Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago               

This was announced by the Mail last October based on data on land surface-air temperature released by the Hadley Centre. “Too short a period to draw conclusions,” said Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had predicted an increase of at least 3°C over that period (The Week That Was 10/20/12).

Looking at a much longer period, on the basis of 91 proxies, the peak of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) in the latter part of the 10th century was equal to or greater than mid-20th century warming, and the summers of the Roman Period in the first century A.D. were warmer still. Data from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project show another, higher peak in the Late Bronze Age (13th-11th century B.C.). Atmospheric CO₂ hovered between 275-285 ppm over this period until its recent 40% increase  (from CCNet 10/18/12, http://tinyurl.com/bghxxkj). More than 700 scientists in 40 countries have presented peer-reviewed evidence that the MWP was real and warmer than the present.

To create the infamous Hockey Stick, James Hansen and Michael Mann erased the MWP and the Little Ice Age, cooled the 1930s, and warmed more recent years. For a detailed discussion and a transcript of the BBC debate between Mann and Marc Morano, see climatedepot.com, http://tinyurl.com/bpp8mx2.

Based on information leaked about the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report, we now have observational data, not unproven models, about the sensitivity of temperature to CO₂ concentration. A further rise of no more than 1.6 °C by 2100 is likely from an IPCC scenario assuming a doubling of CO_2. (WSJ 12/19/12).

Skeptic Calendar a “KochMachine” Conspiracy 

When Anthony Watts sent Michael Mann and three others a free 2013 Skeptic Calendar, Mann sent a Tweet “Where did #AnthonyWatts (#WUWT) get funds for widely distributed #climatechange#denier calendar?…#KochMachine.” Watts used his credit card (http://tinyurl.com/d4ltea8).

Teachers Feeling Heat

Disagreements about climate change are “seeping” into K-12 education. Teachers have to “learn how to defend themselves against parents or administrators wearing ‘ideological blinders,’” stated Joshua Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education. Staging debates over science in schools or Congress is “madness,” he believes. “Science is not about providing balance to every viewpoint that’s out there.” It might “sow confusion.”

Science teachers in Wisconsin refused to participate in a debate organized by “Tea Party activists” pitting them against “climate change deniers David Legates and Willie Soon” in front of students from 200 high schools. One of the teachers, Andrew Milbauer, corresponded on a blog for a time until someone wrote that he was “passing on to our youth this monstrous hoax as gospel truth.” He thinks there is “lynch-mob hate against any teacher trying to teach climate change.”

Climate change is now rivaling evolution as a topic triggering outside concerns. The problem is said to be acute in Louisiana, because of a 2008 law that allows teachers and students to challenge “controversial” ideas in the classroom, including climate change and evolution, “without fear of reprisal” (Science 8/5/11).

What might happen if we allowed freedom of thought?!

About the 98%

In their hatchet job on skeptics, the American Geophysical Union, the National Academy of Sciences, and Frontline state that “97–98% of climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of Anthropogenic Climate Change.” That percentage is 75 of 77 of alleged experts, culled from 10,257 Earth scientists invited to participate in a survey, who agreed that mean global temperatures have risen since the pre-1800s [the end of the Little Ice Age] and that “human activity is a significant contributing factor in  changing mean global temperatures.” The chosen 75 had published papers in journals that routinely reject the work of skeptics. The poll was published in a University of Illinois master’s thesis (The Energy Advocate, November 2012).

Doha Wealth Redistribution Process Goes On

While crying over the “bitter failure” to get a binding treaty, the more than 7,000 climate alarmists representing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) at the Doha conference will still get billions of taxpayer dollars annually, and more all-expense-paid trips to 5-star resorts. A promise was made that, starting in 2020, at least $100 billion per year would flow from “rich” countries to “poor” countries to help them cope with climate change and extreme weather (Rothbard, op. cit.).

Coal Is the Villain

Since the mid-1990s, the amount of primary energy supplied by coal has risen from 25% to almost 30%. There is no prospect of running out. At the current rate of consumption, supplies will last for at least a century. India and China together add three coal-fired generating stations per week. Many European countries, including Germany, are switching from gas and nuclear to coal (Nature 11/29/12).

Believing James Hansen’s characterization of coal plants as “factories of death,” Obama and the U.S. EPA’s Lisa Jackson are trying to kill the U.S. coal-fired utility industry. Jackson’s team proposes to designate coal ash as hazardous waste, at a cost of $50 billion, though 40% of it is recycled into bricks, drywall, asphalt, and cement. EPA headquarters was built with cement containing coal ash. EPA regulations could mean the loss of 2.5 million jobs, and $1,200 annually from household income. Losses to U.S. GDP could peak at $500 billion per year in 2030 (Steve Goreham, Wash Times 1/2/13, http://tinyurl.com/ap4d7cc).

Bottom-Up v. Top-Down Regulation

The Kyoto approach of emissions caps having failed, Dieter Helm suggests shifting the focus to consumption, through taxing the “carbon” embedded in the goods and services each person consumes [presumably the CO₂  emitted throughout the process of manufacturing]. “Global warming takes no account of national boundaries,” he writes. If a customer buys a car, it matters little whether the steel was made in China or the U.S. The UK, for example, may have shown a 15% drop in carbon production from 1990 to 2005, but carbon consumption went up by 19% when imports are taken into account. This taxation approach will help avoid “free riding” and the immediate problem of coal burning. We need bottom-up action, not just more talk, he believes (Nature 11/29/12).

LNT: the New Homeopathy   

The practice of homeopathy is based on the principle that therapeutic effects can be obtained at infinitesimally low doses. Virtually the entire biomedical community dismisses this idea with disdain. Yet, notes Edward Calabrese, the cancer risk assessment practices of EPA, “which are highly dependent on linear dose response modeling, ironically have a striking resemblance to high dilution homeopathy.” EPA routinely makes binding regulations “based on a similar type of low-dose extremism” (Environ Toxicol Chem 2012;31:2723).

Flashback: Dangers of Government Funding

Less well known than his warning about the “military-industrial complex” is President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning about the corrupting influence of government funding of science. In his 1961 Farewell Address, he said:

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present—and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Biofuels: EPA Denies Waiver; Beware of E-15  

The worst drought in 50 years, combined with the federal renewable fuel standard (RFS), has pushed corn prices to record highs, harming poultry, beef, pork, and dairy producers. Governors of seven states asked for a waiver of the RFS on grounds of severe economic harm, which Lisa Jackson denied.

The EPA requires petitioners to meet an impossible burden of proof. In contrast, to impose new requirements the EPA need show only a small contribution to an alleged harm and a minute regulatory contribution to a hoped-for solution.

This year, 40% of the nation’s corn crop was used to make ethanol for motor fuel. Gasoline must now contain 10% ethanol, and the EPA wants to increase that to 15% (http://tinyurl.com/btqblhq). E-15 is now available in a few states, but though the EPA approved it and recommends it, 10 auto companies warn that your warranty will be voided if you use it in any model older than 2012 because of its corrosive effects. These include BMW, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, VW, and Mercedes Benz (http://tinyurl.com/anldjnm).

A New Verb: To “Pebble Beach”

This method, used by Lisa Jackson’s EPA to kill an Alaska mining project, involves rewriting the Clean Water Act (CWA).

Pebble Beach has the potential to be among the world’s largest suppliers of gold and copper. Under the CWA, the Army Corps of Engineers has the primary authority to issue permits for wetlands, which the EPA can later revoke. It has used this power to revoke a permit in West Virginia 4 years after it was issued, leading federal district court judge Amy Berman Jackson to state that the EPA’s view that it could unilaterally revoke or modify a Corps permit at any time was “a stunning power for an agency to arrogate to itself when there is absolutely no mention of it in the statute.” But it is not enough for the EPA. In this case, the EPA invented its own hypothetical mine, with its own, antiquated engineering standards, and found that this nonexistent mine would harm the watershed. The EPA claims broad authority for its Administrator to prohibit a project, “whenever necessary,” before a proposal is even submitted (TWTW 10/6/12, www.sepp.org).

The EPA Multiplier 

The “number of the week” of 1,667 is the factor by which the EPA multiplies the concentration of benzene found by the U.S. Geological Service in wells near Pavillion, Wyoming, that the EPA declared to be contaminated by hydraulic fracturing. These are shallow wells in claystone and sandstone, not the typical deep wells in dense shale (TWTW 10/6/12).

Diagnostic Imaging, Evacuation, and LNT

U.S. medicine is still wedded to the LNT for calculating hypothetical hazards from medical imaging. Three annual CT lung scans, with about 8 mSv total irradiation, are calculated to risk an additional lung cancer in 1 of 2,500 patients 10 to 20 years later. This is less than the benefit of preventing one death from lung cancer owing to early detection by screening 310 high-risk individuals. However, “potential risks may vastly outweigh benefits in nonsmokers or those aged 42 years or younger” (JAMA 6/13/12). In an accompanying editorial, authors warn that many patients are exposed to “high” (20-50 mSv) or “very high” (>50 mSv) of radiation in a given year from medical imaging. They note that these data are not linked to clinical outcomes. There is no calculation of how many patients may be deprived of benefits from advanced imaging out of fear of hypothetical future cancer (also see DDP Newsletter, July 2011).

While some panic-mongering continues over Fukushima, UNSCEAR has concluded that there were no radiation-related deaths. Acute effects become clear only at levels > 1,000 mSv (100 rem), and it is not possible to attribute health effects to long-term exposures below average background levels of 2–20 mSv/y (World Nuclear News 12/10/12). U.S. Homeland Security is expected to revise clean-up standards after a “dirty bomb” to keep exposure between 100 mrem (1 mSv) and 2,000 mrem (20 mSv) per year. This is far from a repudiation of the LNT, as 20 mSv/y for 30 years is still estimated to cause 1 in 23 people to develop a radiation-induced cancer, but it is 43,000 times less stringent than Superfund’s ideal.  Activists such as Daniel Hirsch, nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California at Santa Cruz, call the relaxed standard “ethically indefensible” (Global Security Newswire 11/26/12, http://tinyurl.com/autvf2e).

Meanwhile, on the Greek island of Ikaria, the “island where people forget to die,” the maximum dose rate is 35  mSv/y. Four times as many men reach the age of 90 there compared with the U.S. The NY Times attributes this to diet or perhaps herbal tea (http://tinyurl.com/8lpvp7w).

The harm caused by LNT-induced radiation phobia, especially at Chernobyl and Fukushima, is the subject of a special issue of Dose-Response 2012;10(4). In this issue, Fornalski and Dobrzyński calculate from an ecologic study in Poland that the relative risk of cancer death decreased by 1.17%/mSv/y (P=0.02), when all types of cancer are included. Under the LNT, of course, RR can only increase with increased exposure (www.dose-response.com).

Civil Defense Perspectives September 2012, Vol. 28 No. 6

After Fukushima, people are asking questions such as: Should Japan, and the world, totally give up on nuclear energy(Nature 6/7/12)? Casualties from radiation, from the worst nuclear accident in history, are still zero. But what about the projected later cancers?  What if an accident contaminates the environment forever? Should people be allowed to return home?

Civil Defense Perspectives July 2012, Vol. 28 No. 5

An obscure 1984 newsletter than I unearthed while cleaning out a filing cabinet predicted fiscal armageddon, followed by a world government, because of a Third World debt crisis.

It was said that a default would collapse the entire international banking system. At the time, the total debt of the four largest Latin American countries was: Argentina, $38 billion; Brazil, $88 billion; Mexico, $82 billion; and Venezuela, $31 billion.

More Americans Get Disability than a Job

Between April and June 2012, about 246,000 Americans were added to Social Security disability rolls, while only 225,000 found jobs. Between January 2009 and June 2012, 3.6 million were added to disability rolls, while a net 1.3 million jobs were lost (http://tinyurl.com/cvs93nf).

The EPA MATS Job Killer

The MATS is the main part of the Utility MACT Rule, which sets maximum achievable control technology standards for hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from power plants. Through one of the most expensive rules in history, EPA will try to reduce the level of mercury in power plant emissions below natural levels. Technicians need to wear special protective clothing when measuring levels, not to protect themselves but to ensure accurate measurements, since even breathing on a sample can triple the level, write Willie Soon and Paul Driessen.

U.S. power plants emit 41-48 tons of mercury per year, compared with 44 tons from U.S. forest fires, 400 tons from Chinese power plants, and up to 10,000 tons from volcanoes, geysers, subsea vents, and other natural sources. Speaking on this issue at the DDP annual meeting (http://tinyurl.com/8dexrrw), Willie Soon noted there are 2,000 ppm mercury in lunar soil.

The EPA estimates that new rules will prevent the loss of 0.00209 IQ points per child in a guesstimated population of 240,000 subsistence fishing households. This “statistical figment,” by EPA math, is supposed to save as much as $6 million at a cost of $9.6 billion in 2016. It effectively bans any new coal-fired plants, so job creation from the rules will be “not statistically different from zero.” It will reduce average disposable household income by $34 billion between 2012 and 2020 (Forbes 6/12/12, http://tinyurl.com/coc6dbb). For a map of power plants to be closed, see  http://tinyurl.com/bnz2rzm.

Economic News Briefs

Iran’s gold imports surged by $1.2 billion in April alone. Central banks added 456 tones in the past year, the most in 5 decades. Nations that are adding significantly to gold reserves include the Philippines, Turkey, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, and Russia (http://tinyurl.com/98v3agc).

About one-third of deposits have been pulled from Greek banks since 2009. In July 2012, Spaniards withdrew a record 75 billion euros ($94 billion), 7% of the country’s total economic output (http://tinyurl.com/8t4oqeg). At this pace, 40% of Spain’s GDP could be sent abroad by year’s end.

Governments of Germany and Switzerland announced that they will no longer store their gold in London or New York (McAlvaney Intelligence Advisor, April 2012).

The Optimistic Scenario

Some say we have already passed the event horizon, beyond which hyperinflation is inevitable. James Cook writes: “Public and private debt, runaway government spending and fiat money have hit the wall.” In the ferocious crisis, “the handouts will have to go. No more green energy, farm and corporate subsidies. No more food stamps, housing, welfare, unemployment and disability. Reduced veterans’ benefits, Social Security and Medicare are certain. Student loans are no more….” When the government’s lifeline runs dry, bankruptcies explode, and crony capitalism dies. “Underfunded lobbyists,… government consultants, trial lawyers and political demonstrators disappear.”

The result could be a better work ethic, self-reliance, stronger character, and restored morality. If the people rally, “American exceptionalism overturns the naysayers” (James Cook Market Update, late June 2012).

Extravagances such as Rio +20, and the hypocrisy displayed at http://tinyurl.com/9pyfrhr, might also end.

Hottest Temperatures on Record?

In 1832, Charles Darwin measured the air temperature at noon daily in Rio de Janeiro. The mean was 75.9 °F (±3.9). In June 2010, it was a statistically significant 2 degrees cooler, 73.9 °F (±2.75) (TWTW 6/23/12). However, there were many record highs in the U.S. in the summer of 2012. The former proves nothing; the latter, everything, according to climate alarmists.

Media personalities such as Hal Ginsberg of KRXA 540 AM demands that we “deniers” of the claim that “we are burning up our mother” recant because “former skeptic” Richard Muller did so, based on the BEST study (see September 2011 issue).

Muller has been called a “pretend skeptic.” His daughter Elizabeth Muller, founder and director of the Berkeley Earth Team, registered GreenGov in 2008, and advises governments how to implement “green” policies and reduce their carbon footprints (http://tinyurl.com/blv4snr).

Links to critiques of the surface temperature record and of Muller’s argument are collected in TWTW 8/4/12 on sepp.org. For example, “Müller Lite: Why Every Scientist Needs a Classical Training” by Christopher Monckton, details logical fallacies such as the argumentum ad ignorantium. Ross McKitrick criticizes the statistical methods. Anthony Watts identifies bias from the misclassification of weather stations. Willis Eschenbach shows that cooling attributed to volcanic eruptions often precedes the eruption. Other critics include Roger Pielke and Andrew Montford.

Kirk Paradise and Henry Lamb, R.I.P.

American civil defense has lost one of its most capable advocates, Kirk Paradise, who revitalized the fallout shelter and radiologic monitoring programs in Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville remains the only county with civil defense in action. See videos at www.physiciansforcivildefense.org/huntsville.php.

Henry Lamb was the first to call attention to Agenda 21. Subsisting on cheap foodstuffs such as crackers, he broadcast reports from many UN conferences. He traveled the U.S., sleeping in his van. His 2002 talk at DDP, “Global Governance and the Future of the United States” is available at http://www. ddponline.org/ddp-audio-2002.php. An archive of his work is at www.freedom21.org.

Civil Defense Perspectives May 2012, Vol. 28 No. 4

To sell national or “universal” (that is, compulsory) health insurance,  “reformers” use individual hardship stories and statistical hype. Barack Obama claimed that medical costs cause a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren claimed that “at least” 46% of all bankruptcies had a medical cause in 2001, and that this represented a 23-fold increase over 20 years.

Although the statistics are flawed, the cost problem is real. The proposed solutions do not prevent bankruptcy, but rather assure it—for the existing medical system, and ultimately the whole economy. Flawed Analysis

Bankruptcy is caused by debt and the loss of the income required to service it. Single-payer advocates attribute bankruptcy to medical reasons if the debtor reported uncovered medical bills exceeding $1,000 in 2 years, or lost at least 2 weeks worth of income because of illness or injury. In contrast, a study at the University of California at Davis concluded that only 5% of bankruptcies were caused by medical problems (http://tinyurl.com/7muc7vy). Warren arrived at her startling increase by greatly broadening the definition of medical bankruptcy to include any filer who reported uncontrolled gambling, drug or alcohol addiction, or birth or adoption of a child (http://tinyurl.com/82epscl).

The Healthcare Bubble

A startling increase in health-related spending, however, is undeniable, and unsustainable. From around 10% of per capita income in 1970, it has accelerated to consume more than 30% of per capita income in 2010 (Arthur Robinson, Common Sense 2012).

In 2008, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimated national health expenditures at an average of about $7,800 per person, or more than $31,000 for a family of four. The Census Bureau estimated that almost one-fifth of U.S. households earn less income than their share of national health expenditures.  Clearly, U.S. citizens cannot afford this, writes Andrew Foy, M.D. (J Amer Phys Surg, summer 2012).

Foy writes: “The U.S. healthcare system is a huge bubble created by misguided U.S. government policies that are made possible by the U.S. government’s ability to borrow money at artificially low interest rates.”

Although national health insurance proponents like to blame the cost spiral on fee-for-service payment, the upward trend began around 1965, with the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid, and with the trend to replace out-of-pocket payment with third-party coverage, that is to shift responsibility from the individual to everyone in the insurance pool.

Between 1999 and 2011, government spending on healthcare increased by 240%,  while GDP increased only 62%. Since 1970, government spending on healthcare has increased 5,400%.

The so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or “ObamaCare”) pours in more billions of subsidies, heedless of the possibility of being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court or repealed by Congress. Just one example, the equivalent of six Solyndras, is $3.4 billion in loan guarantees to newly created state-sponsored insurers called Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, or CO-OPs. The White House predicts that 91% of the CO-OP loans will fail—and of course taxpayers will be stuck with the bill (http://tinyurl.com/7maxrf5).

When government spending on healthcare declines—as it must, “healthcare spending will decrease dramatically, healthcare prices will drop, revenues will decline, and profits for the healthcare industry and related industries will dry up,” Foy writes.

“The healthcare bubble will burst.”

Medicine will survive. But physicians will have to give patients what they value, instead of giving the medical-industrial complex what it values.

Medical Care Versus Healthcare

Decades ago, we purchased medical care, and paid at the time of service. Now, we buy “healthcare,” which means we are buying payments for a wide range of items marginally related to health, writes Ralph Weber. With a “medical loss ratio” of 80% for an insurance policy (80% of premiums paid out in claims), 20% is lost immediately. Since those premiums also finance contraception, wigs for cancer patients, and counseling for drug addicts, at least 40% is not paying for medical care. Today’s medical practices need to dedicate so many people to billing and administrative functions that the average practice overhead is more than 60%, so that in many cases out of $100 in premium, only $16 or less actually goes to the doctor providing care.

Single-payer advocates claim that Medicare is a model of efficiency, with only 3% going to “administration.” On the other hand, Deane Waldman, M.D., author of Uproot U.S. Healthcare, states that 40% of all the money the U.S. spent on “healthcare” in 2010 just disappeared. He added up all monies that went to anything or anyone associated with providing patient care: hospitals, nursing homes, professionals, pharmaceutical companies, wheelchair manufacturers, etc., and compared that number to the total amount listed under  “healthcare” in the federal budget.

True value can only be determined in a free marketplace. The best evidence that prices are excessive comes from real prices charged to self-paying patients and posted on the internet (www.surgerycenterok.com). These prices include the facility, the surgeon, and the anesthesiologist. Patients can pay five to ten times as much at most hospitals, even “nonprofits.” Dr. Smith goes to Washington to explain: http://tinyurl.com/7ke3ekw.

A Needed Correction

The unfunded liabilities of Medicare—promises made with no source of revenue to cover them—are variously estimated, but are probably at least $50 trillion, an amount that cannot possibly be paid. Medicare has been likened to PAC-Man, a mechanism for devouring the entire federal budget, and then the whole economy. Throughout the medical economy, misallocation of resources is at least 40%. Bankruptcy could be a short, sharp, painful shock leading to the necessary correction.

How Much Should You Pay for Medical Care?

The biggest reason for the medical spending spiral is the lack of straightforward information on prices and actual costs. Third-party payment with “assignment” of benefits (paying providers, not subscribers) disguises and increase costs.

Those feeding on the cash cow of third-party payment have a vested interest in keeping prices as high as possible—and true payment rates and costs a secret.

Self-paying patients are often quoted and billed the “chargemaster” price. This is at least three times what Medicare pays, and also much more than “providers” have agreed to accept from health plans. A generous-sounding “discount” of say 50% isn’t all that great when you’re starting with a price inflated by as much as tenfold.

When some people get a “discount,” other people pay more. How can self-paying patients protect themselves against bearing the brunt of cost-shifting? Why should they have to make up for underpayment by government plans, managed care, and irresponsible patients who don’t pay their bills?

Patients may resort to “re-pricing” or negotiation services or brokers. Beware: these services may be touted as “free,” but the negotiator collects a portion of the price or of the “savings.” We are aware of cases in which the negotiator got paid more than the surgeon! If the patient deals directly with the physician or the facility, then the total amount paid goes to people who cared for the patient, and the total amount of savings is kept by the patient.

It is best to determine the price before having the procedure. But even after having an emergency procedure, patients need not accept the bill without question. Collection agencies and lawyers are expensive, and so is delay. Direct, timely payment is in everyone’s best interest. Patients need to be armed with information about what a fair price would be. They need to talk to a person with the authority to make a deal, and offer prompt payment.

To get the astonishingly low prices posted by the Surgery Center of Oklahoma (see p. 1), the patient has to go to Oklahoma City and pay cash in advance. Other hospitals have, however, been known to match these prices. Some hospitals and physicians will agree to a package price for certain procedures.

Resources that may be useful:

MediBid.com. This matches patients and physicians or facilities for a nominal up-front fee.

Healthcarebluebook.com. Patient or physician can enter a procedure and search for a “fair” price, based on claims information. Expanded information is offered, for a fee, to self-funded employment plans.

AAPSonline.org. Direct-payment-friendly and third-party-free practices are listed under the “patients” tab. There are also links to Medicare carrier websites that list opted-out physicians by state (http://tinyurl.com/773547j).

Individual Facilities. In addition to anesthesiologist G. Keith Smith, M.D., (www.surgerycenterok.com), pioneers in direct-pay surgery are surgeons James Spearman, M.D.,  (www.travelsurgeryusa.com) and Keith Petersen, M.D. (www.noinsurancesurgery.com).

Federal government “reforms” move us toward more central control, more third-party payment, and more barriers to access—and more outsourcing to foreign lands, called “medical tourism.” Free-market reforms are essential to keeping medical care available here in the U.S., at a reasonable price.

End-of-Life Energy Subsidies

Medical spending at the “end of life” may be criticized as diverting money from “healthcare.” Such sickness care, of course,  prolongs the lives of many who would die quickly without it.

A different logic applies to environmentally correct energy projects that are economically nonviable when taken off life support. Charles Battig calls renewables “franken-energy.” Unlike Frankenstein’s creation, which received its life-force from lightning, franken-energy is recharged by political mandates and tax funding (The Week That Was 5/26/12, www.sepp.org).

“Emissions-free solar and wind energy, on which the U.K. plans increasingly to rely, are expensive,” writes Rael Jean Isaac. “The government estimates that a planned offshore wind farm project ringing the coast will cost £140 billion, or £5,600 ($8,972) for every household in the country. Conventional energy could provide the same amount of energy at 5% of the cost” (WSJ 6/5/12, http://tinyurl.com/79ecr72).

The opportunity cost for the UK’s subsidies to renewable is 10,000 lost jobs between 2009 and 2010 alone. Spain’s subsidies have cost 110,500 jobs. The healthiest economy in Europe, Germany’s, is also threatened.

“We’re destroying the foundations of our prosperity,” says Fritz Vahrenholt, former hero of the German environmental movement. “In the end what we are doing is putting the German automotive sector at risk, the steel, copper and chemical sectors, silicon, you name it” (ibid.).

“End” can be a verb as well as a noun. The environmental movement is not content with subsidizing its darlings, but wants to end—to kill—energy sources that work. Marita Noon asks, “Where will you be when the lights go out?” (http://tinyurl.com/77rg7b3). Having blocked new nuclear plants for 30 years, kept much of the U.S. off limits to oil drilling, and all but shut down new coal plants, the environmental lobby is now targeting natural gas, she notes.

By heavily regulating phantom risks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) saves phantom lives and imaginary dollars. But the real costs are driving us to bankruptcy and death.

For the mistake of telling it like it is, Al “Crucify Them” Armendariz resigned from the EPA. He was, however, “a perfect general for Mr. Obama’s war against natural gas” (WSJ 5/3/12, http://tinyurl.com/84xzo6z).

“Energy Abundance or Poverty: the Choice of the Century” is the theme for this year’s meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness at the Long Island Marriott, July 27-29. See enclosed flyer or register online at www.ddponline.org.

Bernard L. Cohen, R.I.P.

We have lost a great friend in Bernie Cohen, a brilliant scientist with integrity. He never let theory trump data. He set out to demonstrate the hazards of indoor radon, but his classic study, which covered most counties in the U.S., demolished the linear no-threshold hypothesis of radiation carcinogenesis (CDP, January 2000). Two of his presentations at DDP meetings, on radioactive waste disposal, are available at: www.ddponline.org/ddp-audio-2003.php and www.ddponline.org/ddp-audio-2006.php. Articles by Dr. Cohen published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons are in J Amer Phys Surg , Summer 2003 and Fall 2008. Books include Before It’s Too Late: A Scientist’s Case FOR Nuclear Energy.

Muslim countries can be an existential threat to Israel and pose a terrorist threat throughout the world—because of petrodollars. But the Middle East could “go back to being an obscure backwater,” as predicted by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post  3/21/12), if the rest of the world develops its own oil.

All told, Solomon writes, “some 38 countries in every continent in the world have 4.8 trillion barrels of shale oil, making oil a ubiquitous commodity that gives every region of the world the wherewithal to be energy self-sufficient.” Israel has some 250 billion barrels in one basin near Jerusalem, an amount comparable to Saudi Arabia’s reserves, he writes.

The concept of “Peak Oil”—the idea that the world is running out of “fossil fuel”—was the first rationale for global energy rationing, to be followed by the threat of a new ice age and then by global warming. And it still lurks, like the Undead. It is the foundation for the UK’s energy policy, which assumed that natural gas was insecure, limited, and therefore expensive enough to make every other generation technology competitive, writes Nick Grealy (No Hot Air 9/22/11, cited by CCNet 9/22/11).

Estimates of the potential of shale gas are not just game-changing, he says, but jaw-dropping, at least to the £2,000 per day energy consultants who consistently denied it while they were “living in a bubble of self-reinforcement.”

Oil and Gas Resources

When the Obama Administration says that the U.S. has only 20 billion barrels of oil in “proven” reserves, that is the amount recoverable from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions. It excludes areas that the U.S. federal government has declared off limits, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR),  federal waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, about 45% of the Gulf of Mexico, and federal lands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. According to the Institute for Energy Research, the U.S. has more than 1.4 trillion barrels recoverable with existing technology; Saudi Arabia has 260 billion (Washington Times 3/19/12).

The Bakken Shale (being tapped in North Dakota) was estimated to have only 150 million “technically recoverable barrels of oil” in 1995. By April 2008, the estimate had increased to 4 billion, and in 2010 to 8 billion. As technology advances, recoverable oil there could eventually exceed 500 billion barrels (WSJ 3/11/12, cited by TWTW 3/17/12, www.sepp.org).

China is thought to have 30 trillion cubic meters of recoverable shale gas, the largest repository of shale gas in the world (WSJ 3/16/12, TWTW 3/17/12).

Blackpool in northwest England has some 5.6 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in shale rock, more than in Iraq’s whole reserves, enough to supply the whole of the UK’s gas needs for 5 decades, according Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. (CCNet 1/11/12).

An Existential Threat to Green Dogma

Shale gas could bring about Britain’s “second energy revolution” and end the nation’s economic woes. If unchecked, however, the UK’s “dash for gas” would “endanger our carbon dioxide goals,” said then-energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne. It has reduced the cost of natural gas to less than $3 per thousand cubic feet (or million BTU) from a peak of $8 a few years ago—and makes windmills seem unaffordable.  Recovery depends on the use of hydraulic fracking, and environmental activists are calling on the UK to follow the lead of France in imposing a moratorium on fracking (WSJ 9/23/11).

The European Commission is studying whether current EU environmental laws apply to shale gas production (Fox Business News 9/22/11, cited by CCNet 9/23/11).

The Sierra Club and other environmental pressure groups are redoubling efforts to “stop fracking in its tracks.” Fortunately, writes Paul Driessen, much of U.S. shale gas is on private land, where it can’t be easily locked up by federal diktat (CFACT 3/29/12, http://tinyurl.com/7kmczrg). Also, in the U.S. private landowners can profit from developing this resource.

What Is “Fracking”?

Horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing has been used by petroleum engineers since the 1950s to extract both petroleum   and natural gas.  After a well is drilled, a wire with explosive charges is dropped into it to create fissures in the rock. Water, chemicals, and sand are pumped in under pressure to open channels and keep them open, so gas can flow out when the fluid is pumped out (http://tinyurl.com/6oytaum).

Environmentalists describe fracking as “reckless,” “dangerous,” and “poisonous,” and demand that shale gas development be stopped for further study of potential water pollution and seismic effects. Moratoria are in effect in Maryland, New York, and other states.

In fact, drilling and fracking have been carefully regulated by states for decades, Driessen writes (op. cit.).  There has never been a confirmed case of water pollution due to fracking. Rare instances of methane entering ground water are not from fracking but from failure of well integrity and can occur with water wells. Almost all the chemicals used today are also used in foods or cosmetics. The reported “earthquakes” have been barely detectable tremors near fracking sites.

According to Mike Stephenson, head of energy science at the British Geological Survey, the risk of earthquakes is low, and there are scientific tools to detect problems. Earthquakes stronger than 3.3 on the Richter scale, which typically cause no property damage, are unlikely, and most would be much weaker. The seismicity of coal mining is remarkably similar (Kari Lundgren, Bloomberg 1/10/12. CCNet 1/11/12).

Built on a Fault

The environmentalist agenda threatens earth-shaking consequences to Western civilization: war for oil, subservience to a hostile Russian regime threatening to cut off the gas supply,  societal upheaval from economic chaos. Apocalyptic scares—climate change, massive earthquakes, radiation peril—have led to suicidal policy. The agenda itself, however, built on fantasy, bad science, even outright lies, could be brought down by reality.  The prospect of affordable energy is fracturing the green foundation.

Training for Propagandists

The University of East Anglia (UEA), heart of the Climategate, is offering a new postgraduate course aimed at bringing together “researchers in the environmental sciences, philosophy, history and literature to develop new ways of thinking about environmental change and social transitions.” The cost: £5,000 for UK students, and £11,000 for overseas students. UEA already runs a project in “eco poetry” designed to “stimulate and strengthen children’s environmental awareness.”

“The dividing line between creative writing and climate science—sometimes thin—has been triumphantly dissolved, writes Andrew Orlowski (Register 4/2/12, cited in CCNet 4/3/11).

Numbers

• $6.8 million: fine paid by motor fuel suppliers for not using cellulosic biofuel that doesn’t exist (NYT 1/9/12).
• 80%: percentage of DOE loans for “green” energy that went to Obama backers (http://tinyurl.com/7urhqmv).
• $330 billion of $560 billion: portion of U.S. trade deficit for buying imported crude oil (TWTW 3/31/12, www.sepp.org).
• £1.2 million: amount paid to wind farm in UK to not produce electricity for 8.5 h, to avoid overloading the network during high winds; 10 times the value of the electricity that could have been produced (Sunday Telegraph 9/18/11).
• $17 billion: amount Chinese companies invested since 2010 in North American oil sands ventures (TWTW 3/17/12).
• > $2 billion: 2011 revenue of top environmentalist charities.
• $26.67 per gallon: amount U.S. Navy pays for biofuel, while jet fuel costs less than $4/gal (TWTW 12/31/11).
• > $1 trillion: cost of EPA regulations scheduled to take effect in the next few years, destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs (Texas Public Policy Foundation, February 2012).
• 8.7%: the percentage of name-plate capacity that is actually available in summer from wind turbines. During peak hour, available capacity may be as little as 1% (TWTW 2/11/12).
• 3 years: enough to build Trans-Alaska Pipeline; not enough for Obama to study Keystone proposal (TWTW 1/21/12).

Home Solar Schemes

Now being widely advertised, tempting deals for roof-top solar systems may be a way to subsidize Wall Street to buy Chinese solar panels, writes T. J. Rodgers (WSJ 12/8/11).

Installation is free—all you have to do is “sign a contract and write a check” (go.solarcity.com). The homeowner gives up the 30% federal tax credit and the depreciation, and agrees to buy power long-term from the limited liability company at just below market rates. After the 10-year payback, profits begin to roll in—to the LLC. As the end of the 20-year lifetime nears, a bank has likely locked in long-term profits and sold the LLC in a “solar-backed security.” Wall Street understands the time value of money; the federal government and consumer do not. By the way, one of the largest installers, SolarCity, uses the LLC strategy and buys its solar panels from the low-cost Chinese supplier, Yingli. Chinese manufacturers have been accused of “dumping” in the U.S.; a 4.73% tariff has been imposed, which is smaller than expected. SolarCity was denied a DOE loan guarantee.

Land Use Requirements

With 1960s’ productivity, it would have taken 8 billion acres to feed the world population in 1998, instead of  3.7 billion, states Indur Goklany. The saving of 4.3 billion acres is about the area of South America. Organic farming produces 29% less corn and 39% less wheat than conventional methods (WSJ 1/18/12).

A Real Stimulus

Against a background of four decades of decline, there has recently been a small increase in domestic production of petroleum (Energy Advocate, February 2012). More than 150,000 new oil and gas jobs have been added over the past 5 years. Some $145 billion will be spent drilling and completing new gas wells this year, up from $13 billion in 2000 (WSJ 2/2/12). Numerous sand mines are opening up to support the drilling. And manufacturing industries, including steelmakers, are returning to take advantage of lower energy costs.

Subsidies

Industries favored by the green lobby receive subsidies in the form of cash handouts. The “subsidy” received by the oil industry is a “tax subsidy,” that is tax deductions for the costs of doing business, most of which are also available to other industries. The effective tax rate (taxes as a share of net income) was 41% for oil and gas companies in 2010, compared with 26% for other manufacturers on the S&P Industrial index, and, before the 2009 Obama-Pelosi stimulus, -164% for wind and -249% for solar-thermal.  That is, the more power these alternatives generate, the more the taxpayer pays (WSJ 3/14/12, TWTW 3/17/12).

The Gulf Washing Machine

The rapid cleansing of the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill resulted from a fortuitous combination of ravenous bacteria, ocean currents, and local topography. Because the Gulf is bounded on three sides by land, currents don’t flow in one direction but slosh around as if trapped in a washing machine. The population of bacteria near the well grew, then was swept away by currents. But when the water circled back, still loaded with hungry bacteria, they mopped up another round of hydrocarbons, with the population increasing on every cycle (WSJ 1/10/12).

River on Fire—in 1783

Some believe that without the EPA, pollution would be so bad that rivers would catch fire. In fact, it has long been known that naturally occurring methane from river beds can be set aflame, and in 1783, Thomas Paine and George Washington decided to try an experiment. The results were published in 1819 (see http://sppiblog.org/news/6881):

“The muddy bottom of rivers contains great quantities of impure and often inflammable air (carbureted hydrogen gas), injurious to life; and which remains entangled in the mud till let loose from thence by some accident. This air is produced by the dissolution and decomposition of any combustible matter falling into the water and sinking into the mud….” The “research team” disturbed the mud with poles, then set the gas alight.

The Kyoto Protocol is due to expire in 2012, and the 17th annual Conference of Parties (COP-17) in Durban, South Africa,  which was supposed to extend it, appears to have reduced it to an empty shell.

After two weeks of partying at luxury hotels, some 10,000 delegates left with an agreement to meet again, writes Benny Peiser (CCNet 12/14/11). The BASIC countries—Brazil, South Africa, India, and China—achieved their goal of delaying any agreement on a replacement for Kyoto until at least 2015, and any actual actions to cut emissions until at least 2020.

India’s environment minister Jayanti Nataraj demanded to know: “How do I give a blank check signing away the livelihood rights of 1.2 billion members of our population?”

Within days after Durban, Canada became the first country to exercise its legal right to withdraw from Kyoto, which “could jeopardize any gains made at the Durban meeting,” according to an Indian official (India Today 12/14/11).

Withdrawing would save Canada about $14 billion in penalties for failing to meet its Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gases by 25% to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020.

According to Canada’s environment minister Peter Kent, “to meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads or closing down the entire…agricultural sector and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory and building in Canada” (ibid.).

Peace for All Time?

The objective is world government, writes Lord Christopher Monckton, who arrived at the meeting by parachute (http://tinyurl.com/7nsrb64), after initially being excluded. Monckton called attention to the 1,000 permanent bureaucracies established since Cancun, and the now 138-page draft treaty (http://tinyurl.com/6ocelap).

The Canute-like goal is to limit “global warming” to 1 °C above pre-industrial levels, which would “take us halfway back to the last Ice Age.” The CO₂ concentration target could be as low as 300 ppmv CO₂ equivalent, including all greenhouse gases, compared with current 560 ppmv. This implies reducing CO₂  itself to 210 ppmv, the level at which plants begin to die.

The proposed treaty (http://tinyurl.com/6r5ytu8) would disband military forces: “…all Parties shall cease all destructive activities that contribute to climate change, in particular the activities of warfare, production of materials and services that support warfare, and to divert associated financial resources and investments into the shared global effort to combat a common enemy: climate change” [§81].

The amount of funds to be made available annually to the developing Parties “shall be equivalent to the budget that developed countries spend on defence, security, and warfare” [§47].

The UN would be the global army and police. An “International Climate Court of Justice” would enforce the treaty. This kangaroo court would require Annex 1 (Western) countries to pay ever larger sums to UN bureaucrats, who would distribute the money as they saw fit. “Developing” countries could not be brought before the Court, no matter what.

Monckton predicted that eco-lunatics would send in troops to shut down entire industries for noncompliance with their UN treaty. He stated that they had sent goons into certain regions of Uganda, killed off the population, and declared the areas “carbon-free zones” (Ileana Johnson Paugh, Canada Free Press 12/13/11, http://tinyurl.com/7cyo6ss).

Starting in 2013/14, the world government will require extensive reports from Western nations on “greenhouse-gas emission inventories” and on financial contributions, which are viewed as reparations for climate crimes, to aid climate mitigation efforts by Third-World countries. Monckton notes that “the inexorable increase in compulsory reporting was one of the mechanisms by which the unelected Kommissars of the anti-democratic European Union acquired absolute power over the member states.” EU advisors, he states, have been coaching the UN in the use of similar techniques to centralize global power.

De-railing the Train

A few things happened on the way to the climate apocalypse. First, the financial apocalypse: “The notion that rich (or formerly rich) countries are going to ship $100 billion every year to the Micronesias of the world is risible, especially after they have spent it all on Greece” (Bret Stephens, WSJ 11/29/11).

Then there was Climategate, with its “watered-down” predictions. A new religion “cannot easily survive more than a few ounces of self-doubt” (ibid., quoted in TWTW 12/3/11). “Climategate did for the global warming controversy what the Pentagon Papers did for the Vietnam War 40 years ago. It changed the narrative decisively.” writes Steven Hayward (Weekly Standard 12/12/11). And the sequel “is as ugly as the original.”

A handful of dubious messages might be explained by “context,” he writes. “But they are so numerous that it doesn’t require an advanced degree in pattern recognition to make out that these emails constitute not just a ‘smoking gun’ of scientific bias, but a belching howitzer.” More so than the 2009 batch, “these emails make clear the close collaboration between the leading IPCC scientists and environmental advocacy groups, government agencies, and partisan journalists.”

“It. Isn’t. Happening.” But…

Monckton reports that plopping these three pebbles into conversations at Durban produced ripples of aghast silence:  No statistically significant warming for 15 years; rebounding Arctic sea ice; little 30-year trend in global sea ice; five times as many polar bears as 70 years ago; and a growing Kilimanjaro glacier, which had been losing ice since 1880.

Monckton warns against complacency, however. Those cashing in on the scam will not just fade away. They want to turn the billions now flowing into trillions. Failure of a treaty will not stop inside operators, who are putting together potent, costly side agreements that will allow them to work around obstacles such as the U.S. Senate (CFACT 12/2/11, http://tinyurl.com/8yzu269  and http://tinyurl.com/7j82xtf).

Post-Durban Christmas Ditty

On the first day of Doomsville, alarmists gave to me:

12 Days in Durban

11 Journos hyping

10 Temps-not-Leaping

9 Mann’s-a-Dancing

8 Economies-busting

7 Seas-not-rising

6 Carbon phobias

5 thousand e-mailed things [Climategate II]

4 Absurd reports

3 Skeptic “birds”

2 Climate-gates

And a message entirely fact-free!

                Peter C. Glover, Energy Tribune 12/13/11 

Global Warming Windfalls

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has counted up 641 programs in place at 130 federal agencies in 2010 to prop up windmill technology and underwrite solar panel manufacturers. It could not provide a reliable estimate of cost to the taxpayers from the loans, tax credits, purchase of “green” vehicles, and regulations (Washington Times 3/19/12).

Gems from the 5,000 Emails

“I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run”  (Peter Thorne of NOAA to Phil Jones, 2005).

“We’ve picked up a number of people from developing countries so IPCC can claim good geographic representation…. As CLAs [contributing lead authors]…we are working with about 50% good people who can write reasonable assessments and 50% who probably can’t” (Phil Jones, 2004).

“It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions [about the IPCC’s summary for policy makers] are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group” (Timothy Carter, Finnish Environmental Institute, 2000—Hayward, op. cit.).

“The data does not matter. We are not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models” (Chris Folland, Hadley Centre).

“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful” (David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University).

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world” (Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment—CFP op. cit.).

“The important thing is to be sure they’re [climate skeptics] are losing the PR battle” (Michael Mann).

Nobelist Quits APS in Protest

Dr. Ivar Giaever, 1973 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics for his discoveries related to tunneling in superconductors, resigned from the American Physical Society because of his objection to the APS position on global-warming fears. The APS insists on calling evidence that anthropogenic emissions of CO₂ are warming the planet “incontrovertible.” This word is rarely used in science, Giaever said, “because by its very nature, science questions prevailing ideas.”

He writes: “The claim…is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have improved in this ‘warming’ period.”

Worst Ever Climate Story

The weather is becoming more erratic by the year, reported Justin Gillis (NYT 12/24/11), with three or four disasters each year whose costs exceed $1 billion. A major question is whether extreme events are linked to human-caused global warming—now often called “climate change” or “climate disruption.”

Benjamin Santer claims that “we are changing the large-scale properties of the atmosphere—we know that beyond a shadow of a doubt.” And “you can’t engage in this vast planetary experiment…and have no impact on the frequency and duration of extreme events.” We could find out more if Washington would fund more research, but money is tight, and “the political environment for new climate-science initiatives has turned hostile.”

Even though he thinks that the media overall does a good job on climate reporting, Roger Pielke, Jr., thinks this story is “breathtakingly bad” (http://tinyurl.com/7wv3u6r). He notes:

• $1 billion in 2011 is about the same as $400 million in 1980. After adjusting for inflation, damage in 1980 was about the same as in 2011.
• The most powerful tornadoes, which cause almost all of the damage, have decreased in the past 50 years.
• NOAA has a robust climate attribution effort, ignored in the article. It has found no evidence of causality from increasing greenhouse gases. The IPCC also contradicts much of what the article says on climate extremes.

How Science Works

“In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong” (Richard Feynman, cited by William Happer, WSJ 3/26/12). Happer writes that when observations fail to conform to the UN IPCC models, “Feynman has told us what conclusions to draw about the theory.”

The Durban Delusion

By Feb 28, 2012, countries around the world were supposed to submit their follow-up reports to Durban, on a “work plan on enhancing mitigation ambition.” By mid-March only 19, including the U.S.,  had done so. “Gone is the spirit of compromise,” laments Sonja van Renssen (European Energy News 3/26/12, http://tinyurl.com/6w2dhr9). China has returned to the “rhetoric of old.” The bottom-up approach is proving to be insufficient. A “top-down” approach, like in the EU, is needed: a legally binding, enforceable treaty.

The situation is similar with hurricanes (see July 2011 issue). Every year that a hurricane is a “near miss,” Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Long Island go into deeper denial. These regions are potential death traps because bridges and roads cannot handle a normal hurricane evacuation. Long Island could experience tens of thousands of drownings, as its preparedness exists on paper only. In downtown Providence, Rhode Island, there is a high-water mark of 17 ft on one of the buildings. In a category 3 hurricane, 29 Long Island towns would be completely submerged.

In the 10 years since 9/11, America has gone into a deeper sleep than before, Jones states. “Since the 2007 financial collapse, we are more like zombies, not afraid of dying because we have already died.”

Intervention

“The work we are doing is not academic, or reform,” Jones writes. “It is intervention, in an attempt to alter an otherwise disastrous outcome.” In 2009, Jones visited every congressional office with civil defense information (see January 2010 issue). Having now seen the poverty and blight of rural America from a bicycle, he compares the lavish livings of congressmen and Washington, D.C., bureaucrats to the excesses of the French aristocracy in 1789. Like the court of Louis XVI, Congress is totally out of touch with the Americans  it purports to represent.

Jones has concluded that it is now futile to work with policymakers. We must instead work directly with those who respond to disaster. “In spite of the somnambulism of the country, our front-line responders are awake. Police and firefighters always welcome the 60-second training cards.”

Freight Bicycles

During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong moved tons of materiel through the jungle by freight bicycle. Kirk Paradise provides detailed instructions on how to rig bicycles to serve as a “wheeled porter” system in the Journal of Civil Defense, Issue 2, 2011. (Subscribe at www.tacda.org.) Jones says bicycles with big tires work best. Remove the pedals and the seat, and place a pole through the seat tube. You push the bicycle with the pole, and use the handlebars for steering. You could carry up to 500 lbs this way, in contrast to the 35 lbs you might be able to carry in a backpack. The bicycle would serve when roads are blocked or damaged, or fuel unavailable. Paradise suggests preparing a conversion kit for each bicycle and storing it with the load-carrying pole and your 72-hour kit and other gear. He reports being able to make the conversion within 6 minutes.

Totally Vulnerable to EMP

As the U.S. becomes ever more dependent on the electric grid and on electronics for both civilian and military functions, it becomes more vulnerable to attack by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) or radiofrequency (RF) weapons. Telecommunications, banking, financial, and navigation systems could be “fried” by a turn of a switch, according to a Dept. of Defense and a communications system engineer, who spoke on condition of anonymity (F. Michael Maloof, G2 Bulletin 9/9/11).

Previously, concern centered on an attack by the Soviet Union or China. The Chinese currently claim to be developing an EMP bomb for their DF-21 “carrier killer” missiles. Iran and North Korea are both producing missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead for explosion high in the atmosphere, destroying electronic systems over a wide area. A solar storm could have the same effect. Local effects could be produced by an RF weapon mounted on a pickup truck. This could be constructed from technology available at Radio Shack. One application might be to disable vehicles on bridges into Washington, D.C., or Manhattan, creating massive congestion and chaos.

The U.S. has neglected to devote the attention and resources needed to address the problem, and is now further hampered by the fact that engineers with needed expertise have retired. Moreover, there is no way to test protective measures now that the U.S. allows no nuclear detonations of any kind.

Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, by unanimous consent, an act similar to the SHIELD Act, which would have required utilities to protect large transformers against EMP, but the bill died in the Senate (GCOR, October 2011).

According to a report by Bob Ferguson to the American Legislative Exchange Council on Dec 2, 2011, a special commission to Congress estimated that two-thirds to 90% of the U.S. population would be dead a year after an EMP attack shut down the electric power grid.

At any opportunity, you might ask candidates for political office (national, state, and local) what they plan to do about this.

Totally Reliable Mercenaries

According to financial analyst Richard Maybury, the U.S. soldier of the century is a mercenary, presumably Iraqi or Afghani (see January 2011 issue), and there is concern about loyalty. “No robot has ever committed treason,” he notes.

Robots or drones have other advantages too: low cost and low risk to personnel. Defense Secretary Robert Gates specifically exempted drones from future budget cuts.

The latest technology with the potential to change the nature of warfare is the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can monitor enemy activity, intercept and disrupt communications, and launch missiles on the command of operators thousands of miles away.

Newly developed drones can actually be weapons themselves—miniature guided missiles. One example is the “Switchblade” (see www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/tiny-kamikaze-drone/).

Others want them too, and Iran is likely doing some reverse engineering on “an intruding RQ-170 American drone” downed in eastern Iran with “minimal damage.” The RQ-170 Sentinel is an unarmed stealth surveillance aircraft (MailOnline 12/5/11).

Some claim that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s cyber-warfare unit hacked the drone’s flight controls.

Using U.S. Predator drones for intelligence, the Turkish air force allegedly killed 35 civilians, mistaking them for rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Many of the civilians might have been smuggling diesel fuel (CBSNews.com 12/31/11).

Police drones will soon start appearing in American skies, predicts Jim Powell (GCOR Nov/Dec 2011). And private citizens have them too (http://www.diydrones.com/).

Civil Defense Perspectives September 2011, Vol. 27 No. 6

Data should have killed the anthropogenic catastrophic global warming hypothesis, along with many other radical environmentalist policies, but lies have powerful protectors—including recipients of more than $32.5 billion in federal  funding for climate studies between 1989 and 2009, plus $79 billion more for climate change technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks for “green energy” (PFW-Tucson, September 2011).The BEST Study

Published shortly before the 2011 climate summit in Durban, South Africa (coincidentally?), the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project shows a 1.6 °F temperature rise between 1950 (a record-cold year) and 2000. Its director, reputed skeptic Richard Muller, stated that the study “proved that you shouldn’t be a skeptic, at least not any longer.” The Washington Post wrote that the BEST study had “settled the climate change debate” and that any remaining skeptic was a “cynical fraud.”

Prof. Muller himself, however, as Dr. Fred Singer points out,  emphasizes that the BEST data are only from land (30% of earth’s surface), and from poorly distributed sites mostly in the U.S. and western Europe. He admits that 70% of the U.S. stations are poorly sited, and others are probably worse. Furthermore, he disclaims knowledge of the cause of the warming.

The second named author of the BEST papers, Judith Curry, chairman of the Dept. of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said her colleagues appear to be trying to “hide the decline” in an affair comparable to the Climategate scandal (Mail on Sunday 10/30/11).

“There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,” she said. Note that the BEST graph stops in 2000.

BEST and the WP present a graph with a compressed 200-year x-axis, and a stretched y-axis to accentuate differences. Plotting monthly data from BEST’s own archives for 2001–2010 gives “a statistically perfect straight line of zero gradient,” writes David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (CCNet Special 10/30/11). Muller states that the lack of recent warming might be from a change in ocean oscillations. If so, then in another phase these oscillations would intensify the warming—yet the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has dismissed ocean oscillations as a possible cause of warming (The Week That Was 11/5/11, see www.sepp.org).

Climategate II

Another leak of emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia shows that the “team” largely responsible for preparing the IPCC report was very aware that the warming of the troposphere above the tropics—the distinct human fingerprint—was not occurring as predicted by models. Ben Santer et al. apparently tried to cover up the disparity by expanding error bars of measurements (TWTW 11/26/11).

Some 5,300 emails were released this time, and reportedly there are more than 200,000 encrypted behind a very difficult-to-crack code (ibid.).

Dr. Singer suggests it is a good time to re-read John Brignell’s 2009 essay, www.numberwatch.co.uk/lying.htm:

How We Know They Are Lying

For help in distinguishing those who are deliberately lying from those who are merely deluded, Brignell quotes fictional detective M. Maigret: “The clever ones always leave a clue.”

“We can identify the ‘scientists’ who habitually lie by the fact that they produce, on time, results that are never unexpected and always conform to the establishment-sponsored theory,” writes Brignell. “Real science is never that predictable.”

Until recent times, there was no circumstance in science in which a deliberate falsehood was acceptable. That has changed with the rise of authoritarian government and monopoly of funding—and the global warming religion. The clues include:

Secrecy. British “researchers” refused to yield up their calculations to scrutiny on the grounds that “you only want to criticize.” Albert Einstein, in contrast, passed his results onto Eddington so that a critical test could be devised.

Rewriting the past. Astute observers noticed that historical temperatures were changing, almost always upward.

Ratchet reporting (overplaying heat waves, barely mentioning record cold) and outright censorship.

Mass Killing

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is reportedly being implemented through brute force.

In Honduras, 23 farmers were allegedly murdered when they tried to recover land they claimed had been illegally sold to palm oil plantations to obtain carbon credits to use in the ETS. Several members of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) executive board reported feeling “personally distressed,” but since the deaths occurred after the stakeholder consultations had been held, they were powerless to block project registrations. An EU official said that including human rights abuses in CDM assessments would be “very difficult.”

“If this really is a direct consequence of Europe’s climate policies then I would like to send my sincere apologies to the people of Honduras,” said Bas Eikhout, a Green member of the European parliament (MEP) (CCNet 10/2/11).

In Uganda, armed troops killed children and burned houses to the ground in the process of seizing land for reforestation. Troops were acting on behalf of New Forests Company, a British carbon trading company backed by the World Bank. The government and company said “the settlers were illegal and evicted for good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming.” Some 20,000 people have been “resettled”—in a “peaceful, voluntary” way (NY Times 9/23/11).

Harder to count are the lives and opportunities lost because of the soft tyranny of the regulatory regime being imposed throughout the world, based on pseudo-scientific fraud.

The Undead Persist

“Failures of climate models have failed to kill climate alarmism,” writes Howard Hayden. “Like Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, the ‘climate change’ scare sucks the blood out of civilization, and like Count Dracula, ‘climate theory’ is undead because it does not exist” (The Energy Advocate, October 2011).

Historical Precedent

“James Hansen, notorious among global warming critics as a ruthless fudger of data,” writes Brignell, “blew the gaff in the euphoria of the Green takeover in the USA, by admitting that the main issue was the redistribution of wealth.”

Dr. Lawrence Huntoon writes that we should pause to remember the 78th anniversary of the Holodomor, the Soviet-imposed famine of 1932-1933. “In the ‘occupy’ movement of the time, the Bolsheviks, including Stalin, declared that they were going to take from the rich, and by the way kill them, so that wealth could be redistributed to create a workers’ paradise.”

On August 7, 1932, the Law of Spikelets declared that food was “socialist property.” Peasants caught eating food were deemed guilty of theft of socialist property and were subject to the death penalty. Starvation was used as a weapon of mass destruction against Ukrainians who wanted to preserve their national identity. “They threw food in the ocean, but wouldn’t give it to the people,” writes Jay Tokasz (Buffalo News 11/20/11).

Among the famine deniers were French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot and British journalist Walter Duranty, who was Moscow bureau chief for the NY Times. In 2003, the Pulitzer Prize Board decided not to revoke Duranty’s 1932 Pulitzer Prize, stating that there was no “clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception,” and the specific articles submitted for the prize were not about the famine. Duranty had traveled the countryside and was a first-hand witness to the atrocities that claimed 10 million human victims.

Poor People Starved to Grow Auto Fuel

This year, for the first time, American farmers will harvest more corn for ethanol than for feed. In Europe, 50% of rapeseed production is                 going into biofuel, along with 18% of the world’s sugar. While an increase in the price of food is an annoyance in the U.S., in places where people spend 80% of their income on food, hundreds of millions go hungry. And some revolt.

“What we call today the Arab Spring really started as a protest against ever-increasing food prices,” stated Nestlé’s CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe (WSJ 9/3/11).

Politicians claim they want to replace 20% of the energy market through the food market. The energy market, however, is 20 times the size of the food market, in terms of calories, stated Brabeck-Lemanthe (ibid.).

Allocating several thousand hectares of land in Swaziland to ethanol production while the country was in the grip of a famine was called a “crime against humanity” (CCNet 9/23/11).

Bird Deaths

In North Dakota, 28 dead migratory birds were found near waste oil lagoons. Continental Resources is accused of violating the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act because it killed one Phoebe’s Say, a crime punishable by a $15,000 fine and up to 6 months in prison.  Some 440,000 birds are killed each year by wind turbines, but there have been no federal prosecutions (WSJ 9/29/11).

Near Pittsburgh, 35 wind turbines have to be shut down at night because an endangered bat was found dead near one of them. The mode of death is most likely encountering an air pressure drop that causes the lungs to explode. When hibernation season starts, turbines may begin to turn again (AP 10/18/11).

Heating Versus Eating

In London, more than one in four people are struggling to pay their energy costs as prices rise and the fuel poverty allowance is cut. Between 2004 and 2009, domestic energy prices increased by more than 75%, and gas prices by more than 122%. “For a lot of pensioners, you either heat or you eat,” said George Durack of the Islington Pensioners’ Forum. “Elderly people could die if something is not done” (CCNet 9/20/11).

Green Subsidies a “Disgrace”

While the British government is committed to a target of generating 15% of its energy from renewable sources (an increase from 6.6% now), Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, articulated what many ordinary people think about wind farms: He called them a “disgrace.” More valuable than the inefficient, unreliable power the turbines generate are the Renewable Obligations Certificates that wind farm speculators can sell (CCNet 11/21/11).

Europe’s “unsustainable and chaotic green energy policy” is a lose-lose proposition for all except financial players, writes Andrew McKillop (CCNet 9/20/11). Owing to lack of distribution capability, wind power is already overcapacity at times of peak output, and the excess must simply be shed or wasted.

Corruption and Hidden Agendas

It appears that the BBC “has relentlessly promoted the global warming orthodoxy as a pressure group in its own right,” writes Christopher Booker (Sunday Telegraph 11/20/11). Among the sources of improper sponsorship is Envirotrade, which is cashing in on selling “carbon offsets.”

Climategate II emails show Hockey Stick inventor Michael Mann casting about for ways to smear Steve McIntyre (WSJ 11/28/11). Meanwhile, it is revealed that alarmist-in-chief James Hansen “forgot” to report $1.6 million in outside income, as required by government contracts (http://tinyurl.com/7xcvdxy).

A scathing exposé reveals that the IPCC has pervasive ties with green activists, and that its supposedly authoritative work relies to a large extent on graduate students with little experience in their field. In her book The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert, Canadian freelancer Donna Lafromboise documents how the “reviewers” of the IPCC report are blocked, ignored, or even threatened if they ask for data to back up a claim. An audit of the 2007 IPCC report found that one-third of the 18,531 citations were from non-peer-reviewed literature, including activist reports and even press releases.

Aborting Jobs

The discovery of some 200 trillion cu ft of shale gas beneath northwest England is being greeted with—dismay. Cheap, abundant gas threatens the frail, heavily subsidized “green” energy sector—and “carbon dioxide goals.” England may follow the French in banning the use of hydraulic fracturing (“frocking”). This would abort a Canadian or North Dakota style “jobs gusher” that could create new opportunities or prevent the loss of energy-intensive industries. Rio Tinto Alcan is closing its Northumberland plant, and steel giant Tata says new investment is threatened by “green” policies (Energy Tribune 11/23/11).

When Stephen Jones asked Arizona firefighters whether they had a plan for nuclear attack, they answered, “No.” Any instruments for measuring radiation? With few exceptions: “No.” That is no longer the situation in Arizona–in any jurisdiction that lacks an obstructive bureaucracy.The latest government Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation, released Jan 19, 2009, confirms that local jurisdictions will be on their own: “There will be no significant Federal response at the scene for 24 hours and the full extent of Federal assets will not be available for up to 72 hours” (Homeland Security Council Interagency Policy Coordination Subcommittee for Preparedness & Response to Radiological and Nuclear Threats).

Yet virtually all lifesaving measures will have to be undertaken immediately. And there is no indication in the new Administraton’s Homeland Security agenda of new federal assets to respond to nuclear detonation–only aspirations for a “nuclear-free world.”

Thus, Physicians for Civil Defense has created a radiological monitoring net covering the state of Arizona, a model that can be emulated throughout the U.S. It rests on the back-up default plan for situations like now, in which there is no plan–the situation foreseen by visionaries like Cresson Kearny and Conrad Chester, who created and tested the expedient Nuclear War Survival Skills (NWSS) methods, such as the KFM (Kearny fallout meter), for use by ordinary Americans.

The Arizona Nuclear War Survival Skills Tour

Our crew–Stephen Jones, Kevin McDonald, and Logan Connor–drove 5,000 miles, visited about 145 fire stations, photographed more than 400 firefighters with NWSS, sent press releases to 50 newspapers, and did personal interviews with 20 reporters. Expecting to have many doors slammed in their faces, this happened only once outside major urban areas; response was overwhelmingly positive. Our volunteers were asked on the spot to participate in ongoing training sessions, and even to return to do a special session.

The message is simple and compelling: “It works. You can do it.” Firefighters instantly connected with Steve’s teaching tool: an Indian weather stone. The stone hangs from a frame by a leather strip, with instructions: “If the stone is wet, it’s raining. If the stone is white, it’s snowing. If the stone is moving, the wind is blowing.”

If the leaves of the KFM are moving together, there’s radiation. If they’re not moving, there is no radiation danger.

Radiation becomes an understandable, easily measurable natural phenomenon, rather than a terrifying demon.

The first 35 pages of the manual explain nuclear weapons effects, essential protective measures, and the radiation decay curve (7/10 rule). Devastating as nuclear weapons are, people outside the lethal zone can survive–if they do not panic.

The Emergency Nuclear Attack Kit provided to each jurisdiction contains: the manual (NWSS), a factory-made KFM stored in a small paint can with extra silica gel, a plexiglass charging device, and instructions for building a KFM; a zip-lock bag with everything needed to make a KFM except the tin can; and a NukAlert with instruction manual. Firefighters are asked to download and print out their own copies of NWSS.

Steve Jones and Jane Orient previously distributed NukAlerts to a number of fire districts in Arizona, as well as many in other states who requested them. For two years now, the Marana fire district has had a NukAlert on a key chain in every engine–and firefighters are proud to show them. We concluded, however, that a change in strategy is needed.

The foundation of the plan has to be NWSS. There are not enough NukAlerts–or other comparable electronic instruments–in existence to supply the need, and it will be impossible to manufacture enough quickly. The KFM is America’s main instrument. NukAlerts complement the KFM and will do the most good in the hands of first responders who are part of a regional monitoring net. Firefighters in Yuma can now call Window Rock, San Luis, or any other Arizona town and find out the radiation level on the ground.

Videographer Kevin McDonald created slide shows of the Arizona tour and videotapes of training sessions, which can be viewed at www.physiciansforcivildefense.org. You can also access them on www.YouTube.com. Search on “Physicians for Civil Defense” or “roadman911.” A long-range project is to incorporate these and other materials into a civil defense documentary for wide distribution.

The total cost of the 5-week tour was about $100,000, if one considers retail cost of the donated materials. We thank KI4U for NukAlerts, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine for the NWSS manuals, KI4U and Doctors for Disaster Preparedness for cash donations, and others.

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What Next?

There are about 23,000 jurisdictions in the U.S. small enough to be receptive to receiving a NWSS emergency kit. It would cost from $8 million to $12 million to supply each with a kit, depending on distribution method. We would like to start by buying up the existing inventory of KFMs and NukAlerts, at a price that would generate new production, so that we could supply a kit to every jurisdiction that requested one for firefighters, emergency managers, or law enforcement. We intend to start there, to the extent that funds are donated.

In the meantime, we will refine our tools to improve the self-training nature of the program. Americans need to make their own KFMs–the kit is a model and an incentive.

America should have a real civil defense program, with well-stocked blast shelters. NWSS could eventually spark this, or at least a revival of a shelter program like that in Huntsville, Alabama. In the meantime, it is the only feasible starting point that we can see. It could save millions directly, and indirectly by helping to keep 5 million essential workers on the job.

A small investment in information and simple technology could potentially mean the ability of America to recover from a devastating, increasingly likely nuclear blow. The more kits there are in your region, the safer your family is. Contact us if you want to help us supply your state or area: 520.325.2689.

50% Chance of Nuclear Detonation?

A nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. is a better than even bet in the next 10 years, stated Graham Allison, a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense. The illicit economy for narcotics and illegal alien trafficking has built up a vast infrastructure that could be exploited to deliver a nuclear weapon. Former president Bush, vice president Cheney, and the 9/11 Commis­sion all concluded that a nuclear terrorist attack was not only the nation’s worst nightmare, but a virtual inevitability.

A study by the Center for Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia concluded that a concerted effort to teach civilians what to do could save countless lives (World NetDaily 7/6/07).

Russia Combat Ready

According to President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking to the Federal Assembly Nov 5, “Our Armed Forces have been restored to combat potential to a considerable degree.” Three Russian missile regiments will not be disbanded as previously decided; the Iskander missile system will be deployed to Kaliningrad to “neutralize” NATO deployment of ABMs in Poland; and ABM bases will be electronically jammed (J.R. Nyquist, Financial Sense.com 11/14/08).

A Credible Deterrent?

The week before the November 2008 election, defense secretary Robert Gates called for putting the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program into operation, noting that the nation’s current arsenal–mostly produced in the 1970s and 1980s–may be becoming unreliable. This appears to be at odds with Obama’s promise to develop “no new nuclear weapons” (Time 1/26/09).

Recent U.S. incidents have focused attention on the neglect of nuclear forces, and a lack of understanding of nuclear deterrence at the Pentagon. “If adversaries believe the U.S. deterrent is weak, they might be tempted to use nukes against us or threaten to do so” (Wall St J 1/24-25/09). In addition, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger notes that if the 30-plus countries relying on the U.S. nuclear umbrella lose confidence, some might decide to acquire their own nuclear arsenal. That’s precisely the opposite of the nuclear-free-world argument that others would disarm if the U.S. did so.

Food Storage Tips

Sealing food in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers for long-term storage has had disappointing results because the bags tend to spring leaks–or rodents might gnaw a hole in them. Thus it is best to place your bags in a plastic bucket with a lid. The use of an iron to seal the bag is shown at www.yout­ube. com/watch?v=fk9b0dAtJ80. Note that wheat and beans stored in this way will be edible long term but will not sprout.

A Sign of Hard Times

An estimated 40,000 people came to a Colorado family farm on a single day to collect free potatoes, carrots, and leeks. The family decided to give away produce because they had a lot left over after the fall festival, and any day a deep freeze could kill it off. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people had been expected, spread out over several days (Denver Post 11/23/08).

A Response to a Global Warmist

“Reflections” on an interview with Jonathan Overpeck, KUAT, Arizona Illustrated, Jan 20, 2009

The global warming scare will change your life if the alarmists prevail. They demand policies that would shut down half the electricity in the United States. Coal-generated power cannot be replaced by windmills and solar panels, no matter how much of our land we carpet with these expensive eyesores and their transmission lines.

To force you to reduce your “carbon footprint,” the UN wants the power to keep you from driving your car, heating or cooling your home, or even having a baby. Enron-style cap-and-trade schemes, or a carbon tax, would enrich tax collectors and companies like Al Gore’s–and drive most Americans into poverty. These are not modest, sensible insurance policies; these are economy-wrecking, freedom-ending, radical schemes to empower tyrannical world government.

Do we have to do it to save the Planet? The idea that human beings can influence climate is not new. In the Middle Ages, thousands of women were burned at the stake as witches to protect against bad weather. Now we don’t have witches but we do have Al Gore’s movie showing a cartoon of wicked greenhouse gas demons beating up on poor Mr. Sunbeam.

The earth is warmer now than in 1776, and the temperature is now close to the 3,000-year average. The weather was much nicer during the Medieval Warm Period, when vineyards thrived in England.

Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has increased steadily since around 1900, but the slope of the temperature curve since 1776 hasn’t changed. There have been fluctuations in the temperature curve, and those correlate very well not with CO2, but with solar activity.

CO2 is a very weak greenhouse gas. Its possible effect on temperature is negligible. The important effect of the increased level in the atmosphere is that the Earth is significantly greener. CO2 is Nature’s recycling molecule. It is plant food. Restricting CO2 means starving plants, and thus animals and human beings.

Dr. Overpeck and his UN IPCC colleagues didn’t predict that global warming would take a break starting around 1998. But the snow in Baghdad and other record lows are “just weather,” they say. We should still trust their computer models: Catastrophic warming will soon resume, unless we repent and stop using affordable, available fuels.

Some 32,000 American scientists, plus increasing numbers of former IPCC scientists disagree with Gore and Overpeck. The global warmers’ answer is that if you disagree with them, you’re not really a scientist. Pay no attention to the evidence–or to the man behind the curtain, they say: just believe in the Wizard. Jane M. Orient, M.D.

Reflections on Terrorism in Mumbai

From a posting by Butler Shaffer (LewRockwell.com/blog, 11/30/08), “How Gun Control Laws Contributed to the Mum-bai Slaughter”: After the mutiny of 1857, the British systematically disarmed the Indian masses and destroyed the means of local firearm production. Gandhi wrote: “Among the…misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.” Said the Dalai Lama: “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”