False Ecologies:

The Crisis in Climate Campaigning.
The Climate Propaganda being Spewed out by Greens

‘Climate Crisis’ is a special issue of the ‘ecologist’ containing articles by many of the country’s ‘leading’ climate campaigners. In effect, it is a summation of the wadical case concerning the threat posed by global burning and the policies needed to combat this threat. However, underlying this work is a set of assumptions, held by virtually all contributors, which are debatable and whose policy implications are extremely dangerous. Since criticisms of these assumptions have already been drawn to the ecologist’s attention, it has to be suspected the continuing assertion of these assumptions means the ecologist prefers to indulge in green propaganda rather than a scientific campaign.

Warming up the Global Burning Debate.

The ‘Climate Crisis’ considerably ups-the-ante in the scientific debate over global burning. After years of headline grabbing by right wing, anti-global burning loons seeking to downplay or even dismiss the destabilization of the climate, the ecologist has interjected a much welcomed bit of realism into the debate. It uses scientific evidence to speculate that there are considerable geocidal scares on the horizon. One of the biggest of these scares is the prospect that by 2100 the concentration of Carbon in the atmosphere could reach 1300 ppmv - a vast increase from pre-industrial, and even current, concentrations, "At current emission rates the CO2 concentrations will reach and possibly surpass 1300 ppmv at the end of the next century compared to the 280ppmv of pre-industrial times and the 364 ppmv of the year 1999." At present, one of the main topics of debate about global burning is the date of the doubling of the concentration of atmospheric Carbon since the start of the industrial revolution - will it be in 2050 or sooner? However, bunyard believes a more frightening scenario is the quadrupling of atmospheric Carbon by the end of the next century, "In 100 years time, rather than the doubling of CO2 anticipated by climatologists, we would see a quadrupling, with unthinkable consequences for the climate. A fourfold increase in the greenhouse gases from pre-industrial times appears inevitable if we carry on as we are. That would take levels of carbon dioxide even beyond 1100ppmv. That would be the highest the levels have been for more than 100 million years." The Earth-wreckers are pushing the climate back to the triassic.

Bunyard also fears the rise in Carbon emissions (as distinct from the concentration of Carbon in the atmosphere) could double every 27 years, "Indeed, unless drastic action is taken now to reduce emissions, CO2 levels in the atmosphere will double every 27 years." If Carbon emissions doubled every 27 years, the concentration of Carbon in the atmosphere would quadruple by the end of the century.

The kyoto agreement legitimized the continued build up of Carbon in the atmosphere, "Even if these targets are achieved, when emissions from developing countries are added to those of the industrial countries, the global total is projected to increase to some 30% above 1990 levels by 2010 and by 2020 emissions are projected to be up by 60% even with compliance. These figures are likely to be higher still given the potential loopholes built into the kyoto protocol ..." Despite ten years of climate negotiations, Carbon emissions are continuing to rise in both the over-industrialized and the industrializing countries .. "in both the developed and the developing worlds emissions are currently increasing." Even worse is that global emissions have continued to rise throughout the 1990s even though vast areas of the global economy have been faltering. The break up of the soviet union has led to the virtual collapse of the russian economy. This has led to a dramatic decline in east european economies. The el nino of 1997-98 triggered off a huge recession amongst the tiger economies. In other words, global emissions have continued to rise even though there has been a dramatic economic downturn in the second world and the most advanced sectors of the third world. Once these economies start functioning again greenhouse emissions are set to erupt.

By far the biggest scare in ‘Climate Crisis’ is the resurrection of one of the green movement’s oldest climatic scare scenarios - an instant five foot rise in global sea levels, "Global warming could be on the verge of triggering the destruction of the west antarctic ice-sheet." This scare had been quietly kicked into touch many years ago so it is surprising to see it resurfacing again. Obviously new evidence has emerged which restores the credibility of this old scare - although, unfortunately, bunyard doesn’t outline this evidence.

The Declaration on Climate Change.

The introductory article in ‘Climate Crisis’ is a ‘declaration on climate change’ - the ecologist’s demand for urgent action to stabilize the climate. This has been signed by three pages worth of scientists, academics, commentators and representatives from green organizations around the world. The ecologist has created a platform from which it doubtlessly hopes to win wider support for its demands.

The declaration outlines policies to combat global burning. The most strategic of these is ‘contraction and convergence’, "Set in place a far more effective, inclusive and hence equitable international political mechanism to curb the consumption of fossil fuels in all countries. The only realistic means proposed so far of achieving this is a formal global programme of ‘Contraction and Convergence’ ..." The ecologist seems to have formally adopted the gci’s policy.

The next statement in the declaration is, quite unusually for greens who have become notorious over the last decade for their cavalier disinterest in the Earth’s life support system, a plea for Reforestation, "Recognize that the avoidance of serious climate change cannot succeed without the protection of the planet’s natural sinks." Even better is the demand for action on Reforestation, something which in the past greens have been too petrified to even mention, "Measures should also be put in place to ensure massive reforestation, while avoiding monoculture plantations of fast-growing exotics where possible."

It’s Reforestation, but not as anyone would recognize it.

This recommendation is a welcome, albeit belated, recognition of the significance of Reforestation in combating climate change. However, it does not indicate the green movement is, at long last, beginning to switch from its traditional conservationist stance to one more concerned with the restoration and rejuvenation of the Earth’s life sustaining processes. Prior to the demand for Reforestation, the ecologist makes the following statement, "Hence, take immediate action to stop the continued destruction of the world’s remaining forests, particularly rainforests - critical for the stability of the global climate. At the international level, legally-binding forest protection must be negotiated, even if this requires the provision of compensation to countries that possess the principal standing forests." Here we are drifting onto more contentious grounds.

Changing the Illusions not the Reality.

The specific manifesto demand for protecting tropical Forests - not Forests in the over-industrialized world - is a shock. In the past, greens advocating such a policy would have been abused as some sort of a pervert. When, in the late 1980s, scientists raised the spectre of global burning as a political issue, governments in the over-industrialized world reacted almost instantaneously by placing the blame on third world countries for burning down their rainforests. They insisted the third world should protect the global climate by preserving their Forests. This knee-jerk response became a big stumbling block in subsequent climate negotiations - the industrializing countries became sick to death of listening to this demand from the over-industrialized nations. Greens dismissed the over-industrialized world’s stance by pointing out that the over-industrialized nations had long since devastated most of their own Forests and had been on a logging rampage around the world for last few decades. It became a commonplace to hear greens pointing out that Forest destruction in canada was worse than in brazil, "It might be remembered that felling rates are greater in, say, British Columbia, than Brazil. It is said that the 'clearcuts' of Western Canada, are so big that they can be seen from outer space. Similarly deforestation rates in sub-tropical and tropical areas such as Florida and Queensland exceeded those in their poorer neighbours. In some areas, notably Central America, the 'hamburger connection' lies behind the clearance of forests for ranches."

The preoccupation with stopping deforestation in third world countries, as opposed to the over-industrialized world, appears in many guises throughout the ‘Climate Crisis’. For instance, there’s an article about saving the amazon rainforest - but no similar article about saving the taiga or other Forest systems in the over-industrialized world. Why the amazon? Because the effects of deforestation there could have a colossal impact on both america and europe (before rippling around the entire planet). In another article, stewart boyle hankers after some old greenpeace research which also sought to halt tropical deforestation, "Background work for the ffes suggested that a co-ordinated, international effort could halt net tropical deforestation by shortly after 2025, while ‘industrial’ plantations could attain a net sink of 0.57 billion tonnes of carbon per year by 2020. Added to commercial biomass, the net carbon flux would move from net emissions to a net sink around 2020, increasing from 0.5gt of Carbon to as much as 2.31gt in 2100." Finally, toward the end of ‘Climate Crisis’ a couple of articles argue that priority should be given to stopping deforestation - the green code word for stopping deforestation in third world countries.

So why is the ecologist promoting a view that many greens once commonly denounced? Is it possible the over-industrialized nations have shifted the debate over Forests to such an extent the ecologist felt it didn’t have much choice, if it is to be taken seriously by the Earth rapists, about emphasizing the preservation of Rainforests? Although the over-industrialized nations originally focused public attention on the destruction of the Rainforests (whilst chopping down their own Forests), they gradually realized they were vulnerable on the Forest issue in climate negotiations. So they embarked on a massive Reforestation scheme - not a real one, of course, just a paper one. They launched a propaganda campaign to suggest they had carried out a massive scale of Reforestation over the previous few decades (apparently whilst no-one was looking). For example: the brutish government defines areas as Forested even if they are occupied by centre parcs. Whilst for years commentators had been pointing out that Forests were being decimated in the over-industrialized nations, suddenly Forest scientists started popping out of the woodwork to point out that this was not the case at all.

One of the first commentators to claim the over-industrialized nations had secretly Reforested huge parts of their land, thereby helping to combat global burning, was roger sedjo, "The Forests of europe, north america and the former soviet union have expanded so much in the past four decades that they are countering the greenhouse effect, according to a washington think-tank ‘resources for the future’. Roger sedjo, author of the study .. argues that new temperate Forests, most planted in the past forty years, are absorbing at least 700 million tonnes of Carbon a year from the atmosphere. Sedjo claims that his findings "go a long way towards explaining" the mystery of the missing Carbon sink. (7 billion tonnes of carbon [7Gt] are dumped into the atmosphere; 3Gt stay in the atmosphere; 2-3Gts are absorbed by the oceans; but the rest disappears). Now it seems this missing Carbon is accumulating in new temperate Forests close to the great power plants and highways where it is emitted. Sedjo says, 24 of the 25 European countries increased their Forest area between 1954 and 1984. Forest cover in the former soviet union has risen by more than 70 million hectares in 25 years."

A short time after this, extreme right wing bigots began claiming it was only northern Forests that were extracting Carbon from the atmosphere. According to the world wide fund for nature, "Scientists have not yet balanced the modern carbon cycle. They know that some 5.5 billion tonnes of CO2 (measured as Carbon) are released by fossil fuel burning and other industrial emissions. To this they add an estimated 1.6 billion tonnes from deforestation and other land use changes in the tropics. Of this total of 7.1 billion tonnes, some 3.3 billion tonnes remain in the atmosphere, and an estimated 2 billion tonnes are absorbed by the oceans. That leaves 1.8 billion tonnes. Though there remain considerable uncertainty, much of this currently appears to be absorbed by non-tropical forests in the northern hemisphere, through a mixture of new forest growth and possibly the fertilisation effect." It is interesting that tony juniper, a contributor to ‘Climate Crisis’ whose article is analyzed below, quotes sedjo to justify his arguments against Reforestation.

The Reforestation propaganda of the over-industrialized nations has been successful - partially because greens, being disinterested in Reforestation, never challenged the over-industrialized governments about this issue. It is now commonly believed that the over-industrialized nations Reforested their land long ago so the only problem left is stopping deforestation in industrializing world. The over-industrialized nations’ Forests’ propaganda has changed significantly from its initial, knee jerk reaction of the late 1980s. However, the sentiment is still exactly the same - to minimize any action they might be asked to take to reduce global burning. The ecologist seems completely unwilling to counter this propaganda and has fallen in line with this western ideology.

The Ecologists’ Add on Nature of Reforestation.

A much more substantial criticism of the ‘Climate Crisis’ is that its demand for Reforestation is just an add on. This ‘add on’ nature is manifest in many ways. Firstly, despite all the good words it has to say about Reforestation, the ecologist continues to believe the main priority for combating global burning is the reduction in Carbon emissions. For example, daphne wysham argues, "What is surprising is that the world bank is doling out billions of dollars a year for fossil fuel projects - the single greatest contributor to climate change."; matthew spencer wades in with his conclusion that, "The rate and magnitude of global temperature increase are primarily governed by the amount of CO2 or its equivalent concentrated in the atmosphere." This leads him to argue that as far as global burning is concerned the main issue is how much Carbon should be allowed into the atmosphere, "The ability to maintain a relatively stable climate system comes down to the bottom line of how much stored carbon reaches the atmosphere." What is important to the ecologist is reducing Carbon emissions - its interest in Reforestation is solely veneerial. In fact, as far as it is concerned, if Carbon emissions could be reduced dramatically over the next few decades then the climate would get back to normal and countries could continue deforesting their land.

Whinging about Carbon Offsets.

The add on nature of the ecologists’ support for Reforestation is also manifest in those contributors who point out the limitations to international agreements on Carbon offset policies but do not explore the potentialities of these agreements. Joint implementation and the clean development mechanism involve governments implementing Reforestation schemes to offset their emissions or allowing western companies to plant Forests in third world countries to offset their Carbon emissions, "Under the kyoto agreement, each industrial country’s net total emissions will be calculated by subtracting the amount of Carbon absorbed by forestry and land use changes from each country’s gross emissions. Put another way, a country that plants trees to absorb Carbon dioxide can emit that much more CO2 from burning fossil fuels." There are obvious dangers with these policies but they also open up considerable opportunities for using Reforestation to combat global burning. They force governments to take an interest in the Earth’s life support system. They force countries to make the connection between Forests, the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity, the global Carbon spiral, and the Earth’s life support system - which would be a truly staggering advance considering their current oblivion of such connections. Unfortunately all the ecologist does is complain about the problems these policies might cause.

For example, "These developments are all the more worrying because, as biologists point out, there is not yet enough data on natural carbon cycling to establish full accounting and verification procedures for sinks. The science simply does not exist to be able to predict exactly how much carbon is being absorbed by a country’s sinks and how long the carbon moving into industrialized forests will actually stay there." It is quite true there are few accurate measures of Carbon fluxes. However, the adoption of these policies would force countries to start measuring them more accurately and thereby enable a picture of the Earth’s Carbon spiral to be put together. More fundamentally, these policies should then lead to the conclusion that the over-industrialized countries are Carbon debtors whilst the industrializing nations are Carbon creditors. So, the more emphasis is placed on these mechanisms, the more beneficial it could be for the industrializing countries. It is possible these policies could end up enabling the industrializing countries to obtain their historical Carbon credits so they can abolish global poverty. This, however, is not the way the ecologist sees it .. "most environmental ngos and euro governments arguing for placing a stringent cap on the amount of a country’s reduction target that can be achieved through trading and buying emission quotas from abroad."

Convergence not Reforestation.

The conclusive evidence that the ecologist’s new found support for Reforestation is just an add-on is its recent adoption of ‘contraction and convergence’, "How would ‘contraction and convergence’ work? Effectively this would create a global ‘budget’ of greenhouse gas emissions. Convergence allocates shares in that budget to the emitting nations on the basis of equity. This has three components. First, the budget is global; every country has a share in the atmosphere and any treaty that allocates its absorptive capacity only to a selection of countries effectively deprives the others. Second, the current situation whereby allocations are generally proportional to wealth would cease. Third, allocations should converge over time to a position where entitlements are proportional to population. No inflation of national budgets in response to rising populations would be permitted after an agreed set date." This is a strategy for reducing Carbon emissions. It is also a strategy for creating a world of equitable per capita emissions. But, it does not entail any element of Reforestation. It is hardly surprising, then, that the word Reforestation is not even mentioned in the article explaining this theory of ecological justice.

The ‘contraction and convergence’ strategy for allocating responsibilities for reducing Carbon emissions is a-historical. It ignores the massive debts the over-industrialized nations owe to the industrializing world for stabilizing the climate over the last couple of centuries. It says nothing about the Earth’s life support system. It has no role for Reforestation. Even worse, it is yet another anthropogenic theory which gives oomans emissions’ rights but not Animals. It makes no proposals for creating Wilderness areas. It is concerned solely with ooman welfare not the welfare of Wildlife or the Earth. ‘Contraction and convergence’ is a transparently planetless, oomano-imperialist theory. It is a theory pursued by Earth rapists claiming to be green.

In the past, the fact that ‘contraction and convergence’ did not feature Reforestation (biodiversity and the Earth) wasn’t of any political significance. It was just one of many second rate green theories floating around the green movement. However, since the ecologist has adopted it and is using it as a platform to win wider support, this indifference to Reforestation, biodiversity and the Earth, turns it into a political issue. That this strategy fits in all too easily with the ecologist’s assumptions was shown when it published an article promoting the health benefits of livestock farming whilst blatantly ignoring the fact that the livestock industry is the biggest cause of global burning and the main cause of the greatest decimation of biodiversity ever seen on this planet. If the ecologist is so blatantly indifferent to biodiversity then it is hardly surprising it is indifferent to Reforestation.

The Incarceration of Reforestation.

There is one further piece of evidence to show that despite its mention of Reforestation the ecologist is not really interested in greening the Earth. The tension of trying to fake support for Reforestation clearly proved too much for some of the contributors to ‘Climate Crisis’ who just couldn’t resist, yet again, dismissing Reforestation, "Whilst some tree planting activities are well intentioned - they do in the end amount to diversions from the real priority of halting the clearance of remaining natural forest or slashing emissions from fossil energy sources. Tree planting will not make a difference until deforestation is halted."

To the casual outside reader, this statement might seem somewhat odd given the commitment in the declaration to Reforestation. The fact is, however, this statement is not incongruous at all - it fits the ecologists’ underlying assumptions. What it shows is that the ecologist, like the bulk of the green movement, supports Reforestation only to avoid public ridicule for being a green organization which is disinterested in greening the Earth. They have no interest in Reforestation other than for p.r. reasons.

Juniper’s Priority for Opposing Deforestation whilst Ignoring Reforestation.

The quotation above dismissing Tree planting is from an article by tony juniper of friends of the Earth. He has written many articles on Reforestation. He has done more than any other green to dismiss the case for Reforestation and devalue the priority that should be given to Reforestation. He has done more than any other green to deflect the green movement from a concern for the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity i.e. the Earth life support system. Juniper is a one man, anti-Reforestation juggernaut. But, it has to be admitted, in this he has been fortunate in having at his disposal the science of Forestry which contains a truly wondrous selection of barmy ideas which puts it on a par with vivisection and ecology as a modern bogus science. He has borrowed heavily from the accumulated barminess of Forest scientists to give a bogus scientific legitimacy to his dismissal of Reforestation.

Juniper’s article starts off with his usual stupidity. He argues there is little chance of carrying out Reforestation. And why, it might be asked, is this? Because most of the land around the world has been taken over by Earth rapists, "Even if massive forestation took place globally (assuming there would be enough land available) ..." Ahhhhmmmm. The way that juniper looks on Reforestation is that now that Earth rapists are in possession of all this land there is nothing left to do but allow them to go on wrecking the Earth’s life support system. Clearing these scum off the land is a no-no. Reform of Earth wrecking activities is not feasible. The Earth can be saved only on the tiny pieces of land not owned by Earth wreckers pursuing their misbegotten activities.

Juniper then moves on to borrow directly from Forest twaddle .. "young trees absorb more Carbon dioxide as they are growing .." He argues that young Trees are more vigorous than old growth Trees which, in an earlier article, leads him to conclude, "Even if massive forestation took place world-wide, this would only postpone the need to drastically reduce carbon emissions. This is because the forest would only capture and store Carbon during its years of growth." This argument gives multi-national logging corporations a justification for replacing old growth Forests with Tree plantations. They can claim that clearcutting is a way of protecting the Earth’s climate. Of course, juniper protests against such a policy, "Whilst it is true that young trees absorb more Carbon dioxide as they are growing, old growth and natural forests generally contain more Carbon in the form of stored biomass." And yet his own theory justifies their actions. If young Trees absorb more Carbon than is being stored by old growth Trees then this justifies clearcutting. In reality, young Trees may absorb Carbon at a faster rate than old Trees but the quantity of Carbon absorbed by old Trees is greater than that absorbed by young ones.

Almost inevitably during one of his articles denouncing Reforestation, juniper will mention that far from being a means of combating global burning, Reforestation is likely to increase climatic instability because after Forests mature, they die and release all the Carbon they have absorbed. Not only are young Trees more vigorous than old Trees but, one day, mature Forests just keel over and give up the ghost. In the view of many greens, this process of maturing and dying is extremely dangerous because they believe it happens in a matter of decades. The threat posed by what Forest scientists call ‘mature Forests’ is one of the basic delusions of Forest science. In the real world, the only cases of Forest death known to oomans are those which have been brought about by oomans either through logging or burning. By themselves Forests are unlikely to die. They go on living and growing not merely for decades but for thousands, even tens of thousands of years. The mundi club has issued a challenge to the world’s Foresters - show us a mature Forest anywhere on Earth. So far no Forest scientist has rung but we’re still sitting here awaiting their call. It’s all very well for a few scientific crackpots to keep regurgitating this dementia about the climatic dangers of mature Forests because they know it will benefit the interests of multi-national logging corporations, but to discover the ecologist giving this nonsense credibility is staggering.

Juniper then invokes his tactical argument against Reforestation, "Whilst some tree planting activities are well intentioned - they do in the end amount to diversions from the real priority of halting the clearance of remaining natural forest or slashing emissions from fossil energy sources. Tree planting will not make a difference until deforestation is halted." He argues the priority must be to save what Forests are left rather than plant anew. Campaigners should focus on opposing deforestation and only when deforestation has been stopped should campaigns for Reforestation begin. This implies a contrast between deforestation and Reforestation as if they are two separate issues. On the contrary, Reforestation involves the protection of Forests. No Reforestation campaigner is going to claim victory when 10 acres of land are Reforested whilst 50 acres are deforested. Reforestation means an overall increase in natural Forests. The crucial point here is that giving priority to Reforestation implicitly entails an end to deforestation whereas giving priority to deforestation will never amount to Reforestation. What is more, giving priority to deforestation rather than Reforestation suggests that global burning is not critical - if rising temperatures were as bad as scientists make out then surely they would insist on policies for global Reforestation?

Juniper’s critique of Reforestation in the ecologist includes a new argument which has not appeared in his earlier articles, "Nor should it be forgotten that forest loss cannot be comprehensively halted until fossil-energy-induced climate change is dramatically slowed. Even if massive forestation took place globally (assuming there would be enough land available), this would only serve to postpone the need to drastically cut carbon emissions. This is because once the forest reached maturity, it would cease to absorb carbon, but would become a carbon store. Eventually, though rotting or deforestation, the carbon would be released once again into the atmosphere. The recent predictions from the uk’s hadley centre, that eastern amazonia will by 2050 be transformed from dense rainforest to savannah grassland and even desert, and in so doing contribute billions of tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere, is a good case in point."

In other words, juniper argues that, because of entirely natural processes, the amazon is a mature Forest which is on the verge of dying and releasing its massive Carbon store into the atmosphere. It could be argued, however, that the amazon may be disappearing, it may be releasing Carbon into the atmosphere as a result of deforestation, but it is not a mature Forest. For decades Forest scientists have suggested the amazon is a mature Forest in which the absorption of Carbon is in balance with the release of Carbon emissions. Quite why they should fabricate such a statement when they haven’t got any evidence to back up their claim is bewildering - but it does show the level of bogus omniscience in which they like to indulge themselves. It was only recently that a group of scientists went to the amazon to estimate its Carbon fluxes and discovered it was a net Carbon absorber, "A unique set of measurements has revealed the importance of forests in the global carbon cycle. Measurements made during TIGER show that forests in amazonia, cameroon and canada are all accumulating carbon, and at a scale far greater than anticipated: in amazonia alone the scale of the uptake is enough to account for the so-called ‘missing sink’" The amazon is a Forest which would still be growing and still be storing more and more Carbon, if it wasn’t for the fact that it is being logged and burnt to death by oomans. It is true that the patches of Forest remaining after this carnage stand little chance of surviving but the bulk of the damage will have been done by oomans. Oomans are destroying the amazon rainforest, like all other Forests around the world, at a much faster rate than ooman induced global burning.

To repeat: it is amazing that one of the green movement’s most distinguished and long standing magazines could legitimize this sort of nonsense. It shows the extent to which greens’ disinterest in Reforestation has allowed them to be taken for a ride by bogus Forest science.

A Few Small Breaths of Fresh Air.

There are some small breaths of fresh air in the ‘Climate Crisis’. There is the surprising admission, but very welcome, that green energy is going to cause significant ecological destruction, "The resources needed for solar, wind and other renewable energy systems would be very significant." Unfortunately boyle does not follow this up. This injection of truth into the ‘Climate Crisis’ doesn’t survive for too long before being swamped by green propaganda pretending that it is possible to implement green energy schemes without releasing any Carbon emissions e.g, "Indeed, solar pv could in principle supply all the world’s energy demands many times over, cutting global energy related greenhouse gas emissions close to zero." Why is the ecologist giving credibility to such green propaganda which is on a par with the nuclear power industry’s promise that ‘nuclear energy would be too cheap to meter’?

There is one striking anachronism in ‘Climate Crisis’ which deserves a mention because it suggests the increasing scale of environmental problems seems to be overwhelming greens’ abilities to formulate policies to combat such problems. In the early 1990s greenpeace outlined a scenario of a world without fossil fuels. In ‘Climate Crisis’ stewart boyle points out some of the assumptions entailed by the ffes, "In the main scenario, the conventional assumptions made include growth in the global economy from $15.4 trillion to $212.3 trillion (a 13-fold increase in global gdp), population up from 5 billion to 11.3 billion and energy consumption up from 338 exajoules (ej) to 987 ej" When the ffes was published, the Earth’s eco-nazis population was 5 billion and yet, here we are just a few short years later, and its now 6 billion. It just seems like yesterday that ffes was published and yet, almost in the twinkling of an eye, the global population has leapt from 5 bill to 6 bill. At this rate of expansion, oomans are never going to get through to 2100.

The Bunyard Anomaly.

What is so surprising about the ecologist’s regressive strategy over Reforestation is that one of its editors, and one of the biggest contributors to ‘Climate Crisis’, peter bunyard, seems to have put forward many arguments which seem to imply that Reforestation should be the main priority for combating global burning. Bunyard has adopted many gaian ideas on the workings of the Earth’s life support system so, given lovelock’s support for Reforestation, it is not surprising that he seems to suggest that Forests are just as influential on the climate as Carbon emissions, "If climate is indeed life driven, the future climate of the Earth will be determined as much by what happens to the Earth’s eco-systems as by future and past emissions of greenhouse and other gases. For it is the integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem that will largely determine the extent to which those greenhouse gases accumulate." He also suggests that .. "without the intact forest, the amount of solar energy that can be carried away towards the higher latitudes is cut by a fifth or more. Combined with a seizing up of the gulf stream that loss of heat transfer would be a devastating blow to the climate of north europe and scandinavia."; "Any reduction in the mass movement of water vapour as a result of rainforest destruction will perturb the climate every bit as powerfully as the addition of greenhouse gases."

Unfortunately, although bunyard extols the role of Forests in stabilizing the Earth’s climate and encourages climatologists to include the Earth’s life support system in global climate models, he doesn’t make any recommendations for Reforestation - let alone promote the idea of a global Carbon budget. On the contrary, he rather bizarrely, supports the gci’s campaign to curb Carbon emissions. What this goes to show is not merely bunyard’s failure to follow through the implications of his ideas but the incestuous nature of the green elite which insists on promoting each others’ work whilst ignoring the works of those outside this privileged elite. This clique seems to believe it is perfectly acceptable for the country’s leading green magazine to be treated as a family affair in which the editorship can be passed down the family Tree to people who seems to know next to nothing about green politics. What this means is that the Earth has got to put up with being attacked whilst this person learns his trade. And, of course, it has to be pointed out that if a group of english people passed on jobs to family members (such as at fords) then all hell would break loose with accusations of favouritism and racism. Apparently racism is solely confined to wasps.

Conclusions: A New Green Veneer for the same old Earth Rapists.

Having been criticized for the last decade or so for not showing much interest in Reforestation, greens are beginning to realize this could be extremely bad publicity so they have begun, just like governments in the over-industrialized world, to feign an interest in Reforestation. They don’t mind including Reforestation as an ‘add on’ and hoping that people won’t notice the joins, but they don’t regard Reforestation as their main priority for combating global burning and they won’t include it in their calculations for global equity between the rich and poor worlds. Behind this public relations gimmick, many green organizations are frightened that Reforestation will boost global burning. The reason some members of the ecologist are so wary of Reforestation, except in the tropics, is because it would limit one of their main interests - the colossal expansion in organic farming.

In the history of green thinking ‘Climate Crisis’ is important for being greens’ first attempt to cover up their disinterest in Reforestation and the Earth’s life sustaining processes. However, the main question which has to be asked about this manifesto is why the ecologist decided to adopt ‘contraction and convergence’ rather than greenpeace’s Carbon logic or even a full scale global Carbon budget. Just like kevin keegan, the england manager, who seems to pick his team only from amongst his all night drinking partners, so the ecologist seems to favour a cozy group of contributors who cover up their anti-Reforestation sentiments. If anyone can extract an answer from these green luvvies as to why members of the ecologist decided to support ‘contraction and convergence’ and to dismiss the Carbon logic, could they please let me know?