I feel old sometimes. I’m not, according to my doctor, but I’m at least not “Youth”, as defined by the United Nations to be between the age of 15 and 24 (for the first three years in there, you also have the privilege of being “child” at the same time).

Couldn’t care less.

The UNFCCC however, cares a lot, and that’s where I start to care.

The report on youth participation in the climate battle, distributed here at the climate conference in Bonn, is impressive, with government funded youth summits and UN financed education camps. To join in, Alofa Tuvalis together with ADEME, has produced a partly entertaining comic book, where non-environmental decisions in daily life is punished by itching powder thrown by the mysterious bug Sib.

If the island of Tuvalis is really sinking, and if, in that case, it has anything to do with what I have for breafast, is not really explained, but as a pedagogic endeavour, it’s interesting from mainly two aspects.

Good manners is an important virtue, and one that all “youth” should pick up, else they might run into problems later in life. These include most of the things taught in the booklet, don’t throw garbage in nature, try not to work up your parents’ electricity bill too much.

But what ever became of good old youth rebellion against authorities and oppression? Do dress in a UN sponsored T-shirt and harass people, telling them that politicians should “do something”, in other words taxing and regulating people, does not come across as very courageous, or youthful for that matter.

But maybe I’m just too old for this.

This Earth Day join us as we celebrate nature and renew our commitment to genuine conservation.  Individual freedom is the way to a cleaner, greener world.

A Wonderful World

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin’ hands, sayin’ “How do you do?”
They’re really saying “I love you”

I hear babies cryin’, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Oh yeah

If only there was some meaningful electricity to be had from these machines to compensate for the harm they cause.

A Lifestyle and Ideology supplier called Greenpeace sent its members to protest against the conference. Some Greenpeace activists held banners that slandered the attendees, “stupid”, “Nuclear lobby”, and the weather was cold. But Christopher Monckton and Craig Rucker of CFACT braved the Elements to meet the challenge. See them in action in the two Videos embedded below. And if you haven’t already, sign All Pain No Gain, our petition against cap & trade.

Lord Monckton meets Greenpeace

Craig Rucker meets Greenpeace

For some carbon millionaires, lining their pockets legally through taxpayer subsidies and hand outs is not enough.  They choose to cheat even though they’re playing a game that’s already rigged.

The Financial Times reports that:

Oreste Vigorito, head of the IVPC energy company and president of Italy’s National Association of Wind Energy, was arrested on Tuesday in Naples. Vito Nicastri, a Sicilian business associate, was arrested in Alcamo, Sicily.

Two other men were arrested in Sicily and the Naples area, while 11 others were charged but not arrested.

Oreste Vigorito: Arrested Nov. 11

FT reports that these saviors of our planet were building wind farms that were “built with public subsidies but had never functioned.”

Vigorito had ties to Brian Caffyn, founder of the controversial “Cape Wind” project planned for Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, which has been criticized as a poor investment for taxpayers for the energy it will produce.  Vigorito was not an investor in Cape Wind.

According to the Boston Herald:

“What we found was quite remarkable,” David Tuerck, the institute’s executive director, said at the time. “Cape Wind stands to receive subsidies worth $731 million, or 77 percent of the cost of installing the project and 48 percent of the revenues it would generate. The policy question that this amount of subsidy raises is whether the project’s benefit is worth the huge public subsidies that the developer gets.”

The Herald reports that Mr. Caffyn’s 2007 divorce records reveal that “he amassed an $82 million fortune building wind farms around the world.”

Wind power remains an interesting and potentially useful technology.  However, if taxpayers are forced to pay for it they must receive a viable return on their investment.  Conservationists should not be forced to endure wind farms spoiling undeveloped places of natural beauty.  We should not allow wind farms to ruin the habitats of birds and other wildlife in ways we would never permit to established efficient methods of power generation.

It’s time politicians require the “green” business people who will reap fortunes from wind power to bear the financial costs and risks.   It’s time government zoning and environmental regulators ban wind turbines where they threaten wildlife and spoil human enjoyment of natural beauty.

Wind yes, but only when economically viable and only with respect for the quality of life both human and wild.

This article was amended slightly in response to a request from the Cape Wind Project.

…and try to make sense. Einar Du Rietz is impressed by some activists creativity, but puzzled by the message.

Let’s accept it. Historically, the left has always been the best in both finding ideas for, and carrying out, spectacular stunts. In the environmental debate, Greenpeace is still the undisputed champion, enough so to maintain huge funding. It even seems that after years of trespassing and hooliganism, they now even can afford to pay for the damage caused, as when they payed a substantial amount in damages for destroying a coral reef in the south east seas a few years ago.

The cabinet meting under water recently was amusing. Putting out blocks in the North Sea, to stop overfishing, something the government had already decided to do, but didn’t do quickly enough, saved some tax money. Harassing working crews on the open sea might be spectacular, but is dangerous, costly and against all standards for good conduct at sea.

Recently, on my way to lunch, I passed a fountain filled with young ladies in bikinis. The poster on the side announced that this was all about global warming. Not that I don’t enjoy scantily dressed – and pretty – ladies, but as I pulled my coat tighter and my hat further down, I felt more sorry than impressed.

The Golden Plover is one of the species the RSPB found was harmed by wind turbines.

The Daily Telegraph reports windfarms, “can reduce bird numbers by up to half” citing a study by Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

The idea of generating electricity from the wind always seems attractive at first glance.  However, wind continues to generate only one percent of world power.  Increasing that percentage requires adding thousands upon thousands of new turbines.  Many people, such as those who left in protest when the RSPB endorsed British turbine plans and organizations such as Wind Watch, question whether wind power can truly be considered friendly to the environment if it takes a major toll on wildlife.  They oppose planting industrial towers midst previously unspoiled coastal and rural vistas.

In the U.S., most would have expected the late Senator Ted Kennedy (a fixture of the American left) to back wind power, yet he fought fiercely against a proposal to place turbines in Nantucket Sound, spoiling the view of his boyhood sailing waters.

Can wind power become efficient enough to operate without subsidies?  Will it be required to live up to the same conservation standards followed by other energy producers?

Let’s hope we can find a place for wind power, but let’s remember the hen harriers, golden plovers, snipes, curlews, wheatears, meadow pipitbirds and even the buzzards and not allow these turbines to blight the very environments taxpayers have subsidized wind so generously to protect.

With 150.000 copies and about twice as many readers every day, the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung is not only the largest Swiss newspaper, but also the most respected daily paper among the German-speaking Europeans. Under the headline “Eco-imperialism at the expense of the poor,” it also was the first major print media that informed its readers of CFACT’s newly published German edition of Paul Driessen’s Eco-imperialism: Green Power Black Death on September 11.

According to the reviewer, Detmar Doering of the German Liberal Institute, it is “fully comprehensible” that “humans care for an environment worth living and want it protected.” However, that should be a reason to challenge environmentalism, because apparently “its cultural hegemony in the public sphere corrupts” this movement. “Many scenarios by which environmentalists impress the (western) public are based on bogus science, e.g. the ‘climate catastrophe,’ as Driessen can meticulously demonstrate. Justified concerns for the environment,” the review concludes, “must not be directed against the economic perspectives of the world’s poor. It is a pity that only few have the courage to say it that way.”

This might have been the reason that sociology professor Dr. Joseph Huber of the University of Halle included Eco-imperialism in the recommended reading list for his course on “The global system and sustainable development.” On December 6, today, the book was discussed by his students.

Christian Bartsch of Junge Freiheit (“Young Freedom”), a conservative weekly with 30,000 readers from Berlin, reviewed the book on October 6, and predicted the new Driessen book “will be a shock for many” because of its “appalling” facts about the global activities of self-appointed guardians of the environment. According to Bartsch, modern environmentalists act like medicine men or shamans in prehistoric times: Both “discovered fear as the best means to make their sheep compliant.” In both cases it is about them silencing “evil demons which were invented by themselves” and presenting environmentalist shamans as the “keepers of public morals and ethics.”

On October 21, as well Dirk Maxeiner, one of Germany’s most renowned environment writers, reviewed Eco-imperialism in Die Welt. With some 800,000 readers, the paper is one of Germany’s major national dailies. Its literary supplement “Die literarische Welt” (“World of Literature”), where the article appeared, represents the great humanistic journalistic tradition of the 1920s. Maxeiner not only mentioned the devastating consequences of extreme environmentalism but also focused on the dangerous “ethical standards” of several “green” investment funds: “From Nike to Reebok, from BP to Shell, Paul Driessen’s book is full of examples of opportunistic companies practicing a fatal appeasement policy toward noisy lobby groups in rich countries, at the expense of the poor. For managers and entrepreneurs this book is a must-read, because it could also bear the title ‘Corporate palookas in green pinstripe suits.’”

Other reviews of Eco-imperialism: Green policies with lethal consequences – this is the book title retranslated from German – appeared in Eigentuemlich Frei (“Peculiarly Free”), Neue Nachricht (“Current News”), and NOVO – Germany’s most distinguished libertarian periodicals, in Civis, a quarterly loosely affiliated with Chancellor Merkel’s ruling Christian-Democrat party, and the Chemische Rundschau (“Chemical Review”), a specialized magazine for chemists from Switzerland. Altogether, reviews of CFACT Europe’s most important 2006-publication reached more than 1.1 million readers.

PAUL DRIESSEN (Washington)

If an accident kills wildlife or people, punishment is meted out and restitution made. A host of regulators, lawyers, judges, activists, journalists and politicians help bring the wrongdoers to justice.

But when it comes to policies and programs that sicken and kill millions of parents and children a year, these ethics cops and eco warriors are not just silent. They refuse to hold government agencies and activist groups to the same honesty and accountability standards they apply to for-profit companies. They even oppose programs that would reduce disease and save lives. More than 2 billion people worldwide are at risk of getting malaria, and 350-500 million contract it every year, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease kills up to a million African children annually, making it the continent’s greatest executioner of children under age five.

In Uganda alone, a nation of 30 million people, 60 million cases of malaria caused 110,000 deaths in 2005. In its Apac District, a person is likely to be bitten 1,560 times a year by mosquitoes infected with malaria parasites. The disease also perpetuates poverty (sick people can’t work) and increases deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diarrhea and malnutrition. Controlling and eradicating this serial killer ought to be a global priority. But far too many organizations fail to take sufficient measures, while others actively oppose critically needed interventions.

UNICEF partners with Malaria No More to raise money from donors, distribute educational materials and long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets (LLINs), provide anti-malarial drugs, and save lives. “Sometimes” they organize teams to spray insecticides on the inside walls of houses, to “kill the female mosquito after she feeds on a person” (and frequently infects him or her). Under “some special circumstances,” they support treating mosquito breeding sites, if the larvacides are “environmentally friendly.”

All these interventions will help reduce disease and death tolls. They will garner plaudits from environmental activists. But these limited measures will not result in No More Malaria. Unless and until their programs include regular use of larvacides and insecticides to control mosquitoes, and DDT in selected cases to keep the flying killers out of houses, UNICEF and MNM will not even come close to reducing malaria cases and deaths to what a moral person would deem tolerable levels: close to zero – not 50% or even 25% of current levels.

Kenya claims widespread distribution of insecticide-treated nets cut malaria deaths in half, in the short run anyway, when regular compliance was monitored. But that means 15,000 people are still dying each year. For Uganda, a 50% reduction via nets would mean 30,000,000 cases and 55,000 deaths.

Uganda’s Ministry of Health recently studied 410 children who had been given LLINs and instructed in how to use them. Within two to three weeks, 52% of the children were again infected with malaria.

“The use of nets relies greatly on behavioral change and compliance, while indoor spraying eliminates that factor and protects everyone in the sprayed house,” noted Malaria Program Director John Rwakimari.

And yet misguided aid agencies, radical environmentalists and pseudo ethicists are telling African nations they should be happy with nets, “sometimes” use of limited insecticides, and a 50% reduction in malaria cases and deaths – because these activists in malaria-free countries dislike chemicals.

Equally unacceptable, 60% of African child malaria victims are still being “treated” with chloroquine, which no longer kills African plasmodium parasites. The typical justification is that chloroquine is much less expensive than Artemisia-based combination therapies (ACT drugs) that do work.

In other words, medical malpractitioners are saying it is better to give millions of children cheap drugs that don’t work, and let thousands of them die – than it is to give fewer children more expensive drugs that work, and ensure that they live. By failing to support chemical mosquito killers and repellants, they are also guaranteeing tens of millions of needless malaria cases every year, continued shortfalls of effective medicines, and countless unnecessary deaths.

That is unforgivable, unconscionable and immoral.

To achieve moral levels of malaria, countries need comprehensive, integrated programs that include every weapon in the arsenal. None is appropriate in all places, at all times. But all must be available, so that they can be employed at the proper time and place. That is why the U.S. Agency for International Development, President’s Malaria Initiative and World Health Organization determined that these chemical weapons are vital in the war on malaria, and safe for people and the environment.

Larvacides, insecticides and DDT – in conjunction with nets and other interventions – can reduce the number of malaria victims dramatically, and ensure that people who still get malaria can be treated with ACT drugs like Coartem. These truly integrated strategies have enabled South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland and Zanzibar to largely eradicate malaria.

Uganda, where I just spent a week on an anti-malaria mission, is using larvacides, insecticides, nets and other interventions. It has sprayed 95% of households in Kabale District (with Icon) – and slashed the prevalence of malaria parasites in residents from 30% before spraying to 3% afterward.

Three other districts have also been sprayed, and Uganda’s Ministry of Health plans to spray another 15 highly endemic areas in 2008, including the Apac District. In January, it will add DDT to its program, for indoor residual spraying that will keep at least 70% of mosquitoes from entering homes for up to six or eight months, with a single application.

Radical environmentalists are trying to stir up opposition to DDT and other spraying programs, and some people in USAID and WHO continue undermining efforts to utilize chemical interventions. However, Uganda is adamant about ending the needless slaughter of its children and parents. President Yoweri Museveni, Director General of Health Services Sam Zaramba and other leaders know DDT will save lives.

Anti-pesticide activists claim insecticide spraying is not sustainable. They are wrong – on financial, practical, public health and moral grounds.

What are not sustainable are nothing-but-nets programs that require constant monitoring to ensure daily use and moderate success – while raising the risk that mosquitoes will become resistant to pyrethroid pesticides that impregnate the nets, and parasites will become resistant to drugs that by default become the primary weapon in the war on malaria.

What are truly not sustainable are unconscionable malaria tolls that result from politically correct policies that are best described as lethal experimentation on African children.

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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for CFACT and the Congress of Racial Equality.  He is the author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power  Black Death available in German and English from CFACT Europe.