ELPGreenpeace co-founder asks UK’s Royal Society to stop playing political blame game on global warming
VANCOUVER, Sept. 21 /CNW/ – Greenpeace co-founder and former leader Dr.
Patrick Moore said the United Kingdom’s Royal Society should stop playing a
political blame game on global warming and retract its recent letter that
smacks of a repressive and anti-intellectual attitude.
“It appears to be the policy of the Royal Society to stifle dissent and
silence anyone who may have doubts about the connection between global warming
and human activity,” said Dr. Moore, Chairman and Chief Scientist of
Vancouver, Canada-based Greenspirit Strategies Ltd.
“That kind of repression seems more suited to the Inquisition than to a
modern, respected scientific body,” said Moore.
In a letter dated September 4 and published this week in a London
newspaper, the Royal Society’s Bob Ward accused ExxonMobil of misleading the
public by daring to question the link between human activity and increases in
global temperatures.
Dr. Moore responded today in an open letter sent to the Royal Society:
“Certainly the Royal Society would agree there is no scientific proof of
causation between the human-induced increase in atmospheric CO2 and the recent
global warming trend, a trend that has been evident for about 500 years, long
before the human-induced increase in CO2 was evident.
“While I may agree with certain statements made by the IPCC, surely you
and the Royal Society would respect my right to disagree with other statements
or at least to call them into question.”
Dr. Moore writes further, “I am sure the Royal Society is aware of the
difference between an hypothesis and a theory. It is clear the contention that
human-induced CO2 emissions and rising CO2 levels in the global atmosphere are
the cause of the present global warming trend is an hypothesis that has not
yet been elevated to the level of a proven theory. Causation has not been
demonstrated in any conclusive way.
Dr. Moore also notes in the letter that while the Royal Society likes to
quote from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the IPCC itself
admits its conclusions are uncertain.
“The Royal Society needs to retract its anti-intellectual and
heavy-handed letter to ExxonMobil, and allow reasoned scientific debate on
this issue,” said Dr. Moore.
Dr. Moore said he is speaking out on this issue because “the last thing
the world needs, in the midst of a warming trend, is for the Royal Society to
cast a chill over science.”
Dr. Moore and his firm Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. have no links,
financial or otherwise, to ExxonMobil.
OPEN LETTER:
Bob Ward
Senior Manager
Policy Communication
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London, England SW1Y 5AG
September 21, 2006
Dear Mr. Bob Ward,
I am in receipt of a copy of your letter to ExxonMobil in which you
accuse them of misleading the public on the science of climate change.
I would be pleased to have your qualifications in science and to know how
you have decided the question of human causation of global warming has been
conclusively determined.
While I may agree with certain statements made by the IPCC, surely you
and the Royal Society would respect my right to disagree with other statements
or at least to call them into question.
You cite the IPCC as the authority yet surely you are aware that science
does not work by committee or by “consensus.”
Certainly the Royal Society would agree there is no scientific proof of
causation between the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 and the recent
global warming trend, a trend that has been evident for about 500 years, long
before human-caused increase in CO2 was evident.
I am sure the Royal Society is aware of the difference between an
hypothesis and a theory. It is clear the contention that human-induced CO2
emissions and rising CO2 levels in the global atmosphere are the cause of the
present global warming trend is an hypothesis that has not yet been elevated
to the level of a proven theory. Causation has not been demonstrated in any
conclusive way.
This is no doubt why the authors of the IPCC report use the word “likely”
in their concluding statement “most of the global warming over the past 50
years is likely due to the increase in greenhouse gases.”
Even more important, it is a fundamental precept in science that rigorous
objection to “consensus” be encouraged in order to avoid “politically correct”
conclusions that stifle dissent and intellectual exploration.
I say shame on the Royal Society – one of the world’s top science bodies
– for allowing such a political “blame” letter to be sent. The correspondence
smacks of a repressive and anti-intellectual attitude that can only harm our
efforts to understand the true nature of climate change, both non-human and
human in origin.
Please retract this letter and instead encourage debate and dialogue on
this most important subject for the future of humankind and the environment
Sincerely,
Patrick Moore, PhD
An advisor to government and industry, Dr. Patrick Moore is a co-founder
and former leader of Greenpeace, and chair and chief scientist of Greenspirit
Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada. http://www.GreenspiritStrategies.com
For further information: Dr. Patrick Moore or Jeremy Twigg, (604)
681-4122 or http://www.GreenspiritStrategies.com
http://www.newswire.ca/en/info/about.cgi
——————————–
Oh my….. :p
ELPShortsbro, If you look at the other thread you will see that we have been discussing this and the possible shortcomings of the Harrier GR’s. The Consensus is that it needs a gunpod which it hasn’t got, although this may put the aircraft at greater risk. A few of those small diameter bombs just rolled out by the US might not go amiss either as when you have got an enemy 200 yards away anything bigger is risky.
One statistic that has amazed me that I have seen two different sources quote that the army have fired off 10,000 105mm shells in the last few weeks and that is no small number 😮 Maybe they should have procured the new M777 howitzer before they went as mentioned on here before, if they were firing off that level of munitions in fire support. No on second thoughts that might have been daft, as they haven’t got the helicopters to move them :rolleyes:
Excellent point about the helos. That is getting scary. BTW where is the UK’s Apache? It is a very useful asset in Afghanistan.
ELPELP
The F-16/B-1 may be able to respond to an emergency call quicker than the A-10 but will it be able to deal with it any better? Can it loiter overhead for some time and if it was successfully targeted by enemy small arms fire how well would it be able to soak up the punishment?
I think the answer to this is, er, no!
Soak up punishment. That is exactly what the A-1o does. Now before the precision engagement package just reaching the field….. Why is that? Answer: The only weapons it has, require it to eat AAA, MANPADS, Small battlefield SAMs, trashfire etc. In a high threat environment, it orbits around and gets shot up. It is slow, it gets shot up. Where any F-15 showing up with 9 or more GBU-12s or a mix of GBU-12 and GBU-38 JDAM, can’t be touch by any of those threats. F-16 with the twin racks for PGMs, well again, showing up now and breaking up a threat beats waiting. Where most any CAS asset showing up without PGMs, is a wasted effort. And oh by the way, if there is cloud cover, or other things that make mark one eye ball dumb bombing / straffing not workable, an A-10 is of little use. This has been proved already, time and again. If you don’t show up to the request with a combinaton of GBU-12s, and GBU-38s, you risk not being very useful to a CAS request. The USAF GFAC or Marine GFAC know what they are doing. And before the precision engagement package for the A-10, this meant for the GFAC a lot more work… and much more risk when the request was for danger close support. If I want something to loiter overhead on an emergency CAS request, I want the B-1, it has proved very successful at racing out of the JSTARS stack at warp speed and showing up with a lot of weapons. Even with the PE add on to the A-10, it still won’t be out of the reach of some of the battlefield ground fire. And at the end of the day… putting the P.E. package proves a point. You can do any of that non GAU-8 PGM work, better with a fast fixed wing. And don’t be too excited about the A-10 being able to carry a lot. That only works in plastic model kit artwork. In Afghanistan, hot and high environ ( weight vs performance ) a pre P.E. A-10 would of course have its gun, a few marker rockets and a very limited payload of Mk82 slicks. Big deal. Improving carry out of hot and high fields won’t happen until it gets new engines. When ever that is. A-10C with the P.E. package will be more useful on coordinated offensives already in action. For emergency requests any CAS jet that shows up soon is better than showing up for anything slow.
As for big wars, well CBU-105/SFW/BLU-108b can kill tanks out in the open by the bushel and the shooter doesn’t have to drive down into flak, MANPADS, small battle field SAMs, Medium battlefield SAMs, trashfire. etc.
I don’t think the A-10 can be replaced. It is still a useful tool in the bag and certainly better as an A-10C with the P.E. package. I also like it for putting it into garbage fields. Bug hunts in Afcrapistan at night before the A-10C, I would prefer the Apache, where you have a few more “basing” options for response time. Also one thing I have noticed. Iraq seems to have robbed Afghanistan of UCAV assests. Every bug hunt in Afghanistan has no reason not to have a UCAV over head for eyes and a Hellfire or two to upset/throw off balance, any ambushes not seen by your eye in the sky, within the first 2 minutes of battle.
ELPThe A-10 is useful, but not better for the task than any fast mover. Any Sniper/Litening equiped, F-15, 16,18 etc that shows up in 10 minutes for an emergency request, with all weather PGMs for the GFAC to use now… beats a slow A-10 trying to respond to the same emergency that might not show up for 15-20 minutes. In those situations it’s all about response time. And the PE ( precision engagement ) package is just being installed now. It will be a while before those show up in any numbers to the A-10 fleet. Showing up to a GFAC request without GPS/INS weapons ( when there is cloud cover ), LGBs. or dual use PGMs like the enhanced Paveway, Paveway IV ( coming soon ), Laser JDAM ( coming soon )…. is a huge lack of capability. Mark One eyeball only aircraft like the pre PE A-10 being the only asset available when a GFAC calls in an emergency ….. in low cloud cover, is not especially useful. Battlefield smoke adds to that confusion even on a good day. The latest frat with the A-10 ( which mark one eyeball only aircraft contribute to more frats ) vs. the Canadians, was because the pilot used the mark one eyeball on the wrong target and was confused by a visual cue ( a trash fire )….(traditional in all our A-10 frats which are consistant). As opposed to any other aircraft we have in our inventory where a GFAC calls in the cords for a JDAM attack or the GFAC uses his own laser as a laser pointer to brief the lead CAS pilot or buddy lases a target for LGBs ( including dropping LGBs through a cloud layer if you are desperate and the GFAC buddy lases… )…… or the jet itself lases and confirms with the GFAC. Other uses…want to kill tanks en masse out in the open? CBU-105/SFW/BLU-108b does a better job, and assuming large/long range SAMs are mostly dead, and enemy aircraft are mostly dead…. the shooter can’t be touched because you can drop these from 40k ft. All weather, cheap, PGMs pretty much are the more useful tool when helping a GFAC. And those can be dropped by any fast mover including a faster response time in emergency requests. Even with new engines, a PE A-10C will still be in the engagment range of some deadly ground fire weapons… It won’t have the full contempt of engagement benefit offered by the other fast mover PGM shooters which can drop from 35~40k if needed.
This is kinda important places similar to Afghanistan too where the ground elevation can make avoiding ground threats a bit harder.
A-10s are better suited to coordinated offensive operations, already in motion. If you are getting shot at and the only responder is an A-10, you very well could be waiting a while. Again here too the A-10 is easier to maintain running out of newly captured garbage airfield out in the middle of now where. Anyway, the sooner the A-10s with the PE package get into the field, the better.
ELPJust me, but in order for this thing to survive the well known thin budgets, all services are going to have to show hard, determined, interest in it. Which may not be a bad thing because you can use it so so many ways on so many platforms. While maybe not as slick and certainly not apples to apples, I would rather see something like JCM survive the competition for ever shrinking funds. If I want a meat eating tank killer, we have CBU-105, SFW BLU-108B. Again not a real apples to apples comparison but certainly, like JCM, steps into some of the LOCASS killing ability. I think LOCASS is very useful, however again here, something like SDB and SDB II will also kill some of the targets that LOCASS was designed for. It would be nice if we had funds for all the neat gadgets, unfortunately we have less and less funds for cool stuff. Basic war sustainment is taking up a few colors of money that you don’t really hear much about. Congress just spent 2 billion on buying 10 more C-17s. Something we have NO need for. The only purpose for that purchase out of the blue was for political graft as it is an election year. Nothing more. There was no need. Figure that one out. 2 Billion could have been better used on any number of other things.
ELPTornados or Jags out of Bagram would be nice. The Apache is rather handy over there too in hot and high environs.
ELPMy understanding at the time was that Heyford would do the tac nuke capable duties if needed, while Lakenheath was conventional only. As the PAVE TAC became available in limited numbers this prompted the split between conventional precision strike ( PAVE TAC and LGBs ), all weather conventional strike ( dumb iron ) and nuke strike in the two ( non FB ) F-111 types. This, I believe was how USAFE had it sorted out at the time ( cerca 1984-86) . I could be wrong but I don’t think a PAVE TAC equiped ( which occupied the bomb bay ) F-111 would be wasted to suite it up in the nuke role. An F-111 puke that served over there at the time could of course correct me better.
ELPGuns are still important for CAS. Doesn’t even really matter too much on the gun type. Having one is most important. Numerous times F-14, 15, 16, 18s have in the latest unpleasantness, used up their PGMs and had to go down and use their gun to help out the GFAC. This would be important for ( our USMC ) Harrier as it carries a weak load of stores. One Litening pod, drop tanks and 1 PGM like a GBU-12 etc, :rolleyes: , doesn’t bring much to the fight.
ELPNot really a “prefered” CAS aircraft. As any CAS aircraft that can get their now and save you is “prefered”. The gun is nice but not always needed. GBU-12s and GBU-38s being the most used CAS weapon now. Good though that A-10 is getting the PE (precision engagement package ) as mentioned already ( happening at this time at the Depot at Hill AFB ).. Also it had a wing rebuild giving it 25 more years of life. What helps make it useful is basing it in garbage airfields we take over to fly out of. Fairly low maintenance and logistical overhead. At the end of the day though it is still slow. Where response time to an emergency CAS request is the most important thing. Any fast fixed wing like an F-16 or B-1 that can get there faster will win the title of “prefered” CAS aircraft that day.
ELPWell history is an interesting thing. Hard to rewrite it. However do you mean the FB-111 which was a SAC only asset or all F-111s?
ELPWow… an expert in programming a FMS…….
Again your lack of knowledge impresses me…..
The so-called pilot NEVER TRAINED ON A 757…. So…. if he was supposedly flying it…. he could not have programmed the FMS…. Oh sorry… maybe he trained on Flightsim 2000 ??????Vor/DME…. im impressed…. why with that old piece of navigational equipment im sure your course would be straight and true…. I guess we have never heard of GPS??? How about Differential GPS??
Lets see… now where do i find the VOR/DME frequency for the Pentagon..??? Maybe its in my Jepp flip folder…….
Your flight on autopilot 30ft above the ground would only last as long as the accuracy of calibration of the aircrafts altimeter… but then i guess you knew that too…..
All those hundreds of thousands of dollars airline companies spend training their crews…… what a waste…. any old monkey ..er..sorry… crack pot member of some religious outfit can do it….
Dear oh dear…..
Amusing rant. Don’t know what you are hyper-ventilating about being 30ft off of the ground. I am talking about first getting to a location before going manual.
At that time GPS was not authorized for nav systems in U.S. airliners. The jets in LNAV are guided by an IRS ( INS in any other term ). The IRS is updated by autotuned VOR/DME. Unknown to me but those jets at that time may or may not have had the GPS assisted IRS’s in them. Don’ know. And even if they did, it wasn’t autothorized for use then. Only auto tuned VOR/DME was allowed to be reference for the IRS.
The training required by the terrorists didn’t require landing or taking off or all of the safe things we require from professional pilots. I am not a professional pilot nor do I think I could cut it as one. Getting the aircraft to a point over distance where you can then drive it manually into the ground or object. Isn’t especially impossible….. As we have seen. The point being, screw the LNAV setting you could have gotten to where you needed to by by manual VOR/DME and heading inputs into the autopilot. Then once you get in the target area, go manual. Wow, that is difficult. ( not )…. Not to mention they picked a good aircraft to take over. Manually flying something like an MD 80 family of jets would have been flat out much more difficult with the muscle and increased skill/experience to work it.
BTW…RNAV (GPS assist ) is just now being authorized for some airlines in the U.S. ( Example Alaska Airlines into KDCA and a few other examples ). It is obvious from seeing your posts and if you have a PPL or higher, you aren’t all that up on broad range aviation matters. Weak. Not that even PPLs are especially impressive by themselves. They aren’t.
ELPThats according to you and kurt but most of USAF leadership and pilots (much lower level) beg to differ with you !!;)
Yeah well. The reality is the rest of the USAF will be going out to seed to pay for this and our dumb expeditionary warfare. We are going from a greyhound to a greyhound that is getting a bit too thin in the bone.
ELPA “win-win” for USAF would be not having to buy F-35.
ELPThey are also converting ( or have ) an old 737-300 and fitting it out so it has a JSF radome and radar. Very very cool. This of course like the 757 make over for the F-22 program, will allow a lot of flight time and test data collection to be done on the sensor kit.
I was just thinking. In 10 years we will see a simlar photo on a Chicom website showing the latest JSF knockoff being fielded. :diablo: 😀
ELPWell I could have flown those 767s or 757s and I am not even a rated pilot. And I would do it better than the dummies that really did fly it ( and according to the cell phone conversations of one stew, they must have been flying large portions of it manually because the ride was not fun. ) Where there is NO REASON to fly most of it manually if the op was plotted well.
The only thing you would have to know is the VOR/DMEs you would want to use and then run course, descent, speed, all through the autopilot. I would not use the LNAV function tied into the FMC where you just go to the Fix or Dir page or what ever it is and type in a VOR/DME or whatever and go for it that way. Unless you type on the FMC all the time, not a good day to try and learn it even if you think you know what you are doing. So sorry. The mistry of flight just isn’t there. Big deal. So the “only a rated pilot could have done it” falls flat. Yeah you would need a rated pilot to take it off or land it, as THAT is in fact more skill based. But sorry to burst your bubble about where only eagles soar, but for what the terrorists had to do…. while a challenge, wasn’t impossible. Hmmm maybe again if I felt frosty, I would use the FMC and LNAV and do it that way. Soil myself several times and go manual when I got a tally on the target.
Go buy some tin foil for your own safety. The black helicopters are after you man.
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