Food and climate change

There is a new bunch of loonies coming out of that grand old institution, Stanford University. They have a model, and this model tells them precisely what crops we can expect under what conditions. My, it is a wonderful model! Using this model, they have found that, although crop yields are improving worldwide, they could be improving faster were it not for climate change. So waar!

Can I suggest that crop yields might be improving worldwide because of improvements in farming and in the strains of seeds planted? It is called the Green Revolution, and has been taking place for the past 50 years.

Could I also suggest that increased CO2 might be playing a part? Plants demonstrably do better with more CO2. If you doubt this, visit CO2 Science (http://www.co2science.org/index.php) and you can read hundreds of references to the fact - and even watch great videos.

Then I have to ask how the heck they can calibrate their models, if indeed the climate is changing? An uncalibrated model is as much use as a Porsche and no driving licence.

Finally, let me remark that this crowd of modellers really should stick to their choo-choos. Real farmers know that getting high crop yields takes skill and luck in equal quantities. It is not an exact science.

The price of carbon

Business Day reported on 3rd May that Trevor Manuel had bemoaned the lack of price for carbon emissions. I have no sympathy for him. I emit carbon every time I breathe - do my exhalations have value? If so, will he please tell me where I can find someone to pay for them?

I am not alone in this. It is only greedy taxgulpers like Manuel who believe there is money in carbon. The whole saga rests on the thesis that carbon emissions are destructive. I have sought in vain for any conclusive evidence of this, and found absolutely none. I have found some indications of a warmer world, but no destruction as a result - rather, I have found some benefits, such as living longer. With every passing year, the failure of King Carbon to appear robed in the cloth of doom becomes more evident.

When he was Minister of Finance, Manuel commanded considerable respect. He is rapidly eroding his credit as he gets deeper into the carbon scam. Scam? Yes, it is a scam when, as you report, our Government commits to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020 with no consideration of the costs. The deal struck at Copenhagen said we would only reduce our emissions if the major emitters paid us. There is no sign of that happening.

Crime and climate change

A global anti-corruption coalition Transparency International has published a ‘Global Corruption Report: Climate Change’. “Where huge amounts of money flow through new and untested financial markets and mechanisms, there is always a risk of corruption,” it said.

Indeed! Look at how the EU had to shut down its carbon market, when it found that VAT fraud on carbon trading had cost it €5 billion. When you try to trade in something as ubiquitous as carbon, you face real problems - which is why the Kyoto Protocol has been such a dismal failure. It has cost billions, and achieved nothing.

I think there has to be a lesson in there somewhere.

The Anti-Nuclear lies

Yesterday the New York Times had an extraordinary story from a Dr Helen Caldicott. She claimed that Chernobyl would give rise to over a million extra cancer deaths, and that Fukushima was likely to do the same.

I hadn't been following the debate between the good Dr Caldicott and George Monbiot. http://www.monbiot.com/2011/04/04/evidence-meltdown/. I don't always agree with Monbiot, but I admire his honesty. In this case, his experience in debate caused him to dig deeper, and he found:

The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. The claims we have made are ungrounded in science, unsupportable when challenged and wildly wrong. We have done other people, and ourselves, a terrible disservice.

My own response to the Caldicott piece agrees:

Helen Caldicott (NYT May 1) claimed that "If any of the containment vessels or fuel pools exploded [at Fukushima, Japan], it would mean millions of new cases of cancer in the Northern Hemisphere." The basis for her claim was that thousands (and possibly millions) might die from cancer as a result of the exposure to nuclear radiation following the Chernobyl accident. She cited two studies in support of her position.

Unfortunately she seems to have missed key data. First, there are the studies of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission life span study noted an increase in the death rate of about 10% for those exposed to less than 10 rad (0.1Sv). The primary cause of the increase was additional deaths from leukemia. For an expected lifespan of 70, this is an additional 1430 deaths per year per million people. There were less than a million exposed to significant radiation at Chernobyl.

Secondly, there was the atmospheric weapons testing of the 1950's and 1960's, when the whole world was exposed to fallout. It contributes about 1% to the annual radiation dose we each receive. The fission products distributed into the environment were about ten times those released at Chernobyl. It has not been possible to detect any increase in cancer incidence from this source.

For those concerned about radiation, it helps to reflect that we require a radioactive substance in our diet. This is potassium, an element key to the functioning of our nervous systems. Potassium, thorium and uranium contribute approximately equal amounts of nuclear-derived heat to keep the centre of our globe molten.

It is easy to be frightened of what we cannot see, and nuclear forces are essentially invisible. Nevertheless, nuclear energy provides us with over 10% of the electricity we need to run our economies, and that percentage is growing.

Helen Caldicott admitted that there was a great debate about the number of possible fatalities caused by Chernobyl, but she gave only one side of the debate. Unsafe at any dose? If I starve her of the naturally radioactive potassium, her life will be radically shortened. A zero dose is truly unsafe - the rest of our dose needs careful management.

The people of Japan need help, sympathy and comfort. The losses they have suffered from the tsunami are of a warlike dimension. It is irresponsible of Caldicott to add her nonsense to their woes. As a medical doctor, she should have more care for human well-being than the publication of lies.

Focus on the 5%!

Today Engineering News has a really cheering story about the up-and-coming COP meeting in Durban. http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/major-polluters-say-2011-climate-deal-not-doable-2011-04-28/al_id:69914

After a meeting of the Major Economies Forum, (an informal group of 17 countries including the world's top polluters, China and the United States) US climate negotiator Todd Stern and European climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard played down the chance of a breakthrough.

Hedegaard said the EU would push for the Durban talks to make progress on tackling the emissions from ships and planes. "It is not enough for Durban just to implement what was agreed in Cancun," she said. "Inclusion of shipping and aviation – these kind of topics we will also push for."

Oh yes! Aeroplanes and shipping. Just the thing to take the major polluters' emissions offshore. Just the thing to make the cost of developing nations doing business with the developed greater. Focus on the 5% and ignore the 80%. What a wonderful plan to save the world!

Yet again, we wait for the UN

There is a report today that Trevor Manuel has been appointed to the UN Green Climate Fund. The Fund was set up at Cancun to help pay for the costs of developing nations reducing their carbon emissions.

His appointment is all very nice - but how long before the money starts flowing? Cabinet has approved IRP2010, with its fleets of windmills. IRP2010 had as its goal reducing our carbon emissions. Windmill power will cost lots more than coal power.

The Copenhagen Accord said the developed world would pay for the cost of reducing emissions in the developing, and Cancun put some teeth in the Accord. This appointment is one of the first signs of anything happening.

While we wait, South Africa gets shorter and shorter of power. Projects are stalled, new jobs aren't appearing, while we dither about carbon. Can we please just get on with the job of producing the cheapest power we can, and stop this carbon farce? It is now damaging our future far more than carbon itself ever will.

Food for all

I have just watched a video of someone called Sir John Beddington, who is apparently Britain's chief science adviser, telling us how the food system is failing - all because of climate change (http://bishophill.squarespace.com/). Doom and starvation face the world unless we go low carbon without delay.

To get the nasty taste out of your mouth, it helps to read April 2011 Scientific American, with an interview with Roger Beachy, one of the scientists behind genetic modification of foods. His first success was making tomatoes resistant to the tomato mosaic virus. He tells of the glee as he tended his crops, and the resistant strain flourished even as the original died. Today, over 80% of US maize and 90% of its cotton and soya are 'GM'.

Beachy now heads the US National Institute of Food and Agriculture. He has forthright answers to those who complain about Frankenfoods. Pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer use is down, and soil loss is reduced because non-till agriculture is possible. Crop yields are up, and food prices have fallen and would fall further if it were not for occasional forays into biofuels. GM crops are more sustainable than trad crops.

True, there has been a successful law case against GM beetroot in the US. But it was brought by some 'organic' farmers who feared they would no longer be able to charge a premium if there were any spread of the genes into their products. So this had nothing to do with food safety, and everything to do with food marketing.

A final mouthwash is provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, whose data show clearly that food supplies are rising faster than population, and that the rise is faster in developing countries than in developed.

So yet again the climate scare is being invoked as a cause for action. I think the time has come to say we have had enough of that particular lie.