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![]() We were intrigued to discover recently a new envirosceptic called Henry N.Geraedts. He's a Canadian scientist and businessman, and is either Chief Executive of Adnavance, a major nanobiotechnolgy company, or President of Chromos Molecular Systems Inc., a world leader in the development and commercial application of artificial chromosome technologies - or possibly both, who can tell? And no, we don't know how to pronounce his name, either. Over the past 10 years, Dr.Geraedts has been closely involved with the development and management of advanced technology organizations in such roles as founding managing director of a nationwide biotechnology consortium, senior manager of a multidisciplinary R&D company, and venture capital investor. He has served on the boards of several advanced technology companies, and as an advisor to both industry and government in Canada and Europe. So he certainly ought to know a thing or two, and he has a pithy way of expressing himself. Here he is on the subject of George Moonbat, the self-proclaimed daddy of manmade global warming ... "It certainly stretches credulity when the Guardian's George "Moonbat" Monbiot writes that environmentalists should "remember that while we have been proved right about most things, we have been consistently wrong about the dates for mineral exhaustion." The environmental movement proved right about most things? Right. Let's see now: DDT, nuclear energy, Erlich's global population explosion and famine, Borlaugh's green revolution, GMOs, the ozone layer and in the ongoing saga, AGW/ACC. Even the most cursory review tells us the environmentalists were fundamentally wrong on all accounts. By their very nature, messianic movements like environmentalism are blind to their mistakes, and thus can not learn from them. Even when demonstrably wrong, environmentalists remain prisoner to the fallacies of static thinking and linear extrapolations. They are nevertheless as a matter of course always right. Left unchecked, they are also quite willing to resort to totalitarian measures to ensure that their view of thing prevails, as evidenced by the interview with Mayer Hillman in which he dismisses democracy and its principles as so much bunk to be cast aside so environmentalism can save the world. The environmental movement in fact stands out as the true Flat Earth Society, constantly looking to build fences to save us others, the mindless masses, from falling off the edge." And again, discussing in the Canadian National Post the "news" that the Arctic ice is clearing the Northwest Passage ... "Don't set sail for the Arctic yet. It would appear that Louis Fortier, scientific director of ArcticNet, has not consulted the most recent studies published by NASA on the Arctic ice situation. NASA now categorically states that the decreases seen in summer ice coverage in the Arctic over the past decade are not caused by "man-made global warming" but rather by a decadal cycle of reversals in circumpolar currents well know to Arctic researchers. If these latest NASA studies are to be believed, the Northwest Passage may not be all that navigable as some would have us believe." In fact the North West passage was open to shipping in 1945, and Amundsen passed through in a sailing vessel in 1903. And, inevitably, on Al Gore, who it was revealed recently has already made £50 million out of his own particular brand of Global Warming hysteria ... "To describe Al Gore as "Mr.Realism" is gobsmacking. The "Inconvenient Truth" is a propaganda piece that deliberately twists the facts to suite the message, something Dr Goebbels would have been proud of. Fact is an increasing number of scientists are coming out of the closet, so to speak, and are now acknowledging what the sceptics have been saying all along: the science is far from settled and since the last IPCC reports a growing body of peer reviewed science is contradicting the very foundation of the AGW hypothesis - which, it might pointed out once again, remains to be proven. Meanwhile thanks to Messsrs Gore, Clinton, etc. we are witnessing governments and industry diverting billions of dollars to address a problem that may very well not exist. Dangerous, that." And again on the question "How should climate change be addressed?" ... "This question is rapidly becoming nonsensical. A growing body of scientific work based on data from satellites and other high quality sources is showing beyond a doubt that the IPCC global warming scenario is not playing out as advertised. Certainly, climates are changing, as they have done for the 5 billion years or so. Man's presence on earth obviously has an impact, but not necessarily always a negative one. The IPCC's case, however, is in tatters. CO2 levels are going up but temperatures are not following suit. These have in fact stalled in the Northern Hemisphere and are falling south of the Equator. Neither Greenland nor Antartica are melting, in fact their ice mass balance appears to be increasing. Sea surface temperatures are stable within their normal ranges, sea levels are following historical patterns, and hurricane and typhoon numbers are in fact down. And the list goes on. This begs the rather pedestrian but straightforward question - why commit vast amounts of public and private funds to support carbon mitigation, and by extension the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty meant to address a problem that does not exist?" ... and finally on the subject of biofuels ... "The growing use of corn for ethanol in the United States has caused a huge price increase for this key food crop, which is affecting food prices internationally. In Indonesia, the environmental devastation caused by oil palm plantations for biodiesel has caused major European buyers to pull back. And a recent Dutch government report indicated that to produce one year's worth of biofuels for cars in Holland would use food crops sufficient to feed 100 million people worldwide. No matter what biofuel backers may say, ethanol is environmental nonsense, especially considering that it requires eight litres of gasoline to produce 10 litres of ethanol. Reductions in energy use and cleaner hydrocarbons are better long-term solutions. Crop-based biofuels are a very dangerous pipe dream." A sensible man, saying sensible stuff. The GOS says: Harking back to George Moonbat's statement that "environmentalists ... have been proved right about most things", remember the predictions in the 1970s that the world was about to be plunged into Global Cooling and that the United Kingdom should look forward to a climate similar to Newfoundland? Or the warning that within ten years all life in coastal waters would be extinct and coastal areas would be uninhabitable because of the stink of decaying fish? This insistence that environmentalists have been proved right, and that "the science is clear", are just the shrill hectoring of people who know they have been found out, and think that by obstinately repeating their mantras over and over they can cover up their own inadequacy. The sad thing is that with the apparent acquiescence of many politicians and the media, they might still be on to a good thing. We need more people like Dr.Geraedts. Still can't pronounce his name, though. either on this site or on the World Wide Web. Copyright © 2007 The GOS This site created and maintained by PlainSite |
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