Greenpeace founder now backs nuclear power

Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore says there is no proof global warming is caused by humans, but it is likely enough that the world should turn to nuclear power - a concept tied closely to the underground nuclear testing his former environmental group formed to oppose.

The chemistry of the atmosphere is changing, and there is a high-enough risk that "true believers" like Al Gore are right that world economies need to wean themselves off fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gases, he said.

"It's like buying fire insurance," Moore said. "We all own fire insurance even though there is a low risk we are going to get into an accident."

The only viable solution is to build hundreds of nuclear power plants over the next century, Moore told the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. There isn't enough potential for wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal or other renewable energy sources, he said.

With development of coal-fired electric generation stopped cold over greenhouse gases, the only alternative to nuclear power for producing continuous energy at the levels needed is natural gas. But climate change isn't the only reason to move away from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels also are a major health threat. "Coal causes the worst health impacts of anything we are doing today," Moore said.

Plus, uranium can be found within the United States and also comes in large quantities from Canada and Australia. Nuclear Power reduces the reliance on supplies in dangerous places including the Middle East, he said.

The climate is changing. That is because it is in the nature of the climate to change. It has been changing since the beginning of time and will change as long as the earth endures. Humans, for the most part, have nothing to do with this but if one must believe that there is some possibility of harm from greenhouse gasses to support something as startlingly sane as nuclear power then that's fine with me.

The Green Holocaust

From The American Thinker:

You've probably heard that the American bald eagle has just been removed from the federal list of protected species. While this comeback is certainly wonderful news for our revered national bird, those spreading the story are exploiting its opportunity to dust off moldy activist folklore.

Virtually every news organization (including Fox News) reporting this magnificent milestone is erroneously perpetuating the environmentalist lie that the disappearance of the great bird was due to the effects of DDT and that only the 1972 ban of the insecticide saved the eagle from extinction.

Go ahead and search "Bald Eagle" at Google News. Entrenched in each article lauding its reappearance, you'll find reference to DDT. But you'll find little or no mention that the majestic raptors were actually hunted to near extinction decades before DDT was ever used in the U.S. There'll be no indication that the DDT connection has been refuted in favor of such causes as continued illegal shooting, widespread loss of habitat, power line electrocution, in-flight collisions, and poisoning from consuming lead shot contaminated ducks.

Look closely for mention that prior to 1948, when Dr. Paul Muller won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering that DDT could kill malarial mosquitoes, two thirds of the world lived under the daily threat of death-by-malaria.

Or that in 1955, armed with Muller's cocktail, the World Health Organization began an extremely successful campaign to eradicate the deadly disease worldwide. As a result, global mortality rates were quickly reduced from 192 to fewer than 7 per 100,000. It actually appeared that the blight which had killed more people than the black plague was to finally be lifted from the planet -- until one woman's silly observations and theories literally changed mankind's destiny.

In 1962, American Biologist Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring," denounced DDT as a threat to human health and, more-to-the-point, bird populations. Carson claimed that the pesticide killed adult birds and thinned their egg shells, decreasing survival likelihood. While her facts themselves were thin and her conclusions downright anorexic, her words sparked a worldwide environmental movement hell-bent on the ban of DDT.

Here's just one example of the unintended consequences you're not likely to find extolled in the bald eagle stories. According to the American Council on Science and Health, in what is now Sri Lanka, malaria cases went from 2,800,000 in 1948, before the introduction of DDT, down to 17 in 1964 as a result of its use. Two years after Carson's book, DDT spraying was abruptly discontinued. Malaria cases then shot back up to 2,500,000 just five years later.

Across the globe, the miraculous success of the WHO malaria-eradication program saw massive and immediate reversals as more and more nations fell for the hype which has yet to be proven even to this day.

Things moved a bit slower here in the states, where malarial mosquitoes have been non-existent since the 1940's. Carson's title, which referred to a season bereft of bird song, evoked the perfect imagery to agitate the budding greenies. The newborn activists quickly blamed DDT for the disappearance of bald eagles and peregrine falcons, and, in 1972, pushed for EPA hearings -- despite a report from the National Academy of Science a year prior which stated that:

"It is estimated that, in little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that would otherwise have been inevitable."

Those hearings found that, contrary to Carson's alarm, DDT had no deleterious effect on humans, freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife. And yet, 10 years after publication of Carson's scare-manual and after 7 months of testimony, the 2 year old EPA banned DDT due to its "unreasonable adverse effects on man and the environment."

As no other pesticide has proven effective against malarial mosquitoes, this action put the final signature on what would amount to the death warrant of up to 3 million people each and every year.

As a gruesome corollary, unbridled environmental activism killed more people last century than Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Ze-Dong, Hideki Tojo and Pol Pot combined. Granted, the deaths were inadvertent -- but then, the perverse consequences of unqualified system meddling generally are. Global warming scare-mongers - pay heed!

Rachel Carson, who died April 14, 1964, is paying the full price for every human death caused by her eco-alarmism as she burns in hell, however the fact that she and the legions of eco-Nazis who follow in her footsteps will one day pay the ultimate price in the next world is not enough.

Their works in this world must be eradicated. The ban on DDT must be completely lifted so that not only governments can use it in anti-mosquito efforts but common citizens of the world's nations must have access to it as well.

National symbol no longer endangered

From The New York Times:

OCALA, Fla., June 28 — Bald eagles, whose numbers dwindled to historic lows in the early 1960s, are again flourishing and no longer need the protections of the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Thursday.

Here in Florida, bald eagles have thrived for a decade, multiplying to a statewide population of 1,150 breeding pairs and giving this state, with Minnesota, bragging rights as the top eagle haven in the country.

Bald eagles, aloof centurions of the wild, seem to have discovered their inner Updike and moved to Florida’s ever-expanding suburbs. They can be found nesting in cellphone towers and raising chicks near landfills and airport runways, along highways and high up in the pine trees of the state’s upscale developments.

This is good news. Bald Eagles are beautiful birds and it will be good to have them continue to live among us.

I am not surprised that they are doing well. Birds of prey tend to thrive in suburbia. Remember the spotted owl, who was only supposed to live in old growth forest? They have been seen nesting in Wal Mart signs.