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------up date 9 November 2009--------

I started this critique 26 September 2009. The more you read the more frightening it becomes.

SCIENCE. (journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science)

SCIENTIFIC AMERICIAN.

NEW SCIENTIST. (a UK publication)

It is very rare for NEW SCIENTIST, SCIENCE or SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN to support chemical free agriculture. Nor do they support sugarcane derived ethanol and oil palm derived biodiesel. And on things nuclear there are always directly or indirectly very much against nuclear energy. Fossil carbon interests must heartily approve. These magazines all seem so very friendly to fossil carbon interest.

Also I comment on Ausralian media disinformation, scroll down to -------

"AUSTRALIAN MEDIA ".

at the very bottom of the page are my assessments of the AUSTRALIAN GARNAUT REPORT and also my take on the reason for the continuing US CUBAN EMBARGO.

 

NEW SCIENTIST 10 October 2009 The facts are fusion energy is as it has been for the last fifty years, it's always "50 years away". As such it is no threat to coal, oil or gas. So New Scientist first cab of the rank in EDITORIAL has the caption and asks the question FUSION: A GAMBLE WORTH TAKING. It proclaims fusion power as a "racing certainty". (Fusion energy is the power in the hydrogen bomb). From what I have gleaned a fusion power rector, if, (and it's a very big if) such a thing was even possible, let alone practical, would produce as much radioactive waste as a conventional fission reactor. The sub caption reads "We need as many clean energy options as we can get, and fusion power is within sight". Nobody knows how to build one but the article also blithely claims "It's safer" (than options like dumping chemicals into the stratosphere.)

Also in 10 October issue ----A tiny mention at the bottom of 60 SECONDS it actually tells us that "chemicals, banned in the 1980s" are now flowing into Swiss lakes. It's not mentioned of course but these would, almost certainly be agricultural chemicals.

Also in 10 October issuue --- Three quarter page article with head line reading----LET THE PEOOPLE LOOK AFTER THEIR FORESTS. It argues that the natives should continue to do nothing with their millions of acres of forests and timbers. It's written by New Scientist's Fred Pearce. He stretches reality by implying that established rain forests "and the trees will soak up your carbon for you". That's utter rubbish. An established rain forest is at best greenhouse gas and carbon neutral, but normally is a net producer of greenhouse gasses. It sucks in carbon dioxide and emits the same quantity of carbon but now as a mixture of methane and CO2. And methane is twenty times as deadly a greenhouse gas as is CO2. And Fred knows that.

SCIENCE issue dated 9 October 2009 Under CLIMATE CHANGE we are warmed that BOTH OF THE WORLD'S ICE SHEETS MAY BE SHRINKING FASTER AND FASTER. I emphasized the "may be". However I have to applaud SCIENCE for their almost reasonably unbiased approach to a global worming topic.Two columns are used. Again however there is a slant. The discussion is not whether the ice is melting at an horrendous rate but whether the rate is accelerating or not. It seems to suggest that the melting is okay if the melting doesn't get faster. The caption doesn't say maybe "melting fast" it says maybe melting "faster and faster". That's accelerating. Acceleration is the topic not the actual collapse of the ice sheets. Reader doubt is successfully generated.

But in the same issue we have MONSOONS AND MELTDOWN and here there are seven pages telling us all about how all kinds of effects are involved in the starting and stopping of global warming and determine the occurrence and frequencies of ice ages. One gets the impression that the whole topic is terribly confusing and we just don't understand the facts sufficiently to make a decision whether to move away from fossil fuels or not?

 

 

NEW SCIENTIST September 26 2009. Heading EARLY FARMERS CLEARED OF CARBON CRIMES ... The story tells us how farmers didn't cause - by their supposed policy of "slash and burn" - the 20 ppm rise in atmospheric levels that started 7000 years ago and finished 500 years ago. It all came from the oceans. What they failed to mention is that the rise caused by agrochemicals and fossil carbon fuels in the last tiny fifty year period has put the levels up 100 ppm.and that's higher than at any time in the last 20 million years. (I say it's all about keeping the issue confusing.)

NEW SCIENTIST September 26 2009.. On down playing nuclear energy. In the UP FRONT editorial page under the heading GROW NUCLEAR they talk about how high temperature “waste heat” from new gas cooled reactors could be used to make fertilizers. And maybe used in other industries?. The temperatures are around 800deg C. What they so carefully omit is that these temperatures are just right to pull the coal fired furnaces out of current power stations and using all the same turbines and generators switch the power station to nuclear. It would generate cheaper electricity with no carbon dioxide ever again.

NEW SCIENTIST September 26 2009Then in an extremely unusual article New Scientist, same issue, tells us that pumping CO2 into the ground could, in many areas likely set of a range of seismic effects such as earth quakes and volcanoes. And these could be devastating. To have New Scientist warn us that carbon capture and storage could be a lot more dangerious than ever imagined is amazing. I've got copies back since the 1980s and it is most unusual. Billions are being wasted by governments to supposedly come up with some method, that's vaguely economical, to bury power station CO2. The theory shows that a third power station would be needed to power the CO2 extraction from the first two.

Carbon capture and storage is the mantra of the coal industry. They may even believe their own rhetoric. It's possible but I don't think they're that silly.

NEW SCIENTIST 5 September 2009 and we have----the headline is --- IF EMMISSION CUTS ARE NOT ENOUGH…One might get the message that emission cuts will solve the world's climate change problem, but just maybe if they can't, we may have to look at geoengineering and be ready to deploy it (as if it actually exists).

To remove CO2 from the air they don't even mention enhancing agricultural fertility levels - I'm sure because it means abandoning chemical based agriculture. They do mention high tech solutions like developing artificial trees to suck up the CO2 flood. They mention, what they refer to as “biological solutions” like planting trees. They mention biochar, that's would be produced by burning vegetation in reduced atmospheres to make charcoal and then burying the charcoal as fertilizer. They mention fertilizing the oceans as if they consider it's still feasible, despite the total failure of trials and of course the frightening unknowns. They also show us a mock up picture of an orbiting solar collector. (A financial fairy tale if you do the numbers.)

A page and a half is devoted to warning us that the concept of geoengineering might make people and politicians complacent, but simultaneous consider whether it might stimulate action. Ethanol, biodiesel and nuclear energy are not mentioned.

In the same issue there are two pages devoted to (for why I have no idea) the psychology and philosophy of climate change.

But there is another article. Starting at the right hand bottom of the left hand page (ask an ad-man if there is a less desirable position in a paper, and he'll say”No”) and simply headed “Climate costs” starts off by saying “A key number in the struggle to tackle global warming is flawed.” However when you read on – and it is a very short article - it tells us that “Martin Parry of Imperial Collage London” says that the flawed number is the costs of climate change. The costs will be “two to three times” the current UN estimates of $70 to $100 billion per year. (That's $210 to $300 billion per year; we could say a quarter of a trillion dollars.) Maybe Martin Parry is just some student, from the article who would know? So I Googled him and this is what I got. Martin Parry is a professor of climatology at the Imperial College London. He has been a lead author in all the IPCC's reports, and is a co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group II on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability But New Scientist didn't mention that minor detail.

NEW SCIENTIST 19 September 2009. The entire full back page is an ad for Shell Oil. It says “MORE ENERGY ---- LESS CO2” As to how, well, that's a bit vague. On the other hand maybe that's why New Scientist is so very pro-oil?

Page 6 has a picture of a Polar Bear outside a car and you're in the car and the bear has its feet up against the window. The caption says BEARS RUN RIOT AS ICE MELTS. The article starts by saying “You can almost hear Sarah Palin cocking her rifle. As climate change causes see ice to shrink ( it says “shrink” not “melt” although New Scientist should know ice cannot shrink.) It seems always to be the “spin”, not the facts the way the articles are written, (or edited). It's the “spin” on the wording that seems to be so important to the editor. Later it tells us that attacks on humans has increased 300%. The article tells us that the number of "problem bears" my increase with climate changes. It dodges around the simple fact that that the bears are starving, and humans are editable.

Same issue, page 14, heading says, “FAIR FOOTPRINT MEANS CARBON BANKRUPTCY”. The article is about a suggestion that everybody on the planet should have an equal right to dump CO2 into the air. And as Americans and Europeans etc. dump more than their fair share they should buy the dumping rights from poorer societies. Again it's not about curtailing the use of petroleum fuels, coal and gas, it's about continuing their use and juggling cash around to make it all sound “equitable”. It makes “New Scientist” sound like the Department of Truth in Orwell's 1984. That's all on climate chaos/change and global warming.

SCIENCE issue dated 25 September 2009

The outer cover of the issue is headed “CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION” and has a lovely photo, shows big operation, pipes everywhere, plenty of snow, must be all happening. Well not quite. The picture is a site in Iceland and the carbon problem is no more than the underground hot water and steam that powers this geothermal power station is a bit carbonated. And that's what they're pumping underground. It's nothing to do with coal and fossil fuels. But you have to look to find that minor fact.

Page 1599. The editorial is written by US Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu and notes he is a Nobel Laureate in physics. It sure is easy to imagine that the editorial was carefully vetted by the coal and oil supporter interests in the White House. Chu informs the reader that for the US, Russia, China and India it is “highly unlikely that any of these countries will turn their back on coal any time soon” so therefore CCS must be “aggressively pursued”. So with Chu advising President Obama one suspects worsening cancerous climate change is assured.

Chu does concede that the 6 billons tons of coal the US uses, it produces 18 billion tons of CO2 to be buried. One ton from an open cut coal mine on the surface and we have to bury three tons of CO2 at least half a mile underground. Chu obviously has never run a business. He does conclude“There are many hurdles ---- but none appear insurmountable” Surely he's kidding?

Then on page 1641 is Science's “Special Section”. It's headed “CLEANING THE AIR”. Well I guess that seems positive. Maybe they've got it under control? . “Not bloody likely”.

There are big spins on the quoted “facts” throughout the twenty pages devoted to assuring us that things are under control. Shades of the fifty year campaign run by the add and PR people in the tobacco industry and one must admit, a most successful and ongoing campaign, I might add.

The 280 parts per million of CO2 in the air is a very comfortable and livable level. We are told that 500 million years ago CO2 levels were 20 times higher than they are today. We are told that for the last 10,000 years they've been around 280 parts per million. And that's about when the Egyptians became famous. Well it's technically true but really it's a big lie. The safe carbon dioxide levels have been around for at least 5 million years and likely for more than 10 million. So they have been around 280 ppm for fifty times longer than humans have been on the planet.

They do concede there are “uncertainties” with rain forests. Biologists will tell you that established rain forests are net producers of greenhouse gasses. They are not absorbers. Their absorption and the rubbish that they are “the lungs of the earth” are marketing fictions. The article admits that figures for clearing rain forests (for say, growing sugarcane for ethanol) could be out by as much as 100%.

The article does give us a few hints of the probable impossibility of CCS. It's not made clear but never–the-less when you work out their own figures it's obvious that we would have to build 50% more coal fired power stations just to supply the huge power requirements needed to run the CCS chemical and extraction plants.

It does tell how lucky we are that pumping CO2 into the ground in old oil fields could force up more oil for us to burn. It doesn't mention that for every barrel we burn we are effectively stuck with two barrels of compressed CO2 to also get rid of.

Page 1654 Another article captioned WHY CAPTURE CO2 FROM THE ATMOSPHERE?

The first words are “Even if we could halt carbon emissions today, the climate risks they pose would persist for millennia—“. The message appears clear “why bother, let's just keep going as is and keep burning the stuff”.

Twenty years ago I proposed the concept of sequestrating the atmospheric CO2 overload into the creation of fertile soil. The concept is slowly becoming accepted as feasible. It involves maximum minimizing of the use of chemical fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers are a fossil carbon product, mainly gas and oil. So is that the reason that the concept is judiciously ignored throughout the twenty page series of articles. So too is biofuels and so too is nuclear energy.

Sometimes I feel embarrassed to admit that I'm a member of AAAS.

 

SCIENCE dated 2 October . The issue has 186 pages. So on global warming/climate change issues, in total, what do we have? “This Week in Science” the “Editorial” and “Editor's Choice” go through from page 9 to page 22. No mention of global warming except the very last short article, of one sixth of a page, under the head - ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE we have a sub head ACCOOUNTING FOR THE DELAY. The story informs us that oxygen levels started to rise significantly 2.4 billion years ago. And there has been “some fits and starts (in oxygen levels) over the previous several million years”. The impression one might get is that with global warming and climate change phenomena it seems we are talking in enormous periods of time. Most meteorologists, myself included, say that with catastrophic climate change we are we are talking in months and years, or at most a few decades. Not millions or billions of years.

Page 25 “RANDOM SAMPLS” Starts off ----“Henry Hudson and others who searched for trade routes across the top of the world would be envious”. And ‘With global warming the Arctic seems to be beckoning mariners” With no Arctic sea ice we have a new and shorter route from the US to Europe which they suggest is great. The last few lines notes that Greenpeace says the melt is “an urgent wake-up call” and calls for a “moratorium on commercial activity to protect the area historically covered by sea ice.” But as usual they don't suggest we try to stop the warming. Is the message “global warming is okay”?

Page 28 In News of the Week under a “Climate Change” banner we see big headlines saying – WHAT HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING? ...SCIENTIST SAY JUST WAIT A BIT

There is a very technical looking graph. It looks like the graph of shares fluctuating on the stock exchange. The graph starts at 1975. They didn't include temperatures prior to 1975 and took the graph through to 2009 and in so doing picked a period where the temperature rises appeared flat. During the recent stock market crash there were periods when the average prices were rising. But the crash was the ultimate result.

Later in the article they do explain that over a 700 year observed period there were 17 times when flat periods defied long term trends. But you had to read the article through to find that clarification. If not all you remember is the head line WHAT HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING? And maybe the first couple of lines where global warming appears to have an “apparent decade long stagnation”

Page 33 they talk about Ecological Structures and Charles Darwin and ask the question “but to what degree are local patterns driven by the direct influence of climate versus biological interaction such as competition?” The words used are “climate” not “climate change”. The story is about ecology. It's written as if global warming is the natural order of things.

Page 52 Gives us a one page story on fuel cells. POISON-TOLERANT FUEL CELLS. Fuel cells - the indoctrinated mantra of so many green movements -- are notoriously unreliable anywhere except in laboratory clean environments. So it would appear from the story that that problem is solved. Except for the very last sentence which clarifies the stage of development and research by telling us “ If corroborated, this would open interesting possibilities – for SOFC technology …….”(SOFC stands for solid oxide fuel cells).

Page 56 The caption reads-- NITROUS OXIDE; NO LAUGHING MATTER The sub head says “Rising atmospheric concentrations of nitrous are contributing to global warming and stratospheric ozone destruction”. There is a drawing of a farm tractor with arrows showing the movement of nitrogen compounds in the air. One could get the feeling that food production was the big problem. Who knows? If I was in the oil business I would sure want you to be confused.

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SCIENCE 18 September 2009. Reports nothing on how to halt or fix global warming and stop climate change, and not even a mention of its harm.

Remember the greatest threat to the petroleum transport fuel industry is ethanol from sugarcane and biodiesel from ethanol and palm oil. So we have the main editorial devoted to “biodiversity”, and especially the non use of tropical rainforests. It says “Even the most conservative estimates suggest that an area of tropical rainforests greater than the size of California has been destroyed since 1992, mostly for food and fuel.” Are they telling us that those people should not grow food to eat but while not eating they, never-the-less, should use fossil fuels for energy?

Additionally, the editorial concurrently blithely pronounces – “Biodiversity is the building block of ecosystems that capture carbon and energy and cycle water and nutrients from the soil. These processes and the structure of ecosystems that control them benefit society with food, fuel clean water and climate regulation – the so called ecosystem services.” This sounds like structured copy straight from oil industry PR gurus. They don't “capture carbon” which term implies storing carbon.

They also praise the International Union for The Conservation of Nature. The IUCN, at best pays no more than lip service to global warming. Read its mission statement. It could have been written by BP. (who knows, maybe it was)

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN October 2009 I just received my copy. NEWS SCAN gives a full page on how global warming and climate change puts the wind energy industry at risk. The new inconsistencies in wind speeds and wind speed forecasts might make investing in wind energy a bigger risk than people think. That's the message I picked up from reading the article. Does it suggest oil investment is safer?

Then starting on page 36 there are seven pages on how the oil industry has heaps more oil available. That's because only about 40% has ever been taken from existing, but supposedly worn out wells. And now they are finding out how to get the rest. So we're saved! It also says that only about a third of the potential oil reserves around the world have ever been explored. So “peak oil” is not a problem in the foreseeable future.

SCIENCE journal of AAAS 4 September 2009 Editorial under CLIMATE REVERSAL. Is the message here that maybe global warming has saved us from a looming ice age? Then later four pages headed RECENT WARMING REVERSES LONG-TERM ARCTIC COOLING. If a reader didn't know better he might assume that the our burning of fossil fuel has been a hidden blessing! The words “climate change” are not used.

On page 1200 the caption reads NEW TRICK FOR SPLITTING WATER WITH SUNLIGHT. It's about producing hydrogen direct from sunlight. It's a three quarter page story. So are we saved and global warming will go away? The very last paragraph, if you read it all, says the process is fifteen times too expensive but may be the researchers can pull of a “trick” and it could all be feasible.

Another article is captioned - ALTERED MICROBES MAKE DARK-HORSE BIOFUELS. It's also about sunlight being converted into transport fuel. Last paragraph adds “if researchers succeed ----- ethanol's days (read sugarcane's days) atop the biofuel heap may be waning". Nothing else in that issue is on global warming or climate change

SCIENCE Septembers 11 2009 .........Editorial statement "Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, and clouds are one of the most important components of climate." It goes on to say this is only poorly understood by climate scientists, and requires study. Technically that's true but the impression created is that carbon dioxide (read coal, oil and gas) is of minor importance. Is that what they mean?

Editorial statement "there is enough wind in China to generate electricity to supply the nation's projected demand for 2030" and all at "reasonable prices". Buried in a long technical article later on page 1379 it shows a map of China showing "potential" wind electricity areas which they admit is all "irrespective of price". Read the fine print and you see that only a tiny area has wind potential that is at best twice the price of coal and nuclear power. Prices are also so confusingly quoted in RMBs not dollars. So why this report?

Page 1320 from an "Editors' Choice" letter they published "much of the Mesozoic (from 250 to 65 million years ago" was warmer than today. Is that to imply or mean warming is "nothing new". But being realistic it should add - but not in our time for humans have been on Earth for only some 150,000 years.

Page 1335 in an editorial on Environmental Management" they accuse the US Government of not spending enough on research to handel future Arctic oil spills. And we could ask who might be the beneficiary of such research?

There is only one other real reference to global warming in that issue of Science wherein GW is listed as "one of the many" hazards facing humanity.

" AUSTRALIAN MEDIA"

First up date 30 October 2009

STOCK JOURNAL October 2008 A Fairfax controlled media web site discussed the huge money making potential of growing trees for carbon credits. They reported that ----“ MILLIONS of dollars, and millions of trees, are poised to go into "carbon forestry" the moment Australia's emissions trading legislation is signed off. ‘Carbon Conscious', a subsidiary of Western Australian share farming phenomenon Australian Agricultural Contracts Ltd (AACL), last week signed a deal with BP to plant up to 10 million oil mallees across Australia's wheatbelt. In July, the company signed a carbon sink forest deal with Origin Energy potentially worth up to $169 million.”

There was a lot more in their report, all more along similar lines.

They asked for comments. So I commented. Of my comments this is what they allowed-----

“ In 1925 Adolf Hitler, wrote in Mein Kampf: “The great masses of the people...will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”

Posted by Allan Yeomans , 30/10/2009 9:34:37 AM

But this is what I actually said---------

“That endlessly growing more and more trees and forever “saving” rainforests will realistically combat global warming is lie. In 1925 Adolf Hitler, wrote in Mein Kampf “The great masses of the people...will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”

Look at the arithmetic -.it's in part from “Forest Soil and Nutrient Cycles” from the University of Melbourne. A new healthy forest will produce 20 cubic metres of wood per hectare, that is, it absorbs 42 tons of CO2 a year for 20 years. But then it's full. And regrowth equals decomposition. So then you need another hectare.

Your average car would need a quarter hectare of new forests every 20 years.

For our electric power, every Australian would need a half hectare of new forests every 20 years.

Twenty million Australians mean 10,000,000 hectares minimum of new forests every 20 years to plant and water and manage, and for every five motor vehicles another hectare. And remember to qualify for subsidies those trees must never be harvested.

On average every person on Earth lives on or farms, three quarters of a hectare. So with no agricultural land left on Earth, in twenty years we would all be living on canned food? The stupidity of the trees argument is beyond belief.”

So who influenced who to make sure the tree myth continued? As Sherlock Holmes told Watson “First look for he who benefits?

 

GARNAUT REVIEW ON CLIMATE CHANGE