CFACT Europe

Operator – We are NOT Drowning

by Einar Du Rietz

The Dutch authorities would like us to know they are not sinking, at least not yet. The most recent report from Newsvine (quoting AFP) says:

“The Netherlands has asked the UN climate change panel to explain an inaccurate claim in a landmark 2007 report that more than half the country was below sea level, the Dutch government said Friday.

According to the Dutch authorities, only 26 percent of the country is below sea level, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be asked to account for its figures, environment ministry spokesman Trimo Vallaart told AFP.”

To avoid further misunderstandings, below sea level also does not mean being under water. The lowest place on earth, the Dead Sea, is surrounded by desert. Holland is one of the most crowded countries in the world, and has for centuries, in spite of the risky proximity to the sea combined with flatland, also been one of the most prosperous. Prosperity has helped to finance necessary precautions against the sea.

After this detail, the increasing Arctic ice, the resurrected polar bears and the miraculously constant Himalyan claciers, the IPCC report seems more and more like a house of cards. Maybe the loads of money pledged in Copenhagen should be changed into small coins before being thrown in the sea. It just might help a little to reach the sea level predictions.

Live and Let Survive

by Einar Du Rietz

As tragic as it is, I can’t help being hopeful about the rebuilding after the catastrophe on Haiti. Emergency aid, especially coordination, is difficult to say the least. Sometimes it seems as coordination is what is not needed, but rather individual initiatives. Naturally, people tend to get in each-others way, but a common mission can create spontaneous order. This of course does not include the looters and vultures, or subsequent lynchings. why the need for a civil society is a paramount part of the overall efforts.

Plain stupidities however, seem to have been rather scarce. One lady recently managed to publish a lengthy article claiming that missionaries were the worst problems, as Christianity would be a threat to the traditional voodoo religion. The born again christian diva Carola, twice winner of the Eurovision song contest, is walking around the ruins contemplating that this is the biblical sign of the Armageddon. And, I guess, there are some other compassionate air heads there too.

The thing is, they don’t really cause any harm. Carola even takes care of an orphan. If we closed the border to all religious zealots, we could very well be doomed. READ MORE…

It Can’t Be That Hard to Act Like A Gentleman

Einar Du Rietz on the latest IPCC blunder

A Gent

So we have to wait another 300 years before the Himalayan ice melts. The IPCC has admitted it had the new predictions before the Copenhagen summit, but were to busy to consider them. The most recent account is by the environmental editor at The Times, Ben Webster.

“The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.”

“False”, is a strong word and indicates that there really exists a final date for the glaciers. So, when is it going to be? June 10 2335? Any such claim sounds to me like any claim throughout history that the world will end. Tomorrow at tea time!

What makes it mportant is that the 2035 prediction was only one among others, being percieved as the solid science that no longer was the topic of a polite seminar, but called for global, emmidiate action, in other words costly and possibly dangerous politics. The mantra, both before and during Copenhagen was always that “The Debate is Over”, “We Can’t Wait any Longer”, in extreme cases leading otherwise sensible people to question if “We” could even afford democracy any longer.

This was, and is scary, but there is an alternative. READ MORE…

This is not an Avatar

It remains to be seen whether Copenhagen was indeed a watershed; but at least the French mainstream media seem less apologetic in past months. It is comforting for instance to read the columns by Claude Allègre in the weekly Le Point. (He was sacked from competitor L’Express in 2008, presumably for speaking out against the alarmists. Last October he called the self-appointed eco-hero Nicolas Hulot an imbecile. READ MORE…

Prevention is not Always Better than The Cure

by Edgar L. Gärtner

Lessons about Precaution from the Swine Flu Vaccine Fiasco

The French government under the ever-energized President Nicolas Sarkozy became aware at the beginning of the year that it was threatened to sit on more than 90 million doses of Swine flu vaccine, hastily ordered last year to face an allegedly advancing pandemic. Only five out of currently more than 60 million French people got vaccinated to date against the exaggerated threat of a planetary swine flu pandemic. According to estimates by physicians, at the same time more than 20 million French people got immunized against the new flu variant free of charge, by responding to infection with barely perceptible slight flu symptoms. More than one billion euros seemed to be set in the sand. In the German federal states, the situation is similar but not quite as bad as in France. Since the ordered batches are in part not yet produced, France and Germany managed to cancel at least part of their orders. Especially in France the following questions remain unanswered: Why almost 100 million vaccines were ordered – three times more than what would have been necessay for a reasonable coverage of the population? Why did the government invest simultaneously on a vast storage of the controversial flu drug Tamiflu (one third of total world reserves!)? Why were expensive gas masks purchased, but only available for top officials and managers? READ MORE…

Don’t Get Mad About the Weather – Get Even

by Einar Du Rietz

Two of the more intriguing accusations I got thrown at me in Copenhagen were: “Climate Hater” and “Weather Denier”.

Funny, but strange. I’m convinced that cursing along, hating the ever changing climate is about as constructive as trying to steer a sailing boat by shouting orders to the winds. Either one would just drive you mad (and possibly injured). Denying the weather seems more promising, but equally dangerous. Is that what you do when you take that boat out in spite of the approaching storm?

There’s no room to deny the record breaking cold winter right now. Yo might enjoy the complete silence from the alarmists in Copenhagen, who really picked the wrong year for the meeting, or you may rejoice over the increasing polar ice and the happy polar bears, but the problems are real.

More than 200 dead, just from the cold, in Poland alone. Numerous other victims all over Europe, and the US. Disrupted communications, often fatal traffic accidents, broken limbs on slippery sidewalks, power failures and skyrocketing electricity bills tell the story. READ MORE…

Fluorescent Light Bulbs: Dark Ages in Perspective

EDGAR GAERTNER (Frankfurt)

As you know the EU is phasing out traditional incandescent light bulbs in order to “save energy and the climate”. Consumers are obliged to successively replace the simple and cheap incandescent lamps once invented by Thomas Alva Edison by relatively complex and expensive fluorescent lamps with electronic stuff. Perhaps you do not know that EU Commission’s decision was less guided by scientific or ecological concerns than by the lobbying of manufacturers who claimed that “eco-friendly” light bulbs can save up to € 190 per year.  Is this for real? READ MORE…

You ain’t seen nothin yet

If you thought that the Copenhagen jamboree moderated the ambient hysteria, the following items may reassure you that worse is yet to come.

JACOB ARFWEDSON (Paris)

According to researchers at King’s College (London) future natural disasters are bound to increase strongly stress levels and anxiety among our fellow citizens. The authors did demand that these concerns be addressed by delegates at the COP-15.

This is no scoop and hardly Nobel Prize stuff: being afraid of the future has long been a staples of our kindred. The question should then be: could government possibly and reliably relieve us of this task? No: but let’s look at the evidence.

Where is the proof of imminent worldwide disaster? If you are an avid newspaper reader, you may be already be in a state of constant anxiety. READ MORE…

Climate Policy’s Third World Threat

Barun Mitra and Manuel de Araujo Address CFACT’s International Climate Eco-Summit (I.C.E.) in Copenhagen

Thanks to Jody Clarke and the Atlas Foundation for their sponsorship of Barun Mitra’s and Manuel de Araujo’s Presentations in Copenhagen.

Happy New Year – The End is – Not – Near

Another seasons greeting  from Einar Du Rietz

Dear fellow environmentalists,

holidays are supposed to offer a moment of reflexion, so please be my guest to this favourite (most likely your favourite too, at least if you are a Brussels ex-pat) New Years song. This year, it celebrates it’s 30th anniversary, being written and performed in 1979. That year was one of the heydays of the alarmist movement. Rahel Carson had already predicted that all birds would stop singing. Predictions, taken seriously by a scaring majority, said that oil was out, and that in only a few years, all natural resources would be gone. Doomsday, big time.

ABBA contemplates in the song over what will await us all, “at the end of 1989″.

Now we know the answer to that one. 1989 became, to much surprise one of the most important, and certainly the happiest year during the 20th century, as what we perceived as solid dictatorships crumbled and fell. Twenty years later, all might not be perfect in these countries, but life – including environmental aspects – has improved dramatically. And there is more oil than ever, technological development has made life both easier and more energy efficient, the polar beers keep multiplying and it’s been a white christmas in most of Europe.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas my Polar Friends

A Christmas card from Einar Du Rietz, CFACT.EU

After the Copenhagen farce, it’s finally time for joy and for good news.

So let me, as a seasons greeting, send a small reminder about he situation for the cute polar beers.

According to, among others, the international WWF the population is currently around 22-25 000 individuals, a stable population after a steady increase since the ban on hunting in 1973. As for the arctics, the polar beers home turf, the ice has so far spread to increased levels this year.

Interesting, or sad however, is that though WWF clearly states that the beers are not under threat, the same organisation’s local, national chapters continue to air the same fundraising commercials, often with prominent voice overs, threatening immediate extinction and calling for money.

Hey, buy a present for grandma instead!

In the spirit of Christmas however, I would like to suggest that we all, in different environmental groups, pledge to stick to the truth the next year. Not scare people with shaky predictions. Not use innocent cute animals as an excuse for funding. Then we might even achieve something the next decade!

Merry Christmas, friends at CFACT, WWF and the North Pole!

Copenhagen Endgame

CRAIG RUCKER (Copenhagen)

I write again. There should be no treaty in Copenhagen. The science isn’t settled and the facts don’t fit.

The propaganda is the tipoff. If the case were strong, we wouldn’t be chest deep in lies, half truths and sleight of hand. Confident players lay down their cards with a flourish. Its the guy bluffing who covers up tight and tries to drive you out of the game with diversions and patter. READ MORE…

Freezing Cold and Meltdown Treaty

by Einar Du Rietz, Copenhagen

Obama is on his way, and the COP 15 is nearing climax, or meltdown. The results so far are the same as we predicted. Close to 1 000 activists arrested, some beaten. Some professional hooligans, others bystanders. NGO’s kicked out of Bella Center as too many accreditations had been handed out. (CFACT, meanwhile has been most succesful in different sorts of activism. Please enjoy the documentation on this site.)

And the negotiations at a stalemate, currently turned into discussions over two separate treaties.

For some reason, this surprises some. So what were you hoping to achieve then? Let me try to sort out some crucial points.

A so called “binding” treaty with all of the world’s countries, was never on the table, though many people – including the EU President – pretended at times that it was. The reason is simple. The American President can not, according to law, sign any treaties – only declarations – without senate approval. Such approval does not exist yet. READ MORE…

CFACT Rechristens Greenpeace’s “Rainbow Warrior” as “Propanda Warrior”