Magic Statistics

When it comes to saving the earth through ecological rectitude, Al "The Great Gasbag Prophet" Gore has inspired many to talk a great deal about going green.  Australian columnist Michelle Cazzulino tells us about a New Yorker who's changed his way of living so as to reduce his carbon footprint—or so he says.

The latest in a long line of those doing their bit for the world's quota of hot air is Colin Beavan, a 43-year-old non-fiction writer from New York, who describes himself as a "tree-hugging lunatic" and whose quest to save the planet, one square of toilet paper at a time, was detailed in a US newspaper last week.

Beavan, his magazine journalist wife Michelle Conlin and their two-year-old daughter Isabella (who, it must be said, bears no responsibility for the science project-like nature of her surroundings) are turning their apartment into a "no-impact" environment, which, for the uninitiated, means plenty of compost, no carbon-fuelled transport and no mod-cons.

I must be an environmental lout, for I don't know what a "mod-con" is.

Toothpaste has been substituted with baking soda and water, lifts are off limits and then there's the whole toilet paper issue - it, too, has been banned in favour of "bowls of water and lots of air drying" for the duration of the 12-month experiment, which the family is a third of the way through.

Lifts are off-limits?  Mr Beavan obviously does not live on the top floor of one of those New York high-rises.

But never mind that.  That fellow sounds very righteous—until you find out that he's planning to write a book about his experience as an environmental sage.  Printing and marketing a book will more than make up for the toilet paper he's saved.

h/t: Greenie Watch

Cartoon: Mike Lester, The Rome News-Tribune, CagleCartoons.com

h/t: The Global Warming Hoax and terrence in the comments. Thanks!

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Syun-Ichi Akasofu, retired former director of both UAF's (University of Alaska at Fairbanks) Geophysical Institute and International Arctic Research Center, is an authentic sceptic.

"I always become suspicious when many scientists agree on some interpretation," he said.

So, of course, he's sceptical that climate change is caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.  He finds much to recommend the view that the earth is in a natural cycle of recovery from its latest cold period.

"If you look back far enough, we have a bunch of data that show that warming has gone on from the 1600s with an almost linear increase to the present," Akasofu said. He showed ice core data from the Russian Arctic that shows warming starting from the early 1700s, temperature records from England showing the same trend back to 1660, and ice breakup dates at Tallinn, Estonia, that show a general warming since the year 1500.

Akasofu said scientists who support the manmade greenhouse gas theory disregard information from centuries ago when exploring the issue of global warming. Satellite images of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean have only been available in the satellite era since the 1960s and 1970s.

"Young researchers are interested in satellite data, which became available after 1975," he said. "All the papers since (the advent of satellites) show warming. That's what I call 'instant climatology.' I'm trying to tell young scientists, 'You can't study climatology unless you look at a much longer time period.'"

Dr Akasofu rejects the claim of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that "most" of the present warming is attributable to human-caused GHG emissions.  There are, he says, "no data" to support that.  Furthermore, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increased between 1940 and 1975, yet the atmosphere actually cooled during that time.

He also does not accept the label “climate-change sceptic”.

“I believe I am a critic," he said. "That is the only way science can advance."

Now there’s something you don’t hear everyday—a climate scientist recommending critical thinking.

h/t: Greenie Watch

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Images of Joseph Stalin have been featured in an advertising campaign aimed at frightening encouraging residents of Donetsk, Ukraine, to pay their utility bills.  The Soviet dictator's face appeared on billboards and in TV commercials placed by the local energy company.  The ads provoked such outrage that the town council stepped in and ordered the campaign stopped.

The campaign in the eastern Ukraine town of Donetsk came after utility rates in Ukraine increased markedly last year and people stopped paying their bills.

Irina Taran, a spokeswoman for Donetsk governing council, said dozens of billboards featuring Stalin appeared in the city last week; commercials featuring old film clips of the Soviet leader also appeared. Ukrainian media reported that the mayor's office initiated the ad campaign, then backed down in the face of protests.

One billboard shows Stalin holding a piece of paper and saying "Comrades! This isn't a film! This is life!" In the television ad, Stalin is shown in grainy black-and-white footage being applauded by hundreds of party members as a dubbed-over voice says: "Those who don't pay for their heat should be punished!"

Even though Stalin was shilling for Donetsk Heating Company only briefly, he did the trick.  His pitch proved irresistible.

A heating company in Ukraine has cleared thousands of unpaid bills by using the image of Stalin to demand settlement.
. . .
Bosses from the state-owned Donetsk Heating Company said: "It was the nearest we could get to intimidating people without sending round the heavy mob, and it has worked."

Stalin is responsible for engineering the 1930s famine in which up to ten million Ukrainians perished.

The irony is exquisite: Mass murderer Joseph Stalin is now an advertising prop.

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