Thursday, October 07, 2010
FORTH BRIDGE - GOVERNMENT REPLY
In July I asked our government these questions about the Forth crossing prices
" (2) Gavin Scott of the Freight Transport Association submitted the following comments to Transport Scotland on 28 August 2007:
“Despite the siren voices that argue for the environmental and other benefits of this or that crossing, the replacement for the current crossing must be a bridge unless the logistics industry is given a cast iron guarantee that any tunnel provided will have no restrictions as to what goods may pass through it.
Transport Scotland’s STPR corridor study suggests that Large Goods Vehicle traffic on the Edinburgh to Perth corridor is consistently between 8% and 12%. Let’s call it 10%. All of that traffic will currently cross the Forth Road Bridge and whatever future replacement is provided. Given that large goods vehicles account for something in the region of 1% of all vehicles on our roads it seems reasonable that, if Forth Road Bridge traffic is on average 10% large goods vehicles, special consideration should be given to their requirements.
All tunnels of the length that any Forth tunnel might be have more or less serious restrictions on the passage of hazardous cargoes. This is not necessarily explosives or nuclear devices but could be commonplace commodities such as fuel or bulk whisky.
Restrictions on the carriage of these cargoes range from outright bans to segregation, the requirement for escort vehicles or speed and separation limits. If the economy of Scotland and Fife is not to be destroyed we cannot have such restrictions put on vehicles wishing to cross the Forth. Imagine the situation if, every time a petrol tanker wished to cross the Forth Road Bridge all traffic was stopped until the vehicle had crossed in splendid isolation.
We are trying to improve the economy of Scotland not finding ways of artificially hindering it when there is no need for such hindrances.”
-------------
In addition to these comments you may also be interested to read the submissions to the Scottish Parliament Forth Crossing Bill Committee made by the Freight Transport Association (www.fta.co.uk) and the Road Haulage Association (www.rha.uk.net), which is a member-based organisation representing road transport operators in the UK. It has 9,500 members, all of which are UK road transport companies. These can be found, along with the other published written submissions at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/forthXbill/inquiries/fcb-evid.htm
When making comparisons with other crossing projects, including bridges and tunnels, it should be borne in mind that each project is unique and it is difficult to make like for like comparisons. This was highlighted by Mike Glover, Commission Project Manager, in his evidence to the Scottish Parliament Finance Committee on 23 February 2010, where he stated:
“…I welcome the opportunity to explain what the differences are between major bridges across the world. Accounting practices of countries come into it. For example, there is no taxation whatsoever on Stonecutters bridge, and no financial charges are applied to its costs. You will find that, despite what you might think, every country has its unique way of accounting for things
The other characteristic is that it is not an open book situation. In many countries, all you will ever see, if you are lucky, is the tender price, not the outturn price. That comes into the next item: the contract strategy. As John Howison has explained, we are adopting an approach that gives price certainty post-tender. Other bridges have been constructed on very much more of a cost-plus or target basis, by which I mean that the tender price bears no resemblance to the outturn cost. I am afraid that you cannot make people tell you what the outturn costs are; they just will not do it. With very large projects there is always a problem with finding out what the end cost is. I think that that is what you are suffering from with many of these situations….”
The official report for this committee session, which contains Mike Glover’s comments in full, can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/finance/or-10/fi10-0502.htm.
The role of committees and how the work is outlined in the document, The Work of Committees which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/committees/index.htm.
www.transportscotland.gov.uk
The comparisons made with other bridges and tunnels can be found in the Comparison Paper on International Bridges and Tunnels which can be found on the Transport Scotland Website, http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/projects/forth-replacement-crossing/information-centre/frc-study, along with maps of each of the identified crossing points, maps of the physical constraints within the estuary, studies which informed the decision and an Information Note on the likely diversion routes associated with closure of the Forth Road Bridge to HGVs.
You may also be interested in the non-technical summary ...http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/files/documents/reports/FRCS-Report5-Non-Technical-Summary26-06-07.pdf.
(1) In your letter you ask if it is specifically claimed that recabling cannot take place without closing the bridge. In February 2008 FETA reported that it would be possible to replace or augment the cables should this be necessary, although in practical terms, they concluded that this replacement work would not be feasible unless a replacement crossing were provided prior to the work taking place. In particular the study concluded that major maintenance works on Forth Road Bridge over a sustained period, involving lane and carriageway closures, would potentially result in:
•
economic output falling to a level in the order of £1 billion below that anticipated were the bridge to be operating normally
•
a drop in turnover in excess of £1.3 billion below that anticipated were the bridge to be operating normally
•
a loss of around 3,200 jobs, some of which may turn out to be permanent.
The full report can be found at: www.forthroadbridge.org/maincablereplacement.
I hope you find this further information useful.
Andrew Pope
Project Communications and Policy Officer
Forth Replacement Crossing Team"
Well some answers there & (2) I am interested to see that somebody has said the "economy of Scotland & Fife would be destroyed" if a tiny % of lorries carrying explosive or highly combustible materials had to take the 20 mile detour to Kincardine Bridge in the event of the current bridge being allowed to fall. I find that claim incredible but certainly they have found somebody who has made it.
(1) Despite it being previously implied the answer makes clear that recabling can take place without closing it. There would be some inconvenience but all the alleged costs given there apply equally or moreso if there is congestion because of any delay in building a new tunnel - which is an overwhelming argument for immediately starting cutting a tunnel rather than spending half a decade before starting a bridge. Indeed if the £1 billion loss simply from having some restrictions, not closure, on the bridge, probably at weekends is taken seriously then we should be cutting at least 2 dozen £40 million tunnels under the Forth & presumably elsewhere. Extrapolating from that figure the cost of closure of central Edinburgh because of the tram fiasco must be several billions already which means the civil service have opposed it initially & be now calling for its immediate scrapping.
It seems that on (3) & (4) it is accepted I am correct.
Mike Glover's explanation is worth comment because it explains nothing. That there may be no VAT on 1 bridge would explain a 17.5% discrepancy on that one, but not the real discrepancy (£206 million compared to £2,300mn) there or on all the other bridges. Claiming that all the other countries in the world are lying about their costs since the figures they give are only the initial estimate rather than the actual cost might be taken seriously if (A) the figures we are being given for the Forth crossing aren't themselves initial estimates or (B) if Scotland's government had a long & credible history of all such projects coming in on budget rather than a long & discreditable history of the reverse. The inflation adjusted figure for the previous Forth Bridge was only £320 million - is Mr Glover claiming that the Scottish government is among those giving a false figure?
So we are still left with a lot of handwaving to distract from the fact that the cost proposed for the Forth Bridge is still 13 times that of the similar first bridge, 100 times what tunnels can be & have been built for & 400 times what recabling would cost.
£117 million, £4.8 million per km
(1) Is it specifically claimed that recabling cannot take place without closing the bridge? ...They promptly replied (slightly edited):
(2) Has any haulier written to the Scottish government saying that restrictions on their cargoes would so seriously affect their profits that it should be a major consideration in this multi billion £ project?...
(3) I take it that our government does not dispute that the Lisbon recabling cost £10 million & that similar Norwegian tunneling projects have indeed cost around £40 million?
(4) [since a large part of tunnel costs relate to access roads, indeed they are costed at more than similar bridge access roads] is there any reason why the endpoints should not be beside the access roads to the current bridge if road costs are really such an overwhelming
factor.
" (2) Gavin Scott of the Freight Transport Association submitted the following comments to Transport Scotland on 28 August 2007:
“Despite the siren voices that argue for the environmental and other benefits of this or that crossing, the replacement for the current crossing must be a bridge unless the logistics industry is given a cast iron guarantee that any tunnel provided will have no restrictions as to what goods may pass through it.
Transport Scotland’s STPR corridor study suggests that Large Goods Vehicle traffic on the Edinburgh to Perth corridor is consistently between 8% and 12%. Let’s call it 10%. All of that traffic will currently cross the Forth Road Bridge and whatever future replacement is provided. Given that large goods vehicles account for something in the region of 1% of all vehicles on our roads it seems reasonable that, if Forth Road Bridge traffic is on average 10% large goods vehicles, special consideration should be given to their requirements.
All tunnels of the length that any Forth tunnel might be have more or less serious restrictions on the passage of hazardous cargoes. This is not necessarily explosives or nuclear devices but could be commonplace commodities such as fuel or bulk whisky.
Restrictions on the carriage of these cargoes range from outright bans to segregation, the requirement for escort vehicles or speed and separation limits. If the economy of Scotland and Fife is not to be destroyed we cannot have such restrictions put on vehicles wishing to cross the Forth. Imagine the situation if, every time a petrol tanker wished to cross the Forth Road Bridge all traffic was stopped until the vehicle had crossed in splendid isolation.
We are trying to improve the economy of Scotland not finding ways of artificially hindering it when there is no need for such hindrances.”
-------------
In addition to these comments you may also be interested to read the submissions to the Scottish Parliament Forth Crossing Bill Committee made by the Freight Transport Association (www.fta.co.uk) and the Road Haulage Association (www.rha.uk.net), which is a member-based organisation representing road transport operators in the UK. It has 9,500 members, all of which are UK road transport companies. These can be found, along with the other published written submissions at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/forthXbill/inquiries/fcb-evid.htm
When making comparisons with other crossing projects, including bridges and tunnels, it should be borne in mind that each project is unique and it is difficult to make like for like comparisons. This was highlighted by Mike Glover, Commission Project Manager, in his evidence to the Scottish Parliament Finance Committee on 23 February 2010, where he stated:
“…I welcome the opportunity to explain what the differences are between major bridges across the world. Accounting practices of countries come into it. For example, there is no taxation whatsoever on Stonecutters bridge, and no financial charges are applied to its costs. You will find that, despite what you might think, every country has its unique way of accounting for things
The other characteristic is that it is not an open book situation. In many countries, all you will ever see, if you are lucky, is the tender price, not the outturn price. That comes into the next item: the contract strategy. As John Howison has explained, we are adopting an approach that gives price certainty post-tender. Other bridges have been constructed on very much more of a cost-plus or target basis, by which I mean that the tender price bears no resemblance to the outturn cost. I am afraid that you cannot make people tell you what the outturn costs are; they just will not do it. With very large projects there is always a problem with finding out what the end cost is. I think that that is what you are suffering from with many of these situations….”
The official report for this committee session, which contains Mike Glover’s comments in full, can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/finance/or-10/fi10-0502.htm.
The role of committees and how the work is outlined in the document, The Work of Committees which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/committees/index.htm.
www.transportscotland.gov.uk
The comparisons made with other bridges and tunnels can be found in the Comparison Paper on International Bridges and Tunnels which can be found on the Transport Scotland Website, http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/projects/forth-replacement-crossing/information-centre/frc-study, along with maps of each of the identified crossing points, maps of the physical constraints within the estuary, studies which informed the decision and an Information Note on the likely diversion routes associated with closure of the Forth Road Bridge to HGVs.
You may also be interested in the non-technical summary ...http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/files/documents/reports/FRCS-Report5-Non-Technical-Summary26-06-07.pdf.
(1) In your letter you ask if it is specifically claimed that recabling cannot take place without closing the bridge. In February 2008 FETA reported that it would be possible to replace or augment the cables should this be necessary, although in practical terms, they concluded that this replacement work would not be feasible unless a replacement crossing were provided prior to the work taking place. In particular the study concluded that major maintenance works on Forth Road Bridge over a sustained period, involving lane and carriageway closures, would potentially result in:
•
economic output falling to a level in the order of £1 billion below that anticipated were the bridge to be operating normally
•
a drop in turnover in excess of £1.3 billion below that anticipated were the bridge to be operating normally
•
a loss of around 3,200 jobs, some of which may turn out to be permanent.
The full report can be found at: www.forthroadbridge.org/maincablereplacement.
I hope you find this further information useful.
Andrew Pope
Project Communications and Policy Officer
Forth Replacement Crossing Team"
Well some answers there & (2) I am interested to see that somebody has said the "economy of Scotland & Fife would be destroyed" if a tiny % of lorries carrying explosive or highly combustible materials had to take the 20 mile detour to Kincardine Bridge in the event of the current bridge being allowed to fall. I find that claim incredible but certainly they have found somebody who has made it.
(1) Despite it being previously implied the answer makes clear that recabling can take place without closing it. There would be some inconvenience but all the alleged costs given there apply equally or moreso if there is congestion because of any delay in building a new tunnel - which is an overwhelming argument for immediately starting cutting a tunnel rather than spending half a decade before starting a bridge. Indeed if the £1 billion loss simply from having some restrictions, not closure, on the bridge, probably at weekends is taken seriously then we should be cutting at least 2 dozen £40 million tunnels under the Forth & presumably elsewhere. Extrapolating from that figure the cost of closure of central Edinburgh because of the tram fiasco must be several billions already which means the civil service have opposed it initially & be now calling for its immediate scrapping.
It seems that on (3) & (4) it is accepted I am correct.
Mike Glover's explanation is worth comment because it explains nothing. That there may be no VAT on 1 bridge would explain a 17.5% discrepancy on that one, but not the real discrepancy (£206 million compared to £2,300mn) there or on all the other bridges. Claiming that all the other countries in the world are lying about their costs since the figures they give are only the initial estimate rather than the actual cost might be taken seriously if (A) the figures we are being given for the Forth crossing aren't themselves initial estimates or (B) if Scotland's government had a long & credible history of all such projects coming in on budget rather than a long & discreditable history of the reverse. The inflation adjusted figure for the previous Forth Bridge was only £320 million - is Mr Glover claiming that the Scottish government is among those giving a false figure?
So we are still left with a lot of handwaving to distract from the fact that the cost proposed for the Forth Bridge is still 13 times that of the similar first bridge, 100 times what tunnels can be & have been built for & 400 times what recabling would cost.
£117 million, £4.8 million per km
Labels: Forth crossing, Government parasitism, Scottish politics
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
WARMING ARTICLE RESPONSE
I thought I would preen slightly by reprinting the comments received for my ChangeScotland article, (also picked up by the Global Warming Policy Foundation). I have also provided a link to other opinions given by Dr Bratby whose expertise is obvious & have highlighted my reply:
This is brilliant. It reminds me of the pieces which say that aliens shot Kennedy or that mind control rays are being deployed to persuade us to shop at Tescos or similar. Lovely satire.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by James
Leaving aside the debate on climate change, one of the most worrying aspects is the security/insecurity of Scotland's future energy supplies. Some countries are already experiencing regular power cuts, with the result that such disruptions are discouraging vital inward investment. The Scottish government assures us its policies will keep the lights on. However this satisfactory state of affairs assumes that the spending on energy infrastructure they envisage will in fact take place. Austerity budgets are hampering the energy plans of many governments in the West; consequently the demand for cheaper but less popular alternatives is growing so much so that governments who once said no to nuclear are now changing their minds.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by IJ
Thank you for a level-headed article. We need more like this. So what can be done? Those who claim to have the future growth and prosperity of Scotland at the centre of their hearts, seem to be considering her of nothing more value than a sacrificial goat to be offered on the alter of AGW so they can declare to the world, 'Look we have not even held back our own country to placate the gods of climate changed, surely we should be praised for our sacrifice' Pride comes before a fall... hopefully not the fall of beautiful Scotland.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by Ian Moir
An outstanding article. The burden of the plainly ludicrous, ill-founded climate-alarmism swamping our politicians will be with us for some time to come. What will move it? The lack of observational evidence for CO2 driving climate, or even having an important impact, has not been enough. The cautionary advice of the world's best climate scientists has not been enough. Perhaps the hideous fanaticism of the 10:10 snuff movie 'No Pressure' will help move them a little. Perhaps another cold winter will make some of them think a little. The whole sorry saga has revealed how people in positions of notional authority such as the IPCC can manipulate their reporting to gloss over differences of opinion, ignore critical and informed opinion, and make the most of impressive PR skills to get a mighty bandwagon underway despite the desperately thin ice it is standing on (that's enough by way of metaphors). It is such a pity that the fledgling parliament in Edinburgh become a victim of this bizarre abandonment of independent thought. The two core arguments I have heard from the pushers are 'the IPCC says it, it must be true', and then some twaddle about greenhouses - twaddle that was revealed as twaddle more than 100 years ago. CO2 without doubt responds to infra-red in ways which the simpler molecules that make up most of the atmosphere cannot, but the net effect of this on the complex climate system, with its poorly understood network of relationships, is still a matter of debate amongst physicists. Some say it will produce a modest cooling, some say the effect will so small as to defy detection, some say a modest rise in 'average temperatures'. None say it will have a dramatic effect on its own. A few modellers have postulated a positive feedback with water vapour and in that way contrived to show dramatic temperature rises. Nothing has been seen to support their postulate, and the lack of a tropospheric hotspot as predicted by it is at least a partial refutation of the model. The ongoing lack of dramatic temperature rises as per the dramatic projections is also a refutation. But in their defence, the modellers say their models are not good enough for predictions, only 'projections'. An interesting perspective, an offspring of the unholy liaisons between some scientists and many spinners. The scientists can say 'our models are not fit for prediction', the spinners can say 'look what the models predicts, we are all doomed'. All it takes for this absurdity is a great pile of verbiage to confused the masses. Enter the IPCC.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by JS
An excellent article, which, as a scientist, I wholeheartedly support. There is no evidence that we are affecting the global climate.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by Dr Phillip Bratby
I would like to give thanks for the thoughtful comments here.
I would also like to thank James for demonstrating how strenuously alarmist critics must avoid any actual discussion of facts. Thus showing this hypothesis could never have become the dominant paradigm, let alone brought about the destruction of trillions of $s of human wealth without massive governments & compliant mainstream media propagandising combined with censorship of sceptical views.
Lysenkoism looks reasomable by comparison.
This is brilliant. It reminds me of the pieces which say that aliens shot Kennedy or that mind control rays are being deployed to persuade us to shop at Tescos or similar. Lovely satire.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by James
Leaving aside the debate on climate change, one of the most worrying aspects is the security/insecurity of Scotland's future energy supplies. Some countries are already experiencing regular power cuts, with the result that such disruptions are discouraging vital inward investment. The Scottish government assures us its policies will keep the lights on. However this satisfactory state of affairs assumes that the spending on energy infrastructure they envisage will in fact take place. Austerity budgets are hampering the energy plans of many governments in the West; consequently the demand for cheaper but less popular alternatives is growing so much so that governments who once said no to nuclear are now changing their minds.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by IJ
Thank you for a level-headed article. We need more like this. So what can be done? Those who claim to have the future growth and prosperity of Scotland at the centre of their hearts, seem to be considering her of nothing more value than a sacrificial goat to be offered on the alter of AGW so they can declare to the world, 'Look we have not even held back our own country to placate the gods of climate changed, surely we should be praised for our sacrifice' Pride comes before a fall... hopefully not the fall of beautiful Scotland.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by Ian Moir
An outstanding article. The burden of the plainly ludicrous, ill-founded climate-alarmism swamping our politicians will be with us for some time to come. What will move it? The lack of observational evidence for CO2 driving climate, or even having an important impact, has not been enough. The cautionary advice of the world's best climate scientists has not been enough. Perhaps the hideous fanaticism of the 10:10 snuff movie 'No Pressure' will help move them a little. Perhaps another cold winter will make some of them think a little. The whole sorry saga has revealed how people in positions of notional authority such as the IPCC can manipulate their reporting to gloss over differences of opinion, ignore critical and informed opinion, and make the most of impressive PR skills to get a mighty bandwagon underway despite the desperately thin ice it is standing on (that's enough by way of metaphors). It is such a pity that the fledgling parliament in Edinburgh become a victim of this bizarre abandonment of independent thought. The two core arguments I have heard from the pushers are 'the IPCC says it, it must be true', and then some twaddle about greenhouses - twaddle that was revealed as twaddle more than 100 years ago. CO2 without doubt responds to infra-red in ways which the simpler molecules that make up most of the atmosphere cannot, but the net effect of this on the complex climate system, with its poorly understood network of relationships, is still a matter of debate amongst physicists. Some say it will produce a modest cooling, some say the effect will so small as to defy detection, some say a modest rise in 'average temperatures'. None say it will have a dramatic effect on its own. A few modellers have postulated a positive feedback with water vapour and in that way contrived to show dramatic temperature rises. Nothing has been seen to support their postulate, and the lack of a tropospheric hotspot as predicted by it is at least a partial refutation of the model. The ongoing lack of dramatic temperature rises as per the dramatic projections is also a refutation. But in their defence, the modellers say their models are not good enough for predictions, only 'projections'. An interesting perspective, an offspring of the unholy liaisons between some scientists and many spinners. The scientists can say 'our models are not fit for prediction', the spinners can say 'look what the models predicts, we are all doomed'. All it takes for this absurdity is a great pile of verbiage to confused the masses. Enter the IPCC.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by JS
An excellent article, which, as a scientist, I wholeheartedly support. There is no evidence that we are affecting the global climate.
Posted on 03/10/2010 by Dr Phillip Bratby
I would like to give thanks for the thoughtful comments here.
I would also like to thank James for demonstrating how strenuously alarmist critics must avoid any actual discussion of facts. Thus showing this hypothesis could never have become the dominant paradigm, let alone brought about the destruction of trillions of $s of human wealth without massive governments & compliant mainstream media propagandising combined with censorship of sceptical views.
Lysenkoism looks reasomable by comparison.
Labels: global warming, Government parasitism, Media
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
RATIO OF VALUE OF GOVERNMENT PRIZES TO CONVENTIONAL FUNDING
Excerpted from a valuable letter from Freeman Dyson et al calling for the US Congress to be supportive of free market space development rather than leaving it all up to NASA
Of course evidence in such cases is difficult to get because both systems being used in such parallels are rare. However that just means we must accept this evidence as the best we have till something better comes along. It may be that refining it would show that prizes are only 30 times more cost effective or that they average well over 100 times. It does show that the prime reason for having direct control must be the power of patronage it gives to government leaders & workers, which is far more important to them than value for money.
Taking it at 66 times we would only have to spend £4 million a year on space prizes to match £260 million space budget we currently give to the European Space Agency (though that organisation seems so particularly inefficient that I suspect £400,000 could do it). Equally if we put all of that £260 mill into prizes it would provide a boost to our space industries, already growing at 10% annually, equal to £17 billion ($27 bn) well above the entire USA's NASA budget.
For good reasons, government developed transportation has been costly and uncompetitive. A classic case is Samuel Langley’s government funded attempt to invent the airplane. Langley spent one hundred times as much money as the Wright brothers did. They succeeded, and he failed. Another example is the British government-funded effort to build passenger dirigibles between the world wars. The government-funded R101 crashed on its maiden voyage, but the commercially developed Vickers R100 dirigible flew successfully. NASA’s failures at every new launcher program in the past two decades are more recent examples.This reminded me of what the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said of their use of $3 million of prizes (& possibly as much as $7 million to administer them which shows the bureaucracy problem even here) to develop an automated driving system
... Prof. Freeman Dyson, President
Prof. John S. Lewis, V.P., Research
Dr. Lee Valentine, Exec. V.P.
For less than $10 million in prize money and expenses, the Department of Defense has created new technology that would have otherwise cost more than $100 million, and taken a lot longer to perfect."That is 2 data points which is enough to start assuming a trend. The Wrights had 1/100th as much money & the driving programmers had 1/33rd & in both cases achieved much better results than direct state control could have done. Averaging them we should expect prizes to be more than 66 times more cost effective than conventional funding.
Of course evidence in such cases is difficult to get because both systems being used in such parallels are rare. However that just means we must accept this evidence as the best we have till something better comes along. It may be that refining it would show that prizes are only 30 times more cost effective or that they average well over 100 times. It does show that the prime reason for having direct control must be the power of patronage it gives to government leaders & workers, which is far more important to them than value for money.
Taking it at 66 times we would only have to spend £4 million a year on space prizes to match £260 million space budget we currently give to the European Space Agency (though that organisation seems so particularly inefficient that I suspect £400,000 could do it). Equally if we put all of that £260 mill into prizes it would provide a boost to our space industries, already growing at 10% annually, equal to £17 billion ($27 bn) well above the entire USA's NASA budget.
Labels: Government parasitism, space, X-Prizes
Monday, October 04, 2010
GREEN CHILD SNUFF VIDEO - WHO PAID THE PIPER
Lets look at the "Partners" page from the site of 10:10 the eco-Nazi organisation who spend presumably over £100,000 on their child snuff movie:
Eaga
Eaga is the UK's largest supplier of heating and renewable energy and is at the forefront of the low-carbon economy
To whom the government forces us to pay through the "Renewables Obligation" for their 10 times overpriced product
O2
O2 is the UK's leading provider of mobile phones, broadband and SIMs. O2 is partnering with 10:10 as part of its Think Big initiative and will be selling 10:10 Tags in its shops across the UK
Won't be buying their mobile phones.
Sony
Sony is one of the world’s leading digital entertainment brands, with household names such as VAIO™, Cyber-Shot™, BRAVIA™ and Walkman®. Sony is sponsoring 10:10 to support its staff’s efforts to go even further on carbon reduction
Ditto
The Ashden TrustAshden Trust website
Sainsburys supermarket
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
Wates Foundation
The GD Charitable Trust
Jam Today
The Funding Network "A loose affiliation of individuals"?
Media partners
The Guardian
A fascist newspaper with a record of lying to assist Nazis in genocide & worse. Largely funded by getting almost all its advertising from government.
National Magazine Company Owners of Cosmopolitan & many many other similar titles.
Delivery partners
ActionAidLeading over 1,000 schools on the way to 10%
Presumably the government's education budget is funding this programme by these would be child murderers in propagandising in schools.
Campaign for greener healthcare
Indefatigable decarbonisers of care, and coordinators of the 10:10 Health programme
a conglomeration of government funded fakecharities
Carbon Trust
The last word in organisational carbon reduction
government funded fakecharity
Degrees Cooler
Supporting 10:10 universities and colleges
Defra logo so government funded fakecharity
Energy Saving Trust
Purveyors of peerless carbon-cutting advice for individuals and families
government funded fakecharity
The Great British Refurb
Helping you live in a low-energy home that's more comfortable, cheaper to run, and massively reduces your carbon emissions
umbrella organisation of government fakecharities (or of umbrella organisation of fakecharities
Green TV
The broadband channel for environmental films
funding source, which cannot be small, unmentioned but "partners" include government funded fakecharities
Olswang LLP
Keeping us out of jail, free "leading business law firm with a distinctive approach. Our pioneering and problem-solving ethos has established a commanding reputation in the technology, media and real estate sectors" sounds like politically connected eco-fascist ambulance chasers
People and Planet
Keeping 10:10 students ticking over
don't say where the money comes from but connected to schools & are advertising for staff but not donations so looks like government fakecharity
Public Interest Research Centre
Climate policy superheroes whose work inspired our 10% target and the Lighter Later campaignClaims to be "independent" but says is partly funded by Social Services Trusts so government funded. Says they have been core funded for many years by the "1970 Trust" which nobody on Google has ever heard of
Pure360
The email marketing geniuses powering our supporter mailouts
they list 10:10 as ordinary clients which implies they are charging them the going rate
I assume the Wates & Fairbairn Trusts are connected to the building companies of the same names. Since 3/4 of housing costs are government regulatory they must be more than slightly open to government intimidation.
All in all it looks like these Nazi would be child murderers are overwhelmingly funded by government or organisations getting their money from government subsidy/regulatory fiat. I womder if the "Green" Luddite movement would be if it were not being cultivated by government - my guess is that instead of getting 1/2 as many votes as the BNP it would be lucky to get 1/20th
pictures nobody, anywhere in the world according to Google, has put up any stills from this video
Eaga
Eaga is the UK's largest supplier of heating and renewable energy and is at the forefront of the low-carbon economy
To whom the government forces us to pay through the "Renewables Obligation" for their 10 times overpriced product
O2
O2 is the UK's leading provider of mobile phones, broadband and SIMs. O2 is partnering with 10:10 as part of its Think Big initiative and will be selling 10:10 Tags in its shops across the UK
Won't be buying their mobile phones.
Sony
Sony is one of the world’s leading digital entertainment brands, with household names such as VAIO™, Cyber-Shot™, BRAVIA™ and Walkman®. Sony is sponsoring 10:10 to support its staff’s efforts to go even further on carbon reduction
Ditto
The Ashden TrustAshden Trust website
Sainsburys supermarket
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
Wates Foundation
The GD Charitable Trust
Jam Today
The Funding Network "A loose affiliation of individuals"?
Media partners
The Guardian
A fascist newspaper with a record of lying to assist Nazis in genocide & worse. Largely funded by getting almost all its advertising from government.
National Magazine Company Owners of Cosmopolitan & many many other similar titles.
Delivery partners
ActionAidLeading over 1,000 schools on the way to 10%
Presumably the government's education budget is funding this programme by these would be child murderers in propagandising in schools.
Campaign for greener healthcare
Indefatigable decarbonisers of care, and coordinators of the 10:10 Health programme
a conglomeration of government funded fakecharities
Carbon Trust
The last word in organisational carbon reduction
government funded fakecharity
Degrees Cooler
Supporting 10:10 universities and colleges
Defra logo so government funded fakecharity
Energy Saving Trust
Purveyors of peerless carbon-cutting advice for individuals and families
government funded fakecharity
The Great British Refurb
Helping you live in a low-energy home that's more comfortable, cheaper to run, and massively reduces your carbon emissions
umbrella organisation of government fakecharities (or of umbrella organisation of fakecharities
Green TV
The broadband channel for environmental films
funding source, which cannot be small, unmentioned but "partners" include government funded fakecharities
Olswang LLP
Keeping us out of jail, free "leading business law firm with a distinctive approach. Our pioneering and problem-solving ethos has established a commanding reputation in the technology, media and real estate sectors" sounds like politically connected eco-fascist ambulance chasers
People and Planet
Keeping 10:10 students ticking over
don't say where the money comes from but connected to schools & are advertising for staff but not donations so looks like government fakecharity
Public Interest Research Centre
Climate policy superheroes whose work inspired our 10% target and the Lighter Later campaignClaims to be "independent" but says is partly funded by Social Services Trusts so government funded. Says they have been core funded for many years by the "1970 Trust" which nobody on Google has ever heard of
Pure360
The email marketing geniuses powering our supporter mailouts
they list 10:10 as ordinary clients which implies they are charging them the going rate
I assume the Wates & Fairbairn Trusts are connected to the building companies of the same names. Since 3/4 of housing costs are government regulatory they must be more than slightly open to government intimidation.
All in all it looks like these Nazi would be child murderers are overwhelmingly funded by government or organisations getting their money from government subsidy/regulatory fiat. I womder if the "Green" Luddite movement would be if it were not being cultivated by government - my guess is that instead of getting 1/2 as many votes as the BNP it would be lucky to get 1/20th
pictures nobody, anywhere in the world according to Google, has put up any stills from this video
Labels: global warming, Government parasitism, Media
Sunday, October 03, 2010
GLOBAL ELITE MOVE ON TO THE NEXT ENVIRONMENTAL SCAM
James Delingpole reported on a surprising item from the agenda of the Bilderberg's last, unreported by the MSM, meeting.
The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 – 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations.Emphasis added. James takes it as either evidence the global elite really are convinced that cooling is the major & a significant risk or that it is a misprint. I gave difficulty believing they are so disorganised & while I think cooling is a worse problem do not think that either sort of climate change is a serious immediate problem. I commented:
Not convinced this means the Bilderbergs are worried about global cooling. More likely they simply see the warming scare is no longer working, as the cooling one was by 1980, & the Limits to growth peak everything was by Julian Simon & are looking to move on to new scare story (or a retread of an old one).
Since the best place to control climate from is orbit neither cooling nor warming not any of the other things would be a problem for a wealthy spacegoing civilisation but everybody wealthy is a bit of a problem for the wealthy. Report Recommend
Labels: global warming, Media
Saturday, October 02, 2010
ECO-NAZIS WANT TO KILL CHILDREN TO STOP- THEM THINKING
A British "environmental" group 10:10 have hired Richar Curtis (Blackadder etc) to produce an "amusing" video promoting global warming alarmism. They peove the strength of the alarmists case by blowing up schoolchildren, in extremely graphic detail. No really.
See it here
Some alarmists are now attempting to dissociate themselves from this obscenity. Not enthusiastically & thus not entirely successfully as the wording & more importantly comments here show. The comments matter not because they are a randomly selected example of honest opinions on this but because they aren't. I put this comment up & it was censored
Considering that the exploding children special effect was technically very well done I do not see that this video could have cost anything less than £100,000 which means this was not some unthought about aberration, even with heavy funding from O2, Sony & Eaga (UK's largest supplier of state subsidised "renewable" energy.
This has been going round the net. The dog that has failed to bark is the mainstream media as this Google search shows - important enough for the Las Vegas Review Journal but not the BBC. Does anybody doubt that if the BNP, or anybody ever associated with the BNP or anybody ever associated with anybody ever associated with the BNP had made a film of child murder that the BBC would have made it headline news.
The BBC has long been a regular employer of "leftist" Richard Curtis, unlike David Bellamy whom they stopped employing after he supported quitting the EU & opposed windmills & warming alarmism. Curtis' behaviour in endorsing, however "amusingly", the murder of children as a method of preventing free thought on political matters reveals that he is, by any reasonable definition, a complete & total fascist. Of course there is nobody at the BBC who is not personally a fascist child rapist & mass murderer but it will be interesting to see if Curtis being so public about his predelictions will be any bar to future employment.
incidentally checking Google Images for 10:10 & no pressure reveals that no stills & indeed no mention of this film gave ever been shown worldwide - that or some censorship is going on
See it here
Some alarmists are now attempting to dissociate themselves from this obscenity. Not enthusiastically & thus not entirely successfully as the wording & more importantly comments here show. The comments matter not because they are a randomly selected example of honest opinions on this but because they aren't. I put this comment up & it was censored
Any global warming alarmist who ever in future wishes to be treated as a decent human being is going to have to be able to show that they publicly denounced the obscene filth of 10:10.So while a call for alarmists to seriously dissociate themselves from a video depicting child murder as the best way of convincing people not to question scare stories was ruled so outrageous that it must be censored remarks like "can the Center possibly hold? Not if there is continued denial of man-made global warming’s reality", "some of those involved in the commissioning of this film by Richard Curtis are climate change deniers who are attempting to make the cllimate change lobby look like a facist conspiracy…" No evidence for that last one except for the fact that they certainly do look like a fascist conspiracy.
My guess is that, since they are already members of a genocidal movement which has killed far more people than Hitler relatively few of them are going to balk at "amusing" ways of killing children.
The basic message, which the entire movement has, for years, demonstrated its approval of, is that reasoned discussion of alarmists claims must be prevented at all costs. The principle here, though more graphically displayed, is no different from Hansen's call for imprisonment for scepticism or Monbiot's for the murder of airline executives & I have not seen a single "environmentalist" denouncing them as the obscene filth they are.
Considering that the exploding children special effect was technically very well done I do not see that this video could have cost anything less than £100,000 which means this was not some unthought about aberration, even with heavy funding from O2, Sony & Eaga (UK's largest supplier of state subsidised "renewable" energy.
This has been going round the net. The dog that has failed to bark is the mainstream media as this Google search shows - important enough for the Las Vegas Review Journal but not the BBC. Does anybody doubt that if the BNP, or anybody ever associated with the BNP or anybody ever associated with anybody ever associated with the BNP had made a film of child murder that the BBC would have made it headline news.
The BBC has long been a regular employer of "leftist" Richard Curtis, unlike David Bellamy whom they stopped employing after he supported quitting the EU & opposed windmills & warming alarmism. Curtis' behaviour in endorsing, however "amusingly", the murder of children as a method of preventing free thought on political matters reveals that he is, by any reasonable definition, a complete & total fascist. Of course there is nobody at the BBC who is not personally a fascist child rapist & mass murderer but it will be interesting to see if Curtis being so public about his predelictions will be any bar to future employment.
incidentally checking Google Images for 10:10 & no pressure reveals that no stills & indeed no mention of this film gave ever been shown worldwide - that or some censorship is going on
Labels: eco-fascism, global warming, Media
Friday, October 01, 2010
WARMING ALARMISM - ITS EFFECT, WHY IT IS FALSE & WHY IT IS PROMOTED
This article of mine, explaining the consequences of the warming scare, why it is wrong & why it is being promoted is now up on the ChangeScotland site. If commenting please comment there:
LAST YEAR Holyrood, unanimously, passed the most restrictive "Climate Change" law in the world. Together with the closure of our nuclear plants this means that over the next 10 years we have to close down half, far & away the least expensive half, of our electricity production.
This unanimity was largely reflected in the Scots media with BBC Newsnight Scotland breaching its nominal commitment to impartiality by describing the passage of the Act as the "good news" of the day - the bad news being the not unrelated fact that the recession is deeper & worse in Scotland.
There is a close relationship between electricity usage & GNP and Britain already has the highest ratio of GNP to electricity consumption of any large developed country so we might be quite lucky to get off with only halving Scotland's GNP as a result of halving our electricity production. Thus the Scots MSPs are unanimously saying that warming is so catastrophic that destroying half of Scotland's economy, even though the world CO2 reduction will be microscopic, is necessary.
Such unanimity in politics was common in the USSR. It is not expected in a democracy. If Scotland is a healthy democracy with parties who are genuinely free thinking then the evidence that we are experiencing catastrophic global warming must be so overwhelming & unarguable that it is worth destroying our economy simply to make what is, in terms of world CO2 production, only a token gesture.
.......
There is no evidence for catastrophic warming. None. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. There is a theory, described in computer models, but a theory is not evidence & computer models themselves are only an extension of theory. None of the models predicted in advance that we would have the cooling there has been since 1998, indeed they did not show the medieval warming period though it was already known of. The scientific method consists of making observations, producing a theory that explains them & then testing the theory against future observations. The warming hypothesis fails the test of explaining all previous observations & thus cannot even be called scientific.
The claim of any warming at all depends on doubtful measurements, many taken at sites which, a century ago, were in countryside but which have now been urbanised, with a consequent significant increase in temperature. The warming claim also depends on the year chosen. If the start year is 1975, 1850 or 1600 we have had warming & alarmists usually start their graphs then. If the start year chosen is 1998, 1934 (in the US), 1000 or 6,000 BC, which would be equally legitimate, the globe is cooling. What we actually see is no clear upward or downward trend & a remarkably close correlation between temperature & the sunspot cycle. CO2 levels are essentially irrelevant & any recent change is well within historic parameters. The Medieval warming period was about 1 1/2 degrees warmer than today & the well named Climate Optimum of 9-5,000 BC was as much as 4 degrees warmer - this was an era of hippopotamus filled lakes in the middle of the Sahara, the folk memory of which may be reflected in the Garden of Eden story. Obviously that was not "catastrophic" nor had any "tipping point" to runaway warming occur then.
There are many other reasons to doubt the alarmists - the repeated frauds & lies they have come up with; that some of them such as James Hansen, were involved in the previous global cooling story; that CO2 increase means crops & other plants grow faster, absorbing more CO2 & thus making the phenomenon self limiting; that only 3% of all the CO2 produced worldwide is by Man so we simply cannot be causing the disaster claimed; that "environmentalists", have threatened us with dozens of catastrophe stories over the last 30 years, including global cooling, none of which have come close to being true; that despite the hype ("Netherlands under water by 2007") sea level refuses to show any significant rise; that we now know the Greenland ice cap has been there for at least 450,000 years & isn't that fragile; that we know of geoengineering methods of cutting global temperature at a small fraction of the trillions this scare has already cost.
The fact that this year, before the end of September, Scotland has experienced sub-zero temperatures, may also persuade some that the oft repeated official warnings of "mild winters" & "barbecue summers" have not proven entirely factual.
Life is to short to mention all the holes in the theory but suffice it to say that anybody who honestly believed CO2 was causing extinction level catastrophe would have to be demanding massive subsidies for nuclear power as the practical system that can provide large scale reliable power with far less CO2 than, for example, windmills (windmills need massive conventional back-up). Almost nobody pushing this scare does so & if those pushing it know it is a lie we should have no doubts.
.........
Yet if all this is true (& I urge anybody to check) it is legitimate to ask why almost all our politicians & mainstream media warn us of catastrophic warming? Why they say there is a "scientific consensus" on it?
The nature of this lie points to its creators. I have personally asked many hundreds of politicians, newspapers, broadcasters & alarmist websites worldwide to name 2 scientists who are part of this "consensus" & who aren't funded by the state. The editor of the Independent & somebody on a South African website were able to give the same name (Professor James Lovelock who, seeing the climategate emails has largely reversed his position). Nobody else has managed even that. Patrick Harvie, asked on air, merely asserted that everybody knew it so he was not required to name anybody. It is a strange "scientific consensus" from which the large majority of scientists are excluded. In fact the largest single expression of scientist's opinions is from the Oregon Petition where 31,000 scientists have said the scare is false, but you won't see news reports on the state broadcasting service reporting that.
An example of the quality of government supported alarmist science was given recently in a lecture by Scotland's Chief Science Advisor. Among a long list of counter factual statements was the howler that "global warming will extend day length." Day length is determined by the planet's axial tilt as any well informed schoolboy knows. Per capita Scots get more scientific papers cited than any nation other than Switzerland. We have some of the world's best scientists yet the Lab/Libs chose her & the SNP confirmed the appointment. This is not purely a dig at Holyrood - she is also on a quango called NERC with a £400 million budget essentially for promoting "environmental" scare stories. In 2003 the OECD showed that government funding of science had negative value. The way the state has been funding only "science" & "scientists" who support alarmism while preventing sceptical research, when science is nothing but methodical scepticism, supports this disgraceful conclusion.
The explanation, or at least the only one that fits the facts, says much about the nature of modern politics. The great American writer H.L. Mencken once said "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." I do not easily come to believe that our entire political structure, including our nominally free media, whose standard of impartiality is set by the state owned BBC, is so completely corrupt that they would destroy our country simply to maintain power. Unfortunately, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Since we have eliminated the possibility that we really are experiencing catastrophic warming as claimed & even eliminated the possibility that most proponents actually believe it, the truth that remains must be that virtually all our politicians & state controlled institutions are deliberately promoting this false "hobgoblin" for personal power & profit. I am forced to agree with Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who knows what censorship of debate & unanimous votes mean & says "I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism"
The world economy is now back to growing at 5% annually. China & India are growing at 10%. There is no question that we could at least match their growth rate if those in charge were not preventing it. That they are deliberately preventing it, despite almost identical promises from all the main parties, is thus also undeniable. There is really nothing one could say about those in power which would be overly critical.
note the Highlands are already black compared to points linearly north of the central Sahara or west of SiberiaLabels: eco-fascism, Science/technology, Scottish politics
