Dennis Avery, wrong about everything

The climate change deniers will have to wait their turn. Hitler is the popular girl at school. He's being courted by the IDiots to compare with Darwin in order to suggest the eugenics movement he apparently inflicted on humanity. Stalin isn't busy at the moment. Maybe they could exploit his symbolism for a while.

Well, giving the benefit of doubt, the floating "inadvertently" may be intended to modify "absence of DDT has led" in the previous sentence rather than the more closely coupled "Hitler killed". Fuzzy thought doth not precise language engender.

Oh, I see what you're doing, Lambert. This is corporate tool weekend at Deltoid. Nice to see that you're grabbed one of the Avery's out of the workbox. Worse than Dennis is his son Alex.

Alex sings the "nitrates in groundwater is not bad for you" chorus, which attempts to protect big agriculture from fertilizer pollution of aquifers.

So it's one big, happy family of tools over at the Avery household.

"Inadvertently" there obviously refers to Carson rather than Hitler. What the statement clearly means is that despite the 30 million dead, Carson is not nearly as bad as Hitler due to the difference in intent.

Of course, 30 million people dead is worse than 6 million dead.

Environmentalists will eat your children!

Same old crap. Dave Scot at UC was saying that the increase in price of corn to subsidize ethanol in fuel would kill "hundreds of millions".

The usual fearmongering. Never accurate, just typical denialist garbage.

Mark

www.biofuelswatch.co.uk

A lot of very environmentally minded people are very worried about biofuels. This is an ecological disaster in the making.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2043727,00.html

Biodiesel is the EU's contribution to destroying the world climate. Because it increases demand for palm oil, which means the Indonesians and Malaysians ploughing under rainforest to plant plantations. For every kg of CO2 saved by biodiesel, 10-100kg are lost in rainforest destruction.

www.rsquared-blog.com Robert Rapier is an expert engineer with an MSC in biofuels, his criticisms of bioethanol (corn based) are extremely well thought out.

At best, corn based ethanol produces only 20-30% more energy than is consuming in the distilling and transport of it (some calculations show a *negative* energy return). And the impact on the ecosystem of mass use of nitrogen based fertilizer and pesticides (American corn growing is an industrial business) is severe. You can see the 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico from fertilizer washed down the Mississippi, from space.

Rising corn prices in Mexico have triggered riots. People *will* starve when corn prices rise. There are a lot of very poor people in Mexico.

The case for sugar cane ethanol is better, but even there there are deforestation risks. And of course the US blocks imports of Brasilian cane ethanol.

Biofuels is a classic example of 'clean politics, dirty air'.

Mathematically, if CO2 damages are cumulative above a threshold level, then even clean biofuels don't help, because they release damaging CO2 into the atmosphere.

As a civilisation, we are moving through the 5 stages of dealing with a terminal illness when it comes to Global Warming. We have gone through the denial stage, now we are moving into the 'bargaining' stage.

Biofuels is part of the 'bargaining' process. Where we think we can do a deal with our CO2 emissions.

We can't do a deal with our propensity to emit CO2. We have to end it.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2043727,00.html

George Monbiot
Tuesday March 27, 2007
The Guardian

It used to be a matter of good intentions gone awry. Now it is plain fraud. The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless. In theory, fuels made from plants can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by cars and trucks. Plants absorb carbon as they grow - it is released again when the fuel is burned. By encouraging oil companies to switch from fossil plants to living ones, governments on both sides of the Atlantic claim to be "decarbonising" our transport networks.

.....

As the forests are burned, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 10 times as much as petroleum produces. I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes 10 times as much climate change as ordinary diesel.

.....

There are similar impacts all over the world. Sugarcane producers are moving into rare scrubland habitats (the cerrado) in Brazil, and soya farmers are ripping up the Amazon rainforests. As President Bush has just signed a biofuel agreement with President Lula, it's likely to become a lot worse. Indigenous people in South America, Asia and Africa are starting to complain about incursions onto their land by fuel planters. A petition launched by a group called biofuelwatch, begging western governments to stop, has been signed by campaigners from 250 groups

"The absence of DDT has led to the needless deaths of at least 30 million people from malaria and yellow fever in the tropics. (Five times as many as Hitler killed in his concentrations death camps, albeit inadvertently)."

Given the sheer depth of stupidity and ignorance in this piece is it worth pointing out that:

1. While six million Jews died in the Nazi concentration camps they were not even the majority of the victims of the death camps.

2. Hitler's victims were not confined to the concentration camps and included, for example 20 million + Russian civilians; one million Yugoslavs; two million Poles; and roughly 500,000 citizens from both France and Britain.

Dennis and his boy Alex are, plain and simple, whores. Give them a message and they stick to it. Alex is just as dumb as his dad.

Long ago, at TCS, I knew there was something to this larger propaganda thing when I caught Alex lying about Atrazine and Tyrone Hayes.

Best,

D

Dano: "Alex is just as dumb as his dad."

Wrong. Alex is much dumber than his father.

Thom:

you could very well be right. In my mind, once you get below a certain threshold, it's all the same. So I stop measuring.

Best,

D

Doing something to recognize Rachel Carson's birthday doesn't really sound like a bad idea, now that he mentions it. I've never heard of anyone actually doing so, though.

Dano, your problem is that your measuring units are too high. You have to start think in Avery units. Or Milloy measures. That should solve the problem.

Ah, yes: Milloy Measures.

Lindzen lengths. Singer scenarios. Idso digits.

Or, the strong flash of inspiration on something for which you have erroneous knowledge, just a wish to marginalize greenie conspiracies:

Errendipity.

Best,

D

How does one convert between Milloy Measures, Lindzen Lengths and, presumable Ball Bearings? Is there a Shill Constant?

I have this fantasy of someday being compared to Che. Maybe one of the Averys...? Nah.

*Is there a Shill Constant?*

The Inhofe Scale

http://www.grinzo.com/energy/blog_entry_archive/2007/03/2007x03x22_2.ht…

With the massacre at VA Tech, I wonder how long it will take bloggers to start trotting out some of Lott's disproven talking points....

For crying out loud, Lambert. I know you're a physical scientist and all, but doesn't that stupid computer of yours have spell-check? It's not

WORSE THAN HITLER,

it's

WROSE THAN HILTER!!!1!

DDT is still in widespread use for malaria control. The whole premise for the argument is false. From the World Health Organization website:

http://www.who.int/malaria/docs/10thingsonDDT.pdf

http://www.who.int/malaria/docs/WHO-TRS-936s.pdf