mudwhistle

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Climate-change skeptics are taking a beating these days even in France, where people long resisted the green creed.

Paris bookstores brim with guidebooks -- including one shaped like a toilet seat -- that tell readers how to help save our planet. Yet the dissidents refuse to shut up, even now that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize and the U.S. government has agreed to negotiate a new global-warming treaty by 2009.

The most conspicuous doubter in France is Claude Allegre, a former education minister and a physicist by profession. His new book, ``Ma Verite Sur la Planete'' (``My Truth About the Planet''), doesn't mince words.

He calls Gore a ``crook'' presiding over an eco-business that pumps out cash. As for Gore's French followers, the author likens them to religious zealots who, far from saving humanity, are endangering it. Driven by a Judeo-Christian guilt complex, he says, French greens paint worst-case scenarios and attribute little-understood cycles to human misbehavior.

Allegre doesn't deny that the climate has changed or that extreme weather has become more common. He instead emphasizes the local character of these phenomena.

While the icecap of the North Pole is shrinking, the one covering Antarctica -- or 92 percent of the Earth's ice -- is not, he says. Nor have Scandinavian glaciers receded, he says. To play down these differences by basing forecasts on a global average makes no sense to Allegre.

He dismisses talk of renewable energies, such as wind or solar power, saying it would take a century for them to become a serious factor in meeting the world's energy demands.

Let Us Eat Cake

To his relief, France has taken another path: Almost 80 percent of its electricity comes from nuclear reactors. What's more, France has a talent for eating its cake and having it, too: Although it signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the country is nowhere near meeting the agreed targets.

``Ma Verite Sur la Planete'' is published by Plon/Fayard (240 pages, 18 euros).

Jean de Kervasdoue, a health expert, also stresses the benefits of nuclear power, noting that it emits only a small fraction of the greenhouse gas that comes from burning coal, oil or gas. His pet peeve, though, is genetically modified food.

In ``Les Precheurs de l'Apocalypse'' (``The Doomsday Preachers''), Kervasdoue decries how shrill and sometimes violent campaigners have prevented GM foods from gaining a foothold in Europe. They way they talk, he says, ``it sounds as if Martians are attacking the Earth.''

Insulin and Obesity

In fact, genetically modified organisms have proved highly beneficial to mankind, he argues, pointing to insulin, an artificially created hormone that has saved the lives of countless diabetes sufferers. A much greater danger to health and life expectancy, he says, is obesity -- even though the food that European fatsoes ingest is ``natural.''

Kervasdoue also has politically incorrect things to say about asbestos and Chernobyl. The motto of his book comes from Marcel Proust: ``Facts don't enter a world dominated by our beliefs.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...Gr8&refer=muse

StillNoScript

Almost half of France has what's considered to be a "great deal" of concern for global warming, more than twice the amount of Americans with the same amount of concern, while only 14% of France has "no concern at all".

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=252

The American businesses' token French scientiest is in even a smaller minority in his country than that of the rubes here in America that still support Bush.

mudwhistle

Pew is a liberal polling agency. Their questions are poorly worded and the results inaccurate.

Fat Albert's church of global warming is in trouble. Even a Frenchman has the courage to call bullshit on it.

gorillamom

Funny, my son was just in Antarctica where the ice is melting faster than in the artic. Where you get your info mud? I get mine firsthand. Oh I forgot to mention there is also a lack of Krill that the penguines feed on. Could be why they didn't see 1 penguine in either Antarctica or on New Zealand where the Blue's live year around.

__________________

The Clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power,
To tell just when the hands will stop
On what day or what hour.
Now is the only time we have,
So live it with a will,
Don't wait until tomorrow,
The hands may then be still.

Sean

Regardless that little French (I am French myself; French/Indian-German/Irish actually) bitch wouldn't sound so pompous is he were speaking German.

Titanium Cat

Claude Allègre rants have been rather thoroughly debunked by Ray Pierrehumbert in a post on RealClimate.

Les Chevaliers de l'Ordre de la Terre Plate, Part I: Allègre and Courtillot

An example of Allègre's ridiculous claims can be found with this highlighted statement of his "While the icecap of the North Pole is shrinking, the one covering Antarctica -- or 92 percent of the Earth's ice -- is not, he says. Nor have Scandinavian glaciers receded, he says. To play down these differences by basing forecasts on a global average makes no sense to Allegre."

First he's wrong, Antarctica is showing net ice loss.

Second his mention of Scandinavian glaciers (which represent less than half of 1% of the earth's surface) and claiming forecasting on global averages makes no sense is itself a nonsensical statement. What else would you base global warming on? Perhaps it is because when you look at a sample of the worlds alpine glaciers it becomes rather clear what is happening. The vast majority are receeding, only a small percentage are growing.



Allègre is all flash with little substance, a typical AGW denier.

gorillamom

He was just there. He got back right before Christmas. He should know more than what you look up on the internet.

__________________

The Clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power,
To tell just when the hands will stop
On what day or what hour.
Now is the only time we have,
So live it with a will,
Don't wait until tomorrow,
The hands may then be still.

Titanium Cat

The source I gave was stated that Antarctica was losing ice mass. As to your son's trip, well such an observation isn't particularily scientific since Antarctica is about one and half times the size of the United States, you can't judge overall ice loss in that way. Eastern Antarctica has gained some ice while Western Antarctica has lost a fair bit.

gorillamom

My sonn was with the scientists. That's his job, he deliveres the scientist and their equpitment, you know the smae one's who are funded by the Federal Government yet get de-bunked by the very people who fund them. He was down there with them for over a month. It wasn't a vacation trip.

__________________

The Clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power,
To tell just when the hands will stop
On what day or what hour.
Now is the only time we have,
So live it with a will,
Don't wait until tomorrow,
The hands may then be still.

Titanium Cat

Now where did I say or imply it was a vacation trip? What were the scientists studying down there? My point is you can't analyze overall ice loss of a huge region like Antarctica merely from coastal observations. I'm not disagreeing at all with what he saw, the Antarctic peninsula and surrounding ice sheets are undergoing considerable warming and melting.

Allègre was guilty of cherry picking a limited region of observation when he commented on Scandanavian glaciers. I was just demonstrating how that was wrong as well as his observation about Antarctica.