZE OF MANHATTEN!!!! -in 2009, without noticing-it not being mentioned - that icebergs five times larger , and ten times larger that broke off from the same location in 1964 and 1974.

You have to entirely ignore the media, and go straight to the raw data, and the long boring science papers.

[The Old Fogducker]

George Carlin .... bless his soul ... stated it really well.

Take a look ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw

[Icebound]

Icebound and the rest of you Climate Change Whackos,

Where's your response refuting the facts that global warming is not happening. Or for that matter that global cooling for the last 9 years is if you really believe i tis, really GLOBAL WARMING IN DIGUISE".

That evil CO2 CRISIS must be cleverly disguising itself.

Or is it going to be like the rest of the poor misguided folks that won't get on a public forum other than some little inconsequential site like here, especially like a United Nations forum and participate in any debate? Where's your balls other than here? I don't see you out getting the attention of the stupid and little watched CBC on public television.

Tell me why not? Anyone?

I really don't need to "respond" because a lot of well-qualified people are doing so, should you care to actually read something besides Fox News:

http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm
http://www.aip.org/aip/search_results.h ... a.y=19#927
http://www.iop.org/News/Community_News_ ... 29077.html
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/ ... ntoNewHome



And I would much rather be misguided by a scientist who has actually studied the problem, than by a public-relations spin-doctor with a corporate axe to grind. Who are YOU misguided by? Who has you believing that scientists are somehow "powerful .... with profit motive"... since they are often the first to have their funding cut for the flimsiest of excuses???
Who has you believing that incentives to reduce CO2 is going to cost you money.... but that increasing the prison population, (incarceration costing 4-5 times what community supervision costs) is somehow NOT costing you money? (And with absolutely no proof of benefit, other than some PR hack's say-so...)

Whether the climate is warming or not is not going to make a whole lot of difference in MY life... But the point is that for the future, the world should tend toward basing policy on sound science, and not on someone's PR budget.



...

[Icebound]

"He wrote an article for the American Physical Society newsletter, which newsletter is open to non-peer-reviewed articles. (They have a separate journal for scientific peer-reviewed papers.)

Monkton's anti-climate-change article appeared with a disclaimer specifically stating that it was not peer reviewed...."

It was Peer-reviewed , Monckton wrote a letter , and the offending "not Peer reviewed" disclaimer was removed-when it was pointed out that all policy statements of the APS in support of the IPCC claims receive less peer-review from rank and file American Physical Society Members than did Moncktons paper ...

No, it wasn't removed. The position of the APS is that it was not peer-reviewed and the disclaimer is still there. (It may have been modified.)

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletter ... nckton.cfm

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate."




....

[BibleMonkey]

http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm
http://www.aip.org/aip/search_results.h ... a.y=19#927
http://www.iop.org/News/Community_News_ ... 29077.html
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/ ... ntoNewHome

Not one of these statements/articles-is peer reviewed. Honestly. Not even the Sciencey-looking ones.

[Icebound]

http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm
http://www.aip.org/aip/search_results.h ... a.y=19#927
http://www.iop.org/News/Community_News_ ... 29077.html
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/ ... ntoNewHome

Not one of these statements/articles-is peer reviewed. Honestly. Not even the Sciencey-looking ones.

Perhaps not THESE articles...

But the conclusions that "these articles" have reached, are based on study and science which IS.... not on PR rhetoric.





...

[...]

Now here's the kind of alarmist bull-roar that I'm talking about with these clowns ... only 50 days remain to save the world .... yah sure. Another one that's listened to too much Ted Danson.

tangent:

What's with the Ted Danson ref? That's twice already...

end of tangent:

As much as I hate to agree with Old Fudgedogger HE IS right in my stooopid opinion.

George Carlin .... bless his soul ... stated it really well.

Take a look ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw

This much we have in common.
Folks we ARE heading for climate change...but in a very different way than everyone thinks.

We ARE a failed species...not because of what we've done...but what we failed to do.

[BibleMonkey]

http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm
http://www.aip.org/aip/search_results.h ... a.y=19#927
http://www.iop.org/News/Community_News_ ... 29077.html
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/ ... ntoNewHome

Not one of these statements/articles-is peer reviewed. Honestly. Not even the Sciencey-looking ones.

Perhaps not THESE articles...

But the conclusions that "these articles" have reached, are based on study and science which IS.... not on PR rhetoric.





...

There is a lot of PR rhetoric on both sides. Bottom line, right now-here's my point: right now-the policy is driving the science . Politicians, ( who make policy ) are , by definition in a contest-, their entire raison d'être is a popularity contest.

There was, we know, corporate interests ( Exxon, hydrocarbon energy producers ) poisoning the debate with psudo-science, to a small degree.

Here's what I mean-a few million dollars. Less than a billion.

So, all of the time, and even more so now ( but still obscured in all of the clamour ) -there was, and is, a valid scientific debate about the magnitude of the effect of atmospheric carbon on Climate.

Now, a much larger ( tens of billions of dollars-more than ten times larger than the poisoned Exxon type science-doubt-raising, which attempts to magnify the uncertainty in all science to forward an agenda ) , but less obvious driver ( nuclear lobby, IMF carbon trading, 3billion-2001, 10billion in 2006, dunno what it's up to in '09-it surpassed the carbon energy $ science skewing long ago ) is in force on the carbon model side.

The current well poisoning ( claiming the certainty of the science) is less obvious than the Exxon psuedo-sciencers -who incidentally have all now switched sides to carbon model support when people like the Government of Alberta hand them two billion dollars to increase oil well production , sequestering evil carbon underground ; "let's put it in this depleted oil well and watch it flow $$$again, even though it's only ( one decimal place % ) of carbon emitted.

The Science is entirely separate ( from the perspective of the laws of the Universe) from the politics, from the media , ( if it is important, it is on the news, if it is on the news , it is important-both false ) from the statements of those wearing the tuxedos at the head table of a Science organization ( e.g the APS, )-since not all members agree with the policy statement. Scientific method. Popularity of an idea. The two are entirely separate. Popularity of a scientific idea. Still separate.

I used to argue what you are, three years ago. " It must be a slam dunk-alla these eggheads can't be wrong".

Yes they can, and no, that's not what they're ( all ) saying, ( media spin) , and the realists
( I imagine them as being in between the "deniers" and the " alarmists" ) are still producing science .

Valid , peer reviewed, ( comparatively , in all the clamour arising from politics driving science ) quietly. The Universe is the universe-it doesn't care if only one scientist notices that carbon is only responsible for one fifth of the claimed anthropogenic warming. The Universe is not in a popularity contest.

Three years ago I was arguing your side. Now I'm not. There is a valid doubt.
Ignore the media. The politics. Go to the raw data. Centuries of it.

[BibleMonkey]

PM trumps Lord. The poor, uninformed British PM is apparently also duped by the commie pinkos? You're telling me that the PM of Britain, one of America's staunchest allies, is saying "Guys, we have a serious problem here that we need to address" for no reason?

The reason is billions of dollars of carbon free energy.

" Oh, it's carbon free, eh? I hear that carbon is nasty stuff. NewKle-ar is way better than that evil carbon stuff. Here's thirty billion dollars " (:

===
"
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/CommentA ... ustry.aspx
Chain reaction: the UK nuclear industry


Jane Lawson reports on the nuclear industry’s attempt to portray itself as the clean energy provider of the future.

A few years ago you could have been forgiven for thinking that the UK nuclear industry was on its last legs.

BNFL had declared itself bankrupt in 2001, British Energy had declared itself effectively bankrupt in 2002, the 11 Magnox reactors were nearing the end of their working lives, there’d been a waste disposal scandal or two and there seemed little chance of a new generation of nuclear power stations being commissioned.

But in summer 2005, starting with a pro-nuclear article in the Independent by James Lovelock, a steady stream of articles started appearing suggesting that the nuclear industry, with its “clean” energy, was an essential part of the fight against climate change.

Since then it has become apparent that, in spite of two government-commissioned reports rejecting it on practical, economic and environmental grounds, nuclear has high level government backing as an energy source. It is now widely expected that new nuclear power stations will be recommended as a part of the UK’s future energy strategy when the government publishes its Energy Review this summer.

But nuclear power will only be viable if the government provides subsidies and changes the current regulatory framework.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that BNFL wants to fast-track the planning process by pre-licensing reactors before sites are selected, and restrict the scope of local planning enquiries so that issues such as security, safety and environmental impact are discussed behind closed doors.[1]

And for new nuclear reactors to be profitable, the companies need a guaranteed price for their electricity and/or the introduction of a Nuclear Obligation, which would oblige all electricity companies to sell a certain amount of nuclear-generated electricity.

They are also looking for assurances that they will not be left with a huge bill for disposing of their own nuclear waste. Unsurprisingly, the government’s current subsidy is already helping to fund a well-thought out PR strategy to give the nuclear industry what it wants.

BNFL

The main players in the British nuclear industry are the state-owned British Nuclear Fuels Limited and British Energy. BNFL is the holding company for nuclear clean-up business British Nuclear Group, research and development company Nexia Solutions and nuclear engineering and technology company Westinghouse.[2] It is currently in the process of selling Westinghouse to Toshiba Corporation for $5.4 bn [3] and has also gained government approval to sell British Nuclear Group.

British Energy

British Energy is the UK’s largest electricity producer, generating around 20% of the country’s electricity and owning and operating two thirds of Britain’s nuclear power stations. It was privatised in 1996, in spite of dire warnings from Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace about the likely extent of future clean-up costs.



Sure enough, in 2002 the company declared itself effectively bankrupt and the government bailed it out, guaranteeing to meet a significant part of the costs of waste disposal and making ongoing payments since early 2004 towards the cost of treating its spent fuel at Sellafield. British Energy revealed in February 2006 that the liabilities underwritten by the taxpayer had increased by £1bn to £5.1bn.European companies

Another large player is Electricité de France, whose subsidiary EDF Energy supplies gas and electricity to about a quarter of the UK’s population and owns SWEB Energy and Seeboard Energy. EDF is the largest nuclear energy supplier in France and is also involved in nuclear power in the USA and China.



It has offered to build nuclear power stations in Britain at no cost to the taxpayer, but wants a guaranteed price for its electricity and a fast-track planning process.[1] German company E.ON, owner of Powergen, is also considering major investment in new nuclear power stations, and is, with EDF, seen as the leader of any potential new build in the UK.

Other nuclear industry players


US giant General Electric has been lobbying for its Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design to be used in any new UK reactors while RWE, the German owner of nPower, is already involved in nuclear engineering in the UK.

Many other major engineering and construction companies have contracts with the nuclear industry; the 100-strong membership list of the Nuclear Industry Association includes ABB, Amec, Bechtel, Carillion, Costain, Fluor, Serco, McAlpine and Taylor Woodrow. Under Freedom of Information requests Corporate Watch has found that BNFL pays £200,000 per year to the NIA, as well as £192,000 for membership of the European nuclear industry group FORATOM.



BNFL also gives the NIA and the British Nuclear Energy Society ad hoc payments throughout the year and has channelled money through NIA to Supporters of Nuclear Energy, a group run by Mrs Thatcher’s former press secretary Bernard Ingham.[4]

Charm offensive

The nuclear industry started putting its public relations house in order about a year before the 2005 general election. At the end of 2004 British Energy appointed Monsanto’s former top UK lobbyist as head of government affairs, and then hired former energy minister Helen Liddell on a short-term contract to provide “strategic advice”.

In early 2005 the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority appointed as communications director a member of the BAA PR team that successfully brought us Heathrow’s terminal 5. The industry also ran various “off the record” events for journalists, including a breakfast hosted by AMEC with David King, the government’s chief scientist, former energy minister Brian Wilson and the chief executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority as speakers.

The current Labour MP for Copeland was BNFL’s press officer;[5] according to PR Week, he was selected from a shortlist composed exclusively of PR professionals, all but one of whom had connections to the nuclear industry.[6]

As well as their in-house staff, the industry uses various PR firms. BNFL uses Weber Shandwick, PR21, Bell Pottinger Communications and financial PR company Finsbury.[1]

Philip Dewhurst, its corporate affairs director, was previously CEO of Weber Shandwick UK [1] and told PR Week that the company was using the classic PR technique of using a third party, PR outfit Strategic Awareness, to put forward the pro-nuclear message: “We spread that via third-party opinion because the public would be suspicious if we started ramming pro-nuclear messages down their throats”.[7]

Several former BNFL executives are now with Integrated Decision Management, a pro-nuclear consultancy that has been helping the ostensibly independent Committee on Radioactive Waste Management to assess nuclear waste options; one of IDM’s directors is still paid by BNFL and in October 2005 IDM announced it was bringing in four other ex-BNFL staff.[1]

In 2003 British Energy took on PPS Group, a PR agency that specialises in influencing local government, especially with regard to planning issues.[1] British Energy has also paid Financial Dynamics £1m to talk about its financial situation and employed international PR consultancy Hill & Knowlton to prepare the ground for its 1996 privatisation.[8] Hill & Knowlton is also employed by the new US pro-nuclear group Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, which is funded by nuclear industry lobby group Nuclear Energy Institute.[9]



In January 2006 it was revealed that British Energy had provided secretarial support to the Scottish Cross-party Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Power and part-funded a trip by the group and its English counterpart, the Nuclear Energy All-Party Parliamentary Group, while BNFL funded accommodation costs for MSPs visiting the reprocessing plant.



Nirex, the government agency responsible for overseeing the storage of radioactive waste, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority have also both employed Bell Pottinger, leading Private Eye to wonder “Why is the Bell Pottinger PR firm passing on potted biographies of MPs focusing on their supposed attitude to nuclear power to the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA)? The NDA’s job, after all, is to clean up the mess left by the old atomic generation, not to promote new nuclear power stations.”[10]



Bell Pottinger’s sister company Bell Pottinger Good Relations has been paid £375,000 by Nirex since 2003. Good Relations’ other clients include Monsanto, Nestlé and Tesco. Nirex has also employed Promise PR and the Future Foundation for a variety of PR work. Incidentally, in summer 2005 the Future Foundation published a study, “Assault on Pleasure”, portraying opponents of unregulated corporate excess as a movement of moralising killjoys that they dubbed “the New Puritans”.



Lobbying Europe is also vital, as any subsidies provided by EU member governments have to be approved by the European Commission. The European equivalent of the NIA is FORATOM, which is funded by the European nuclear industry and has 15 to 20 staff in Brussels. BNFL and BE also have a staff member each in Brussels. In contrast, the anti-nuclear lobby is heavily outnumbered with just one NGO representative in Brussels, Mark Johnston of Greenpeace.



However, even with all these resources, there’s a great difference between Tony Blair saying that nuclear power plants are back on the agenda “with a vengeance” and any actual construction. Margaret Thatcher was regarded as the most pro-nuclear of Prime Ministers but only one nuclear reactor was built during her interminable tenure. Although they are trying to present it as inevitable, there is still a long way to go for the nuclear industry.

===========

.... Wake up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/8313672.stm


PM warns of climate 'catastrophe'

The UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.

Alarmist clap-trap snipped...


World delegations meet in Copenhagen in December for talks on a new treaty.

'Rising wave'
Blah blah blah-yer all going to die if you don't act right now blah blah blah


Once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, ..snipBoo! Scare yikes
"In Britain... droughts and a rising wave of floods,"

"The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.

Grim warning

"On current trends, such an event could become quite routine in Britain in just a few decades' time. And within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe."//////..

The costs of failing to tackle the issue would be greater than the impact of both world wars and the Great Depression combined, the prime minister said.
ahahahahahaha. whoa.

The world would face more conflict f...

He told the forum, on the second day of talks in the capital, that by 2080 an extra 1.8 billion people - a quarter of the world's current population - could lack sufficient water.
///,...., no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice.
.....
... in a less pressured environment.

What a load of claptrap scaremongering-let's attack Iraq -now-b4 it's too late. Sheesh.

e.g:

"The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.

Far more more people die from cold in England than from heat -including this heatwave.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-ne ... e-15390-1/

" Cold Weather Deaths on The Rise

The death toll due to cold weather in England and Wales is 25,000 as per the official figures released.//

This is a seasonal death..."


It's akin to car accidents - more of them, ( cold weather deaths) , not on the news; and airplane crash deaths ( fewer of them ( warm weather deaths-on the news ).

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told Newsweek magazine "the prospects that states will actually agree to anything in Copenhagen are starting to look worse and worse".

Good.

[Flyboy_high]

"Climate Change Wack Jobs Are Commies - Confirmed"

Ahh yes, it is fantastic to be gaining such in-depth knowledge from people who write tittles posts like the one above. True Credibility at last!
I hope the amount of passion and depth of posts here is also going towards a future solution to implement and to curb our emission consumption.
BioFuel is the future as is smart electrical grid, wind, solar, geothermal and we should be spending money on Fusion and Fission technology research.

Thinking about the future of energy technology will bring us prosperity as we transition. To sit as lame ducks in a pond, well where is the aviation pioneering spirit in that.

[looproll]

Here is a way to think about it without having to believe either side:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE6Kdo1AQmY


Check it out!