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Yes! UK Environment Minister Attends Climate Change Summit in Sydney in the Morning -- and Is Back by Lunchtime - LONDON and SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - The UK Minister of State for the Environment, the Hon Phil Woolas MP, experienced time travel today as he delivered his keynote speech at the 2nd Annual Climate Change Summit in Sydney, Australia without leaving London. Appearing live in Sydney using telepresence technology, Mr. Woolas saved an estimated 60 hours of travel time and 6.2 tons of CO2 emissions on his air flight alone. (Marketwire)

We couldn't care less about alleged "carbon savings" but we thoroughly approve of the cost-saving example. In fact we think every climate conference and confab should be so attended by every attendee. Not only will this cut costs but it will virtually (sorry!) eliminate the perpetual holiday junketing to exotic locations of the rapidly expanding plethora of publicly-funded professional climate conference attendees.

JunkScience.com would like to propose an immediate ban on the physical attendance of these climate junkfests junkets.

Telepresence or no presence!

The climate-change debate heats up - Maybe you've noticed this, too. The less sure people are of their views, the more inclined they are to name-call, yell and bully. I've noticed this when it comes to religion and politics and life in general, but I've had trouble getting used to it when it comes to science. (David Reinhard, The Oregonian)

On refereeing - I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. --Voltaire (attributed)

That’s what we used to call it – refereeing. The term “peer review” seemed to spring up and take over at about the same time as the rise of political correctness. It was a burden that most senior academics and some industrial engineers and scientists were expected to bear as part of their duty to their profession, and an onerous one it was too. It took up many hours of one’s week, with no recognition and certainly no payment. Many of us would now have a more comfortable retirement if we had devoted the time to fee earning. (Number Watch)

With the recent actions of learned societies this appears inevitable: Historian predicts the end of 'science superpowers' - Is the sun beginning to set on America's scientific dominance? Much like the scientific superpowers of France, Germany and Britain in centuries' past, the United States has a diminishing lead over other nations in financial investment and scholarly research output in science and engineering, say a group of historians and sociologists led by University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus history professor J. Rogers Hollingsworth.

The Swindle Ruling, British Culture, and Freedom of Expression - If you are paying attention to the latest dust up over climate change then you know that a judgment has been rendered (PDF) by the relevant British authority (OFCOM) on complaints about the airing of a controversial documentary by UK Channel 4 challenging consensus climate science and politics, titled The Great Global Warming Swindle.

The decision has led to a wide range of reactions and commentary (e.g., NYT's Andy Revkin, Climate Audit's Steve McIntyre, former IPCC chairman Bob Watson, and many, many others). Here I'd like to address several points that have nothing to do with the substance of the complaint or UK laws governing the public media, but rather the broader issues raised by the controversy for the role of scientists in seeking to limit freedom of expression. (Pielke Jr., R., Prometheus)

The Carl Wunsch Complaint (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit)

Ofcom: The IPCC Complaint (Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit)

Climate Re-Education Program - A reader sent me a heads-up to an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ($, abstract here) titled "Climate Change Education and the Ecological Footprint". The authors express concern that non-science students don't sufficiently understand global warming and its causes, and want to initiate a re-education program in schools to get people thinking the "right" way.

So, do climate scientists want to focus on better educating kids in details of the carbon cycle? In the complexities in sorting out causes of warming between natural and man-made effects? In difficulties with climate modeling? In the huge role that feedback plays in climate forecasts?

Actually, no. Interestingly, the curriculum advocated in the Journal of American Meteorology has very little to do with meteorology or climate science. What they are advocating is a social engineering course structured around the concept of "ecological footprint." The course, as far as I can tell, has more in common with this online kids game where kids find out what age they should be allowed to live to based on their ecological footprint.

Like the Planet Slayer game above, the approach seems to be built around a quiz (kind of slow and tedious to get through). Like Planet Slayer, most of the questions are lifestyle questions - do you eat meat, do you buy food from more than 200 miles away, how big is your house, do you fly a lot, etc. If you answer that yes, you have a good diet and a nice house and travel a bit and own a car, then you are indeed destroying the planet.

I could go nuts on a rant about propoganda in government monopoly schools, but I want to make a different point [feel free to insert rant of choice here]. The amazing thing to me is that none of this has the first thing to do with meteoroogy or climate science. If there were any science at all in this ecological footprint stuff, it would have to be economics. What does meteorology have to say about the carrying capacity of the earth? Zero. What does climate science have to say about the balance between the benefits of air travel and the cost of the incremental warming that might result from that air travel? Zero. (Climate Skeptic)

Global Warming's Fatal Flaw? - I believe that human nature will finally kill off the global warming hoax, delivering a coup de grace to the damage already wrought on the hoaxers schemes by the economy. Let me explain my theory.

After writing last Friday's Weekly Round-Up, I realized that I need to be increasingly selective of what links to include because there is a great deal more information available than there used to be. While the proponents of AGW decry naysayers as 'deniers', there seems to be a lot more skepticism than there used to be.

I think I`ve figured out why - it`s about human nature. (The Daily Bayonet)

WSI Increases 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Forecast - NEW YORK - WSI Corp increased its forecast for the number of named storms and hurricanes for the 2008 hurricane season due to warming in the Atlantic basin, the private forecaster said on Tuesday. (Reuters)

Oh get real! Coral grief - Jacques Cousteau was a pioneer in the study of marine biology, but new research shows the ocean life he explored could be dead within a few years (Tim Radford, The Guardian)

Cousteau was a misanthropic maniac: In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it -- Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau

Radford even slips in another misanthropic lunatic in the form of Rachel Carson, arguably cause of the world's worst ever crimes against humanity, crippling third world health care and agronomy with her false accusations and lyrical nonsense.

Moreover, Radford, sometimes the sanest of The Guardian's stable of green twitterers, falls completely for the carbon nonsense spouted by "poor relation" researchers hoping to pick up at least some spillage from the pots of money thrown at gorebull warming and "carbon constraint". "Marine biologists" (in quotes here because the world has a dreadful oversupply of people with relatively meaningless qualifications largely because the James Cook University in Queensland discovered they could make a lot of money cranking out fee-paying marine biologists from an endless pool of well-heeled youngsters looking to get a degree swanning around tropical waters in a totally safe host country -- to the point that the standing joke in Townsville is: "What do you say to a marine biologist?" with the obligatory response: "Big Mac and fries, please") "Marine biologists" should know, but apparently do not, that corals evolved during periods of the Earth's history when temperatures were significantly higher than today's and when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were more than 10 times higher, so they are most assuredly not doomed by the trivial changes currently anticipated.

Finally, everyone should remember that a scant few thousand years ago today's shallow water corals allegedly so at risk were dead limestone outcrops, awaiting global warming and the melting of the ice sheets of the last great glaciation to raise sea levels again and recolonization by polyps spawned from areas now drowned, dark and devoid of living surface-type corals. These are adaptable critters occupying whatever niche happens to suit them over the last few hundred million years, over massive ranges and at varying altitudes depending on whatever the climate and sea levels did.

Guffaw! Science critical to climate change action - A leading soil scientist is urging governments to listen to the experts on climate change, and act now.

Dr Ian Porter is an advisor on the Montreal Protocol - the panel that has successfully tackled the hole in the ozone layer.

Dr Porter says scientific advice has been crucial to healing the ozone, and in beginning the work on climate change.

"Now under the Montreal Protocol, the HCFCs are being regulated for phase out and that work has done six times more than the first commitment period of Kyoto will do," he says.

"So there's been a real benefit of the Montreal Protocol, not just for ozone depletion, but also for climate change." (Australian Broadcasting Corp.)

Here's some sad news for you, Ian: the Montreal Protocol is a complete and utter failure judged by its advertised purpose. The only reason this is not a disaster is that the alleged crisis never existed to begin with. The so-called "hole" (more correctly the Antarctic Ozone Anomaly) is as variable now as when first observed more than 50 years ago and The Protocol has merely restricted use of a particularly handy gas, made a few people criminals and established a black market in place of the previous legitimate one. What it could never do is "fix" a problem which never existed. Neither can any amount of "carbon constraint" "fix" non-existent catastrophic enhanced greenhouse, otherwise known as gorebull warming.

The Kyoto farce in action: French Firm Cashes In Under U.N. Warming Program - ONSAN, South Korea -- A French chemical maker is reaping a potential billion-dollar windfall under a United Nations program intended to spur climate-friendly investment in the developing world, highlighting the challenges of using market forces to tackle global warming.

The company, Rhodia SA, manufactures hundreds of tons a day of adipic acid, an ingredient in nylon, at its factory here. But the real money is in what it doesn't make.

The payday, which could amount to more than $1 billion over seven years, comes from destroying nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, an unwanted byproduct and potent greenhouse gas. It's Rhodia's single most profitable business world-wide. Last year, destroying nitrous oxide here and at a similar plant in Brazil generated €189 million ($300.5 million) in sales of pollution "credits." (Wall Street Journal)

Corporate America: We Want Climate Action, Just Not Sure How - Big U.S. companies obviously want a seat at the table when it’s time to draw up America’s plan to fight climate change. A year after issuing its “Call for Action,” the U.S. Climate Action Partnership—a group of 30-odd companies like Alcoa, GE, GM, Ford, and several environmental groups—released today the list of nine principles it wants policymakers to keep in mind when they’re hammering out climate deals. But when it comes to the really tricky stuff, USCAP—like U.S. politicians so far—punted.

The main principles call for global involvement in any climate plan, and lots of carrots for developing countries. But the thorniest issue of all is left for later. That is—when countries move at different speeds to tackle climate change, it creates an uneven playing field for plenty of industries. Dirty industries penalized by restrictive legislation can move where laws are lax, killing jobs while providing no benefit to the environment. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

Scientists question climate change consensus: The UN’s view that man-made CO2 is causing warming is under attack, says Peter Glover

Amid anger from its backbenchers, the Labour Government appears set on a course of levying new road tax levels for 'gas-guzzling cars'. At the same time a group of MPs are urging Gordon Brown to go ahead with a system of personal 'carbon credits' - a tax by any other name - as an effective way of forcing CO2 cuts.

But are these controversial new initiatives - and the ambitious EU-imposed carbon targets they are designed to meet - based on a lie?

Like so many other expensive green initiatives mooted here and elsewhere in the West, they are firmly rooted in the single premise that man-made CO2 emissions are scientifically proven to be the root of all climate evil.

And the most acceptable source of that scientific proof is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Run by the UN, its

last report in February 2007 - released 10 months before it shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore - made it quite clear that there was a consensus of 2,500 scientists across the globe who believe that mankind was responsible for greenhouse gas concentrations which in turn were very likely responsible for an increase in global temperatures.

The trouble is that alleged scientific consensus has never been in more disarray. Not that we in Britain would know much about the increasing dissent in the international science community on climate change, because the British mainstream news media declines to report it. (First Post)

Even when getting it right the English media can't get it right -- Paul Reiter threatened legal action to have his name removed from IPCC documents because they gave the impression he had signed off on blatantly false statements but there's no evidence Pat Michaels has ever done so.

Roy Spencer in the U.S. Senate

(See also Anthony Watts' comments.)

I think his testimony was extremely good. You can see the anonymous faces around who don't want to hear any rational things about the climate, its sensitivity, the natural effects, and the sensible strategies to organize the scientific research in order to find the correct and important insights about the climate. (The Reference Frame)

Another moonbat rant: Don't be fooled by the climate change bill. Carbon trading torpedoes it - The rigged statistics and exported emissions will render worthless the apparently radical targets Labour is now setting (George Monbiot, The Guardian)

How's those book sales going, George? I see you having a great deal to say on ever-more extreme positions -- sales fallen off a bit, eh?

Nutty story of the day #3 - TV ads cause global warming - I suppose if the purpose of this is to say that we need less television advertising, I can go along with that. This is probably good news for the Ty-D-Bowl Man, who has been threatened by catastrophically rising and falling water levels all his career. - Anthony (Watts Up With That?)

Climate Change in Kansas City: A Guest Weblog By Dr. Lynwood Yarbrough - Let me introduce myself. I received a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Purdue University) and did postgraduate training in Biophysics (The Albert Einstein College of Medicine). I ran a research lab at a major university medical center for 32 years and recently retired. I served as a research consultant for the National Institutes of Health for 8 of those years and am presently on the editorial board of a journal in my field.

Several years ago I began reading the literature on climate change that was appearing in Science, Nature, and other peer-reviewed journals. I did so because I was concerned at the alarmism I was seeing in the media regarding “global warming” and the dire predictions of some in the scientific literature. I consider myself a scientific skeptic and want to be convinced by the data before I accept something as “true” (see Freeman Dyson at edge.org on skepticism in science).

As a biologist, I am aware of a number of cases in which science has been led in directions not based on hard evidence. Examples include Malthus and the Malthusian Theory, Lysenkoism in the old Soviet Union, and eugenics in the US and elsewhere (see the excellent archive at Cold Spring Harbor for examples of such “science”). I suspect not one in fifty Americans alive today is aware that nearly 30,000 were sterilized in the early part of the 20th century because they were deemed “genetically defective”.

To quote from the introduction to the Cold Spring Harbor website “…..It is important to remind yourself that the vast majority of eugenics work has been completely discredited. In the final analysis, the eugenic description of human life reflected political and social prejudices, rather than scientific facts.” We must try and ensure that we don’t repeat this process with the issue of climate change. (Climate Science)

Climatology Versus Climatism - ".....the End of the world is already near.....As this same End of the world is drawing nigh , many unusual things will happen-----climatic changes, terrors from heaven, unseasonable tempests, wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes." The quotation is from a letter sent by a very famous and influential man to a European head of state. Its author is disclosed at the end of this essay. (Vinod K. Dar, Right Side News)

The EU has high hopes down-under, poor blighters: A new climate for cooperation - The climate change debate in Australia is front-page news with the release of the much-anticipated Garnaut report and the Government's green paper.

This spike in attention is indeed welcome as Australian policymakers, stakeholders and ordinary citizens start coming to grips with what must surely be the challenge of the century. I say ''start'' because this issue will need concerted action over many years if we are to combat global warming effectively.

Not only, as Professor Garnaut points out, does the issue require bipartisan support in Australia, but it requires the whole world to act concertedly if we are to preserve this world as we know it. I trust that the weight of scientific evidence is now such that no one can doubt the need for urgent international action.


The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change for almost two decades now and we are generally presented as ''a'', if not, ''the'' leader in this area. Why? (Bruno Julien, Canberra Times)

Ambassador Bruno Julien is head of the European Commission Delegation to Australia.

Permit us to answer that last one -- you tried to maneuver the rest of the industrialized world in crippling their own production base to make you competitive again. It didn't work and now you've painted yourselves into a corner and don't know how to get out. Unfortunately for you, "Focus Group" K.Rudd actually believed the carefully selected idiots lined up to parrot "we'll gladly pay lots to save the planet from gorebull warming" but Australians don't really like giving all their money to spendthrift wannabe social engineer governments. Should the K.Rudd government persist with their grandiose plans they'll be out of government at the next election. Since his only plan has ever been to be Prime Minister and he either doesn't know or care what else he might like to achieve during his tenure then committing political suicide by actually trying to implement painful and unpopular greenie wet dreams appears highly unlikely. The EU remains solo great pretenders.

Crashed before takeoff, Australia's carbon capping flirtation is over: Liberal MPs tell Nelson to stand firm on emissions trading scheme - CONSERVATIVE Liberal backbenchers have urged Brendan Nelson to "get some backbone" and abandon support for an emissions trading scheme in Australia without action by major polluters overseas.

Ahead of a two-day Liberal partyroom meeting in Canberra next week, where Dr Nelson is expected to seek the support of MPs and senators to defy his shadow cabinet on the issue, right-wing MPs have told The Australian Online the Liberal leader must make support for an ETS conditional on action by China and India.

While Liberal frontbenchers Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt are preparing a submission on the Coalition's response, the MPs have broken their silence to urge Dr Nelson to dump the Coalition's election policy of supporting a scheme in 2012, regardless of action by other emitters. (The Australian)

Union voices fears on carbon trade - AUSTRALIA'S biggest blue-collar union has raised concerns about the Rudd Government introducing a carbon emissions trading system without considering the likelihood of other nations lowering their emissions.

The 130,000-strong Australian Workers Union yesterday cast doubt on Kevin Rudd's "go-it-alone" strategy, after convening a special meeting with executives from high-emitting companies in Sydney to canvass a joint approach to climate change policy.

AWU secretary Paul Howes said his union remained deeply worried about the impact of an emissions trading scheme on local jobs if the response of companies facing financial penalties under a carbon reduction scheme was to shift their operations offshore. (The Australian)

Business, unions form alliance over carbon trading - SOME of the nation's richest companies are forging an alliance with Australia's biggest blue-collar union to prevent the Rudd Government's carbon trading scheme shutting key industries.

In a rare display of workforce unity, the likes of Qantas, Rio Tinto, Shell, Alcoa and BlueScope Steel are teaming with the Australian Workers Union in an effort to halt an exodus of investment and jobs.

The business/union alliance highlights the Government's challenge as it tries to frame an emissions trading scheme that doesn't ruin the economy. (Daily Telegraph)

Democrats and Energy: Reality Bites - Former Vice President Al Gore recently took his climate-change show on the road for the benefit of liberal bloggers, Sunday morning TV aficionados and other innocent bystanders. This week he laid out his demand for a miraculous transformation in U.S. energy use over a mere 10 years. As for drilling for more oil? "Absurd," the Nobel Laureate scoffed. "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

The same might be said for Mr. Gore. For while his message hasn't changed, the political realities of the energy debate have. Suddenly, Mr. Gore's inconvenient speechifying only tightens the vise Democrats find themselves in over drilling. (Wall Street Journal)

Are Canadians really parking their cars? - People cannot stay at home with their cars parked as a way of earning enough to buy an HDTV or a sports coat (Terence Corcoran, Financial Post)

Gasoline demand is inelastic — at least in the short run - Economists expected a sharp reaction to the rise in oil prices. Here’s why it hasn’t quite happened (Vincent Geloso, Financial Post)

Not exactly... Polar power: vast oil find in Arctic - In the Arctic circle 90 billion barrels of oil and vast quantities of natural gas are waiting to be tapped, most of it offshore, the government-run US Geological Survey said on Wednesday.

The top of the world, shared by half a dozen countries including the US, Russia, Canada, Sweden, Norway and Greenland, holds an estimated 90 billion barrels of crude, 1670 trillion cubic feet of gas and 44 million barrels of natural gas liquids, the USGS said in a report. (Sydney Morning Herald)

... in fact it's just a guesstimate of possibilities.

Uh-huh... Micro and Macro - (Foreign Policy Association's "Climate Change Blog")

People send us lots of links, the above is one of them. We try to follow up by having a look at what they say and what supports their arguments. This one contains "Here’s a fascinating paper that lays out the rationale for, the shape of, and the obstacles to the SSG in Europe." Cool , we love fascinating papers.

Sadly, as is so often the case, this one shot itself down in the credibility stakes virtually immediately with the statement "Already with a global average temperature increase of 2°C over preindustrial level, an increase widely considered just enough to avoid “dangerous climate change”, major changes in precipitations patterns are to be expected."

Really? Not even the IPCC claims more than 1 °C (what was their last wild bite at the cherry, "The total temperature increase from 1850-1899 to 2001-2005 is 0.76°C ± 0.19°C."? The IPCC loves fantastically convoluted guesstimates -- IPCC TAR claimed "0.6 ± 0.2 °C since the late 19th century"). If these guys have to double already questionable claims about warming as part of their opening justification for horrendously expensive energy schemes then of what possible value is the rest of their "fascinating paper"? We think we'll pass.

Woken up at last, eh? Britain tries to block green energy laws - UK accused of rewriting rules despite Brown vow to back clean technology (The Guardian)

T. Boone is Getting on the Gravy Train - “This nation is exquisitely tied to science and technology with a citizenry which knows little about science and technology”—Carl Sagan

Oil man T. Boone Pickens recently announced his own large program to help get America off its oil addictions. His message in his own Texas twang starts off appealing, while he properly and accurately reports on the $700 billion annually we now spend on imported oil, now at 70% of our total oil consumption. That is a huge sum and economically crippling to be sending off shore.

Correcting this foreign dependence is essential for the nation’s energy security and balance of trade issues. A nation importing oil is not a new problem, having, for example, been solved nearly 40 years ago when the French replaced oil-fired electricity with nuclear energy. Our large dependence on foreign energy is dangerous to our nation’s economy and future. Just as dangerous are some of the proposed energy solutions offered to help this situation.

Regrettably, near the middle of his advertisement T. Boone wandered off into an alternative energy universe, proposing that wind and solar energy replace the current 22% of our electricity produced by natural gas. Neither source is a true alternative, and are merely erratic, unreliable, supplementary energy sources.

Leaders from both sides of the aisle throw out wind energy as a cure-all reliable source of future electrical energy. It most assuredly is not. (Michael R. Fox Ph.D., Hawaii Reporter)

T. Boone Pickens is hard-wired for subsidies - If wind energy were a sensible economic investment, it would not need the lavish subsidies Pickens seeks (Jerry Taylor, Financial Post)

When the wind stops - the other side of the wind turbine argument - The Government is committed to obtaining 15 per cent of all its energy from renewable sources by 2020 and offshore wind power has been identified as the key factor in reaching the target. But not everybody agrees (Daily Telegraph)

Uprising Against the Ethanol Mandate - The ethanol industry, until recently a golden child that got favorable treatment from Washington, is facing a critical decision on its future.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily waive regulations requiring the oil industry to blend ever-increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. A decision is expected in the next few weeks.

Mr. Perry says the billions of bushels of corn being used to produce all that mandated ethanol would be better suited as livestock feed than as fuel.

Feed prices have soared in the last two years as fuel has begun competing with food for cropland.

“When you find yourself in a hole, you have to quit digging,” Mr. Perry said in an interview. “And we are in a hole.”

His request for an emergency waiver cutting the ethanol mandate to 4.5 billion gallons, from the 9 billion gallons required this year and the 10.5 billion required in 2009, is backed by a coalition of food, livestock and environmental groups.

Farmers and ethanol and other biofuel producers are lobbying to keep the existing mandates. (New York Times)

Indefensible Biofuels - Advocates claim that ethanol mandates and subsidies protect our planet, enhance U.S. security, and ease our pain at the pump. In fact, ethanol policy hurts all Americans except for the tiny slice of the population that grows corn or distills it into ethanol. (William Yeatman & Marlo Lewis, American Spectator)

No? Duh! Drivers 'unaware of emission levels' - Nearly three in four drivers do not know how much carbon dioxide their car emits, it was revealed today. (Press Association)

Guess what? They don't buy cars for the express purpose of emitting CO₂ so the emission figures are not relevant to them (or the planet either, but that's another matter).

Study predicts crop-production costs will jump dramatically in 2009 - Soaring energy prices will yield sharp increases for corn and soybean production next year, cutting into farmers' profits and stretching already high food costs, according to a new University of Illinois study. (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Prices of Food and Gas Take a Toll in Asia - JAKARTA, Indonesia — While prices have been rising in the United States and Europe, the biggest increases are being felt in Asia, and countries like India and Vietnam are already having to deal with double-digit inflation.

Sharp rises in global food and oil prices are now spilling over into wages and broader measures of inflation across Asia, as the Asian Development Bank noted in a report released Tuesday.

Workers are demanding higher wages to cover their rising living costs, and companies are imposing higher prices for a wide range of goods to cover accelerating production costs.

“The epicenter of the inflationary storm is really in Asia,” said Cyd Tuano-Amador, the managing director of monetary policy at the Philippines Central Bank. (New York Times)

Now even chemophobic Euros know it: Baby bottle chemical levels safe, EU agency says - MILAN - The amount of the controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) found in baby bottles is tiny and cannot harm human health, the European Union's top food safety body said on Wednesday reacting to recent health concerns.

Earlier this year, a heated debate over BPA safety sparked in the United States and Canada after various studies involving laboratory rodents suggested that even small levels of BPA - used in products ranging from baby and water bottles to beverage cans - can be harmful.

A scientific panel of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has looked into how people metabolise BPA and concluded that tiny amounts of the chemical to which humans are exposed leave body quick enough to cause no harm, EFSA said.

"The conclusions of the panel are that after exposure to BPA the human body rapidly metabolises and eliminates the substance. This represents an important metabolic difference compared with rats," EFSA said in a statement.

Responding to worries about babies' health, EFSA said newborns were able to metabolise and eliminate BPA at doses below 1 milligram per kilogram of body weight per day - even above the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) of 0.05 mg/kg/bw a day.

"Exposure of the human foetus to BPA would be negligible because the mother rapidly metabolises and eliminates BPA from her body," said the agency based in Parma in northern Italy. (Reuters)

Does too much sun cause melanoma? - We are continuously bombarded with messages about the dangers of too much sun and the increased risk of melanoma (the less common and deadliest form of skin cancer), but are these dangers real, or is staying out of the sun causing us more harm than good? Two experts debate the issue on BMJ.com today.

Actually there's some association between declining fitness levels and declining melanoma, also between increasing tobacco smoking and declining melanoma, the color of public telephones and melanoma, sales of the board game "Monopoly" and melanoma... what there is not in Australian data is any evidence that malignant melanoma is strongly associated with sun exposure. Worse, there is stronger indication that various morbidities and mortalities have actually increased in incidence in direct proportion to the infamous sun terror campaigns (where the Australian public has been terrorized about sun exposure in "public health" indoctrination campaigns).

Oh boy... Pittsburgh cancer center warns of cell phone risks - PITTSBURGH - The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between cancer and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Herberman is basing his alarm on early unpublished data. (Associated Press)

Wonder if Herberman has shares in this lot: Do cell phones cause cancer? - Next time you put your cell phone to your ear, do you worry about increasing your risk of cancer?

Boca Raton businessman Shelly Kalnitsky says that fear has resulted in his company selling “hundreds of thousands” of devices that limit the radiation emitted through cell phones. His company, Interact Communications, sells a penny-sized material that fits over the cell phone ear piece which reduces radiation by as much as 97 percent. The China-made WaveShield1000 sells for $19.95. (Phil Galewitz, Palm Beach Post Blog)

Bullshit! Children will die younger than their parents, minister warns - The children of today are likely to die at a younger age than their parents as a result of the increasing obesity crisis, a senior Cabinet minister has warned. (Daily Telegraph)

Now, cheese is supposedly bad for kids... - It’s not only lunches from home banned from primary schools, now cheese has been banned from lunchrooms. (Junkfood Science)

-1 x -1 = +1 - In mathematics, a negative times a negative make a positive. But it doesn’t work that way in real life: Two wrongs don’t make a right. That’s especially the case in science. Two ineffective treatments don’t make an effective one.

But it seems some weight loss businesses are hoping consumers didn’t pay attention in math class, or science class, either. :-) (Junkfood Science)

Who says advising lots of water is harmless? - Beliefs that our bodies need detoxification, that drinking lots of water can flush away toxins and help jump start a weight loss diet, and that “life coaches” calling themselves nutritionists are licensed health professionals, all came together for one woman with heartbreaking results. Even water is not harmless. (Junkfood Science)

On Bias - What would you think if you were reading a new research result, written by people who all had advanced academic degrees in the relevant fields, that claimed that smoking cigarettes had no correlation with cancer?

You would almost certainly discount that report, given all the other information you have acquired about smoking’s effects.

Now what if you also learned that the new report was written by a group funded by R J Reynolds, the large tobacco company? Further, it comes out that nearly all of the people who contributed to the report smoked. Now what would you think?

Obviously, you would not only discount whatever you heard from the group, but you would be suspicious that whatever they told you was the exact opposite of the truth. Right?

“Embarrassed to stand up”? Good grief! (William M. Briggs, Statistician)

Hmm... Moon-walker claims alien contact cover-up - FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist. And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

... don't know what all the fuss is about, my wife and I gather up literally hundreds of aliens every year -- and we freeze them. What sort of aliens? These kind and they're a darned nuisance here in sub-tropical Queensland. Each wet season we take additional plastic bags when we walk the dogs in the evenings, picking up the aliens as we go and when we return we put the bags in the downstairs freezer to euthanize these unwelcome visitors -- from there their next stop is landfill. The really good news is that since we have reduced the local alien population significantly the indigenous green tree frogs have had something of a population explosion.

Commercially Bred Bees Spread Disease to Wild Bees - WASHINGTON - Disease spread to wild bees from commercially bred bees used for pollination in agriculture greenhouses may be playing a role in the mysterious decline in North American bee populations, researchers said on Tuesday. (Reuters)

Dinosaurs 'ran out of evolutionary steam' before they became extinct - Dinosaurs stopped evolving and taking advantage of their changing environment during their last 50 million years on Earth, scientists have learned.

They were not part of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution around 100 million years ago, which saw the rapid expansion of many land animals and plants.

While flowering plants, lizards, snakes, birds and mammals evolved swiftly, the dinosaurs plodded behind. A short time later, they were extinct. (Daily Mail)

The salmon business: Can marine farming ever be eco friendly? - Every day, a million Britons tuck into salmon, and demand is rising fast. Marine farming is the supermarkets' answer – but can it ever be eco-friendly? Martin Hickman reports (The Independent)

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