A Place to Stand

The party line is changing fast. Not only are we not facing catastrophic warming we are now half way back to the little ice age according to the BBC

"By recent standards, we have just had what could be called a very cold winter and I wanted to see if this was just another coincidence or statistically robust," said lead author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading, UK...

The Maunder Minimum occurred in the latter half of the 17th Century - a period when Europe experienced a series of harsh winters, which has been dubbed by some as the Little Ice Age. Following this, there was a gradual increase in solar activity that lasted 300 years.

Professor Lockwood explained that studies of activity on the Sun, which provides data stretching back over 9,000 years, showed that it tended to "ramp up quite slowly over about a 300-year period, then drop quite quickly over about a 100-year period".

He said the present decline started in 1985 and was currently about "half way back to a Maunder Minimum condition"...

The way in which solar activity affects the behaviour of blocking episodes is linked to the amount of ultraviolet (UV) emissions being produced by the Sun.

Solar UV heats the stratosphere (20-50km above the surface), particularly the equatorial stratosphere. This results in a temperature gradient, which leads to the formation of high level winds.

"The change in solar activity undoubtedly changes the stratospheric winds," said Professor Lockwood.

So by 2085 we will be at the deepest point of another Little Ice Age.

Of course the BBC cover themselves by also saying

But they added that the phenomenon only affected a limited region and would not alter the overall global warming trend.

Which is obvious nonsense. If we are going to have another Maunder Minimum in the Sun's cycle it is going to affect everywhere that the Sun shines not just Europe & indeed the Little Ice Age wasn't a merely European phenomenon. This is just the BBC trying to push a cooling scare while not acknowledging they were lying about the warming fraud.

Not them alone. Professor Lockwood has been on the BBC before pushing a climate scare. As Anthony Watts points out "his study was basically a rehash of what many others have done previously over the past few centuries, but he has the BBC’s ear – because in 2007 he prominently claimed just the opposite."

modern temperatures are not determined by the Sun's effect on cosmic rays, as has been claimed.

Writing in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings A, the researchers say cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, but not the present.

"This should settle the debate," said Mike Lockwood, from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, who carried out the new analysis together with Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland.

This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity

Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle...

"You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like," he said.,,

"This paper reinforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of climate science.

The IPCC's February summary report concluded that greenhouse gases were about 13 times more responsible than solar changes for rising global temperatures.

That was in July 2007 before Dr Lockwood became a Professor. Clearly somebody who has a good eye for how the political wind is blowing.

Since we have had at least a century & a half of climate scares, alternating between catastrophic warming & a new ice age we may shortly expect the eco-fascist/big government totalitarians/headline seeking journalists to redefine "climate change" as cooling. In the 1970s their cure for the approaching ice age was more government regulation, preventing aircraft flying & an end to modern technology. Though this is exactly the same cure as for catastrophic warming it will doubtless serve again for cooling.

In fact, just as the only practical answer to CO2 release is much more nuclear power, something the eco-fascists & traditional politicians have resolutely prevented us having, so the practical cure to cooling, if it actually happens, is space development since a spacegoing civilisation could, comparatively easily, produce the thousands of square miles of tinfoil requited for orbiting mirrors. The basic answer to almost all political questions is more technological progress & fewer politicians banning things.

Meanwhile watch the politicians, media & their tame "experts" change direction almost as fast as satirised in 1984 when the enemy changed from Eurasia to Eastasia. I think Lockwood owes Martin Durkin, creator of the Great Global warming Swindle programme an apology. I think he won't give it.

Labels: eco-fascism, global warming, space

the Obama administration wants to draw on the collective wisdom of scientists everywhere in deciding which scientific and technological challenges should be the focus of policy initiatives in the coming years.

In 2009 President Obama provided some examples of what these challenges might be:

* Complete DNA sequencing of every type of cancer. * A universal vaccine for influenza that will protect against all future strains. * Solar cells as cheap as paint, and green buildings that produce all of the energy they consume. * A light-weight vest for soldiers and police officers that can stop an armor-piercing bullet. * Educational software that is as compelling as the best video game and as effective as a personal tutor. * Biological systems that can turn sunlight into carbon-neutral fuel, reduce the costs of producing antimalarial drugs by a factor of 10, and quickly and inexpensively dispose of radioactive wastes and toxic chemicals.

Now, the White House wants your help in shaping the federal government’s current and future scientific priorities. As scientists and concerned citizens, we have a great responsibility and a unique opportunity to be the voices that are helping to define the White House’s scientific agenda. Make your voice heard. Submit your ideas today to challenge@ostp.gov,

http://promo.aaas.org/expertlabs/grandchallenges.html (via WattsUpWithThat)

Strikes me that space industrialization is the elephant in the room not mentioned & an X-Prize Foundation the answer. Ageing research may be another elephant. Surely both are of greater value to humanity than a better bullet proof vest? On the other hand silly as some of these are at least he is asking.
Neil Craig
Perhaps we ought all to suggest Prizes; it's not what the Administration wants, but perhaps enough such suggestions would at least get some attention.
And of course if they'd all just read A Step Farther Out...
Having sent the above to Jerry Pournelle which he has placed on his blog I also sent this note of my submission to the British National Space Centre for an X-Prize Foundation to Obama (& also copies to Newt & Sarah mscofield@newt.org, info@sarahpac.com ). I don't expect it to work & haven't yet received an acknowledgement but it certainly won't work if we don't try. I am therefore suggesting that anybody interested in pushing space development, by X-Prizes or otherwise, in the USA or otherwise, says so. Space development is the mother lode for human development - I wish my country was willing to put some effort into it, but if not I would like the USA to & if they don't then more power to China's elbow
Sir,The big scientific project the President doesn't mention is space industrialisation. The way to achieve this is to take most of the money currently given to NASA & put it into an X-Prize Foundation. Here is a proposal I made to the British government that it take the $400 million it currently gives to the European Space Agency (an organisation which makes NASA look effective) & put it into such a Foundation to make Britain a world leader in the field. Since this is 1/50th of what the USA spends on NASA you could obviously do far more.
http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/09/x-prizes-freedom-of-information-query.html
I also made a cheaper proposal to make donations to such technology prizes tax deductible at a substantially higher rate than current charitable donations since the long term benefit to the nation is clearly likely to be higher.
-----------------------
Also today he has my link to the article I discussed last Sunday - that the Kyrgyzstan revolution was about energy prices & how people here might also react:

However it seems to me that if the American or British public ever
appreciated how much power costs are increased by Luddism & government
parasitism (I think at least 50% probably 75% taking in all factors) they would
not be happy bunnies.

That is 75% of what we currently pay is eco-fascist state parasitism.

Labels: British politics, International politics, nuclear

Labels: British politics, election, Social

Some quotes from UKIP's Manifesto since you wont be seeing much MSM coverage:

"Britain now gives £16.4bn gross p.a in cash to Brussels (£45m a day). Our net
contribution amounts to £6.4bn p.a., which will rise to more than £10bn with the loss of our rebate. Including indirect costs such as red tape, the true cost of the EU to the UK is estimated at up to £120 billion a year...(1)
-A BBC Politics Show poll in 2009 showed 55% want out of the EU. In 2008 an ITV Luton referendum showed 54% wanting to leave." p2

"· Introduce a flat tax which will make all taxpayers better off and take a further
4.5 million lower paid workers out of income tax altogether. The flat tax will merge existing income tax bands and Employees’ National Insurance contributions into a single rate of31%, starting at that £11,500 threshold....
· Stimulate job creation by phasing out Employers’ National Insurance (the ‘tax on
jobs’) over a five-year period (20% reduction p.a.). The revenue will be recouped either as PAYE tax, corporation tax (2), sales tax revenue, or by the reduced need for State welfare
· Recognise the dangerous levels of national debt and accept there is no alternative to major cuts in government spending."
-Aim to reduce the public sector to the size it was in 1997, cutting many unnecessary
quangos and non-jobs over five years. The goal is to exchange two million public sector jobs for one million new skilled jobs in manufacturing and related services and at least one million additional jobs created as a result lower personal taxes and reduced business taxation and regulation,
· Stop the tax and welfare system penalising married and unmarried couples
- Require the BoE to enforce a rigid division between retail banks and investment banks (where much instability has occurred) based" p3 & 4

"A 25-year programme of building nuclear power stations that will provide Britain with 50% of its future electricity demand. This will cost on average of £3.5 billion p.a. (3)...
A prison building programme with a particular emphasis on modern off-site manufacture (4)" p4

"· End mass, uncontrolled immigration. UKIP calls for an immediate five-year freeze on immigration for permanent settlement. We aspire to ensuring any future immigration does not exceed 50,000 people p.a.
· Regain control of UK borders. This can only be done by leaving the European Union ... There can be no question of an amnesty for illegal immigrants." p5

"end the scandal of early releases and weak sentencing. This will cost approximately £2bn p.a. in contrast to the cost of crime, estimated by the Home Office at £45bn p.a.
· Rebalance the law to protect residents who seek to defend their own homes, families or property against intruders
· Introduce a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy
· Allow binding national referenda on controversial public law and order issues" p6

"· Spend an extra 40% on defence annually, another 1% of GDP
· Expand the Army by 25% to 125,000 personnel and double the size of the Territorial Army
· Reappraise our operations in Afghanistan to create a single, clear and achievable
mission or seek to negotiate a withdrawal
· Cut MOD bureaucracy, which has one civil servant for every two military personnel (5)" p7

"· Put medical staff back at the heart of the NHS, replacing bureaucrats and managers. Franchises will require clinically-trained Matrons to run hospitals, taking a dominant role on wards and primary responsibility for hospital cleanliness" p7

"offering all parents ‘School Vouchers’. The vouchers will be equivalent to the average cost of State schooling and follow the child to the school of the family’s choice, transferable to State, private or faith schools" p8

"Bring generous unfunded public sector final salary pensions back into line with typical private pension provision" p9

"The UK’s current welfare system is ridiculously complicated and requires an army of bureaucrats to administer. There are more than 70 separate benefits, each requiring masses of forms and helping to entrench dependency...
· Roll the mass of existing benefits into simpler categories, while ensuring every UK citizen receives a simple, non-means tested ‘Basic Cash Benefit' ...until their wages reach UKIP’s proposed £11,500 personal allowance so they can take jobs without being heavily penalised by the system" p10

"UKIP will seek to establish a Commonwealth Free Trade Area ... a CFTA would account for more than 20% of all international trade and investment, facilitating annual trade exchanges worth more than $1.8 trillion and direct foreign investment worth about $100 billion." p10

"We called for a rational, balanced approach to the climate debate in 2008, before the extensive manipulation of scientific data first became clear.
· Increase nuclear power generation to provide up to 50% of our electricity needs. Because Britain’s domestic energy plants are ageing and renewable energy sources have been shown to be unreliable, UKIP will pass hybrid Acts of Parliament to accelerate the planning process and allow old reactors to be replaced (3)
· Reduce environmental bureaucracy to a minimum - consistent with good practice and international standards" p11

"· Invest an extra £3 billion p.a. in the UK’s transport infrastructure ...
· Invest in three new 200mph plus high-speed rail lines" p11

"· Introduce ‘Direct Democracy’ whereby 5% of the national or local electorate can demand a binding referendum on any issue...
· Introduce an element of proportional representation in national and local elections. UKIP favours an electoral system based on Alternative Vote Plus so that constituency MPs have to earn at least 50% of the vote (as in Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections)...
· Retain devolved national assemblies but replace the representatives with Westminster MPs from the same nation. (6)
· Require UK schools to teach Britain’s
contribution to the world, including British inventions"
· Tackle extremist Islam by banning the burqa or veiled niqab in public buildings and certain private buildings(7)"p13

"· Support GM foods research and require all imported produce to be labelled so consumers can make informed choices. In the meantime, we will continue to oppose production of GM foods and be open to evolving scientific advice (8)...
· Reassert our territorial rights, reclaim our fishing grounds, restore our fishing fleet and support our fishing industry for future generations" p14

"the smoking ban. UKIP supports designated smoking rooms in pubs, clubs and public buildings" p15

This is a radical programme which would certainly get us not just out of recession but into growth. Particular comments:
1 - The EU Enterprise Commissioner has said EU regulations cost 5.5% of GNP (£80 bn) add the £10bn paid & not returned comes to £90. I assume they believe The Commissioner is underestimating & that the returned money is mainly wasted. I think it should have been phrased "between £90 & £120 bn, all governments having refused to make a precise calculation"
2 - I regret this is the only mention of corporation tax (though in context if they make the promised cuts they will not have to raise it). Cutting CT is what got the Irish economy 7% growth & similar cuts in the UK would have a similar effect on growth.
3 - They could do this for less. If allowed & given a sensible regulatory framework the market would happily build them without charging. For that cost we could build a reactor manufacturing centre which could mass produce turnkey operation nuclear plants which would not only produce most of our power very cheaply but establish a massive export market. Westinghouse's AP100 is already available in quantity at under £1 bn each so £87.5 billion could provide more than all of our current usage. This commitment, while very radical by the standards of other parties is technically timid.
4 - The only mention of off off site (ie mass produced) building. By comparison their official housing policy is unadventurous - this may be because UKIP members vary between libertarians & old conservatives.
5 - Defence spending should be aimed much more at technological innovation - this policy is to much fighting the last war. However having more soldiers than MoD clerks is radical, if only by the standards of the others. I a, not happy about leaving Afghanistan quickly but UKIP is quite right to say that the mission nmust be clear. We went in originally to get bin Laden, who I believe is dead & stop al Quaeda & that should be our only purpose.
6 - This is not ending devolution & should not be described by the media as such. It is rolling all 160 MSPs & MPs into 50 odd jobs getting rid of most of them (oh dear, too bad, never mind) but all elected by the Scottish Parliament system & leaving them perfectly capable of doing their jobs in both Holyrood & Westminster. Indeed Holyrood is notoriously underworked giving great incentive for idle hands to come up with new things to ban). As a long time supporter of devolution I have no problem with this.
7 - This has had a lot of media coverage about it being a total ban but it is no moreso than the smoking ban having made all smoking illegal
8 - I regret the partial bowing to unjustifiable scaremongering against GM foods. Oh well they are still much more rational than their competitors.

Labels: British politics, election, Fixing the economy

This is the logo of the new British Space Centre

And

this is the logo of the Ministry of Space in Warrne Ellis & Chris Weston's admirable graphic novel of the same name.

Personally I prefer Ellis' original - it is slim, sharp, is derived from our history (use of the roundel) & looks like a rocket while the other looks like a bloated vehicle which will have difficulty getting off the ground. And the official version has an almost grey shade of "blue" which is both wrong & symbolic.

Labels: British politics, Science/technology, space

American Al Fin has this graphic illustration of exactly how deep a hole much of the world is in. It looks like Britain wins the digging prize. If we got China's 10% growth, which we could do if government wasn't preventing it, we would rapidly move from red to yellow & ultimately green even without paying off anything. Without growth we are screwed. This is not discussed or even mentioned by the parasites of the official parties in the "debate" in what substitutes for a real election. Al says:

The map displays the problem of the Eurozone and most modern nanny states. Some of the countries that are worst off include those with a combination of high debt, high tax rates, high levels of social welfare benefits, and low fertility rates. Countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy. In fact, most of Europe falls into that category. Fortunately, native Europeans have high average IQs. Where there is intelligence, there is hope. Likewise, it is the intelligence of the Japanese people which gives Japan hope.

Out of all the Anglosphere, Australia and New Zealand appear to be the least indebted. Canada has debt, but it is also very rich in natural resources and in intelligent people. The UK is steeped in debt, is drowning in political correctness, and is under a growing siege from fanatical Muslim immigrants.

Labels: British politics, election, Government parasitism

An interesting article from EU Referendum on how the Kyrgyzstan revolution has been largely about the government's role in pushing up the price of energy. And about how our media has barely mentioned the cause.

Covered widely by the media, the reports of the rioting in Kyrgyzstan yesterday vary widely in tone and content. But, even if you have to drill down into the piece, not even The Guardian can conceal the reason for the unrest, which has seen protesters beat a Cabinet minister to death.

"The violent rolling protests appeared to be largely spontaneous rather than a premeditated coup," it says, eventually telling us that a "leading expert" has said the government had triggered the protests by imposing punitive increases on tariffs for water and gas. "In the last few months there has been growing anger over this non-political issue," said Paul Quinn-Judge, central Asia project director of the International Crisis Group.

"The government thought they could get away with it," he adds. "Most people agreed. But in the last few weeks we have seen several rumblings in the secondary towns and cities in Kyrgyzstan. There has also been a crisis inside government. Now it has all come together in one giant wreck."

Even the BBC is forced to concede this point but, in fact, the problem has been grumbling for more than "a few weeks". Unrest was reported by Radio Free Europe at the end of February, identifying the protesters as responding to the "electricity price hike".

There is much more to it than that, as The Daily Mail indicates, but even on 23 February the Institute for War & Peace Reporting had Timur Toktonaliev in Bishkek writing: "Soaring energy costs anger Kyrgyz", with prices for electricity having risen 100 percent and the cost of central heating shooting up by 500 percent. Clearly, energy prices have been the primary trigger of current events...

Here, the crucial issue in Kyrgyzstan was that the prices were driven up by government fiat, albeit following a decision to remove subsidies which had enabled energy to be sold at less than the cost of production. It can be assumed, from this, that where government action is directly responsible for price hikes, governments will take the flak.

It is far too extreme to suppose that we will any time soon see a Cabinet minister beaten to death on the streets of London, although there are not a few who would leap at such an opportunity if it was presented. But it is not a happy or a stable government which relies only on constant police protection to keep its members alive and safe.

Of course the people of Kyrgyzstan are armed & we are disarmed.

However it is undeniable that the average household's electricity bill has gone up from £600 to £1243 over 5 years & is set to increase by, officially, another 60% to over £2,000. Even that is unlikely to prevent blackouts by 2015, when new EU regulations close much of our electric power & possibly by 2012. Scotland is, of course worse off because our politicians are all insane.

Also undeniable is that if we went nuclear like France we would have power at 1/4 the price - £311 annually. My guess is that since (A) French nuclear systems are 30-40 years old & (B) their costs are also grossly inflated by over-regulation, albeit not as much as ours, that £311 could be further considerably reduced.

Of course with power at 1/4 of its present price much industry currently moving to China & India, such as steel mills, would be viable, very viable, here. as Jerry Pournelle said "cheap power + economic freedom = wealth" & the opposite, as we see, is also true.

This brings me to a minor point in the lecture on global warming by Scotland's scientifically illiterate Chief Science Advisor. On question from the audience was "I am a politician (he didn't say which party & it is part of the problem that it doesn't really matter) & I would like to tell you that if I go into an election offering all this we won't get voted for". The answer which she didn't give, & having already asked my question, I didn't either. is that they are already committed to it all & the way they get round it is by not telling us or indeed lying about it saying "the era of cheap energy is over" & it isn't the politician's fault. The fact is that the era of cheap power has barely started & it is entirely the fault of our wholly corrupt, thieving* fascist, murdering** political elite, that we are deprived of it.

Obviously they depend on the whores of the BBC, ITN & newspapers to wholly censor mention of this, even reader's letters, while printing absolutely any eco-Nazi lie they are given, since if the facts were generally known the murderers would by lynched here too.

* to the extent of £932 per household per year
** 25,000 pensioners die annually, entirely unnecessarily, from the effects of fuel poverty

Labels: British politics, election, nuclear