Neil Young protests our oil sands

[valve37]

Neil Young nneds to go live in an igloo for a spell and burn whale oil to keep warm. But then Greenpeace would be after him for that. Better switch to seal or warlus oil instead.

“It’s all marketing. It’s all big money. This oil is all going to China. It’s not for Canada. It’s not for the United States. It’s not ours – it belongs to the oil companies, and Canada’s government is behind making this happen. It’s truly a disaster.”

At a press conference held on the stage of Toronto’s Massey Hall this afternoon, the environmentally concerned singer-songwriter Neil Young spoke out strongly against the federal government’s role in the industrial development of Northern Alberta oil sands.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/neil-young-blasts-harper-government-for-allowing-oilsan...

[valve37]

Anywho Rosedee, all being said where do you stand on future planned pipelines and the further development of the oil sands plus other resources for the long term prosperity of Canada? 

[pierrelebel]

"These reality gaps speak of sloppy journalism, and make me suspect that there's a big credibility issue with this piece..."

I agree.  Not everything written by everyone is always well researched and properly edited.

However, sometime one needs to stop and think: is there some truth in the message, regardless of the obvious bias shown by the writer?

It was really strange in the last few days watching and listening to reactions from some anti-pipeline folks.  They keep spilling out the same nonsense: a pipeline will increase oil usage in America.  It is so darn stupid. A pipeline will simply bring a quantity of oil from one place (Canada) to another (USA), replacing the same volume of oil coming from somewhere else (Middle East, Venezuela, etc...).

Oil causing global warming is one subject.  To confuse it with building a pipeline is something else.  Many folks are simply fighting the wrong battle.

[rose-dee]

---

@pierrelebel wrote:

However, sometime one needs to stop and think: is there some truth in the message, regardless of the obvious bias shown by the writer?

---

The point I was trying to make is that where such an obviously controversial subject is involved, it behooves every journalist to present the facts as she/he discovers them in a thoroughly professional way, and to be particularly scrupulous in researching it. 

This kind of journalism, on the other hand, isn't far from gossip-mongering.  It isn't a question of bias, it's a question of presenting unsubstantiated allegations as if they were journalistic discoveries.  If he had had a first-hand source close to the heart of the allegation of money being paid to a native chief, he should have said so. 

The real trouble with such stories is that people will believe them, they will ask "is there some truth in this"?  It's the old power of the whispered insinuation, or the rumour mill -- it's very difficult to unring those sorts of bells.

The fact that nothing is mentioned of sources speaks volumes about the lack of bona fides and professionalism on the part of the author.  I think he simply wanted to get a "juicy" story out there, to sell papers on a hot issue to a rabidly polarized public.  Truth is an irritating problem, and rather time-consuming anyway.  Better to just get it out there, researched or not.  I'm sure his editor was delighted at the prospect.  

Who really knows where this bit of libellous garbage came from?  He certainly doesn't say.  It could very well have come to him second or third hand from someone with a personal grudge against the chief in question.  It might have been deliberately fed to him by someone with a political agenda.  Again, he doesn't say, and, having failed to do his "homework", he just passes it off as news.  And people will wonder if there really is truth in it.  That's the central problem with publishing stuff like this.

To present such an article such as this without the proper journalistic foundation is completely irresponsible and potentially dangerous.  It will convince a lot of people who don't know better to swallow something sensational, hook, line and sinker without caring about the source (or the author's credentials), and it will also appeal to those interested in hearing what they want to believe.  

This "story" will doubtless get perpetuated and, as you've said, it will stick in the minds of many, making people wonder if it's true, merely because it is inflammatory.  

[rose-dee]

---

@valve37 wrote:

Anywho Rosedee, all being said where do you stand on future planned pipelines and the further development of the oil sands plus other resources for the long term prosperity of Canada? 

---

I am for a reasoned, rational approach to scraping off (or out) the earth's non-renewable resources.  Just because we have the technical and engineering capability to exploit something, doesn't mean we must exploit it, or must exploit all of it, right now. 

I have nothing against the pipeline in principle, if it's done properly, but I do have something against the principle behind the pipeline and why such things continue to be focused on when Canada should be moving into areas beyond simple resource extraction.  We don't seem to have progressed in our thinking much beyond the 19th century.

Expanding the oil sands is not the answer to Canada's long-term economic sustainability; it's more akin to economic crack cocaine.  We'll tweak off with all that cash and clout while it's still viable to do so, but we will also be dealing with the consequences we create, both for ourselves and for future generations. 

The trouble with people who talk about "future generations" is that they are often really only thinking 20 or 40 years into the future.  Isn't it just possible human beings may want to live in this place 100, 500, 1,000 years from now?  How much of those profits now pouring out of the oil sands will be eaten up dealing with the environmental, social and economic fallout of not only despoiling a large section of a province, but also continuing to feed our world's oil habit? 

We can suck up, scrape off, dig up and unearth all the oil-based material there is within Canada's domain, it will still never be enough as long as there are countries willing to pay for it and use it.  And it will eventually, if not run out, at least become more and more expensive to extract, meaning fewer and fewer people will be able to afford it.  By then, all the major cities of the world will look like Beijing does today -- choked with the stuff.  And wars will start, between those that have and those that want.

Wouldn't it be far better for Canada to be a leader in technological change, and to put its effort into focusing on developing solutions that will not only create a better world and more long-lasting answers to the problem of energy needs, but will also provide sustainable, long-term jobs for people and create more stable communities.  Those kind of technologies can also be spread around the country, fostering a firm social and economic foundation locally, rather than being focused in one or two enormous concentrations of people and capital. 

I'm old enough to remember the last boom-and-bust Alberta went through.  There has always been a rather hidden but sad social impact and dislocation created by mega-projects, whether oil sands, mining, or big forestry.  Whole generations of young people abandon the Maritime provinces, for example, seeking work.  There is an enormous jolt of home-building, school-building, town-building, and then it all collapses back once the huge corporate interests move on. 

Individuals can make this switch happen on a personal, and even community scale, but we need our politicians to be courageous, and so far I don't see that likely in our present situation.

In a nutshell, it's this attitude of short-term, grab-it-all-now-while-we-can, forget (or bypass) the consequences, greed (for lack of a better word) on the part of huge vested corporate interests that I'm opposed to.  It's starting to look like some sort of mental illness.  I agree that the example of the Scandinavian countries is one we should be following, but we just can't seem to get that resource needle out of our arm long enough to work on an alternative.

On the subject of natural resources generally, here's an earlier discussion.  I think I said it clearly enough in my posts there (I believe it was around post #10-14):

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Canada-Town-Square/Flyers-are-not-made-from-trees/m-p/182333#M30709

[pierrelebel]

"where such an obviously controversial subject is involved, it behooves every journalist to present the facts as she/he discovers them in a thoroughly professional way, and to be particularly scrupulous in researching it. "

????

Maybe in a perfect world.  But not on Earth.

Looking at the same facts, some journalists for some organization will present a bias to the left while other journalists looking at the same facts will present a bias to the right leading The Sun and The Toronto Star to present the same conclusions on everything.

Life would be boring.

[rose-dee]

"Looking at the same facts, some journalists for some organization will present a bias to the left while other journalists looking at the same facts will present a bias to the right..."'

Pierre, I have no problem with journalistic bias.  It's existed for centuries.  One can present facts and still be biased, but one can't present non-factual or unfounded material and pretend it's simply a biased point of view.

My problem is precisely with supposedly major professional media presenting yesterday's trash as a dinner entrée, allegations or rumour as fact, "mutton dressed as lamb" as they used to say of old girls, and claiming some journalistic competence.  It's laziness at best, and verging on slander at worst. 

A truly compelling and believable article on this subject could still have been presented in a biased manner but would have supported its facts with proper research and journalistic integrity.  Bias is a tendency to lean one way or the other, to favour one point of view over another.  Cooking up a possibly fake story, or at best, reporting an unsubstantiated bunch of pseudo-facts gleaned second or third hand, is turning hearsay into fact, and isn't worthy of anybody who calls himself a journalist.

[pierrelebel]

"but one can't present non-factual or unfounded material"

Neil Young did just that with that "China" comment.

Of course people can present garbage.  They should not but do it all the time.

[rose-dee]

---

@pierrelebel wrote:

"but one can't present non-factual or unfounded material"

Neil Young did just that with that "China" comment.

Of course people can present garbage.  They should not but do it all the time.

---

Pierre, if you read my Post #9, you'll see that I agree with you completely, but you're mixing incomparable concepts. 

That was indeed my point about Neil Young -- he was not an informed spokesperson, but a pop singer who decided to espouse a cause.  That's all well and good, but if you're not knowledgeable, you need to allow someone else to talk about the details, and just lend your moral support on the basis of your fame.  It would have been far more effective had he simply stood up and said "I support this cause, I think it's right, and so-and-so is going to tell you why".  Then sit down and listen.  

This is completely distinct from someone who is ostensibly a professional in his/her field, who puts him/herself up to the public (in this case) as an experienced and informed journalist, but who knowingly publishes improperly researched and/or unsubstantiated material, either because an editor wanted to capitalize on a sensational story, or because he just didn't care about shabby work.

Many people still take journalists seriously because they believe most professional journalists are doing their job properly (and many do).  You were taken in by this writer and his inflammatory and possibly libellous piece, as I'm sure were many others.  We shouldn't be fooled.  This is dirty journalism, and he might as well be writing for the National Inquirer for all the absence of background work and integrity. 

[art-in-the-making]

Face it, most of the pro-oil "information" (propaganda) that bombards us in ads, infomercials, "public service" messages from various "institutes" and "patriotic" (LOL) organizations and politicians is all funded by the multi-billion $ oil industry, whether it be the Kochs, Shell, Exxon or whatever. And the subverted news organizations such as Sun and Fox with whom they have mutually beneficial relationships

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely, frankly unimaginable, that even one word of all the "information" provided by the above mentioned would or could possibly be a bare, honest fact. Unspun, unbiased.

We do have a few news sources that verge towards being less blatantly subverted, such as CBC or the Toronto Star. But make no mistake the Toronto Star is a business first and foremost and the CBC created Kevin O'Leary and Don Cherry and is under relentless attack from Conservative lapdogs and is often forced to over-compensate in its news presentation.

A thousand Neil Youngs and David Suzukis would scarcely make a dent in the warped view of the world we are fed....

[valve37]

"A thousand Neil Youngs and David Suzukis would scarcely make a dent in the warped view of the world we are fed...."

Thank god there aren't!

[valve37]

By pipe or by rail she's going to get there!

ANALYSIS-As Keystone looms larger, Canada oil-rail builders face delays2 hours ago by Thomson Reuters

* Canada crude-by-rail projects slip behind schedule

* Harsh weather delays unit train terminals

* Pipelines more attractive than rail over long term

Reuters: By Nia Williams and Patrick Rucker

CALGARY/WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Cost overruns, logistical woes and regulatory uncertainty had already cast a shadow over the Canadian crude-by-rail boom even before a long-awaited report last week appeared to give a boost to the oil-train industry's main competitor, the Keystone XL pipeline.

A U.S. State Department study released on Friday found that TransCanada Corp's proposed $5.4 billion pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast from the oil sands of northern Alberta will not increase the pace of oil sands development, and therefore have minimal impact on climate change.

Even without the 830,000 barrel per day (bpd) pipeline, the report said, mile-long oil trains will ensure that Canadian crude keeps flowing to market.

The environmental study found no "substantial impediment" to efforts to build the billions of dollars worth of specialized rail-terminal facilities needed to support the expected growth in oil sands output. It estimated that at least 1.1 million bpd of rail-terminal capacity would be running in Western Canada by year's end.

But at facilities across much of Alberta, it has become clear in recent months that development work has been slower and costlier than many in the industry had expected due to difficult weather, labor costs and logistical challenges.

With setbacks in the near term and with major new pipeline competitors now looming larger on the horizon, terminal operators such as Torq Transloading Inc, Canexus Corp and Gibson Energy Inc could be facing a shrinking time period in which to capitalize on demand for crude-by-rail.

"Let's say KXL (Keystone XL) were to get approved - it may signal to rail developers there's a little bit more uncertainty in terms of how much capacity is needed," said Jackie Forrest, IHS CERA director of global oil in Calgary.

After the State Department report, many analysts and observers are now placing bigger bets on President Barack Obama approving the controversial Keystone pipeline later this year. Construction is expected to take around two years.

Forrest said Keystone XL alone would not quash Canada's nascent crude-by-rail industry. Many refiners also believe the trend is likely to carry on even after pipelines are built as it offers them greater flexibility in choosing what crude they burn.

But with railway rates more than double what pipeline tariffs are expected to be to get oil to Gulf Coast refiners, many producers see crude-by-rail as more of a short-term alternative.

As well as Keystone XL, Canadian regulators are considering other pipeline proposals: TransCanada's Energy East pipeline, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP's Trans Mountain expansion, and Enbridge Inc's Northern Gateway. The four projects in total would add more than 3 million bpd of takeaway capacity.

"If two out of four are built we will probably not need as much rail capacity as we are building," said CIBC analyst David Noseworthy.

RAIL FUTURE

Friday's State Department review dropped a March finding that crude-by-rail costs could match that of pipelines.

Last week, officials allowed that train transport was more costly and that some future projects might be dropped if rail were the only option and global oil prices were low.

Oil sands production is expected to more than double to 5.2 million barrels per day by 2030, industry officials have said.

The State Department's data also showed that the growth in Canada-to-Gulf shipments has been slower than expected. A year ago, it cited forecasts for 200,000 bpd of Canadian heavy crude to reach Gulf Coast refiners by rail by late 2013.

But the actual tally was no more than 40,000 bpd through November, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the Energy Information Administration.

The State Department changed its crude-by-rail reference in Friday's report to say that about 180,000 bpd of Canadian crude of all kinds was moving by rail late last year.

But total rail-loading capacity in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin - most of which is oil sands output - had surged to 665,000 bpd by the end of last year, and should rise at least 1.1 million bpd by the end of 2014, the study found. The final tally could be even higher as new projects come online such Kinder Morgan's plans to build a new Edmonton joint-venture facility to load 100,000 bpd.

The crude-by-rail industry's biggest concern is that a series of fiery derailments is prompting regulators to consider safety measures that could erase efficiencies in the rail model, making it a less palatable alternative to Keystone.

Tougher tank car standards are anticipated but regulators might also order shipments to be routed around cities, to move at slower speeds, or to limit the use of unit trains. Unit trains, 100-car-or-more deliveries that have transformed North Dakota energy patch, have been involved in several recent derailments.

WEATHER, TANKS

But practical problems are also arising in the sector's race to build more than half a dozen new unit-train terminals.

(Factbox on crude-by-rail projects: )

Canada's first unit train terminal, operated by Canexus Corp in Alberta, has seen costs rise 40 percent and start dates slip behind schedule.

In addition, many terminals - in theory able to load 120 rail cars or nearly 70,000 barrels of crude per day - will not necessarily ship at headline capacity.

"Weather has not been kind to the construction process. You are always optimistic about being online sooner than you end up being online," said Jarrett Zielinski, president of Torq Transloading. Torq is developing Canada's largest station: a 168,000 barrel per day loading dock in Kerrobert, Saskatchewan.

Harsh snowfalls have knocked that project back months, he said.

Handling oil sands crude is a cumbersome process requiring specialized tank cars and costly, steam-heated unloading docks that refiners have been reluctant to build without a clearer signal from Canada that the deliveries will come.

Independent refiner PBF Energy has held back on expanding its Delaware offloading facilities for oil sands shipments because of infrastructure delays north of the border.

Those delays mean coiled and insulated rail cars, built to carry raw or diluted bitumen, are being used for light sweet crude and condensate as shippers await new terminals that can load heavy crude, Canadian midstream operators said.

NOT NORTH DAKOTA

The industry in Canada has emerged differently than in North Dakota, where desperate producers that quickly ran out of pipeline capacity built their own rail terminals. Around two-thirds, or some 800,000 bpd, of Bakken crude was shipped by rail in November, up 60 percent from a year earlier.

"Producers led the charge in North Dakota," said Travis Brock, an executive at Strobel Starostka Transfer, one of the North Dakota's largest crude-by-rail shippers.

"They built their own assets. There's just less experience in Canada, and fewer people who know how to do this stuff. It hampers the development of these projects."

For Zielinski's Torq, and Ceres Global Ag Corp's new terminal in Northgate, Saskatchewan, loading a unit train will start with hundreds of truck deliveries of crude a day to the terminals.

In the Canadian prairies, where spring thaws can turn roads to mud for up to eight weeks, that kind of traffic will so tax infrastructure that it could put the longed-for shipping volumes out of reach, said Raymond James analyst Steve Hansen.

"If you really want to run a unit train per day or per two days you will need more than just truck loading," he said.

[nuvistors]

---

@art-in-the-making wrote:

Face it, most of the pro-oil "information" (propaganda) that bombards us in ads, infomercials, "public service" messages from various "institutes" and "patriotic" (LOL) organizations and politicians is all funded by the multi-billion $ oil industry, whether it be the Kochs, Shell, Exxon or whatever. And the subverted news organizations such as Sun and Fox with whom they have mutually beneficial relationships

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely, frankly unimaginable, that even one word of all the "information" provided by the above mentioned would or could possibly be a bare, honest fact. Unspun, unbiased.

We do have a few news sources that verge towards being less blatantly subverted, such as CBC or the Toronto Star. But make no mistake the Toronto Star is a business first and foremost and the CBC created Kevin O'Leary and Don Cherry and is under relentless attack from Conservative lapdogs and is often forced to over-compensate in its news presentation.

A thousand Neil Youngs and David Suzukis would scarcely make a dent in the warped view of the world we are fed....

---

The CBC leans so far left that the talking heads have trouble keeping upright.

[valve37]

We may need all the oil from the oilsands that we can produce just to keep warm!

Sun falling asleep, ice age dream to come true

A new ice age could be on its way to Europe and some other parts of the Earth following an alarming fall occurred in the performance power of the Sun, scientists have warned.

While the number of gas explosions on the Sun's surface should be at the peak of its 11-year cycle of activity, but the recent research has indicated an unexpected drop off, researchers say.

The occurred phenomenon has not been observed during recent 30 years and there are fears the temperatures could drop so low leading to a mini ice age.

"It would feel like the Sun is asleep... a very dormant ball of gas at the centre of our Solar System," explained Dr Lucie Green, from University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory.

"It is completely taken me and many other solar scientists by surprise," Dr Green expressed.

The experts believe that the new phenomenon is similar to the one of the Sun's biggest lulls came in the 17th century, known as the Maunder Minimum, at the same time as freezing winters swept across Europe.

“That caused not only the River Thames to freeze solid,  allowing Londoners to enjoy frost fairs, but even the Baltic Sea iced over in some of the harshest conditions ever recorded in Europe."

According to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), this year’s snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

NASA has predicted that the solar cycle peaking in 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries and should cause a very significant cooling of Earth’s climate. 

Following NASA’s prediction, some of the scientists believe that new mini ice age could happen within 30 or 40 years.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/20/346654/new-mini-ice-age-may-hit-earth/

[art-in-the-making]

Noticed that Ben Mulroney is supporting someone's idea to rename a train (subway?) station in Toronto from "Union Station" to "Sir John A MacDonald Station". Pretty lame eh?

How about this alternative: call it "Neil Young and Scott Young Station". Cover a couple of generations.

chuckle chuckle

[rickster110]

"but one can't present non-factual or unfounded material"

Neil Young did just that with that "China" comment.

-------------------------------------------

How so, Pierre? Perhaps you have your pipelines confused? Neil Young is correct. The northern gateway pipeline would be bringing diluted bitumen to the coast, where it would be transported by tanker ships to China. That's the plan.

"Many folks are simply fighting the wrong battle."

No, it's the right battle. Keep in mind, it is impossible to cleanup diluted bitumen once it's in water.
(See the situation in Kalamazoo as an example)
A spill off the coast of BC would devastate tourism and fishing.

Exporting oil to Asia is a national priority: Harper

[art-in-the-making]

The B.C. and Alaska coast is still messed up 25 years after the Exxon Valdez spill.

Which emphasizes how the tar sands present multiple challenges.

Even if the resource were super responsibly mined, perhaps using a combination of renewable energies throughout the process (instead of burning the equivalent of a barrel of fossil fuels for each four extracted), and the CO2 produced could be sequestered, you still have the environmental threats posed by transporting the product - either across a continent by train and pipeline - or through the Rockies and BC waters.

And then what happens when this oil is used in India and China? The smog in China is already unbelievable - imagine what happens when 10x the number start driving cars or when 200 or 300 million more Indians add their smog to the skies of Asia.

In short, CO2 emissions, rather than decrease, are about to grow exponentially.

The trouble is, even if the tar sands were curtailed, there is still new conventional oil coming onstream in the U.S. and elsewhere. So... nothing good happens until enough people start to care...

Neil Young is the man.

[valve37]

"Neil Young is the man", in the same category as David Suzuki. And I find it funny whether climate tempatures are warm or cold, whether polar ice is thawing or freezing, the Goreian and Suzukian experts call it all global warming. I guess that's sucking and blowing all at the same time.  

Climate campaigner David Suzuki doesn’t know what the climate temperature data sets are

During David Suzuki’s Q&A on Australian ABC-TV, and WUWT regular Bill Koutalianos puts the fruit fly guy on the spot. Video of the interview follows. Andrew Bolt writes:

David Suzuki proves he’s pig ignorant about global warming

The very first question put to David Suzuki on Q&A last night revealed this warming alarmist’s complete ignorance of the most basic facts of global warming.

Fancy Suzuki not even knowing what the world’s main temperature data sets say about global temperatures. Fancy him not even knowing what those data sets are, even when he is given their names.

The only rational response to Suzuki’s astonishing admission of utter ignorance would have been to say to him: “Sir, you are a phony and imposter. Get off the stage and don’t waste our time for a second longer.”

Read the exchange for yourself:

BILL KOUTALIANOS: Oh, hi. Since 1998 global temperatures have been relatively flat, yet many man-made global warming advocates refuse to acknowledge this simple fact. Has man-made global warming become a new religion in itself?

TONY JONES: David, go ahead.

DAVID SUZUKI: Yeah, well, I don’t know why you’re saying that. The ten hottest years on record, as I understand it, have been in this century. In fact, the warming continues. It may have slowed down but the warming continues and everybody is anticipating some kind of revelation in the next IPCC reports that are saying we got it wrong. As far as I understand, we haven’t. So where are you getting your information? I’m not a climatologist. I wait for the climatologists to tell us what they’re thinking.

TONY JONES: Do you want to respond to that, Bill?

BILL KOUTALIANOS: Sure, yeah. UAH, RSS, HadCRUT, GISS data shows a 17-year flat trend which suggests there may be something wrong with the Co2 warming theory?

DAVID SUZUKI: Sorry, yeah, what is the reference? I don’t…

BILL KOUTALIANOS: Well, they’re the main data sets that IPCC use: UAH, University of Alabama, Huntsville; GISS, Goddard Institute of Science; HadCRUT. I don’t know what that stands for, HadCRUT; and RSS, Remote Sensing something. So those data sets suggest a 17-year flat trend, which suggests there may be a problem with the Co2.

DAVID SUZUKI: No, well, there may be a climate sceptic down in Huntsville, Alabama, who has taken the data and come to that conclusion. I say, let’s wait for the IPCC report to come out and see what the vast bulk of scientists who have been involved in gathering this information will tell us.

See those data sets here.

Like I say, a complete know-nothing, citing false claims:

STEWART FRANKS: In an opinion piece last week you wrote that the Great Barrier Reef was threatened by the increasing frequency of cyclones. Everyone watching and listening can onto the Bureau of Meteorology’s website and see that there is no increase. In fact there has been a decline over the last 40 years and no increase in the severity. Are you not, by exaggerating…

DAVID SUZUKI: That I have to admit…

STEWART FRANKS: …or even just getting wrong, are you not actually vulnerable of actually undermining your very own aim in that, you know, the Great Barrier Reef does have environmental threat, but cyclones ain’t one of them?

DAVID SUZUKI: All right. That was one, I have to admit, that that was suggested to me by an Australian, and it is true, I mean, it may be a mistake. I don’t know.

Nor does David Suzuki know what the hell he’s on about when he’s fear-mongering about genetically modified crops:

DAVID SUZUKI: Well, I mean, that is always the argument that’s made. GMOs are very, very expensive. Now, the people that need this food are not going to be able to afford it. Are we going to just create these new crops and then give them away? I simply don’t believe that’s what’s going to happen. I don’t think it is a generosity for the rest of humanity that is driving this activity.

RICK ROUSH: Actually, we are. I mean, Bt corn technology has been given away to the Kenyan State Government research people for use for subsistence farmers. Monsanto gave away insect resistant potatoes in Mexico over 20 years ago. James is working on lots of similar cases. In cases where there is no economic return, it is, in fact, being given away and they’re not so difficult to develop. When I was at Cornell, we got a gene that was a gift from Monsanto for experimental purposes. We made broccoli plants that were resistant to attacks of Dimebag Moths. A student – one of our students made about 50 transformants in about six months. The great cost of these things are no longer the actual creation of the plant. It’s the regulatory challenges to take sure that you can take them to market, to do all that safety testing.

TONY JONES: Okay, Rick, well we’ll get a response to that and we’ll move on?

DAVID SUZUKI: Well, I don’t have any response. It sounds great. I don’t know.

How in God’s name could people take this man seriously?

===========================================================

Kudos to Bill Koutalianos for asking a simple question. Simon at Australian Climate Madness has put the ABC video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqqz3l6nW38

[art-in-the-making]

You have to love the language in that "article", eh valve? You can tell the audience they are catering to...

[valve37]

Another poster here said I should go to Aussieland and fill them in on the coming mini ice age. Guess I don't have to eh? Zuki beat me to it! 

[valve37]

Neil needs to take on China and that's obvious!

New World Record: China made and sold 18 million vehicles in 2010.

China is currently the number one producer in the world of wind and solar power, but don’t use it themselves.

While they manufacture 80% of the world’s solar panels, they install less than 5% and build a new coal fired power station every week.

In one year they turn on more new coal powered electricity than Australia's total output.

Chinese people consume 50,000 cigarettes every second …

They are already the largest carbon dioxide emitter and their output will rise 70% by 2020. And we think we're saving the planet?! It will not make one iota of difference what we do in Australia, Canada, the United States or anywhere else in the world; for that matter, all the politicians are doing is increasing our cost of living and making our manufacturers uncompetitive in the world market, with their idiotic carbon tax, when countries like china are growing and consuming at these extraordinary rates! Time to wake up!