Link: Green talk but no green walk? | Ethical living | Guardian Unlimited Environment.

I honestly think this is the best confession I have ever read in Pravda  The Grauniad. One of its writers effectively admits, without a flicker of embarrassment, that he thinks his readers' principles are often just for show.

"Hands up anyone who isn't a hypocrite. Come on, own up. Who out there actually lives by every one of the principles they profess to uphold?"

For the benefit of any passing Guardianistas, please consider that a principle you merely "profess" to uphold is more of an affectation, really. Still, it probably impresses your "right on" friends down at the wine bar every bit as much as a real principle, so don't worry.

On the other hand, if you would like to start living a principled life, perhaps you should use more intellectual rigour when forming your principles? You might consider only adopting those you are able to live up to? You might reflect on the notion that, in professing principles for others to adhere to, while failing to do so yourself, you are following in some fairly unsavoury footsteps.

Just a thought.

Link: BBC NEWS | UK | Drivers tell of 'contaminated' fuel fury.

This is an interesting story. Early indications suggest that the fuel in question originates from Greenergy, an independent oil company specialising in less environmentally-unfriendly fuels.  Its "mission statement," in typical jargon, is:

To deliver financial and environmental solutions to our customers through innovation and the development and management of secure, sustainable fuel supply chains.

The company ships 275 trucks of fuel a day (one full oil tanker). If an entire consignment was defective (or made defective by the company's "green" additives), then many cars will have been damaged.

While every company should be considering the environmental impact of its products, I worry about a company which focuses more on "green" issues than quality.  The "mission statement" is notable for the absence of any reference to quality and it should be remembered that the "customers" mentioned are the supermarkets and independent petrol stations, not the motorists running about, all unknowing, with "innovative"  additives in their fuel. Consider also the following quote from their website which, in the current context, is rather interesting:

Our specifications are at the leading edge of technology, driving forward the debate in Europe and the UK on the relationship between fuel quality [my emphasis] and emissions.

We must wait and see who, if anyone, is to blame for this story. Greenergy may be entirely innocent and I don't mean to suggest otherwise. My only comment for now is that customers should drive businesses, not political posturing or "debates."

Link: Pommygranate: Al Gore - Hypocrite.

Absolutely typical. Do what I say, not what I do.

Link: Toyota factory turns landscape to arid wilderness | the Mail on Sunday.

Regularly, idiot celebs enhance their "Green" credentials by buying the Toyota Prius (although how many actually drive the revolting object is another matter). This, despite the fact that research shows that "dust to dust" (from production to disposal) the energy cost of a Prius comes down to $3.25 per mile. Compare that to $2.70 per mile for, say, a conventional VW Golf or $3.02 per mile for an Aston Martin.

Amusingly, it's only slightly less expensive in energy costs per mile than my 5.5 litre Mercedes - even though I get about 25mpg vs the Prius's claimed 55mpg. That's because the Merc is manufactured conventionally with a tried-and-tested petrol engine. Extra energy is consumed in producing the high-tech "hybrid" Prius and its two engines.

How I smiled therefore, to see the photograph in the linked article.

... the environment-saving credentials of the cars are seriously undermined by the disclosure that one of the car's essential components is produced at a factory that has created devastation likened to the arid environment of the moon.

I am sure none of this will have any impact on the "movement." Greenery is not a rational stance. It is an ersatz religion. I am sure idiots will continue to buy the Prius, despite its relatively adverse impact on the environment, for the same sort of reasons other idiots wear T-shirts emblazoned with the faces of mass murderers - i.e. because it's stupidly fashionable.

Link: Telegraph | News | Wrong problem, wrong solution.

This is fascinating stuff. Read it while you still can. According to the author, "On Thursday, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, compared climate sceptics to advocates of Islamic terror. Neither, she said, should have access to the media."

If that is true, someone should be researching the Mental Health Act to establish who is entitled to "section" the Foreign Secretary, based on Perry de Haviland's theory (set out in a comment to this post) that "there may come a time when the desire of statists to control others is recognised as the mental disorder it is."

I really do think that when an individual, usually with a life as screwed-up as anyone else's, exhibits a consistent desire to control the behaviour of strangers, it is a form of mental illness. These people need help.

Link: Telegraph | News | Climate chaos? Don't believe it .

In 1995, David Deming, a geoscientist at the University of Oklahoma, had written an article reconstructing 150 years of North American temperatures from borehole data. He later wrote: "With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. One of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said: 'We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.' "

The Medieval Warm Period is the main reason that "climate change science" is bunk. If temperatures were higher in the Middle Ages than now then carbon emissions were certainly not responsible.

Again this weekend, the creepy David Milliband was on television (on a weirdly hysterical edition of Andrew Marr's "Sunday AM") saying that there is a clear scientific consensus. Whether or not that is true, science is not democratic. There have been many times in scientific history when one man was right and the rest of the scientific world was wrong. Our problem today is that most scientists are directly or indirectly State-funded, and "the fundamental equation of state-subsidized science is that "No Problem equals No Funding."

There are lots of scientists who would be out of work without the global hysteria of global warming. It amazes me that there are so many people with so little knowledge of history that they can be so easily - and so disastrously - scammed.

It is an essential element of the scientific method that "All hypotheses and theories are in principle subject to disproof." The duty of scientists is to try to disprove current hypotheses and theories. As new information arises, new hypotheses will be developed, which are then themselves subject to disproof. Science is a series of working theories. Despite what idiots like Milliband would have us believe, there is no ultimate scientific knowledge. We certainly can't determine the "truth" by taking a vote among scientists. Even if we could, eliminating every scientist from that vote who was being funded by governments or oil companies, on the grounds of conflict of interest, might produce a result of which Milliband would disapprove.

Climate change is an ideological construct masquerading as science. It is a construct designed to justify the political end of an ever more powerful State, with ever more reasons to interfere in citizens' lives. Whatever the merits of the science behind it, it is the most dangerous political idea since Marxism.