Radiationphobia and hysterics

March 15, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Do you fear serious health problems due to being exposed to radiation from the Japanese nuclear plants?

You are not alone.  There is now a run on potassium-iodate in the land of the fearful and many pharmacies have run out of it.  What is that hysteria all about?

There is little to fear.  The situation in Japan is a far cry from being as harmful as other nuclear accidents were, and the dangers from those, too, were blown out of all proportions.  Here is a very informative account of that:

From the Summer 2010 Issue
of 21st Century of Science and Technology

Observations on Chernobyl after 25 Years of Radiophobia
Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.

The worst possible nuclear plant accident produced no scientifically confirmed fatalities in the general population. But there was enormous political and psychological damage, mainly the result of belief in the lie that any amount of radiation is bad.

Here is another item that will do much to allay hysterics, specifically with respect to the nuclear energy plant in Fukushima, that presently and increasingly raise fears of nuclear-energy-induced radiation impacts to heights that have not been seen since the tidal wave of fear about the consequences of the Chernobyl incident was set into motion.

Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors. | Morgsatlarge – blogorific.

There exists a copy of this post on Barry Brooks excellent blog, where you can still use the discussion function: http://bravenewclimate.com

Last but not least, see this:

MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub

Information about the incident at the Fukushima Nuclear Plants in Japan hosted by http://web.mit.edu/nse/ :: Maintained by the students of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT

It is extremely difficult not to become influenced by the fear mongering promulgated by the media. The sad reality is that “The News” are vehicles by which to bring advertising to the people.  One must make a deliberate effort to avoid becoming influenced by the media.  After all, their primary purpose for existence is to influence people and thereby to make a profit.  The media employ professionals schooled and trained in influencing people, all for the sake of profit.

The best news of all to accomplish that with are bad news, better yet, alarming news, and, if the news are not bad enough to achieve that with, then news that have been invented or have been made alarming when they were not and should not have been presented as alarming news in the first place will do better than all others.  “Dog bites man” is not news, “Man bites dog!!” is.

Randolph Hurst was someone who had the reputation of being ruthless in inventing and presenting alarming news for boosting the circulation of his newspapers.  I believe that it was he who once said: “There is no such thing as bad News,” meaning that, for the purpose of increasing circulation, the more alarming the news are, the better, because the greater the circulation numbers, the larger the advertising revenues.

Newspapers derive the vast majority of their revenues from advertising.  The prices charged for copies of their newspapers pay for nothing more than just the paper they are printed on and perhaps putting them into circulation.  The reporting, the editorializing, the writing, the composing, the typesetting, the wages and salaries of their staff, and all of the capital and operating expenses of newspapers are paid through advertising revenues.

Of course, very similar considerations apply to other branches of the media, such as broadcasting.

Increasing the circulation (or the size of a listening or viewing audience) increases the advertising revenues.

I believe that the recognition of that reality is one of the most important things any activists should engage themselves in.

There is an enormous media bias regarding feminism and men’s issues.  I admired many of the human rights activists whom I met throughout my life for being fully aware of that.

Now get this.  That bias in the media is not driven by an evil conspiracy.  It is driven by greed for media profits.  It just so happens that some ideological opportunists exploit the greed of the media for their own purposes.

That happens not only with respect to vilifying men and fathers for the purpose of creating and enlarging a rift between the sexes and to aid the systematic deconstruction of the traditional nuclear family.  The same principle creates opportunities for other fanatical ideologists or pain alarmists such as those who wish to promote their agenda for world domination or perhaps nothing more than their greed for power and wealth by creating unfounded fears about specific environmental issues.

One little aspect of the manufacturing of fears for profit is the creation and intensification of fears regarding nuclear energy.  Accidents such as those at Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima are god-sends for environmental-alarmism opportunists and carpetbaggers.

__________
Note: Dr. Jaworowski’s report on radiophobia may seem at first to be difficult reading, but get into it and become fascinated.

By understanding what Dr. Jaworowski stated about radiophobia and in reading his explanation of how it was created and exploited in connection with Chernobyl you may be making the most important contribution you could ever have imagined to becoming enlightened in your career as a human rights activist.

There is no shame in being duped once…

Posted in Alarmist Insanity, Propaganda debunked, Health issues, Alternative Energy Sources, Pollution: Health Issues, Explosions & Fires, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

Availability of electric power “blowing in the wind”

March 5, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Walter H. Schneider

‎”The days of permanently available electricity may be coming to an end, the head of the power network said yesterday.”
You can see the whole article if signing on for free 1-day trial subscription and searching for “electricity” after clicking on the link for the article.

Telegraph e-paper

dailytelegraph.newspaperdirect.com

Walter H. Schneider Oops, should have stated that the power network of concern is that of the U.K. and that the routine and frequent outages are to be expected because of the vagaries of the weather. In other words, the availability of electric power in the U.K. is blowing in the wind.

Let there be no mistake that what is being shoved down people’s throat is nothing less than a planned, deliberate downgrading of living standards in the U.K. to make them comparable to those in under-developed nations.  Only in under-developed nations is it to be expected that the availability of electric power is unreliable, at best.We had that sort of standard in Germany, after WWII, when electric power and city gas were routinely available only for about a couple of hours a day, at noon and at around 6 pm.In the U.K. now, the lowering of the standard of service for electric power is the result of a deliberate policy to increase wind-power generation, rather than to use thermal power plants with their constant, reliable availability of generating capacity.

Only in the U.K., far from here and not a problem where we live, you think?  Well, think again!

You have not been paying attention:  Have you not seen ENMAX’s full page ads in the local papers?  Related ads by ENMAX have been shown on the local TV channels.  I have even been inundated with those ads when using google.  Have a look and see what those ads show!

“Welcome to the age of the low-carbon diet” my foot!  Only someone who wishes to have his standard of living lowered to that of an under-developed nation would welcome such a diet.  To promote such a thing and even have it supported and enforced through taxpayer-funded subsidies and government policies is insanity at its worst.

This insane policy is not only being promoted by ENMAX.  All of the energy industry is in cahoots on this, and our governments are happy to help them along with that.  You wonder what is in it for the governments?

It is a fallacy to believe the hype that wind power is cheap.  The truth is that it is very expensive, in addition to making the power grid unstable and unreliable.  The more we try to increase wind power generating capacity, the more will the costs of electricity to the consumers go through the roof.  Increased electricity costs will bring increased tax revenues for the governments.  We are being fleeced!  Any consumer who buys into this wind power insanity is having the wool pulled over his eyes, to boot.

Last Tuesday was a very cold day, and the total wind power generated on that day in Alberta was between one and two Mega Watt, between one and two one-hundreds of one percent of the total electric power generated in Alberta.

Yesterday, around supper time, wind-power generated in Alberta was ZERO Watt.  You can check at any time what it is.  That web page is updated every two minutes.  Right now, Mar 05, 2011 09:44, it tells me that 31MW of wind-power are being generated.  That amounts to four tenth of one percent of all electric power being generated in Alberta, while 572MW or 6.5 per cent of the total consumption in Alberta are being imported from B.C. and Saskatchewan.

Posted in Propaganda debunked, Alarmist Insanity, Alternative Energy Sources | Print | No Comments »

Environmentalist fraud and manslaughter

February 21, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Thanks to icecap.us:

Environmentalist fraud and manslaughter

In the name of banning DDT, GEF bureaucrats are consigning millions to death from malaria

Paul Driessen, 2011 o2 21

Many chemotherapy drugs for treating cancer have highly unpleasant side effects – hair loss, vomiting, intense joint pain, liver damage and fetal defects, to name just a few. But anyone trying to ban the drugs would be tarred, feathered and run out of town. And rightly so.

The drugs’ benefits vastly outweigh their risks. They save lives. We need to use chemo drugs carefully, but we need to use them.

The same commonsense reasoning should apply to the Third World equivalent of chemotherapy drugs: DDT and other insecticides to combat malaria. Up to half a billion people are infected annually by this vicious disease, nearly a million die, countless survivors are left with permanent brain damage, and 90% of this carnage is in sub-Saharan Africa, the most impoverished region on Earth.

These chemicals don’t cure malaria – they prevent it. Used properly, they are effective, and safe. DDT is particularly important. Sprayed once or twice a year on the inside walls of homes, DDT keeps 80% of mosquitoes from entering, irritates those that do enter, so they leave without biting, and kills any that land. No other chemical, at any price, can do this.

Full Story (27kB PDF file)

It has been estimated that more than 500 construction workers (not counting their wives and children) died of malaria during the construction of the Rideau Canal in Canada, in the early 1800s, long before the end of the Little Ice Age.

During the construction of the Rideau Canal, a temperate form of malaria, P. Vivax, was present. This was the form indigenous to southern Ontario at the time. It has two cycles, the normal short (weeks) malaria cycle and a much longer cycle where it would spend nine months or longer incubating in the liver of a human. This longer cycle allowed it to survive the harsh Canadian winter by staying inside a human until the mosquitoes were out and biting again. P. Vivax has a very low mortality rate (essentially 0%) since it infects far fewer red blood cells than other forms of malaria. One explanation for the 2 to 4% mortality rate on the Rideau is that those who died were either suffering from other illnesses of the day, or had health issues such as dysentery, and that getting infected with P.Vivax was the last straw. An alternate, but perhaps less likely explanation, is that P. falciparum, a more virulent tropical malaria, was also present. P. falciparum, introduced into the U.S. with the African slave trade, doesn’t have the ability to over-winter in Canada, so, if it was present, it must have been re-introduced each year. (From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age, Paul Reiter, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, San Juan, Puerto Rico, http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol6no1/pdf/reiter.pdf (2000 01 20, 792 kB))

The extent to which environment- and DDT fanatics lack good and valid information and perspectives on such issues is illustrated by the current media debate on the “pesticide” ban in many Canadian cities that is now being considered for Edmonton.  Let’s be clear on that what is being discussed under the “pesticide” designation is weed-control in lawns and parks.

Well, for all who discuss banning the use of pesticides for weed control, you should get your facts straight.

A pesticide is used to control or kill pesky insects, so that is what you would use to keep mosquitoes at bay or kill head lice.  There is also a definition of pesticide for English-learners, in case there is confusion about what constitutes a pest.  That definition states that a pesticide is “a chemical that is used to kill animals or insects that damage plants or crops.”  It is odd that a formidable source of information such as Merriam Webster does not identify that pesticides are used to kill insects that pester or kill humans.

Nevertheless, if you want to make sure that you chemically kill the dandelions or thistles in a lawn, you must use a herbicide, but be careful that you pick the right one for the job.  Some herbicides kill grass, too.

People who don’t know the difference between pesticide and herbicide lack the necessary qualifications for discussing the merits of either.

Posted in Gardening, Propaganda debunked, Alarmist Insanity, Health issues | Print | 3 Comments »

Topple the “carbon” fraud

December 23, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Carbon Sense *

20th December 2010

Time to Topple the Pyramid of Frauds

By Viv Forbes

One of the fastest growing industries in the world is based on a pyramid of frauds and its inevitable collapse will be worse than the sub-prime crash.

The Global Warming Industry is now fed by billions of dollars from western taxpayers and consumers. It is based on the unproven and now discredited claim that man’s production of carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming.

The basic fraud is this:

There is no evidence that carbon dioxide controls world temperature – just a theory and the manipulated results from a handful of giant computer models that very few people have checked or understand….

…those who waste millions on projects designed to prove the feasibility of burying carbon dioxide are committing a fraud on taxpayers and shareholders. There are no benefits of burying atmospheric plant food from any source. With zero benefits and huge costs CCS can never be “economic” and it is fraudulent to pretend it can ever be otherwise….

Full Story  (70kB PDF file — Printer-friendly, includes links to information sources)

____________
* “Carbon Sense” is a newsletter produced by the Carbon Sense Coalition, an Australian based organisation which opposes waste of resources, opposes pollution, and promotes the rational and sustainable use of carbon energy and carbon food.

Please spread “Carbon Sense” around.

For more information visit our web site at www.carbon-sense.com

Literary, financial or other contributions to help our cause are welcomed.

Viv Forbes MS 23, Rosewood Qld 4340 Australia. info@carbon-sense.com
07 5464 0533

A printer-friendly PDF (70kB) of this newsletter is accessible here:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pyramid-of-frauds.pdf

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Alarmist Insanity, Corruption & Fraud, Alternative Energy Sources, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

Fresh from the Cancun UN Climate Conference: Rationing

November 30, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

The Telegraph
2010 11 29

By Louise Gray

Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in developed world

Global warming is now such a serious threat to mankind that climate change experts are calling for Second World War-style rationing in rich countries to bring down carbon emissions.

In a series of papers published by the Royal Society, physicists and chemists from some of world’s most respected scientific institutions, including Oxford University and the Met Office, agreed that current plans to tackle global warming are not enough….[preceding link by folc.ca]

….the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years….

…politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s….(Full Story)

Posted in Climate Craziness, Alarmist Insanity, Climate Change | Print | 1 Comment »

Why should I believe you?

November 22, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

It was a few years ago, when I said that the media don’t always tell the truth, and that even the evening news on TV are often used to tell falsehoods, either by distorting the truth, putting the wrong spin on things or by not reporting some things at all, and someone commented: “Why should I believe you, when professionals tell me something that is quite different from what you tell me?”

Well, it seems that a good answer to that is not that easy to come by; but is that true?

I have not ever knowingly tried to pull  a fast one on people by deliberately telling a lie in anything I told on this blog or anything else I presented as the truth on the Internet.  Still, why should anyone believe me?

The answer to that is that no one needs to believe me or believe anything I state, but if they don’t believe me, why should they believe anyone else who is making an effort to tell them anything? The truth is out there, and, thanks to the Internet, the truth about anything is as accessible as are lies about it.  All that is necessary is to be able to tell the truth from lies that are intentional or unintentional.  The difference is often easy to tell.

Let’s take the truth with respect to what is being told in Richard Lindzen’s testimony to the US Congress about global warming hype and hysteria and compare it to what some parties like Shell, the Canadian federal government and the Alberta provincial government want us to do.  That is, buy in and pay for, at a billion dollars and more a shot,  to allegedly alleviate the consequences of global warming through Shell’s CCS project that is proposed to be constructed in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, north-east of Fort Saskatchewan and north of Bruderheim.

Richard Lindzen, one of the foremost climatologists in the world, said in concluding his testimony to the US Congress, Nov. 17, 2010, that,

You now have some idea of why I think that there won’t be much warming due to CO2, and without significant global warming, it is impossible to tie catastrophes to such warming. Even with significant warming it would have been extremely difficult to make this connection.

Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.

In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.

Richard Lindzen provided the following information on slides 11, 12, and 13 of his presentation to the US Congress:

(Click on each image to see it in full resolution.)

Will anyone in their right mind truly believe that the range of temperature trends for global average temperatures (the area covered by the red line in the preceding image) compared to local measurement for Boston (or anywhere else for that matter) will be impacted in any measurable fashion by what is contemplated through Shell’s CCS Project?  After all, the width of the red line would at best be reduced by no more than an infinitesimally tiny fraction of 4 percent of the width of the red line.

Mind you, Richard Lindzen uses well-mannered language in his presentations.  Instead of using words like “anyone in their right mind”, he uses words such as these: “Given the above, the notion that alarming warming is ‘settled science’ should be offensive to any sentient individual, though to be sure, the above is hardly emphasized by the IPCC.” (Emphasis as in the original on page 4 of the full PDF file of Richard Lindzen’s testimony to the US Congress)

Whether one says “anyone in their right mind” or that the claims of global-warming alarmism are based on ’settled science’ is “offensive to any sentient individual,” makes little difference.  Someone who is right in his mind is a sentient individual, and the facts are the same.  Cries of climate alarmism and all attempts to use “Carbon Capture and Storage” as a thermostat for regulating global temperature trends are bunk.

______________
By the way, besides Richard Lindzen, there were other prominent authorities who set straight the facts at the US Congress Hearing on Global Warming:

Watch: The House Hearing on Global Warming today

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Posted in Propaganda debunked, Taxes, Censorship, Shell CCS Project, Alarmist Insanity, Corruption & Fraud, Community & Industry, Climate Change, Health issues, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

November 20, 2009: The Day “Global Warming” Ended

November 18, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

American Daily
Weatherman Manifesto

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Global Warming piece by Alan Caruba

November 20, 2009 is an important date because it was the day that “global warming” ended. It was the day that a total fabrication, a hoax, was revealed to be the work of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), aided and abetted by a vast network of governmental and business leaders, a compliant media, and scientists who sold their souls for grants and other funding.

t was the day that Al Gore was shown to be unworthy to share a Nobel Peace Prize with the iniquitous IPCC, nor an Oscar for his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

It was the day that Cap-and-Trade legislation, the largest tax ever on energy use, was eviscerated as lacking any basis in science. The legislation proposed to establish a “carbon credits” trade that would have enriched the Chicago Climate Exchange created by investors that included Goldman Sachs. Following the “global warming” hoax revelations, the Exchange would close its doors within a year….(Full Story)

____________
(Related story on the closure of the Chicago Climate Exchange)

Posted in Propaganda debunked, Alarmist Insanity, Corruption & Fraud, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

No price too high for appeasing climate alarmists

November 6, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Friends, neighbours, offspring,

Yesterday I had a bit of a problem with this blog and the associated website.  In retrospect, it is laughable and embarrassing that it occurred, but I won’t bore you with the details, other than that, while I was busy writing about what follows in this posting,  I copied and pasted the piece a number of times in trying to fix the problem I had been trying to cope with.  Every time I did that, I also thought of a better title for the piece.  The last two candidates I rejected in favor of the one I chose were these.

Constructing the global thermostat, a billion dollars a project

Blowing CO2 up Mother Earth’s derriere

If you can think of a better one, let me know, but it’s too late for this posting.  Large newspapers have headline writers who do that sort of thing for a living.

A few concerns emerged through correspondence from Shell, through a phone call from Integrity Land Inc. and through the discussions I had with Shell personnel I met at Shell’s open house in Bruderheim, Nov. 3, 2010, in connection with their proposed CO2 project and pipe line.

Although in my case I have grave concerns about lost-opportunity-costs due to land-use restrictions (which restrictions will also affect all other land owners near the proposed CO2 pipe line), my concerns are not just my own but apply to all land owners whose properties are located on or near the CO2 pipe line.  Furthermore, I have concerns about the lack of wisdom driving the project.  It is a make-work project with non-existent, at best questionable benefits that will not ever justify the expense of the project.

Shell’s CO2 project will not even come remotely close to paying back what the taxpayers must pay into it: at the very least close to a billion dollars, about $270 for every man, woman and child in Alberta — and that is just for the first billion dollars in expenditures for such useless catering to people who well know that their intentions are futile., and I don’t mean the poor people at Shell who for all intents and purposes are being forced to construct “their” CO2 capture and storage project  (they did not tell me that, but that is the way it is).  The project is a waste of good money, the taxpayers’ money.

Regulating atmospheric CO2 content is not possible.  Attempts at controlling man-made CO2 emissions will not affect total atmospheric CO2 contents by one Iota.  It is not possible to construct such a project and to see it put to use as a thermostat that will regulate the global climate.  After all, man-made CO2 contributions comprise no more than 4 percent of total atmospheric CO2, a trace gas.  The other 96 percent of atmospheric CO2 result from natural processes over whom mankind has not the slightest control.  Besides, CO2 is a vital life-giving gas without which no life as we know it would exist on Earth.

We must find ways to stop insanities like this that amount to nothing more than expensive sacrifices by taxpayers to political expediency through catering to alarmist hype and hysteria.

Together, and with the help of others who cannot or don’t want to shell out useless environmental head-taxes of $270 a shot, we will be able to do it.

The following will explain some of the details of what it is all about.

——– Original Message ——–

Subject:	CO2 pipe line: concerns
Date:	Fri, 05 Nov 2010 16:58:02 -0600
From:	Walter H. Schneider
To:	Ian Silk [at Shell]
CC:	Margit Phillips[at Shell]

Hello Ian,

It was a pleasure meeting you at Shell’s Nov. 3, 2010 Bruderheim open house, where I had promised to send you a copy of a letter, dated October 18, 2010, that had been send by Shell to me.  (Copy appended; two files, one each for page 1 & 2 of the letter).

Obviously I did not remember key issues correctly when I told you about the letter at the open house, such as the changes in pipe diameter and operating pressure.  It is good that I was wrong.  That will simplify things, but I still have grave concerns.

As I had mentioned, someone from Integrity Land called the other day (I believe it was Ken, on Nov. 1st or 2nd) to tell us on Shell’s behalf that the letter we had received had been sent in error and should not have been sent.

Looking now at the letter again, I wonder whether it truly had been sent in error and whether it is Integrity Land or Shell that is a bit mistaken.  Of course, if the contents of the letter that was allegedly sent in error that I hold now in my hands contains erroneous information, I may not need to worry about much, but I wonder.

I will explain what I conclude on the face of the evidence.

Shell envisions that my land at NW2-57-20-W4 will be encroached by an Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) that extends to a distance of 450m from your proposed CO2 pipe line.  That is an encroachment which does not presently exist but will occur if your proposed CO2 pipe line goes into operation.

It is not clear from either that letter or from the information I observed at the open house with respect to the proposed CO2 pipe line right-of-way, how wide the EPZ will be, that is, whether the proposed CO2 pipe line will run along the centre-line of a 450m EPZ or whether the EPZ will extend 450m in either direction from the proposed CO2 pipe line.  I would appreciate having you provide a map that will clear that up and show whether and which portions of my land at NW2-57-20-W4 will be affected by the EPZ.  That should remove or confirm all of our doubts relating to that.

When Integrity Land called, they told me that I should not have received the letter, and the caller apologized on Shell’s behalf for the fact that I did.  Shell’s October 18, 2010 letter informs me that Shell understands (sic, implying that Shell does not know with certainty) that I am “located further” (sic, I assume what was meant was “farther”) than 450m from the proposed CO2 pipe line and that I am “no longer located in the EPZ.”  I truly wonder which of those truly confusing contradictions would stand up in court, but there is more.

Logically, I never was and never will be located in the EPZ, given that I reside in Bruderheim and would find myself in the EPZ only if I were to visit or work within it.  However, some of my land would be, and any of its occupants could be, located within the EPZ, contrary to Shell’s assertions that imply that no portion of my land is within 450m of the proposed CO2 pipe line.  After all, If I were to walk 450m in a westerly direction from the location of the proposed CO2 pipeline east from our quarter-section of land, I would find myself on our land and not quite a quarter mile away from the residence located there.

Is that why Integrity Land called me to say that the letter is wrong?  Are portions of my land located within the EPZ?  If so, which portions are they?  A map that shows the EPZ superimposed on my land would make that perfectly clear.  Therefore I request that you provide such a map to me.

Still, it seems to me that I am not the only one who errs now and then.  Shell’s letter dated October 18, 2010 indicates that, “These changes [that is, the reduced outside diameter of 12″], combined with a reduced operating pressure, still being calculated [as you also confirmed at the open house], will also result in a reduced Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) of approximately 450m.”  Perhaps the letter should have stated as well that the precise extent of the EPZ cannot be determined until those calculations have been completed.  I expect to be informed by Shell of what the precise extent of the EPZ will be.

I cannot escape the conclusion that portions of my land at NW2-57-20-W4 will be impacted by land-usage restrictions on account of being located within the EPZ.  For example, it may be that nothing is permitted to be constructed on land being put at risk.

Regardless of what the risk would be to any individual who finds himself within the EPZ during a however-unlikely catastrophic failure of the pipe line, land-use restrictions will apply because of the perception of that risk, for which reason the concept of an EPZ exists.  Therefore the term EPZ is a euphemism for the more precise term “activity exclusion zone”.

It is such perceptions that determine the market value of real estate.  The “precautionary principle” (which you so beautifully mentioned in rationalizing the need for Shell’s CO2 project) kicks into action when land transactions take place.  The precautionary principle in this case, regardless of what I personally or any of my descendants may wish for, will materialize in the form of lost-opportunity-costs, through a considerable reduction in the potential sales price for the land of concern.  At land prices that Shell is only too well aware it had to pay in the recent past, the lost-opportunity-costs in the case of our land could easily be in the order of $2 million or more within the foreseeable future.

I had explained that particular concern to you at your November 3rd Bruderheim open house.  You offered to send documentation (in digital form) that will explain in more detail what the specific land-use restrictions in an EPZ are according to applicable legislation.  I look forward to receiving that from you as well.

As things stand, Shell informed me in writing that neither I nor my land will be endangered by Shell’s CO2 pipe line, while I received verbal instructions by one of Shell’s contractors that I should disregard that written statement.  Yet, the facts pertaining to the location of the CO2 pipe line indicate that I must be prepared for  substantial lost-opportunity-costs, while other risk to life, health and property on our land remains undetermined.  I think that Shell needs to do better.  I am not a lawyer, but I know that a lawyer could make a lot out of what Shell informed me off as of now.  It seems like misrepresentation to me.  Shell needs to clarify how things stand.  Am I correct about me being not the only land owner who should be concerned about that compendium of confusion?

Further in our discussions about your proposed CO2 capture and storage project (mislabelled by Shell as “Carbon Capture and Storage Project”, as it is not carbon but CO2 that is involved), I expressed my well-founded concern that Shell’s CCS project, requiring a one-billion-dollar expenditure of taxpayers money, is a wasteful scheme that is not based on settled science.  It is a make-work project that you are being forced to launch to comply with a government-bureaucracy-perceived solution to imaginary problems the perception of which is driven by irrational climate fears, hype and hysteria.

This letter to you is already lengthy enough.  I will therefore continue with addressing that aspect of our discussion through posting at http://lce.folc.ca information that presents rational views and objective facts relating to those irrational fears.

Still, I must add more right now, so as to complete the summary of the impressions I gained at the open house.  My wife and I observed with dismay that some of Shell’s representatives at the Bruderheim open house did not have sufficient scientific education and accreditation to enable them to offer more than unsubstantiated opinions as to the merits of Shell’s CCS project.  They presented what are in essence articles of faith as allegedly indisputable scientific facts.  Most of them had not even any idea that at the most-often visited science blog in the world the latest study reports by prominent climate scientists relating to the role of CO2 in our climate are being presented and discussed.

To the credit of those presenters and upon my insistence, they referred me to someone better qualified to discuss the scientific facts of the impact of CO2 on climate trends.  However, there is no doubt in my mind that many of the visitors to your open houses will fail to perceive such problems and will leave quite satisfied, happy in the knowledge that little tokens like flashlights, plastic shopping bags, memory sticks (containing the slick presentation CCS101.ca — permeated with weasel words), pens and so on (all products from China) are generous gifts, while being totally unaware that they, and only they, will pay the price of an estimated billion dollars (amounting to a cost of at least $270 for every man, woman and child in Alberta for every $ billion so spent) for an enterprise that will do nothing to alleviate an imaginary problem whose science is not settled.  They may as well employ you in the pursuit of a project to lengthen the daylight hours during the winter by having you hire chain-gangs of taxpayers to shovel light into barrels in the summer for release in January.  That at least would be totally safe for the environment and no environmental impact assessment would be required for that, although our government-bureaucrats would probably still insist that one be done for that, too.

It is too bad that our governments cater more to the political expediencies of alarmist climate fears than to the necessities of our lives.  A billion dollars, with more billions to follow, for funding such hare-brained schemes surely would be more appropriately spent in solving a large portion of what is wrong with things that we truly should be spending money on to fix, except that the truly important things that we should do are being neglected on account of government-revenue-shortfalls caused by reckless government-spending.  That needs to be stopped.

Sincerely,

Walter H. Schneider
Bruderheim

P.S. I have a bit of a problem with my regular e-mail account.  Please be so good and respond to walt@folc.ca

Cc: Lamont Leader, some of our descendants, Bruderheim and area residents, http://lce.folc.ca

2 Attachments

— End of quoted letter to Shell —

Friends, if you have come this far with reading about this billion-dollar Alberta CO2 scam, then you may also have some ideas on what to do about it.  I will gladly help with searching for facts, mailing, operating the blog on the Lamont County Environment and such things, but I can no longer be as involved as I was with the opposition to the Hazco Sulphur Project (a project for which we now pay through the nose but on which the bubble is burst, perhaps until someone, about 30 years down the line, begins to blow another bubble).

The interesting aspect of the CO2 capture and storage project is that, although it will do nothing to affect the global climate, once it is in operation, it is estimated that it will add a whopping four percent of nitrogen oxides to the atmospheric nitrogen oxides background levels that already exist in the Fort Saskatchewan area air-shed.

This issue requires someone younger, and I am going the other way.  Please, let me have a bit of rest, just not too much peace and quiet.

Write to me, preferably at http://lce.folc.ca [about this or any other related issue], where others can read what you have to say.  By the way, if I happen to be your father or grandfather, you don’t have to mention it.  Let’s just do what the politicians seems to be incapable of doing, use common sense.

Walter

Posted in Taxes, Deficits and Debts, Shell CCS Project, Propaganda debunked, Alarmist Insanity, Nitrogen-Oxides, Corruption & Fraud, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | 1 Comment »

Goal Posts for the Thompsons have been moved again

September 20, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Thompsons part 4: Every slope is a watercourse

When Matt and Janet first came to Western Australia they were told they could run a feedlot without regular licenses as long as they were not within 100m of a watercourse. It makes a big difference. If a farm is a category 68, it can run thousands of cattle (and many dairy farms do) without being licensed. This is the ongoing saga of how Big-Government can use complexity to play Kingmaker.

I didn’t think I’d ever find agricultural codes interesting, but by paying attention to the detail we can see just how powerful The Department of Environment (DEC) is, and how selective it can be. You would think it would be easy to measure off 100 m toward a waterway, but how do you define a waterway? You can I might expect that it would have banks, or that in a 100 year flood the water flowing in the gully might have a chance of reaching a body of water big enough to have a fish. Don’t apply for a job at DEC WA.

DEC has declared that Narrogin Beef Producers are a Category 1 property needing licenses because there are watercourses to the North of the feedlot, and to the South West. This picture below,  is a photo (slightly amended) of that paddock to the north in winter. Would you call this a watercourse?

A photo of the Northern “watercourse” of The Thompsons property. (Sign added).

This is the “watercourse” to the South West, a remnant waterway.

Thompsons South West “watercourse”

This is a dry gully visible in aerial shots in the south western edge of their property (see the map image below). There’s no running water in it, and there hasn’t been as long as the Thompsons have been there, and even in the event of a major flood, the gully leads to nowhere in particular. It doesn’t flow into anything. You can follow the tree line of these dry gullies in a google map and see that they eventually might meander into salt pans that are kilometers away….(Full Story)

Related and original story

Posted in Alarmist Insanity, Propaganda debunked, Fines & Penalties, Community & Industry, Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

URGENT – A call to action for the WUWT community

September 18, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

URGENT – A call to action for the WUWT community

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Anthony Watts

I need your help, they need your help. Please read this whole story and consider if you can help. WUWT readers may recall this story: Death of a Feedlot Operator

In which the anal-retentive government of West Australia has “licensed” a family farm out of operation due to some shonky science and arbitrary application of the “sniff test”. Yes that’s right, cattle farms smell, so do pig farms, as does any farm. But now it’s reason to shut one out due to baseless complaints from the local greens. And, it all started when Matt Thompson started doubting global warming and talking about it publicly.

I’ve never made a plea to the WUWT worldwide readership for help, I’m making one now to donate to these people to stave off eviction. If nothing else, do it to spite the government of Western Australia and the greens (Environmental Defender’s Office WA)  that have turned farming into a “crime”. The real crime is that government listens to these hotheads. From Jo Nova’s website:

4 days notice! The Thompsons are served notice of eviction.

Will, Abbey, Janet, Luke, Matt and Kate on their farm. April 2010

From Agmates (and many emails), news comes that The National Bank served notice today that the Thompsons have to be off their property in four days.

This is a family with four young children, who ran a profitable business; they filled in every form and ticked every box. They have broken no laws, and there are no outstanding environmental notices, but yet, they came to Western Australia with their life savings and they are losing everything. (Note: Matt and Janet are from the USA, Hugo, Oklahoma – Anthony)
Continue reading →

Posted in Corruption & Fraud, Alarmist Insanity, Censorship, Climate Change, Fines & Penalties, Pollution: Health Issues, Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | 2 Comments »