Six months after Fukushima and thirty years after Chernobyl has seen a lot of BS and hysteria on the internet about nuclear power. Most recently this pile of horse shit on Youtube entitled “Fukushima: BBC Debunked - 福島：BBC 暴か” caught my attention when it did the rounds on Facebook.

Of course I had to comment on this guy’s video and point out that the data he cites in his “debunking” video was itself thoroughly debunked decades ago whren it completely failed to pass peer review.

In response he deleted my comment and banned me from commenting on his videos again. What a dick.

I’d like to direct anyone interested in what the actual legacy of Chernobyl is 30 years on to this excellent BBC radio program and if/when it becomes unavallable do let me know as I have a copy of it and will happily post it to this site.

Hug me, I’m vaccinated!!

Stolen from Skepchick.org

Have you heard about the growing numbers of scientists who do not believe in man made global warming?

You heard about the increasing numbers of climate scientists who reject anthropogenic climate change (ACC)?

Yep, me too. So where and who are they? Unsurprisingly, they don’t actually exist.

In a new article published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, a group of scholars from Stanford University, the University of Toronto and elsewhere provide a statistical breakdown of the opinions of the world’s most prominent climate experts.

Their conclusion:

The group that is skeptical of the evidence of man-made global warming;

“comprises only 2% of the top 50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of researchers in the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in both groups … This result closely agrees with expert surveys, indicating that [about] 97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with the tenets of [man-made global warming].”

http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/download/rtna_climatemovementisdead.pdf

The sooner we realize that politicians and corporations will not solve the climate crisis, the sooner we can get to the real work of building a strong grassroots people’s movement – our only hope for survival. In that regard, the failure in of the December 2009 UN climate meetings in Copenhagen may be a great opportunity.

The inability of world leaders to cooperate rather than compete, to put a livable planet ahead of their own economic interests, is the death of their legitimacy. When rich nations draft a secret agreement that commits our planet to warming another 3 degrees Celsius, we can feel the noose tightening.

When Obama comes to the table with a pledgeto cut emissions by 4 percent, we know this spells genocide for island nations. When civil society groups are banned from the climate talks, but corporate lobbyists are allowed to remain, it is obvious where the politician’s loyalties lie.

It is not just the politicians and CEOs who are walking us down the gangplank. Many in the climate movement have grown all too cozy with the status quo. The “bold” action they call for will result in the privatization of the air, to be divided up by mega-polluters. Their demands for carbon neutrality seek to offset our problems onto poor countries while the rich keep burning and consuming. Their vision of a “clean energy future” would perpetuate the corporate control of our energy and of the Earth itself.

Meanwhile hyperconsumerism, corporate power, war-mongering and global dominance by wealthy countries – the roots of the climate crisis – remain side issues skirted around as if they were not the central pillars of the high-carbon economy. Those who still cling to the old climate movement have committed themselves to a sinking ship. Fortunately, just as the legitimacy of their approach is dying, a new movement is alive and kicking.

As world leaders jockeyed for their piece of the atmosphere in Copenhagen, hundreds of thousands were taking the streets worldwide fighting for real climate solutions. Hundreds of delegates braved police truncheons as they attempted to walk out of the UN climate talks to meet the thousands already assembled to create a people’s climate assembly.

In the United Kingdom 200 activists occupied Trafalgar Square to set up a climate camp. In Australia,
forty people blocked the world’s largest coal export terminal. Canadian activists repeatedly occupied government offices. Subsistence farmers from around the world took the streets to demand community control of sustainable food systems.

The US saw a massive day of coordinated direct actions leading up to the COP15 talks on November 30, the 10 year anniversary of the protests that shutdown the WTO meetings in Seattle. Earth First! and Rising Tide blocked the shipment of the generator destined for the Cliffside Coal plant in NC.
The Mobilization for Climate Justice shut down the San Francisco headquarters of Bank of America, while Seattle activists locked down inside Chase and Bank of America branches for their funding of fossil fuels. Activists in Chicago locked down in front of the Chicago Climate Exchange, the largest carbon trading institution in North America, shutting down part of the city’s financial district. Protestors in Washington, DC took over K Street to confront corporate lobbyists. In New York City activists occupied the lobby of Natural Resource Defense Council to protest their cozy relationship with major polluters.

As it becomes increasingly clear our leaders will not protect us, people are taking matters into their own hands. Not only are they fighting back against the corporate assault on our planet, they are actively creating the solutions that will usher in a truly just and sustainable world.

http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/download/rtna_climatemovementisdead.pdf

Social Media Can Move Mountains, Or Keep Them In Place

Today, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) hosts PUT CHASE ON THE RUN, a social media day of action, to convince Chase bank to stop funding mountaintop removal coal mining in the Appalachian Mountains.

JP Morgan Chase is the biggest U.S. financier of Mountaintop Removal (MTR). Mountaintop removal is the highly destructive mining practice that blows apart the tops of mountains in order to access coal in the cheapest way possible. MTR has buried over 2000 miles of rivers and streams and destroyed nearly 1.2 million acres of the Appalachian range. MTR has severely contaminated the air and drinking water, causing increased rates of mortality and disease for local people in the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.

Join dozens of organizations and thousands of online activists in convincing Chase to stop destroying American mountains. Take a simple action on your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, blog or email to end mountaintop removal in 2010. Go to www.DirtyMoney.org for instructions and PUT CHASE ON THE RUN!

Tags: Chase, Chase Bank, JP Morgan Chase, mountaintop removal, MTR, coal, mining, dirty energy, pollution, global warming, destruction, Appalachia, Jamie Dimon, Crandall Bowles, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Put Chase On The Run, Rainforest Action Network, RAN, ran.org

In response to my thorough debunking of the con-man’s fuel saving device he has threatened to give “unbiased, fair reviews” of my book.

Trevor Hunter of HHOTec sent me the following email:

trevorhunter@hhotek.com
tmrw i will be ordering a copy of your book for all of my sales reps, once i do
that they will all be entitled to write a review on amazon about the book. Im
sure that our unbiased, fair reviews will be an huge asset to the sales of your
book.
Website: www.hhotek.com
IP: 66.20.173.190

Nice.

More anonymous emails have brought my attention to more HHO scams in the UK. HHO Fuel Southwest is a scam, as is hho4u.

Both sites make the same preposterous claims of reduced fuel consumption and cleaner emissions (and so on…) as every other pedaller of this nonsense. There is no prof that any of their claims are true for the simple reason it is not true, it is a scam.

What is new to me is both sites claim something which I have not seen before, they think you will be entitled to lower road-tax because you will be able to re-register your vehicle as a “hybrid”. I’d be amazed if the DVLA will fall for this, but I have been amazed before so if you know of any examples please let me know.

They also both claim to be members of TAMA, some HHO trade association. Can’t find any evidence of it actually existing however.

The oxygen, or lambda, sensor.
An oxygen sensor, or lambda sensor, is an electronic device that measures the proportion of oxygen (O₂) in a gas or liquid.

Automotive oxygen sensors, also known as O₂ sensors, measure the oxygen content of the engine’s exhaust gasses. They are what makes modern electronic fuel injection and emission control possible by determining if the engine’s air-fuel ratio, its mixture, is too rich or too lean.

The O₂ sensor enables electronic fuel injection to control the air-fuel mixture  which enables the engine to run at its most efficient. This in turn reduces the amount of both unburned fuel and oxides of nitrogen from entering the atmosphere.

Unburned fuel is pollution in the form of air-borne hydrocarbons, while oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) gases contribute to smog and acid rain.

Information on oxygen concentration in the exhust is sent to the engine management computer (the ECU) which adjusts the amount of fuel injected into the engine to compensate for excess air or excess fuel.

The ECU attempts to maintain an average air-fuel ratio by interpreting the information it gains from the oxygen sensor with the primary goal of compromise between power, fuel economy, and emissions. In most cases this is achieved by an air-fuel-ratio close to the “stoichiometric-ratio” and ensures complete combustion.

The three types of emissions we are concerned about are:

• hydrocarbons
  (incompletely burnt fuel caused by misfiring or running rich).
• carbon monoxide
  (the result of running rich).
• oxides of nitrogen, NO_x.
  ( are the result of running lean).

Deliberately running lean
If modifications cause the engine to run lean there will be a slight increase in fuel economy. However this will be at the expense of increased NO_x emissions, a higher exhaust gas temperatures and a loss of power.
At ultra-lean air-to-fuel ratios engine damage is inevitable.

Deliberately running rich
If modifications cause the engine to run rich then there will be a slight increase in power to a point, after which the engine starts “flooding”. However this will be at the cost of decrease in fuel economy and an increase in unburned hydrocarbons in the exhaust which causes backfire and overheating of the catalytic converter.
Prolonged operation at rich mixtures will cause failure of the catalytic converter.

Timing
The ECU also controls the spark engine timing along with the fuel injector pulse width, so modifications which alter the engine to operate either too lean or too rich may result in inefficient fuel consumption whenever fuel is ignited too soon or too late in the combustion cycle.

The EFIE
An EFIE (electronic fuel injection enhancer) as a small electronic device which fits between the O₂ sensor and the ECU. It modifies the signal sent to the ECU to fool it into running the engine too rich (greater power) or too lean (greater economy).

However using an EFIE will be detrimental to the emissions control, may well damage the engine and is almost certainly illegal.

Oxygen sensors and HHO
Pedallers of HHO or “hydrogen hybrid” “technology” will often tell their customers that the reason the HHO machine is not saving any fuel is not because HHO is bullshit but because the engine is “too modern” and the ECU is compensating against the HHO unit.

They say that an EFIE is needed in addition to the HHO to allow the HHO work.

Of course this is bullshit and all part of the scam, it is the EFIE which is saving you fuel (at the expense of performance, the environment and your engine’s life) and nothing to do with the HHO unit at all.

In fact the HHO unit, with or without an EFIE, does nothing to improve your vehicle’s fuel economy. In fact because the HHO unit consumes energy while having no positive impact it will actually result in a reduction in fuel economy, an increase in consumption!

I just received this email scam, it is quite clever but fortunately my friends don’t make so many errors…

E-mail’s origin is 41.219.234.164 which is in Lagos in Nigeria.

It’s Urgent Please Respond

I really don’t mean to inconvenience you right now but am sorry, I made a quick trip to Madrid Spain and I lost Bag that contain my Id, cellphone and credit cards. I know this may sound odd, but it all happened very fast. I’ve been to the England Embassy, they’re willing to help me fly without my passport but I have to pay for my ticket and hotel right now I’m out of cash and you know I can’t have access to my bank without my credit card over here. I have contacted my bank but they need more verification and time wasting as well for the past 24hours. Please, Can you lend me fund right now? I’ll pay you as soon as I get home. I need to get on the next available flight home. pleas let me know so that i can give you the details where to send the money to…………….