Reply to: Bzzzzz

[pjclarke]

'Wait until September '


who made that famous quote ?

That would be me, in response to some Blaster nonsense about arctic ice 'returning to normal' (if you squinted, turned around three times, spat and looked at no more than 5 years of data).

The point being that the ice reaches a minimum each year, in September, which provides a useful comparison point. It is unlikely that this year will be another record breaker, though it will be on the trend line. In denierland, any year in which the ice does not reach a new low is of course heralded as a 'recovery'.

The arctic ice cap has been a feature of our planet for millenia and is disappearing in what in context is the blink of an eye, much of that loss occurring during what has been misnamed 'the pause'.

Regardless of whether the arctic becomes ice free in 2015, 2025 or 2045, it is now pretty much locked in and we have literally no idea what the effect of such a state will have on the climate of the northern hemisphere. Not alarmism, just facts.

[EternalOptimist]

Osama ?

The grand Mufti of CUK , pj ('madrassa') clarke

[MicrosoftBob]

'Wait until September '


who made that famous quote ?

Osama ?

[MicrosoftBob]

Hmmm , who to believe ?
The greenies , who stand to make a fortune out of scare mongering, or proper scientists ?


it's a tricky one. maybe if all the arctic ice disappears this year, as promised, I will think again

I'm still waiting for the global cooling that was promised in the 70s, still you just know the next mini ice age is going to be blamed on climate change

[EternalOptimist]

'Wait until September '


who made that famous quote ?

[pjclarke]

Hmmm , who to believe ?
The greenies , who stand to make a fortune out of scare mongering, or proper scientists ?

it's a tricky one. maybe if all the arctic ice disappears this year, as promised, I will think again

We'll have to guess the source of that, but if its the prediction I think it is, it was never anything approaching a 'promise' and was withdrawn long ago. Try the IPCC and try to stay current.

On pesticides, the scientific and green positions are aligned on this one, as usual. You'd be hard-pressed to find a scientist with more relevant expertise than Dave Goulson, here's an extract from his blog, in response from some twaddle from Chris Booker:

This all sounds like a great tale of dodgy doings, but let’s look at the actual facts for a minute. There is a group of scientists, linked to IUCN, who published a series of peer-reviewed scientific review papers on the impacts of neonics on the environment in summer 2014. These papers are all available for anyone to read at Systemic insecticides (neonicotinoids and fipronil): trends, uses, mode of action and metabolites - Springer. They are simply a review of the existing evidence – if you are really interested, read them yourself, and you can decide whether they are any good. I was asked to join this group in summer 2012, with a view to helping to write these papers, and it seemed like a good idea – the group contains many well-respected scientists from all over the world, bringing together diverse expertise. Scientists commonly come together in this way to write lengthy reviews of important topics. It is wildly inaccurate to say, as Booker does, that we relied “only on highly artificial laboratory experiments” – our reviews examined and describe hundreds of studies, many of them conducted in the field. The Defra field trial to which Booker attaches such weight was a total cock-up since all the ‘control’ bees became exposed to pesticides, so it was never published.

You might wonder whether I received a share of the £350,000 for my contribution. So far as I know, there never was £350,000. I received nothing – in fact on the one occasion when I attended a meeting of this group I had to pay my own travel expenses. The whole thing was done on a shoestring, as meetings of scientists usually are. I did get a free cup of coffee.

So what about the central claim that this group somehow engineered the neonic ban? The ban was proposed in January 2013, as a direct result of the European Food Standards Agency publishing three reports on neonics which concluded that they posed an “unacceptable risk” to bees. This was voted through in April 2013, and began in December 2013. Our reviews were not published until the summer of 2014, 16 months AFTER the ban was agreed in the European Parliament. So unless members of the European Parliament are able to see into the future, it is hard to see how their decision could have been influenced in any way by a group that had not at the time published anything whatsoever.

Finally, what about the “huge damage” that the neonic ban has done, and this figure of £640 million in crop losses in the UK alone? I follow this topic closely, but have not heard of any such report. £640 million would represent the loss of about 12% of Britain’s entire agricultural output (including arable, dairy, horticulture etc.). Since the moratorium really only applies to oilseed rape, this would require the entire crop to have been wiped out (the total annual value of this crop varies between about £400 million and £700 million). However, the first sowing of oilseed rape without neonics in the UK was august 2014. About 1.5% was lost to flea beetle, according to the Home Grown Cereal Authority. Yes, that is correct - so 98.5% of the crop is fine. The crop won’t be harvest until summer 2015, so we have no way of knowing what the yield will be, or what losses, if there are any, might be due to the absence of neonics. So where on earth does this figure come from? Perhaps Booker also possesses the gift of foresight, and has foreseen a biblical plague of locusts in the spring?

Given all these wild inaccuracies, the claim that climate-sceptic Owen Patterson was “easily the best-informed and most effective Defra secretary of state we’ve ever had” starts to seem quite reasonable by comparison. Why do newspapers publish such twaddle?

[BrilloPad]

Hmmm , who to believe ?
The greenies , who stand to make a fortune out of scare mongering, or proper scientists ?


it's a tricky one. maybe if all the arctic ice disappears this year, as promised, I will think again

proper scientists is like getting a proper religious person.

Scientists love scare mongering - to secure their grants.

[EternalOptimist]

Hmmm , who to believe ?
The greenies , who stand to make a fortune out of scare mongering, or proper scientists ?


it's a tricky one. maybe if all the arctic ice disappears this year, as promised, I will think again

[pjclarke]

DEFRA performed its own peer review and decided there was insufficient evidence to instigate a complete ban, they had a temporary ban while they conducted their review. The conclusion was that the evidence was very low quality

180 degrees from the facts again..... DEFRA have temporarily allowed the pesticides to be used in limited circumstances, apparently based on evidence submitted by the NFU, however they have declined to publish that evidence and, in an unprecedented step have not released the minutes of discussion meetings. So much for openness. Maybe they are 'hiding the decline' :

The European Food Safety Agency reviewed the evidence and concluded that neonicotinoids use is 'an unacceptable risk' to pollinators. They identified several serious flaws in the DEFRA review.

The House of Commons Audit Committee report on pollinators and pesticides concluded that

Neonicotinoid pesticides are not fundamental to the general economic or agricultural viability of UK farming.

They are however, very profitable to Synagro and Bayer. In contrast to claims from the NFU and Big Agrichemical yields have actually risen during the ban.

The trial that DEFRA point to in support of their position (Thompson H et al. (2013)) was described by Dave Goulson of the University of Sussex as a 'cockup' because the single control nest was itself contaminated with the pesticides. It was never peer-reviewed and only ever published on the internet, in contrast to the published studies on which the EFSA based their ban.

Neonicotinoids do demonstrable harm and little demonstrable good, other than to the bottom line of agrichemical companies, for whom our elected representatives seem to be acting as unpaid advocates.

[EternalOptimist]

DEFRA performed its own peer review and decided there was insufficient evidence to instigate a complete ban, they had a temporary ban while they conducted their review.
The conclusion was that the evidence was very low quality

face it PJ, this way of doing science, getting the answer then going mining for the evidence, is just shoddy. It will lead you up the garden path 9 times out of ten
and telling people there will be no birds in a few decades is like telling them the arctic ice will be gone in 2015.

People will just ignore the ceaseless beat of scare and horror stories

[pjclarke]

absolutely ZERO research was done on the other (non media friendly) pollinators.

Wrong again. My second link was to a study of a decline in insect - eating bird populations in areas where a neonic was deployed. 3.5% annually. I leave it to the reader to calculate how many years it will take before we would lose birdsong.

[EternalOptimist]

you have the timeline back to front.

the honey bee was declining, a culprit must be found, neonicotinoids was a handy whipping boy.
followed by low grade research (models as usual. computer games) followed by misleading articles.

absolutely ZERO research was done on the other (non media friendly) pollinators.


I am coming more and more to the view that The greens would actually do harm to the environment, if there was money and power in it for them

[pjclarke]

There's solid evidence that neonicotinoids cause harm to bees, other pollinating insects and escalates up the food chain ...

REVIEW: An overview of the environmental risks posed by neonicotinoid insecticides - Goulson - 2013 - Journal of Applied Ecology - Wiley Online Library

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture13531.html

In a US study half the colonies exposed to the chemical suffered 'colony collapse disorder', compared to none in the control group. Now, lab studies must be treated with caution but there was certainly enough evidence for a moratorium while more research is performed, which is what our Government, and the rest of the EU imposed. Now, after lobbying by the NFU, who see reduced yields without the chemicals, the ban has been lifted. Naturally the Government is publishing the scientific evidence behind the decision.

Another Silent Spring? | George Monbiot

Oh, and EO is quoting Matt Ridley , the self-described 'rational optimist' and the man who led Northern Rock to disaster. Not a very credible advocate, IMHO.

[EternalOptimist]

This bee thing - keep seeing it all over social media, but haven't paid much attention.

Just reading my MP's page on the issue - is it really another pseudo-science thing, and pesticides pose no danger to bees?

If so, why did the EU ban them in the first place?

UK suspends ban on pesticides linked to serious harm in bees | Environment | The Guardian

Answers on the buzzer please.

Green groups are in the business of producing scares, and it's a competitive market. All of the scares over the last 25 years have been exaggerated, some are false and some are knowingly false.
But hey, it's where the money comes from.

In the olden days, Green groups were like a kindly old uncle who had your best interests at heart, you listened to him, why wouldn't you ? Now he gets paid for every fright and every sleepless night you have.

[MarillionFan]

I've no idea if it's a real threat or not (:

All I know is that bees are rather vital to our existence, and more importantly to my stockpiles of Mead

All the smart money is on Butter Beer now.