Pourable Pizza Dough

 

Pourable Pizza Dough (Food Wishes)
Ingredients for 4 eight-inch pizzas:
3 cups (14 ounces by weight) *flour
2 cups warm water (105-110 F)
1 package dry active yeast (2¼ tsp)
1 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp honey
1 Tbsp olive oil

Note: Like I said in the video, use a whisk attachment, not a dough hook! You can also simply whisk this by hand for 5 minutes.

I used something called double-zero flour or “00” flour, which is an Italian flour used for pasta and pizza making. It is very finely milled, and lovely to work with. If you can’t get or find, just use all-purpose.

https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2016/06/pourable-pizza-great-liquid-dough.html

Monidiot wants a planetary bailout

Radical green/socialist activist George Monbiot has made a short video describing the Covid-19 pandemic as ‘a symptom of a global economic system that is destroying the living planet’. As usual, he is wrong.

‘After the financial crisis in 2008, we bailed out the banks. In 2021, we need to bail out the planet,’ claims George Monbiot in a short video. Monbiot is a 58-year-old Guardian columnist,Welsh nationalist, radical environmental activist and vocal supporter of the socialist Jeremy Corbyn, who led the British Labour Party to its worst-ever electoral defeat in 2019. 

To whom exactly he is trying to appeal with this rhetoric is a bit of a mystery. 

He rants against corporations, but only corporations would have been in favour of the 2008 bank bailouts. Neither his own left-wing, red-green fanbase, nor free marketeers of libertarian, liberal or even conservative persuasions, would have supported the idea of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich by means of printing money, just to protect big banks who took risks they couldn’t afford.

By evoking the idea of a bailout, he is suggesting that instead of printing money to throw at fat cat bankers, we should pump the money into Big Green instead. He advocates the same corporate welfare, only in favour of different special interests.

Monbiot is a quintessential ‘watermelon’. He is an environmentalist on the outside, and a socialist on the inside. He seeks to promote socialism and economic central planning under the pretence of ‘saving the planet’ from capitalism.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Monbiot would seize upon a crisis like a global pandemic, and propose that it be exploited in order to undermine liberty and free markets, and promote government-planned eco-utopias in their place.

Fortunately, Monbiot’s argument fails dismally upon closer scrutiny.

Zoonosis

He begins by saying that before we think of returning to live as usual, we should consider the zoonotic origins of Covid-19. ‘Like many infectious diseases, Covid-19 has its origins in the encroachment of human activity into the natural world. As countries have sought to grow their economies, activities like logging, mining, road building, agricultural expansion and urbanisation cause massive habitat destruction,’ he says.

‘This in turn has brought people into ever closer contact with wild animal species, many of which carry dangerous pathogens and diseases. When humans venture into ecosystems and destroy the habitats of wild species, these diseases can jump from animals into the human population.’

He adds: ‘Covid-19 is not a random event. It is a symptom of a global economic system that is destroying the living planet and killing off our magnificent wildlife.’

He is correct, of course, that Covid-19 is a zoonotic virus. He is incorrect in suggesting that this is a new phenomenon, however. While it stands to reason that larger human populations are better at spreading disease, zoonotic infections have always been a threat to humans.

Long before human activity started to make a substantial impact on the natural environment, the Black Death, a zoonotic bacterial infection, caused death, destruction, and draconian counter-measures around the world. The most devastating outbreak was in Europe in the 14th century. It also emerged in China, and travelled along trade routes, just as Covid-19 did. Even earlier, in the 6th century, the Justinian Plague wreaked havoc in the Byzantine Empire.

Hippocrates described influenza in the 4th century BCE. It has been argued that all human viral infections were originally zoonotic in origin. 

Ancient religious laws suggest precautions against contracting zoonotic infections going back thousands of years. It is certain or likely that rabies, anthrax, tularemia, West Nile virus, measles, smallpox, influenza, HIV, diphtheria, the common cold and tuberculosis all had zoonotic origins that had little or nothing to do with Monbiot’s dystopia of ‘destroying the living planet’. 

Unbridled nature

On the contrary: the ‘living planet’ has a powerful penchant for destroying humans. It is not our friend. It is not benign. At the core of human development and civilisation is the ability to minimise the threats that unbridled nature poses to human existence and flourishing, and to turn nature to our purposes in providing food, clothing, shelter and the other material needs of a comfortable life. Of course, that does not justify rampant over-exploitation of resources, but suggesting that human flourishing is the cause of pandemics like Covid-19 is perverse.

‘So before we spend billions of dollars reinstating the status quo, perhaps it’s time for a rethink,’ says Monbiot. ‘In order to prevent future pandemics and tackle ecological and climate breakdown, governments must take a different path. What would this look like?

‘It means,’ he continues, ‘investing to decarbonise the global economy as fast as possible, and shrinking our environmental footprint. It means bringing an end to destructive activities like deforestation and intensive mining. And it means ending our addiction to economic growth and putting the needs of people and the planet first.’

Whether or not these prescriptions are desirable, they will do hardly anything to reduce the threat of pandemic diseases of zoonotic origin. Moreover, Monbiot’s dream of ‘ending our addiction to economic growth and putting the needs of people and the planet first’ is self-contradictory. 

Economic growth is nothing but the satisfaction of the needs of people, in aggregate. Conversely, lifting people out of poverty, drudgery and poor living conditions cannot be done without using the resources that nature provides. 

Wealthy elitists like Monbiot might live high enough on the hog to contemplate a future without economic growth, but billions of people around the world certainly do not.

Our goal should not be to ‘end our addiction to economic growth’ and instead direct investment towards industries of which Monbiot approves. That way lies a totalitarian dystopia of government control, failed central planning, poverty and exclusion. 

The goal should be to establish an economy in which secure property rights put us on the path to sustainable use of natural resources. 

We should welcome economic growth. The environmental ills that Monbiot mentions, like destructive mining, deforestation, agricultural expansion and habitat destruction, are the problems of poor and developing countries. In prosperous countries, agricultural land is being returned to nature, mining is less invasive, forests are protected and growing, pollution levels are relatively low, and water resources are well managed. 

Although economic development at first contributes to environmental damage, there is a point beyond which prosperity reduces environmental damage. Our choices are to return to universal poverty and the hardships of a primitive existence, or to pursue universal prosperity in a sustainable, healthy environment. 

Monbiot’s prescription would reduce prosperity, and leave us more, not less, vulnerable to pandemics and other natural disasters. Saving the planet must start with increasing prosperity in poor countries. It must start with economic growth. 

As Alexander C. R. Hammond wrote recently over at the excellent Human Progress publication, true environmentalists should prioritise economic prosperity. Only then will humanity have the means to protect itself from the caprices of nature. 

https://dailyfriend.co.za/2021/04/13/monidiot-wants-a-planetary-bailout/

‘It’s like a bomb has been dropped’: Cape authorities pass the buck after well-known baboon is put to death

 

South Africa: Cape authorities pass the buck after well-known baboon is put to death

Philemon, an adult male baboon in the Cape Peninsula, was killed by authorities last week for allegedly instigating ‘raiding behaviour’. The authorities have not provided proof of ‘40 occasions’ Philemon entered the urban area.

When Daily Maverick tried to establish on what information the decision was made to euthanise well-known baboon “Philemon”, all those involved pointed the finger at someone else, with nobody able to offer the actual evidence on which they based the decision.

Philemon above Smitswinkel Bay. (Photo: Kobus Luyt)

Philemon was put to death on the morning of Thursday, 8 April in the mountains between Murdock Valley and Smitswinkel Bay. He was a well-known member, and former alpha male, of the Smitswinkel Bay troop. He had been accused by the City of Cape Town of leading the raiding of homes.

The stakeholders involved in the management of baboon troops in the Cape Peninsula are the City of Cape Town, CapeNature, SANParks, Table Mountain National Park, NCC Environmental Services, the local ward councillor as well as community representatives in a structure called the Councillor’s Appointed Representative of Baboon Suburbs (Carbs).

Many residents of Murdock Valley and Smitswinkel Bay have demanded answers, but none are forthcoming.

They suspect that the decision was made based on a spreadsheet compiled by a small group of residents who are anti-baboon and in favour of their killing.

Philemon looking up at either the rangers in the road or other troop members in the bushes. (Photo: Anya Adendorff)

The information on the spreadsheet contained information gleaned from among others a private community WhatsApp group, as well as residents who informed Murdock Valley South resident Mike Gibson. 

The WhatsApp group is mostly used by residents to informally alert one another of the presence of the troop. Very few of these residents were anti-baboon and were not made aware that their information was allegedly being used to add to Philemon’s death warrant. In fact, they say that Philemon was often not the “perpetrator”.

Residents have claimed Gibson has been leading the campaign to have Philemon removed and sent incident reports to the local councillor, Simon Liell-Cock. According to sources, NCC Environmental Services were not privy to the reasons for Philemon’s death warrant, but were simply instructed to carry out the order.

This (photo) was (taken) a little more than two weeks after Philemon got injured. It was either due to an altercation with another baboon or possibly another cause. He was very subdued during that time and took comfort in the females’ company.’ (Photo: Anya Adendorff)

Residents’ stance

Chantal Luyt says she has been the Councillor’s Appointed Representative of Baboon Suburbs for Smitswinkel Bay for years. She was instrumental in petitioning against Philemon’s possible euthanasia in 2020 when he was accused of raiding. She first read of Philemon’s death in news reports. This is in contrast to Gibson, who petitioned Liell-Cock for Philemon to be dealt with and confirmed in an email to select neighbours that he had personally been alerted by the city.

Luyt said she had experienced a good relationship, with clear communication, between NCC Environmental Services and the community. She fears that has now vanished. “This is like a bomb has been dropped,” she said.

It is unfair to blame a single baboon for what an entire troop does, argued Luyt. She observes them almost daily and has witnessed that entire troops are involved in the raiding that Philemon has been accused of. 

“They are trying to pin it on him in order to take him out,” she said. She is adamant that the raiding will continue after his death.

Some residents had started “baboon-proofing” bins, she said, to try to dissuade the baboons from coming into the area.

Beyond bins, baboons also seek out vegetable patches, fruit trees and open houses. 

Philemon protecting his newborn baby, Smitswinkel Bay. (Photo: Chantal Carstens-Luyt)

“If the community could all just work together and buckle down for a month or two and be extremely sensitive about how their houses are run, then this would stop,” Luyt said. A few weeks ago, the troop came down and “hit a jackpot” because it was bin day. Since then, they haven’t left the area.

She commended the baboon monitors for their efforts to get them out of the area in difficult terrain.

However, this is an “easy way out” for the authorities, she believes. She is concerned that the “ultimate goal at this point is to keep the population down”.

“I’m completely shocked and I honestly thought that we’d managed to get over this mountain, especially with the whole Kataza ordeal. I thought it might have opened their eyes a little bit, but clearly not. The transparency is clearly not there. The proof is in what happened today.” 

Many residents approached by Daily Maverick were not keen to go on the record. Most of them said they were horrified by the killing of Philemon and although they wanted the baboon monitors to stop the troop from entering the suburb, they did not support moves to have any baboons killed. Some said they felt duped by Gibson, who, they said, did not disclose to them that he had been pushing for the removal of baboons.

The city’s stance

The city argued that the baboon had entered the urban area more than 40 times between October 2020 and February 2021. He had allegedly entered homes 10 times in February and in recent weeks had formed a “splinter group” from the Smitswinkel Bay troop and encouraged other baboons to enter the urban area with him. It alleged that this put the entire group in danger.

The city argued that despite “reallocating more resources” and increasing engagement with the community on waste management, Philemon continued to enter the urban area and “had increasing and significant contact with residents”. 

It told Daily Maverick that NCC Environmental Services had launched a programme in October 2020 to educate residents and business and restaurant owners about baboon-proofing waste bins, vegetable gardens and kitchens. It had also engaged with the local ski-boat club and closed down public braai areas.

“These actions did not succeed in deterring the persistent and continuous raiding behaviour, unfortunately,” it said. The “baboon rangers” could not deter Philemon from entering the urban area.

In the press statement it said: “In the interest of the safety of the Smitswinkel Bay troop, and the safety of local residents, it was recommended to CapeNature and SANParks that the raiding baboon be euthanised.”

The city told Daily Maverick that: “The baboon population on the Cape Peninsula has grown year-on-year since the City’s Urban Baboon Programme started over a decade ago. Selective euthanasia is used as a very last resort only. More baboons die from inter-baboon conflict, unlawful killing by property owners, or by cars when they cross the road, than by selective euthanasia.”

“CapeNature, who supported the removal of this baboon, issued the permit, and the City can confirm that an independent veterinarian assisted with the procedure that took place earlier today,” it said in the public statement.

Forty incidents: According to whom?

However, CapeNature told Daily Maverick that “the mandate of baboon management in this case resides with the City of Cape Town” and referred Daily Maverick to the city’s environmental management team.

Nonetheless, it confirmed that it had supported the city’s recommendation for the “removal” of Philemon. It said the removal “was actioned in compliance with a permit issued earlier to City of Cape Town’s service provider [NCC Environmental Services] by the entity”. 

It said it was satisfied that the removal complied with “standard protocols and approved guidelines”. It did not elaborate on what these standards are.

The City of Cape Town has since at least 2009 outsourced its baboon monitoring project in the Cape Peninsula. The company’s mandate is to lessen conflict between human residents and baboon troops.

NCC Environmental Services held the contract to manage this programme between 2009 and 2012, and again from 2020 until the present.

When asked why Philemon was euthanised, who made the decision and on what information this decision was based, the company referred Daily Maverick to the City of Cape Town, as “we are not allowed to respond to the media”. 

Simon Liell-Cock is the councillor for Ward 61, which includes Smitswinkel Bay and Murdock Valley, part of Simon’s Town.

He agreed with the city’s position that Philemon had been euthanised “due to his raiding behaviour and the danger this presents to the entire troop”.

He explained that the city relies on “hard evidence” presented by NCC Environmental Services for decisions relating to baboon troops. He said euthanasia was “a last resort” when there is “exhaustive evidence” and when all other efforts have proved ineffective. He did not share the “evidence”.

The decision to euthanise rests with CapeNature and SANParks, he said. This decision is based on information provided by NCC Environmental Services and the City of Cape Town, he said. Neither he nor the residents are consulted on individual cases.

Some community members have accused him of “hating baboons” and wanting to get rid of them. To these allegations he responded:

“As a ward councillor, I am used to these emotional and defamatory outbursts. Unfortunately, social media has provided a platform for fringe views and fake news to be put forward as fact by extreme groups on both sides. I have been accused of being an extreme ‘greeny’ by developers and a developers’ ‘stooge’ by socialist ideologues and animal rights activists.” 

The liaison between NCC Environmental Services, the City of Cape Town and the local ward councillor is the Councillor’s Appointed Representative of Baboon Suburbs. Each area of the Cape Peninsula has its own representative selected by the local ward councillor.

There is confusion over who is indeed a representative and of whom.

Gibson presented himself as the representative of Murdock Valley in an email to residents and possibly to the City. In an email sent hours after Philemon had been killed, he commended the decision to “act decisively” and euthanise Philemon. He said that he is “pretty sure” their “efforts” motivated the city to “act decisively”. He said the city had told him directly of Philemon’s euthanasia.

Gibson confirmed to Maverick Citizen that he is a “concerned residents’ representative” and does not advise the city or NCC Environmental Services “… in any capacity or manner with respect to its Baboon Management Programme in Murdock Valley”.

He confirmed that he had approached both entities to voice concern about the “inadequate measures” taken by them to “keep the baboons out of the residential areas”.

“As concerned residents, we keep an incident register of events that occur in our suburb. This register has been shared with the authorities to make them aware of the significant problems being experienced by householders on a daily basis,” he said.

The incident register seen by Daily Maverick lists numerous reports logged by Gibson. 

“I have not made numerous calls to the Baboon Hotline with regard to my vegetable patch. Incidents where baboons have been in and through my property have been noted in the register together with the damage caused to both garden and infrastructure, as is the case with numerous and varied other incidents reported across the suburb,” he said.

The register seen by Daily Maverick confirms that Gibson is the main complainant and that it mostly relates to the raiding of his unsecured vegetable garden. Most residents have either given up on vegetable gardening or baboon-proofed their gardens.

When Daily Maverick sent follow-up questions, the city requested that all requests for comment from “officials and councillors and residents” be directed to it. It later backtracked and said it would only attend to questions directed at “officials, councillors and service providers that are contracted to the City” and did not explain why Gibson had sent media questions to it.

Liell-Cock confirmed that Gibson has been invited to become a representative, because “he was actively communicating with me, so I invited him to a meeting”.

When asked if he knew that the Murdock Valley community was not aware that Gibson presented himself as a community representative, he responded: “The internal community politics have no influence on my decisions – I listen to all residents but always rely on advice from the conservation professionals, who in turn rely on scientific, evidence-based research and decades of experience in the field.”

He denied  Gibson had played any role in Philemon’s euthanasia and that “all decisions are based on objective criteria and evidence and not on emotionally based lobbying, whether this comes from baboon rights activists or angry residents.”

Liell-Cock claimed that Alderman Felicity Purchase is a representative because she “has property in Smitswinkel [Bay] and so I rely on her knowledge and community links when it comes to Smits[winkel Bay]”.

Purchase confirmed to Daily Maverick that she is the ward councillor for Ward 69 but does “sit on the community representatives around baboons”. The troop lives in Ward 61.

Liell-Cock said no other community members were invited to become a representative and did not share how other residents can join, even those who have been actively involved in trying to manage the baboons.

He said: “We only really need one community member from each baboon-affected area and nobody else had communicated with the city, so Mr Gibson was the obvious choice. 

“The purpose of the Carbs reps is to have a member of the community to be a channel for communication both to and from the community and not to lobby a particular ideology or personal agenda.” Many residents indicated to Daily Maverick that they had in fact communicated with Liell-Cock around various issues including the management of the recycling and waste management. DM/MC

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-12-its-like-a-bomb-has-been-dropped-cape-authorities-pass-the-buck-after-well-known-baboon-is-put-to-death/

Robben Island is showing signs of decay

South Africa: Robben Island is showing signs of decay

First published by GroundUp.

The precious heritage site and its rich history are being poorly served, with signs of decay and mismanagement.

A broken information sign in one of the former prison cells. 

The village, home to museum staff and service providers, is in need of renovation. 

The official symbolism of the Robben Island Museum, adopted early in its existence, is “the triumph of the human spirit over adversity”. But after 24 years in existence (i.e. when the ANC took over government - TT), the museum is substandard. GroundUp took a socially distanced, reduced capacity tour in early March. This is what we found.

“It’s like the island won’t let go of me,” says guide Ntando Mbatha. A member of the armed resistance to apartheid, Mbatha had been incarcerated here for seven years on charges of terrorism. Among his fellow inmates were Nelson Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada and Jacob Zuma.

His story was the highlight of the tour. A natural orator, he plays an important role in conveying what it was like to be imprisoned on the island.

When he was released, he had wanted to get as far away from the island as possible. He went to study African literature to pursue a career in academia. But unable to secure a job, he decided to return to the island in the late 1990s, where former political prisoners were being employed as tour guides at the new Robben Island Museum.

The last political prisoners were released from the island’s maximum-security prison in 1991 and the medium-security prison for criminal convicts was decommissioned in 1996. In 1997, the facility moved from the Department of Correctional Services to the Department of Arts and Culture and opened as a state museum.

Internationally famous as the place where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27-year jail sentence, the museum has been visited by millions of tourists. In 1998, the Island was named a World Heritage Site by Unesco. For many visitors, just being on the site means a great deal.

But TV screens on the ferry were broken. The island’s rich history — a leper colony, the site of Krotoa’s imprisonment and death, and its importance for the Khoikhoi — were done a disservice by the monotonous, poor quality documentary screened. The photographs of Mandela, Sisulu, Kathrada, Mbeki and other former prisoners, printed on large signs around the island, have faded. The information boards in key areas are broken, some lying on the floor. The walls of the prison interior are water damaged and need repainting.

The tour is long, yet rushed. The tour of the prison is only 45 minutes of the 4-hour excursion. Checking his watch every two minutes, Mbatha ushered us from site to site, and one had to run to keep up. Those wanting to take pictures fell behind.

Abandoned displays of photographs, artefacts, and newspaper clippings could be seen clumsily stored away in some of the cells. An out-of-order TV screen and projector indicated a defunct audiovisual experience. Some of the most historically significant imagery — a meal pass, for example, displaying the difference in meal plans between “Bantus” and “Coloured/Indians” — could be merely glimpsed. A historical bus ride around the island is mildly interesting at best.

Peeling paint and water damage is visible on the prison’s interior walls. 

In the early days of the museum, an extensive oral history project was undertaken. Former political prisoners were interviewed, their voices heard after years of censorship, bannings and imprisonment. But nothing of this project is available at the exhibition, instead, it is played on the ferry back to Cape Town, when most visitors are sleeping or too nauseous to pay attention.

An old apartheid propaganda film played on the ferry – “Robben Eiland en Sy Mense” (Robben Island and its People) — depicting an idyllic white society and emphasising that the prison conditions met international standards — is the only glimpse one has of the wardens’ experience of the island.

The Robben Island Museum (RIM) says the tour has been carefully packaged according to the average attention span of visitors and to provide a holistic experience that covers history, heritage, politics, conservation, literature, and education. The visitor offering was upgraded during the nationwide lockdown in 2020, with new exhibits developed, including the Visitor’s Centre, the Sobukwe Complex, and Jetty 1. These exhibits were not pointed out on the tour.

The bus tour encompassed the island village, which the guide said is home to 200 staff, former prisoners, and former prison wardens. The buildings, which are protected as part of the World Heritage Site, are clearly neglected. Recently, pictures circulated on social media of damaged buildings on the Island caused a stir, with many South Africans expressing frustration and anger in the comments. Some of the commenters were former residents of the Island during the apartheid regime. These pictures, according to RIM, were taken during a site visit by contractors to assess storm damage from October 2020.

Very little of the original vegetation of the island still exists. Instead, there are over 20,000 exotic trees, including Eucalyptus, Manatoko, Cyprus, and Rooikrans, planted by apartheid-era authorities. Legally, the trees need to be removed and the Rooikrans trees pose a fire risk.

RIM claims that the alien trees provide shade to the African penguin colony, one of the largest of its kind. However, the penguins were able to manage before the introduction of the alien trees, says Tony Rebelo, a scientist at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi).

RIM says its Integrated Conservation Management Plan encompasses the various “competing and overlapping conservation needs” and is in its third year of implementation, which includes the restoration of the natural and built environments.

A history of mismanagement and corruption

The Robben Island Museum is an agency of the Department of Arts and Culture, governed by a council that presides over its maintenance and curatorship.

Back in 2008, RIM was condemned for “gross mismanagement, fraud, and outright theft” in a forensic audit, with one board member accusing the management of treating the island like “their own private ATM”.

The Chief Executive of the time and two other senior members were suspended and the museum pledged to “restructure” the management. A similar controversy had led to the dissolution of the previous management.

That audit had identified gaps in the museum’s accounts that suggested criminal misconduct. This included 259% salary increases for the executive management between 2004 and 2007, and a 29% increase in general salaries. Overall costs grew six times faster than revenue and it was found that funds for fuel intended for the ferry had been siphoned off. In addition, the gift shops’ bank records were adrift by almost R10-million.

Since that audit in 2008, the Ex-political Prisoners Association (EPPA) has been very vocal about its discontent with how the museum is managed. Complaining about corruption, nepotism, underpayment of guides, and irregular expenditure, they have made sweeping claims in several media appearances, often without evidence to back up their claims.

RIM maintains that the EPPA has not followed the proper communication channels to raise their concerns and welcomes the EPPA to do so.

But in 2018, the EPPA’s concerns were heard by Minister Nathi Mthethwa, who launched an independent probe into the allegations. The probe was completed in 2020, but has not been made public.

In March 2021, RIM confirmed the report found evidence of mismanagement and there were disciplinary processes underway. RIM told GroundUp that the timeline or outcome of the disciplinary processes “cannot be preempted at this point”.

IOL reported in March that Mpho Masemola, spokesperson for the EPPA, said the association had been vindicated by the report.

In 2019/2020, then auditor-general Kimi Makwety found that the institution did not disclose R90.4-million in irregular expenditure for purchasing a new ferry, the MV Krotoa.

Future for Robben Island

Robben Island is an essential part of any South African’s education. It was within the walls of its maximum-security prison that men were imprisoned for revolting against a racist system and repressive regime.

As the historical significance of the island (going back to the 1600's - TT) inevitably becomes distant in the national memory, and a new generation of South Africans is educated on our country’s past, the Robben Island Museum should play a formative role in how we remember and reconcile with our past. 

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-12-robben-island-appears-to-be-on-a-literal-road-to-ruin/

Is there really a 97% consensus about global warming and its consequences?

 Is there really a 97% consensus about global warming and its consequences?

On its Climate Science Information Centre, extended in February to South Africa, Facebook states that “at least 97% of published scientists agree that global warming is real and caused by humans”.

Referring to the “claim” that global warming over the past century could be caused by the sun, Facebook says scientists have concluded that it could only have been caused by “the billions of tons of carbon pollution created by human activities” (emphasis added). It is, moreover, a “myth that scientists disagree on climate change”.    

Facebook further states that climate change is making “heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires more frequent and intense”, while damaging plant life and causing polar bear populations to decline.       

In 2014 John Kerry, then Barack Obama’s secretary of state and now Joe Biden’s special envoy on climate change, said that “97% of the world’s scientists” tell us it is “urgent” to deal with the “crippling consequences” of climate change. Mr Obama himself stated that “97% of scientists agree [that] climate change is real, man-made, and dangerous”.

Referring to Donald Trump as a “climate arsonist”, Mr Biden said last year that if Mr Trump were to be given four more years in the White House, “why should anyone be surprised” if more of America were “ablaze” or “under water”?

It is of course inherently unlikely that 97% of the world’s scientists agree about such diverse things as droughts, heatwaves, floods, hurricanes, polar bears, damage to plant and insect life, and all the other “dangerous” and “crippling” consequences we are told global warming will have, among them drowning islands, shrinking forests, disappearing species, growing food insecurity, catastrophic wildfires, and disappearing coral reefs. All these involve countless different branches of science, from agronomists through meteorologists to zoologists.              

Let us therefore ask three questions. How many scientists constitute the 97% consensus? What is it that they agree about? How much warming do humans cause?

The 97% figure dates back to an article by John Cook and others published in 2013.  Their key finding – in what they claim is the “most comprehensive analysis to date” – is that “97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming”. So the question is, 97% of whom?

The Cook paper is based on an analysis of 11 944 “climate abstracts from 1991-2011”. Two thirds of these abstracts expressed no position. Of the one third who did express a view, 97% endorsed the “consensus that humans are causing global warming”. The 97% is therefore actually 97% of one third of the abstracts, which means 3 781 of the abstracts analysed.

However, the paper admits, the 11 944 papers are only a “fraction of the climate literature”. A “web of science” search for “climate change” yields 43 548 papers. A search for “climate” yields 128 440 papers.

The views on climate and/or climate change expressed in all these additional papers are unknown. Not only is the sample on which the 97% claim is based extraordinarily small, but the issue on which the 97% agree is also very limited, namely that “humans are causing global warming”. There is no reference to any of the “dangerous” and “crippling” things human-induced global warming is supposed to be causing.

There’s more. David Legates and others published an analysis of the Cook claims. They said that only 41 of the 11 944 papers to which the Cook papers referred explicitly stated that humans had caused most of the warming since 1950. This shrinks the 97% to 0.3%.

One of the joint authors, Christopher Monckton, wrote that many scientists no doubt considered it possible that humans caused some warming, but that no more than 41 papers had explicitly stated that humans were responsible for most warming (which is repeatedly presented as the “consensus” position). It was, Lord Monckton wrote, “unscientific to assume that most scientists believe what they have neither said nor written”.    

The Cook paper cites a study that found that 57% of Americans either disagreed with, or were unaware of, the “overwhelming” consensus that the earth is warming because of human activity. It argues that this “consensus gap” between perception and reality is the result of campaigns designed to confuse the public which are exacerbated by the media practice of providing both sides of the story, allowing a “vocal minority to have their points amplified”.

Al Gore, author of An Inconvenient Truth, also blames public confusion on the media, which gives “equal weight” to “scientists and self-interest” groups. This, he says, gives the “false impression that there is a debate over facts when there isn’t”.

So now we have the following situation. Anyone disputing the claims made by people such as Messrs Gore, Obama, Kerry, and Biden is doing so only because the media has misled them. By labelling the idea of disagreement among scientists as a “myth”, Facebook is attempting to rectify this by consigning non-believers to oblivion.

Lord Monckton indeed warned against a “manufactured consensus” that can be used to “stifle discussion, debate, and critical thinking”.   

Yet the sample on which the 97% is based is minuscule. To the extent that there is any agreement about anything, such agreement extends only as far as the possibility that humans are causing some of the warming that may be taking place. There is no evidence, let alone proof, that 97% of even the minuscule sample of scientists think climate change and/or global warming are dangerous, contrary to what various American and other politicians keep telling us.                       

Back in August 1946 the Ladies Home Journal carried an advertisement to the effect that “more doctors smoke Camel than any other cigarette”. It was based on a coast-to-coast survey of 113 597 doctors. That at least was a larger sample than the one on which the 97% consensus about the impending climate apocalypse is based. 

  https://dailyfriend.co.za/2021/04/12/is-there-really-a-97-consensus-about-global-warming-and-its-consequences/

Dead Hippo Shoots at Lions

Dead Hippo Shoots at Lions

Watch the moment a hippo gets its last say against a pride of lions as it explodes right in the lion’s face!

This incredible footage was taken by law specialist, Heike Hochberger, while on her safari in South Luangwa. This year started off well for Heike when she managed to capture this unusual sighting.

Heike tells LatestSightings.com the story:

“Since 2016, I spend Christmas in South Luangwa, Zambia. In 2020, despite everything, I was lucky enough to be able to go there again, this time with a very good friend, who is also a guide.”

“I’ve done many game trips in the National Park. This year, however, everything was different. I had to wait 17 days to see the first lions! It was the morning of 06.01.2021, finally, lions!

As lions usually do during the day, they were just laying lazily at a lagoon. During the afternoon drive, Stephen and I had planned to visit the lions again. To our astonishment, there was now a dead hippo in the lagoon.”

“The lionesses were still at the edge of the water and did not really know what to do, because there were also crocodiles in the water. A lioness then made the start, a little later the male lion followed from the other side. By the end, the whole pride took their meal.”

“Halfway through the lions eating the hippo, the hippo suddenly let off a huge bursting sound, almost like a gunshot! Often when animals die, they become bloated and full of gas, it was now the lion’s eating that caused a puncture, allowing the gas to escape.

It was just indescribable and fascinating, and I think it was also unique to follow the whole situation.”

WATCH:

“Thanks to my friend, Stephen, we had the place with the best perspective. I’ve never seen anything like this before in all the years I’ve been on game drives there. You can’t plan something like that either, it’s just luck to be in the right place at the right time. Anyway, I can say that the South Luangwa National Park is once beautiful parks and definitely worth a visit.”

https://www.latestsightings.com/single-post/dead-hippo-shoots-at-lions-south-luangwa