About 50 years ago, the book Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson was published, and triggered an environmental debate that has been going on since then. Lot’s of articles are written about this these days, and, Cato Institute, among others, has published an essay collection.

Carson passed away in 1964, and I do not for a moment doubt her good intentions, but the sad fact is that few books probably have caused as much damage.

On the positive side, we can notice that basically all of her alarms turned out to be false. The world in general, has just gotten better, cleaner and more developed.

At the same time, the impact the book had triggered – together with other doomsayers of the time – a green movement that has consistently fought all of the above.

And most importantly, and sad, is that it triggered the debate on DDT, eventually leading to a ban. This is probably the most disastrous mistake by the greens and politicians globally, not counting the Soviet experiment, have commited. We will never know for certain, but it’s most likely that, without the ban, Malaria would long ago have been exterminated, instead of taking millions and millions of lives.

But the birds still sing in the not so silent spring.

Only weeks after the peculiar, entirely symbolical and possibly dangerous Earth Hour gimmick, it’s now the 42′nd Earth Day. Hard to be against the Earth, but I’ve never understood the tendency to use these events to suggest an ongoing conflict between the earth and humanity.  

CFACT International President David Rothbard comments:

“Celebrate them all, we should. But as faithful followers of CFACT know, today’s environmentalism (at least the kind that gets all the attention) isn’t so much about reveling in the beauty of nature and its amazements as it is in using this lofty matter to hammer away at human productivity, prosperity, and plenty. Saddest and ironic of all, of course, is that people prospering is the very thing that helps us steward the environment the best.”

 You might add that without humans, there wouldn’t be an Earth Day, or that without human action, in the form of development and exploitation, there would be no humans. Ecological nostalgia is sometimes tempting to some, but I believe we all realize that if time travel was possible, none of us would survive even minutes in a prehistoric era.

 So, let’s take the opportunity to celebrate the innovations that increasingly is making it possible to lead a life even in areas still ridden by hardship. Not of prehistoric proportions, but at least with meagre possibilities to adjust housing and clothing to the weather, choose what we eat, or even have access to fresh drinking water.

Today’s sunny news is that Brittish scientists now have shown that hidden groundwater resources wating to be exploited in Africa, may amount to a hundred times the more shallow wells being used today.

  ”We estimate total groundwater storage in Africa to be 0.66 million km³ (0.36–1.75 million km³). Not all of this groundwater storage is available for abstraction, but the estimated volume is more than 100 times estimates of annual renewable freshwater resources on Africa. Groundwater resources are unevenly distributed: the largest groundwater volumes are found in the large sedimentary aquifers in the North African countries Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Sudan. Nevertheless, for many African countries appropriately sited and constructed boreholes can support handpump abstraction (yields of 0.1–0.3 l s⁻¹), and contain sufficient storage to sustain abstraction through inter-annual variations in recharge.” (Environmental Research Letters)

Getting access to this life saving resource will require skill and technology. Luckily, both have been let to flourish in parts of the world, less hurt by dictatorships, wars, socialism and misguided green activism and legislation.

Might appreciate some real support - not corruption and stupidity

The heroic boy scouts collected money, went to a village in deepest Africa and helped develop a well. A few month later, excessive use had dried it up and the final result was an extension of the desert.

Examples of unintended consequences (and sometimes plain stupidity) in development aid are numerous, some probably myths by now. Distributing loads of pork to Muslim countries. Rushing factory building until the installation collapse on top of people. The literature is also quite extensive. A useful introduction, or summary may be this.

Important to remember is that humanitarian catastrophes are seldom, if ever, caused by real villains in these cases, hence the words unintended and aid. Wars, planned famine and genocides are indeed orchestrated by evil, but they are never intended by the do-gooders.

The problems occur both with voluntary help and government programs, though the latter, for natural reason, tend to be more dangerous. As a matter of fact, lot’s of people working with government aid are smart, caring people, but often trapped in the system. One such hazard is the idea, launched some decades ago, and implemented in some countries, to legislate allocation of a minimum level of GDP to the foreign aid budget. Both the government, and the associated authorities are then forced to spend the annual funds.

Some countries try to make the best of the situation, for example by allocating funds to emergency help rather than budget support. Pouring money into a corrupt countries state budget most often leads to, in the less evil scenario, the money going straight into a Swiss bank account, or, which is worse, into buying weaponry used against neighbours or the country’s own population. On the other hand, budget support can also be the only way to boost investments in infrastructure. An alternative to building governmental roads and airports is of course to let private companies both develop, build and own. Such investments tend, if they are even allowed, however to be quite risky for the entrepreneur, facing the constant threat of both war and plain nationalization. The only simple solution, if not sufficient, seems to be to, to the extent possible, minimize governmental aid and let the not so small private, international networks do the job.

CFACT did have some other activities in Copenhagen as well

At the COP 15 in Copenhagen, remember, when the whole world was in hysteria over global warming and the last chance to halt it, one of the things that came out of the – otherwise generally considered catastrophic – meeting, was a pledge by developed countries to help third world countries, that somehow would be hurt the worst by weather changes. And not aloud to burn fossil fuels to develop, you might add. The discussion then moved to a hassle over if this, quite substantial sum, could be included in the budgets for foreign aid, or if it should be earmarked on top of these.

I spent most of the time in on of the cafeterias in the middle f it all. A great place both to write, go through collected material and listen in on the neighbours. Working was out of the question when a quite substantial African delegation nicked most of our chairs (luckily not the one I was sitting in) and started a loud meeting. It was in French, but I can tell you that it was not about global warming, or about the environment at all. It was about how to get as much money as possible from the naive tax payers up North.

“Honey has always been considered an entirely pure product for the purposes of food labelling laws. But Europe’s highest court has now decreed that pollen is an ingredient of honey rather than an intrinsic, natural component.”

writes the Telegraph

watch?v=qeGtaSWzFRA for more honey.

It just so happens that I’m quite allergic. Not as severe as some younger friends, as the hassle tends to diminish with age, but still enough to remain careful. The so called allergy family (all allergies belong to groups, for example sea food, which I have no problems with) is nuts. Along with this comes mould – also penicillin in it’s original form – almonds and certain fruits and berries. And pets. The only thing really lethal is normally nuts. A younger friend never enters a Thai restaurant or leave her home without cortisone in her pocket. I’ve outgrown pet allergy, and can try different kinds of food, but I will never in my life test one singe nut again. It’s really not worth it.

Sometimes, however, I get the feeling that the worst threat, at least to my mental well-being, is not the sneezing during springtime, but busy body government. When chocolate bars simply had to list ingredients – and you also could find some safe brands – it was easy to pick something suitable. Since some years back, manufacturers are required to point out that virtually every product “may contain traces of nuts”. My younger friend naturally does not even look at candy, but for me, it would be nice to be able to make an informed choice. “May contain” means that the product is manufactured in an environment where other products, containing nuts, have been produced.

And now they are out to hit on the honey. The European Court that is, eager to put another burden on a struggling line of business.

“ Industry experts warned that the “ludicrous” ruling could drive smaller British honey suppliers and beekeepers out of business.”

As long as we can, let’s put honey in our evening cuppa, or rum. The latter based on sugar by the way.

Yesterday, I watched that widely acclaimed movie by Nora Ephron about Julia Childs and her later follower. Marvelous. And somehow, all about butter.

I seldom use butter, as I prefere olive oil, but for certain dishes it’s the best option. All sorts of fish, for example.

How interesting then that there is a current butter crisis in the stores. The cows to blame? Some people have actually suggested that.

But then there is this peculiar thing called the Butter Mountain in the EU. Simply put, a surplus (according to the politicians), calling for regulations within the CAP system, and – surprise – you suddenly have a shortage.

Let’s see what comes next. In Venezuela, one of the largest coffee been producers in the world, there is currently a coffee shortage.

In all cases of shortages, my Professor once told me, look for the price mechanism. And if a politician has meddled with it.

Sure, I can live without butter (after all there are substitutes), maybe even coffee, but there are worse situations out there, where regulations, or simply playing around with the market, cause real starvation.

Maybe we should just skip this project

That it was fairly good for preventing colds I knew, but now apparently garlic is the way to prevent global warming.

Reports euractiv:

Hope the cows will like it. Personally, I a fan, especially when I’m eating cows, but I don’t want it in my milk.

And the report does not mention the smell. And not any other potential side effects. What about the bugs? At least on humans, garlic is believed to be a repellant. Will this in turn affect the bird life? Guess a new bunch of money would be welcome, before the entire idea is picked up by the Comission, for a garlic cow directive.

Guess the five millions were well spent so far. At least the garlic growers and distributors will think so.

Green campaigners routinely attack fruits and vegetables grown and protected using efficient modern methods.  No evidence exists that “organic” foods offer any nutritional benefits over foods produced by modern farming.  There were certainly no health benefits for the victims of this tragic outbreak.

To learn more about The Truth About Organic Foods, CFACT recommends Alex Avery’s book by that title.  CFACT Europe produced a translation of Mr. Avery’s book not too long ago available direct from the publisher  bestellung@tvrgroup.de

June 6 UPDATE: The death toll has risen and now organic sprouts from northern Germany are suspect.  No matter how you slice it the organic food bubble is leaking badly.  Once organic food safety is reestablished it is time to put them in their proper place.  “Organic” foods (as if there could be inorganic foods) require more labor and resources to produce and distribute and have no nutritional advantages.  They are an expensive consumer preference (like artisan cheese with less certain flavor advantages), but not a luxury that should interfere with the plentiful bounty modern efficient farming creates.  Developed countries today enjoy plentiful, affordable food for all for the first time ever.  A few constructive public policy tweaks and a neighborly helping hand is all it will take to permit the developing world to bring in just as fine a harvest.

June 6 UPDATE 2: Maybe not sprouts after all.

June 10 UPDATE: Organic sprouts again — 30 dead.

More on the outbreak:

Sprouts:  AP

Deutsche Welle

Yahoo News

Expatica Spain

 There are real environmental problems. Not necessarily those threats lazy journalists and politicians demand you to solve, but more often caused by the government.

One of the most blatant examples is found in the oceans, in particular those areas controlled by the EU. Millions of Euro are wasted in the incomprehensible CAP, with devastating effects on the Baltic sea as one – hopefully – unintended consequence. The EU fishery policy – equally impossible to get a grip on – costs billions and has led about 90 percent of the EU waters to suffer from the imminent risk of out-fishing, by ways of subsidies and peculiar regulatory frameworks.

I have written on this subject before, and will continue to do so, but these particular examples of governmental abuse to nature and humanity were once again pointed out to me by two colleagues (no link unfortunately, but honor as due), Maria Wetterstrand and Mattias Svensson. An interesting detail is that though the latter is a libertarian, the former is spokesperson for the Greens.

It’s a terryfying list, but let me add some more. Government, or partly government energy companies using government force to expropriate private property for exploitation. Or spending tax money to make a mess in the developing world in misguided, sometimes corrupt efforts.

At the same time, entrepreneurs are forced to fill in useless forms to send to the even more useless Eurostat, and the rest of us recycle.

In the never ending debate on what really triggered WWI, an interesting observation is that August 1914 was one of the warmest months in Europe, during the last century. With no AC, politicians simply went bananas.

Naturally, the underlying factors were multiple; trigger happy, sometimes very old, politicians and officers, negligence to the risks involved in a full scale war with the still new military technology, old alliances, you name it. But the observation is still interesting, and probably correct at least for some of the major players.

In a recent issue of Science, the authors try to take a climate approach to the fall of the Roman Empire, arguing that the Germanic tribes finally invading Rome, were driven south by severe draughts caused by climate change.

Again, there’s probably some sense to this. At the same time, empires tend to fall for multiple, often combined reasons, such as corruption, uncontrollable expansion or just plain discontent, or incompetence among the rulers.

For some reason, the authors in Science find it necessay to point out that today’s warming is unprecendented. Really? As far as I know, the history of the world has always been rather turbulent, both concerning politics and science. And climate.

Applying an alarmist perspective to the Roman Empire gets complicated indeed, given that you really believe that climate can’t vary without human intervention. Did the northern tribes eat too much meat, or did the vicious Romans bomb them with CO2? Was this extraordinary technology of warfare then hidden until 1914,  later to be exposed by the IPCC, or has it been the well kept secret of a mysterious society, the Knights of Climate Control, based on a non-discovered island and devoted to fight civilization wherever it should appear.

The activists now say that by opposing nuclear power they encouraged the use of polluting coal-fired power stations, while by protesting against GM crops they prevented developing countries from benefiting from a technology that could have helped feed the hungry.

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