Global warming and energy production

Anyone who has read this blog knows that I am a global warming skeptic. Not so much that I don't believe warming is happening, I just don't believe efforts in Canada, the United States or Europe will make any difference to mitigating warming (and why would we want too?). I don't believe that forcing people to alter their lifestyles by having them pay huge price penalties for carbon dioxide production is moral, regardless of the supposed noble cause (saving the planet!?). I also don't believe that the models presented by the United Nations or any other group could possibly be accurate (given what we don't know) or that there is any risk in just doing nothing (my preference).
Lately I have been involved in researching electric power generation because of its implications for the next election in Ontario. Our current provincial government has already set Ontario on a course that is supposed to reduce our "carbon footprint" but at great expense to  the population, and to Ontario's competitive position among its neighbours. Two-thirds of Ontario's future electricity production is forecast to be nuclear or non-conventional (wind, solar).
Well, nuclear power has been in the news of late, and I will have much more to say about it soon, but I found it refreshing to watch the video below from a global warming believer who is actually trying to get the science right. Richard A. Muller, a retired physics teacher from UC.Berkeley speaks about:

> why our efforts to reduce our CO2 emissions may be futile because of developing nations 
> the exaggerated rhetoric used by the IPCC and other warmists
> the exaggerated data about ice cap melting, glacier melting, sea level rising, hurricanes etc.
> the "Climategate" scandal and the facts about the fraud committed by scientists

Prof. Muller injects a degree of uncertainty about the warmists' data that has been sadly lacking. He admits that there is uncertainty, unlike the Gores and Suzukis of the world that claim the science is settled. I disagree with Prof. Muller on the moral issue of coercing joint global effort to reduce warming, and I also disagree with him on China. He assumes that China will continue to grow into the future as it has in the past 20 years (10% per year). I find that difficult to believe as I've indicated before. A recent article in Canadian Business Magazine titled China's Coming Collapse (by Jason Kirby) details why China's apparent success may be just a mirage, much the same as the Japanese bubble of the 1980's that resulted in Japan's lost decade. Mr. Kirby can be heard on a podcast discussing this article if you prefer.
So here is Richard A. Muller, from UC.Berkeley speaking about Global Warming -- The Current Status: The Science, the Scandal etc:

   

Unbearable bullying

Amidst all the gloom in the news, more bad news, Knut the polar bear is dead, and he died young, aged only four. That is young for a polar bear, 20 to 50 years is typical in the wild. But zoos often don't agree with animals, as much as they try to mimic habitat, they frequently fail. Even animals prefer complete liberty, something quite rare now for humans in our society.
Fortunately Knut was not as cute at death, as he was when he first made news being rejected by his mother at the Berlin Zoological Garden.
While the cause of death is not yet known, PETA is speculating that his death could have been avoided and"that Knut was being “terrorized” by three female polar bears — including his own mother!" Bullying in bears too! Must be a sign of the times.

Suzuki's misguided war on fish farms

The West coast of Canada like the East coast, is dotted with fishing outports that provide Canadian and world markets with seafood. Despite strict government regulation and oversight by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada, the entire Northern Cod fishing industry collapsed in 1992, creating unemployment and more economic hardship in the Canadian Maritimes (see graph).


The collapse of an entire population because of overfishing or overhunting is not new or unusual. The Plains First Nations culture that depended on the North American Bison was destroyed when overhunting decimated Bison populations in the mid-to-late 1800's. Many readers might think that this collapse was because of lack of regulation by government in the territories where the bison herds roamed. But you should ask yourself what might have happened if those bison herds were owned by ranchers? The bison story is more complex than that; as one libertarian blogger suggests in this, his first "Avatar post". Today, surviving bison herds are protected or managed and cultivated in farms.  My point is, that a food source fit for human consumption is often best managed if it was cultivated, and owned by a farmer.
Fish farming, the most common form of aquaculture, eliminates many of the risks posed by commercial fishing, namely overfishing, as in the cod example above, the risks to the fishermen themselves, and catching and killing the wrong fish, called by-catch. You would think environmentalists like David Suzuki would support fish farming, and you would be wrong. Over the years through petitions and other forms of activism the Suzuki Foundation has attempted to undermine this industry on the basis of flawed scientific evidence and fraud.
An excellent article in the Financial Post by Vivian Krause called Suzuki's fish story, is an attempt to set the record straight. The article points out that a scientific study in a prestigious journal in 2004 triggered a world-wide scare about toxic (cancer-causing) contaminants (PCBs) in farmed salmon. The study suggested that farmed Atlantic salmon had almost 8 times more PCB's than did wild Pacific salmon, the difference was between 0.0366 ppm and 0.0048 ppm. While that is an 8 times difference, the acceptable range is around 2 ppm, or 55 times more, well within acceptable limits for consumption. When the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) reported to the media that farmed salmon was 8 times more toxic than wild salmon and a co-author of the "study told the media that 'women should avoid eating farmed salmon at all, from the day they are born through menopause,' and that 'one should avoid farmed salmon like the plague. Our results indicate elevated cancer risk from one meal (of farmed salmon) or even less per month'." Well, that was a bad day for farmed salmon.
It turns out that the fears were all groundless and misleading, but much worse the entire story which involves influential people within the AAAS and the prestigious journal Science and their use of those outlets "to sway market share towards wild fish and away from the competition: imported, farmed fish." Millions of dollars were involved and the Suzuki Foundation is at the centre helping promulgate the lie and receiving funds while doing it. (read Ms. Krause' article)
Ms. Krause points out that this misinformation put out by the Suzuki Foundation may be negatively impacting newborns of "educated" mothers in the Vancouver area, who are not giving their fetuses sufficient omega-3 fatty acids because "Canada's most trusted environmentalist has been giving pregnant women faulty advice to avoid farmed salmon." 
Maybe Suzuki is getting the message, "....the Packard foundation paid the David Suzuki Foundation US$762,600 for Pacific Salmon Forests, a project that produced a brochure titled, Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon." I did an online search for this brochure which I located in several libraries on the BC coast and this is what came up: "Not Found" (see below)

Again, if you are at all interested in David Suzuki and his work, you owe it to yourself to read Ms. Krause' article. Suzuki can and has made mistakes, are there others? I think so, just before I close let me point you to an interesting event that happened last fall in BC.
Much credence was given to Suzuki's war on farmed salmon because wild salmon harvests were falling along the West coast each year. Somehow this was blamed on farming (although I would have thought that to be counterintuitive), disease caused by farming, and global warming. Low and behold huge numbers of salmon returned in 2010. Why? That is not yet understood, but it's interesting.
For those interested in fish farming, here is a quick look.


    

David Suzuki at 75

Among the soldiers of the Green-Gestapo, Canadian David Suzuki holds the rank of Generalfeldmarschall at least. He will be turning 75 in a few days, and he is enjoying iconic status among many Canadians, with a movie, a foundation and unrivalled popularity amongst the green and wanna-be-green-gliterati. Personally I think its way-way overdone, but I'm sure Suzuki thinks he is doing the right thing, and yet I totally disagree with him on so many issues. So how could he and I have such a different perspective on things? We're both good people, I am, anyway.
The answer is that we have different world-views, different first premises and as a result a different moral structure.
My view is that humanity is a part of the biota of this planet, and each person on the planet is entitled by virtue of their existence to certain rights. The chief among these rights, is to their own life, each person is in charge, and is the owner, of their own life once they are old enough to leave the caring umbrella of their parents. When are they old enough? They are old enough when they can use their own reason and their own abilities to fend for themselves, and reason is the primary tool that separates us from the other creatures on Earth. As free individuals, people are also free to form associations with others in order to achieve common goals. So far many of you might agree with me. Where we might part is here: individuals or groups may come into conflict when the rights of an individual are infringed upon by another, or by a group. Even if that offending group calls itself the lawful government of the land, by coercing individuals to do things that are essentially contrary to the rights of an individual or individuals, then that is immoral, not justifiable and should be resisted. I believe the government's proper primary purpose is to defend the rights of individuals and settle disputes between them. From a look at the Suzuki's website, my last two statements is where we disagree.

The Suzuki Foundation (DSF) is a lobby group, freely formed and entitled to exist within the laws of the land (although they are not registered lobbyists). I'm fine with that, I even agree with some of their causes. Part of their stated purpose is to "...work with government, business and individuals to conserve our environment by providing science-based education, advocacy and policy work, and acting as a catalyst for the social change that today's situation demands." Not a problem, generally, but I believe DSF has too much sway on government, and government should not be doing some of the things it does in its policy planning and enactments.
On their website, DSF has a page titled Declaration of Interdependence. I have excerpted a section below:

I'm fairly certain Suzuki would agree with the Declaration and with the part excerpted above. The first sentence spells out that humans are a blight on the Earth, the second sentence claims that the our wealth (in Canada etc.) comes at the expense of the "suffering of millions." The rest is a demand for reparations to pay for the "full ecological and social cost ..... of development." In essence, this document of interdependence  actually separates us from the other creatures on the planet rather than connecting us. How dare we reproduce and become the dominant species of Earth. How dare we presume to alter the planet to bring ourselves comfort at the expense of  "fellow creatures." How dare we succeed! That's my problem with Suzuki!

Don't get me wrong here, I understand how important it is to do the right thing for the environment, and I agree that protecting and preserving all aspects of nature where possible is virtuous. I love to see and be a part of nature in all its glory, that is a value to me and my family. But given the extent of pollution and destruction that has occurred already, do our current rules really work? Even where there is massive government regulation, pollution occurs, oil spills occur, species are lost because of shrinking habitat, and on and on. Will doing more of the same, more regulation by government work? I doubt it.

The problem might simply boil down to ownership. Property that is owned by individuals is property that is protected by individuals. I know it might sound counterintuitive, but private property is always better protected than public property. The legal issues are complex, but the argument that free markets better protect the environment than governments is out there, here for example.

So maybe Suzuki is barking up (or hugging) the wrong tree. I only disagree with him on fundamentals, and the means to arrive at the proper ends. I don't disagree for the most part on the ends, but I do disagree that the means justify the ends. I'm sure his birthday will be well attended anyway.