Recycling is not the religion I practice. That's my answer to the recycling Nazis when the topic arises. Here's a post that gives you eight more answers to recycling myths.

(i changed the headline which cited 10 myths)

Britain dealing with worst flooding since 1947

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is blaming the flooding on climate change caused by carbon-fuel emissions and on the country's outdated infrastructure.

"Like every advanced industrialized country, we are coming to terms with some of the issues surrounding climate change," Brown said Monday.

I ask again, how do you explain the 1947 flooding? I also ask, why 1947? Was there worse flooding in the early 20th century? It would certainly appear so by the date chosen.

(cross posted at The London Fog)

Global Warming News So Stupid It's Funny

In st. John's, Newfoundland when you call the number listed in the phone book for the Mayors' Office, Mayor Andy Wells, the mayor , answers the phone. It's not his assistant or an automated operator, it's the mayor himself. Never a stranger to controversy he has now made a statement, which I consider to be one his least controversia, which is apparently causing some controversy:

Andy Wells, the outspoken Mayor of St. John's, pictured, has outraged Canadian environmentalists and physicians with his comments that David Suzuki and Al Gore are "junk scientists," and that herbicides in small amounts are safe. From St. John's to Ottawa, Calgary and Burnaby, B.C., communities across the country continue to debate cosmetic pesticide and herbicide use and whether it should be allowed. But while passions often come to the fore in the arguments over whether the chemical treatments for lawn care are safe, it's unlikely that many have stated the case as bluntly as does Mr. Wells. "I think there's a lot of junk science out there that's masquerading as true science,'' the Mayor said yesterday.

Yeah, it is junk science based on nothing. There is not a serious study to show any harmful effects but the fear mongerers continue to spread fear and line their pockets with suckers' money.

Another crank, this one with the dubious distinction of being the United States lead hurricane forecaster, says that computer modeling is a flawed way to view climate change...apparently, it's the ocean that is affecting the climate, not mankind:

THE United States' leading hurricane forecaster says global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming.

William Gray, a Colorado State University researcher, also said the Earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

.....

Earlier this month, he dubbed former US vice-president and 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore "a gross alarmist" for making the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which helped focus media attention on global warming.

Yesterday, Dr Gray said that politics and research into global warming had created "almost an industry" that had frightened the public and overwhelmed dissenting voices.

He said research arguing that humans were causing global warming was "mush" based on unreliable computer models that could not possibly take into account the hundreds of factors that influenced the weather.

He said little-understood ocean currents were behind a decades-long warming cycle, and disputed assertions that greenhouse gases could raise global temperatures as much as some scientists predicted.

What does he know? All the real scientists are unanimous in the belief that research money will flow more readily from man-made climate change.

Living near power lines will kill you, as will cell phones... remember that? Of course there isn't a single scientific fact to support the claim, but who cares. I knew a guy who knew a guy who lived by a transmission line and he died of cancer. We have plenty of public policy based on nothing so why not make some claim and see what happens. Today it's WiFi. More micro waves, more death:

The researchers say this smog of electromagnetic radiation is 1 billion times stronger than the natural fields in which living cells have developed over the last 3.8 billion years. Children may be more vulnerable as their skulls are thinner and their nervous systems are still developing, not to mention that they'll be exposed to more radiation over their lifetime.

Of course it's all about the children.

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