A Judge provides legal ruling on science!

Back in 1977, I read a book that was a scientific critique of the then Common Market and European Food and Farming Policy. It explained the reasons why following the Second World War we in Europe needed to greatly expand food production and how we got ourselves on to an economic tread mill. Unfortunately, the vested interests still remain in force and are increasingly damaging our environment.

However, it was one tiny part of this book that highlighted a practice that alarmed me and because of this practice, I became a vegetarian. The two authors talked about the way that cattle were being feed the remains of dead sheep to boost protein in the cattle feeds. They quite rightly argued that the dead sheep used for this would not be anywhere near the prime stock, but the diseased animals that could not lawfully go into the human food chain. As an example they chose the disease Scrapeie, as this was at the time the most common killer of sheep. They argued that using these diseased carcasses to feed cattle was a really bad idea, as we had no way on knowing what the consequences would be for human health.

It was this head in the sand attitude of we will deal with that problem latter that made me decide to become vegetarian, as I didn’t know what the providence was of any of the meat I was eating. Therefore I was not surprised when a new disease emerged, that was Mad Cow disease or to give it its true name, Bovine Spongiform Encoplepathy BSE.

What was even more alarming was that when this practice of feeding cattle dead diseased sheep was introduced, regulations were drawn up to try and prevent disease transfer or transmission. Thus, governments knew there was a serious risk but still allowed it to happen. The problem was that it was seen as an economic solution to keeping food cheep and disposing of fallen livestock.

That was a bad idea and if people had known of it I suspect that people would not have wanted it to occur. When I tried to talk about it then, I was told I was talking rubbish, well I was told I was talking out of the wrong orifice, or other less polite comments.

The same attitude was there then if I ever spoke of Climate Change. Here though the reaction was very different, as within peoples living memory they could remember colder winters, more snow, but had the attitude that it must be a good thing as we would have better weather.

It has taken a long time to even get Climate Change on the agenda, but even now the economic vested interests are not so much keeping their heads in the sand, but using their economic muscle to try and stifle education of the facts and consequences of Climate Change. Here in the UK, we have just had the ridiculous situation of a Judge in a law court, making a ruling about the validity of scientific evidence.

To update those that don’t know, the documentary film the Inconvenient Truth, is to be shown to all schools in England and Wales, to educate the coming generations of the effects and impacts of Climate Change. However, one individual, backed by money from mining companies, oil companies etc decided that this was political indoctrination and took the government to court to try and stop the film being shown.

While it has now been decided the film can be shown, the judge also states that the film has nine errors. However it is the judge who is factually wrong.

U.K. Judge Rules Gore's Climate Film Has 9 Errors [Washington Post]

But he also said Gore makes nine statements in the film that are not supported by current mainstream scientific consensus. Teachers, Burton concluded, could show the film but must alert students to what the judge called errors.

The judge said that, for instance, Gore's script implies that Greenland or West Antarctica might melt in the near future; creating a sea level rise of up to 20 feet that would cause devastation from San Francisco to the Netherlands to Bangladesh. The judge called this "distinctly alarmist" and said the consensus view is that, if indeed Greenland melted, it would release this amount of water, "but only after, and over, millennia."

Burton also said Gore contends that inhabitants of low-lying Pacific atolls have had to evacuate to New Zealand because of global warming. "But there is no such evidence of any such evacuation," the judge said.

Another error, according to the judge, is that Gore says, "A new scientific study shows that for the first time they are finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances up to 60 miles to find ice." Burton said that perhaps in the future polar bears will drown "by regression of pack-ice" but that the only study found on drowned polar bears attributed four deaths to a storm.

The most recent data from the artic about the sea ice shows that the rate of loss of the sea ice is accelerating. Once below a critical mass the warmer sea temperatures will encourage and speed the melting of the Greenland Ice shelf. Even the most conservative scientific predictions say that this will happen in a century not millennia, as the judge asserts. This is not alarmist, as the Greenland Ice sheet is already starting to melt and we already have 30 centimetres of sea level rise as a result of Climate Change.

Also the assertion that judge made that loss of sea ice and the loss of Polar bears was in error is plain stupid and ill informed. If we destroy any habitat, the flora and fauna that is specially adapted to that habitat will be lost too.

From my perspective it was like the Judge trying to make ruling that the laws of gravity have no place in his court.

At least the coming generations will at least know who to blame for the mess that we have left our home planet in.

The timing of this hearing was apposite as it came in the same week that Al Gore has been awarded, with the UN IPCC, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Fighting Climate Change is actually far more important than any war, or other political or economic considerations. In a friends on line Journal, after posting a link from Al Gores Web site, she asks when Al Gore calls for the US Government to enact legislation to cut greenhouse gases by 90 percent what does he know that we don’t? The answer, and my answer is nothing new, it is just that he can see what the science is telling us.

Just as BSE could have been prevented if we had not done stupid things for economic reasons, then Climate Change and the destruction of our home would not have occurred if we had not been driven by greed.

The next five years are critical, this will be the last generation that will have material wealth, as once the seas do rise we will be forced to live in harmony with the land that remains.