Saving the bees

With Petar Bogunović of the Leics & Rutland Bee Keepers’ Assn

On May 31^st I had the pleasure of meeting the Leicestershire and Rutland Bee Keepers’ Association, at the Cricketers Pub in Grace Road, Leicester, near the cricket ground.

We have a problem with bees.  To read the media, you might think bee numbers were halving every year.  It’s not quite that bad, but the bee keepers I met at the Cricketers were losing up to 25%.  And this is a very real national problem, because bees are a major factor in the pollination of plants.  On some estimates, if bees disappeared overnight, crop yields could drop by 30%, and we’d all be very hungry.

So why are bees and hives dying?  The first factor is the Verroa Mite.  This is a mite that parasitises bees.  It arrived in the UK in 1992, from Europe (so many problems come from Europe).  It’s quite large — visible to the naked eye.  Indeed pro rata, a bee with a mite is like a human with a dinner plate.  Not only does the mite itself damage the bee, but by piercing the bee’s epidermis, it allows direct access to otherwise fairly harmless viruses that may exist in the hive.

Verroa can be controlled, though not eliminated, by the application of oxalic acid while the bees are hibernating over the winter.

But there’s more to it.   Loss of habitat may be a factor.  One member of the Association argued that local authorities should be a little more circumspect in mowing roadside verges in the countryside, perhaps delaying mowing until after the summer flowering season.  Freshly-mown verges may please the tidy bureaucratic mind, but they do nothing for insects.

Then there appears to be some evidence that widely-used agricultural pesticides may play a part, especially a new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids.  The industry argues against this, and has done experiments showing that the application of these chemicals to bees does not appear to kill them.  But there is also some disputed research suggesting that while not killed, the bees are disoriented.  If they have trouble finding feeding grounds, and returning to the hive, they will die anyway.

How to decide?  The EU has been undertaking research on the issue, to be published shortly.  First indications are that it may support the case against the pesticides.

So why not just ban the pesticides?  The problem is that this too would result in a massive drop in crop yields — perhaps as much as would result from the loss of the bees.  It seems that we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

We’ll see what comes out of the EU’s research study.  There are several conferences and seminars on the issue in Brussels in the next couple of weeks.  But if only we could overcome the concerns — I might say the paranoia — of the Greens and the chattering classes about GM crops, they might offer a way out of the impasse.  One of the key objectives of GM development is to create varieties with an in-built resistance to common crop diseases and parasites.  Use of such crops could radically reduce farmers’ dependence on pesticides, and this in turn might be good news for bees.  The crop varieties would of course need to be rigorously tested to show that their in-built resistance was not in itself a threat to bees or other beneficial insects.

I shall keep a watching brief on bee developments in Brux.  Like Winnie the Pooh, I’m rather fond of honey.

The beached whale

The curious thing about the beached whale is that despite its predicament, and despite its impending demise, it usually shows no obvious sign of panic.

So it’s quite an achievement for Ken Clarke simultaneously to remind us of a beached whale, and yet clearly to be in a panic.  His recent rant against the sceptics was a marvel.  An EU referendum was “a total irrelevance”.  It was “only of interest to a few right-wing journalists and extreme nationalist politicians”.  Those who want a referendum are “frenzied eurosceptics”.

As Dan Hannan pointed out in a recent Tweet, Ken is identifying some 80% of his fellow-citizens as “extremists”.  I am reminded of the fond mother who watched her teenage son marching with the cadets, and later boasted to her friends that he was “the only one in step”.  The fact is that Ken is part of a small, rump minority of €uro-luvvies who still think that they’re the only ones in step.

Of course Ken is a wonderfully avuncular figure.  A man of the people, full of bonhomie.  Shod in suede, pint in hand, fag ash down the ample front of his cardigan.  But sadly out-of-touch on the EU.

He’s like one of those Russian Kommissars in 1987.  The system which had dominated their whole lives, and to which they had devoted their loyalty and their career, was falling apart around them.  It was broken not by foreign invasion, nor entirely by internal uprising, but more by the dead-weight of its internal inconsistencies.  So it is with societies designed from first principles, rather than painstakingly built up from the wisdom of their forebears.  And so it is with the EU.

How must Ken feel as the €uro crashes and burns?  As the sceptics, dismissed for years as Little Englanders, xenophobes, ignorant, backward-looking folk unable to grasp the zeitgeist and to engage with the great developments of the 21st Century, are utterly and gloriously vindicated?  It’s just rather sad that Ken, like Nick Clegg and the other true believers, can’t have the good grace to admit they were wrong, and to start again.

Ken has clearly been shaken by calls from both the Labour and Conservative parties for an EU In/Out referendum.  Rumour has it they’re coming from George Osborne’s office, and they resonate with large parts of the Tory parliamentary party, anxious for their seats.  On the Labour side, Ed Balls and Peter Mandelson have speculated openly about such a referendum  From Ken’s perspective, it’s a challenge.  These calls can only get louder as the parties seek to out-bid each other on the issue.  Against the back-drop of the EU’s slow motion train crash, it’s an idea whose time has come.

To paraphrase Matthew Arnold, “The sea of €uro-faith was once, too, at the full, and round our shore lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.  But now we only hear its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar”.  Perhaps the beached whale was an entirely appropriate metaphor. Poor old Ken is left stranded on the shingle as the tide of europhoria ebbs.

Wishful thinking, Brussels style

Green growth: not always a good thing

The Brussels institutions seem to have an unlimited capacity for self-delusion.

We’ve had “subsidiarity”, which is supposed to mean devolving decision-making in the EU to the lowest possible level — while in reality the minutiae of our every-day lives are controlled in ever more detail from Brussels.  I’ve been in the European parliament for thirteen years, and I’ve yet to see subsidiarity in practice.  Yet the word is trotted out time and again, to reassure doubters and sceptics that the EU is really user-friendly, and not controlling at all.  The meaningless phrase “with due regard to subsidiarity” crops up again and again, as a sort of knee-jerk cliché.

Then there’s “the social market”.  As EU social policy, health and safety and environmentalism squeeze the life-blood out of enterprise, as we create a new corporatist nightmare economy, we still try to kid ourselves that it has something to do with a market.

Or how about “flexsecurity” — the absurd pretence that coining an ugly neologism tells us something about the real world, or that two totally incompatible objectives, in this case job security and labour market flexibility, can be achieved simultaneously.  But if we repeat it often enough, surely it will come true?  No.  But we may manage to fool ourselves into a state of unreality.

Angela Merkel wants to believe that saving the €uro is compatible with getting herself re-elected, and that closing down German nuclear power stations is compatible with keeping the lights on.

Last night it was a dinner debate on “Green Growth”.  A lovely, alliterative phrase.  And another attempt to prove the impossible: that extreme environmentalism is somehow compatible with growth and prosperity.  It’s not.  Yet we had a room full of highly paid folk convincing themselves of it — and only me (and the redoubtable Alexandra Swann) to point out a few hard truths.

Of course part of the discourse was unexceptionable.  They want resource efficiency and recycling.  Few will argue with that.  I’m all in favour of recycling, where it makes economic sense.  All too frequently it does not.  Yesterday I got a mailing from the glass industry, claiming that by using recycled glass they could save 5% of the CO2 emissions associated with starting out with raw sand.  Big deal.  And how much CO2 was emitted by all the diesel trucks that went to every home in the land collecting the glass, sorting it by colour, and trucking it to the factory?  As we know, of course, much of the glass that we careful sort out by colour gets mixed together again, crushed and used as hardcore, which probably makes more sense.

The plain fact is that our green policies are undermining growth.  They talk about “green jobs”, although study after study shows that each green job costs several real jobs in the real economy, as green projects drive up energy costs.  Already the high price of energy in the EU is deterring investment, and forcing energy-intensive businesses to look at the more rational markets of the USA, China or India.  Meantime we see families and pensioners forced into fuel poverty, while profoundly regressive green subsidies take money from the poor, who can’t afford it, and give it to rich land-owners and corporations, who don’t need it.

Around the world, the dream of “green growth” is unravelling, while governments scale back their pointless subsidies.  It’s just that no one seems to have told Brussels about it yet.  As my old mother used to say, “None so blind as those who won’t see”.

I think it was Mark Twain who said “Your saying so don’t make it so”.  That’s especially true of Brussels propaganda-speak.

One sinner that repenteth

 

Chart from Dr. Sebastian Lüning’s presentation

Fritz Vahrenholt is a distinguished German politician (SPD) who gained a doctorate in chemistry in Münster, and started his professional career at the environmental protection agency in Berlin, and the Ministry of the Environment of Hesse.  He has spent much of his career campaigning on environmental issues.

In 1998 he joined the energy industry, and until 2001 was on the Board of Deutsche Shell AG, a Shell subsidiary. In 2001 he moved to post of CEO of the wind turbine company REpower Systems AG  and remained there until 2007. From February 2008 he was CEO of electric power company RWE subsidiary RWE Innogy.  In 1999 he was made an Honorary Professor of chemistry at the University of Hamburg.

Vahrenholt was for years a true believer in climate alarmism — until he read “The Hockey Stick Illusion”.    He is now a convinced sceptic, and recently collaborated with colleague Dr. Sebastian Lüning to write a new book “The Cold Sun: Why the Climate Crisis Isn’t Happening”, currently only available in German, but scheduled for publication in English later this year.  The IPCC admits that current levels of CO2 are insufficient to explain the 1980/1998 warming, so they look for “amplifiers” and positive feed-backs that would increase the impact of CO2 warming.  Vahrenholt and Lüning believe that the Sun, rather than CO2 amplifiers, is responsible.

Vahrenholt and Lüning are coming to the European parliament next month, where they will present their findings.  But we were privileged to have Dr. Lüning address the Heartland Climate Conference in Chicago on Wednesday.    He was the last speaker of the three days, and any attendees who had chosen to leave early missed a treat.

I have always argued that “the small changes we have seen in mean global temperatures in the last hundred years are entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate cycles”.  Lüning made the same point, describing the Bond Climate Cycles,    which happen every 1000 years plus, and gave us the Roman Optimum, the Dark Ages, the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, and now appear to be taking us into a new 21^st Century optimum — for which we should all be very grateful.  This is covered in some detail in Professor Fred Singer’s book “Unstoppable Global Warming — every 1500 years”.

Superimposed on that is the Sun’s eleven-year sunspot cycle, which itself has phases of greater or lesser amplitude.  It appears that the Dalton and Maunder Minima, which wrought havoc with the climate and human welfare during the Little Ice Age, were associated with very low sunspot activity.  Many astronomers believe that we are entering a new “Cold Sun” period, in which case global cooling may be a bigger threat than global warming.

The mechanism appears to be that the solar wind affects the cosmic ray flux in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.  Cosmic rays promote cloud formation.  More solar activity, fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, lower albedo, global warming.

Dr. Lüning presented graphs showing a remarkably high level of correlation not only between solar activity and global temperature, but also with other variables like the size of lakes and the flow-rate of rivers.  The close relationship is beyond doubt.  And unlike Al Gore’s relation between CO2 levels and temperature, the causation can only be one way.  No one will believe that the flow of rivers causes the sun to change.

Astronomer William Herschel discovered a couple of hundred years ago a correlation between sunspot activity and the price of grain, and was roundly derided for it.  But now that we know that the Sun affects the climate, it is perfectly plausible that it would affect the price of grain.  (Gore’s error was to assume that CO2 causes warming, when in fact warming increases atmospheric CO2, as a result of out-gassing from the oceans.  The oceans contain roughly fifty times more CO2 than the atmosphere).

The Good Book says that there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.  Certainly a life-time-green who finally recognises the error of his ways is a powerful message to the rest, and we’ve had several.  Goerge Monbiot embraces nuclear power.  James Lovelock, the Gaia Guru, says “Twenty years ago we knew what was happening to the climate — but now we don’t”.  And now Fritz Vahrenholt agrees that climate change is caused primarily by the Sun (plus a range of other complex factors) rather than CO2.  I’m looking forward to hearing Fritz and Sebastian next month in Brux — and to reading the book.

Heartland Institute Climate Conference

With Marita Noon at the Heartland Climate Conference

At the Heartland Conference last week I had the pleasure of meeting Marita Noon, of the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy.  I had intended to do a general write-up of the Conference, but I see that Marita has already put one together, and as I can’t improve on it, I offer it to readers below — with grateful thanks to Marita.

We’ve come a long way in the climate change war
Marita Noon

“We are winning the war!” was a phrase I heard repeatedly this week. Congressman Sensenbrenner, Vice Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, said: “We won on these issues because we were right.”

What “war” brought together more than 60 scientists from around the world—including astronauts,  meteorologists, and physicians; politicians—comprising the Congressman, a head of state, and a member of the European Parliament; and policy analysts and media for two-and-a-half days in Chicago? The battle over climate change and the belief that there needs to be real science—more “about honest debate than ideological warfare.”

Assembled by the Heartland Institute, the seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7) provided the second opportunity for Congressman Sensenbrenner to address the group. In his opening comments, Sensenbrenner said, “We’ve come a long way.”

He recounted: “When I last spoke, the House of Representatives was poised to pass the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill; the United Nations was promising the extension and expansion of the Kyoto Protocol; and President Obama was touting Spain as our model for a massive increase in renewable energy subsidies. Three years later, cap-and-tax is dead; the Kyoto Protocol is set to expire; and Spain recently announced that it eliminated new renewable energy subsidies.”

Sensenbrenner told about the behind the scenes wrangling that went on to get the Waxman-Markey bill passed. “I was on the House floor on June 29, 2009, when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi desperately pulled Members aside to lobby, beg, and bargain for votes for the Waxman-Markey bill.” It did pass. But “the electoral consequences for the proponents of these policies was severe.” Just 16 months later, in the 2010 elections, “over two dozen of the Members she convinced to vote ‘yes’ lost their jobs.”

It wasn’t just the Members who suffered harsh political ramifications for their support of the Waxman-Markey bill—which was supposed to nullify the impact of manmade global warming through a cap-and-trade scheme. Sensenbrenner contends that support of the manmade (anthropogenic) global warming position (AGW) also cost Al Gore the presidency back in 2000. He explained: “West Virginia’s 5 electoral votes would have tipped the election for Gore, and Gore’s near-evangelical support for climate change easily cost him the 42,000 votes he would have needed to win there.”

While there is little debate that the climate does change, there is debate as to what causes it. The camps are divided into two general groups along the line of human’s role—with Al Gore’s camp believing that the “science is settled” concluding that man’s driving of SUVs burning petroleum products that emit CO2 (and other symptoms of the developed world) is the cause, and the other disagreeing. The “other” is who gathered in Chicago last week amid the thousands of NATO protestors. The “other” not only disagrees with Al Gore’s AGW position—but they disagree with each other.

I attended session after session where sunspots were addressed, deep ocean circulation changes were discussed, the CO2 contribution of volcanoes was brought up, and the health impacts of a warmer planet were touted—just to name a few. I brought home reams of documentation, some of which are, frankly, beyond my comprehension.

Whether or not the documentable climate change—cooler in the seventies, warmer in the nineties, stable for the last decade (just to point out some recent changes)—is due to the sun or the sea, or myriad other causes, the key take away is that the science is not settled.

Four former NASA employees presented at ICCC7—two astronauts: Walter Cunningham (Apollo 7) and Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt (Apollo 17). They talked about a letter sent to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Jr., in which they requested that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) “refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites.”

The March 28 letter, signed by 49 former NASA employees, declares that they “believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

“The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.”

It is the “unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change” that should concern you and me—and, it is not just coming from NASA. It is coming from the White House and the EPA, from environmental groups and protestors.

The belief that CO2 is causing catastrophic climate change is the driver for today’s energy policy.

Based on a supposed “consensus,” politicians, and the nonelected bureaucrats they appointed, have, and are, making risky investments with taxpayer dollars (think Solyndra, et al); subsidizing “alternative” energies such as wind and solar that are not effective, efficient, or economical; blocking access to resources that are abundant, available, and affordable—which raises gasoline prices and punishes those who can least afford it; and regulating America’s most cost-effective electricity out of commission. The increasing energy costs are hurting all of America—individuals and industry—and our competitive edge.

Roger Helmer, a member of the European Parliament, offered these comments regarding wind energy and the entire green project in his presentation at ICCC7: “Wind plus gas back up results in virtually zero emissions savings. So, we are desecrating the countryside, we are wasting huge amounts of money, we are impoverishing our children, we are choosing poverty over prosperity—and after all that, we are not even achieving what we set out to achieve. This is madness, madness, madness writ large.”

Once you remove the manmade climate change/CO2 concerns, the foundation for expensive, intermittent “renewable” energy goes away—and there is a huge investment, emotional, ideological, and financial, in keeping the ruse alive.

In comparing the manmade climate change scheme to the European single currency, Helmer said: “Both of the projects are falling apart before our very eyes. But, as they fall apart, the true believers, especially the people with a financial interest—let’s not forget that these projects have attracted vast political and intellectual capital, but they’ve also attracted vast numbers of rent seekers and hangers on, and people whose jobs depend on these projects, and these people do not want to see them go away so these people are coming forward and—are thinking of every possible excuse which might explain what has gone wrong with the projects.”

No wonder there is a war. One side wants to “defend its findings,” while the other wants to “find the truth.”

While America is in an economic war, “advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers, is inappropriate.” In this election season, all candidates would do well to remember the fate of Al Gore and his many AGW supporters. Sensenbrenner offered these wise words on energy policy: “Going forward, we must continue to oppose bad ideas and continue to support technological development the only way it works—by allowing markets to determine the technological winners and losers.”

Echoing the war theme, Helmer offered encouragement in his closing remarks: “This is a battle that we must win. We must win it for America. We must win it for Europe. We must win it for our children and grandchildren. And, we must win it for all mankind. I’ll tell you why we will win it, because, we have two weapons in our armory that the bad guys don’t have. The first weapon is the truth, and the second weapon is the climate.”

Whether scientist or politician, policy analyst or media, one message that came through loud and clear at the ICCC7 is that we’ve come a long way in the climate change war, and we are winning, but we haven’t won yet! The climate change battle is at the center of global energy policy, and the countries that have the ability to develop their natural resources to produce cheap energy will be the victors!

Bless the Bride: former Staffer Sally McNamara marries

With the Chief Bridesmaid (photo with the bride to follow)

When I got into politics in 1998, my first ever staffer was Sally McNamara.  She’s also the Gold Standard by which subsequent staffers are rated.  A new politics graduate from Nottingham University, she joined our euro-candidate team ahead of the 1999 election, and did a first-rate job as Press Officer.  She then continued as Press Officer for me and Chris Heaton-Harris after the election for three years, then came to Brussels as my researcher until the next 2004 election.  In the Summer of 2004 she went to Washington on a sabbatical with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), who offered her a full-time job.  She was later hired away from ALEC by the Heritage Foundation, and just recently left them to take a senior position in government relations with US defence contractor Raytheon.

Occasionally interviewers ask me what I consider to be the greatest achievement of my political career, and I reply that the thing I shall be proudest of is the subsequent achievements of former staffers who have passed through the Helmer Office.  Sally heads the list.  I hope and believe she learned something from me about politics through the years, but these days I am happy to seek her advice, and grateful for her very clear and incisive political views.

So I was delighted to go to Nottingham on Saturday May 26^th to attend Sally’s wedding to her American fiancé Joshua Culling.  It was a wonderful day of brilliant and uninterrupted sunshine, both literally and figuratively, with a splendid reception at Colwick Hall Hotel, former home of Lord Byron.  It was also an opportunity to catch up with other former staffers of various MEPs who had been particular friends of Sally, and were there at the wedding, as well as some of Sally’s former Heritage colleagues.

The photo above shows me before the ceremony with Sally’s sister, who was chief bridesmaid.  A photo with Sally herself should be in the system and I hope to have it shortly.

I wish Sally and Josh all the best in their new life together in Washington, and I shall continue to watch Sally’s career with huge interest.

Scottish Independence

Robert the Bruce

I’ve always been a big fan of Scotland.  I had the privilege of working in Asia for some years with United Distillers (now Diageo), and I became “Mr. Johnnie Walker” in Korea.  I’ve also had them pleasure of meeting Alex Salmond a couple of times — he once helped me with a speech for a Burns Night Supper (my birthday falls on Burns Night, as it happens).  So I’ll be honest: I value the Union so instinctively that I don’t feel any need to present detailed arguments for it.

I absolutely disagree with Salmond on just about every political issue — especially Scottish Independence and socialism — but I still admire the man.  He’s a showman, and I love a showman.

He’s also just in the process of launching his campaign for independence as I write, and I thought it might be instructive to contrast the campaign for Scottish independence with the campaign for British independence — in which I’ve been engaged all my political life, and which seems more achievable now than ever before.

Salmond seems to think that he can fund an independent Scotland on North Sea revenues.  But North Sea production is in decline, and in the event of Scottish independence, the ownership of the oil and gas would be disputed.  Not a very reliable start.

Many commentators have pointed out that had Scotland been independent three years ago, it would have been unable to bail out RBS, and Scotland could well have ended up like Iceland (or still worse — if they were in the €uro — like Greece).

Many of the English resent the Barnett Formula, under which the UK Treasury makes regular subventions to Scotland, funding their free university education, free prescriptions, elderly care and so on.  I don’t resent it, because I recognise that a currency union (and Sterling is a currency union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) absolutely requires on-going fiscal transfers from richer areas to poorer areas.  This is a fact which Angela Merkel is learning the hard way.  The €uro could only survive with politically unacceptable permanent fiscal transfers from Germany to ClubMed.

But it is difficult to see how an independent Scotland, without the Barnett Formula, could possibly sustain its almost Soviet level of public spending as an independent country.

So Scotland receives huge and undeniable financial benefits from its union with England.  The UK, on the other hand, suffers huge financial costs from its membership of the EU.  The direct budget contributions are around £16 billion, but the total costs, including regulatory costs, are credibly estimated at over £100 billion — a terrible drag on jobs, growth and prosperity in Britain.  The case for British independence from the EU is well-made.  The case for Scottish independence is not (at least, not in Edinburgh — though the English might make a case).

Salmond seems to believe that after separation, both Scotland and rump-UK would continue as two new countries within the EU.  (He also assumes that Scotland would keep the Pound — but will the English want to play Germany to Scotland’s Greece?).  This is not at all clear.  Constitutional lawyers argue that both Scotland and rump-UK would effectively be new countries, and would have to re-apply for EU membership.  At the very least there would have to be elaborate negotiations over budgets and so on.  And we in England would need a referendum.  This is perhaps the one point that could persuade me to support Salmond’s position.  We should get the referendum on the EU which successive politicians have denied us.

The funniest yet the saddest thing is that Salmond still talks of “An independent Scotland within the EU”.  That is about as credible as Hague’s “In Europe not run by Europe”.  Time to wake up and smell the coffee, Alex.  Better still, have a glass of Scotch.