"The Never-Never Declaration - An APEC Reality Check"

A press release below from Australian group, "The Carbon Sense Coalition" (info@carbon-sense.com) -- in the wake of the strong climate focus during the recent APEC meeting of heads of government in Sydney

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called for a Royal Commission of Enquiry [an independent but government-funded judicial enquiry with wide powers] into the scientific evidence for man-made climate cvhange. The Chairman of "Carbon Sense", Mr Viv Forbes, said that the Sydney APEC Declaration was a clear signal that most APEC nations are not going to swallow the pseudo-science and economic poison being peddled by Dark Greens from yesterday's states like Europe and New Zealand.

The APEC nations told Australia, as politely as possible "You may commit economic suicide if you wish, but we are not going to put our feet on the sticky paper." This "Never-Never" declaration is a warning call that Australia should re-examine the basis for its enormous waste of money on "Global Warming".

China and India recognise clearly that "Global Warming" is just another European plan to hobble economic competition from Asia. The Global Warming Scam would deny cheap clean power to millions of energetic Asians.

France closed its last coal mine in 2004 and is now heavily dependent on nuclear power. German coal mines are no longer economic, and even in Britain, fewer than 5,000 coal miners work the mines that once fuelled an empire. Thanks to their Dark Greens, Europe is now dependent on imported coal for steel production and gets its power from imported uranium and gas piped in from Russia and beyond.

France has always envied and feared the cheap and abundant coal of the Anglo American world. The world dominance of Britain and then America in steel, manufacturing, metals, steam, railways, electricity and naval power was fuelled by coal, supported later by oil. China and India are about to tread the same road. The Dark Greens of Europe, secretly supported by their decaying industrialists, fear the growing power, energy and competitiveness of these emerging giants.

This is not about climate - it is about using public hysteria to benefit certain countries, business interests and ideologies. There was no declaration of carbon emission targets from last week's Russian delegation to Queensland. Russian scientists are not sucked in by distortions, exaggerations, half truths and poor science being peddled by the likes of Al Gore and Bob Brown.

The Russians, the Arabs, the Indians and the Chinese cannot believe the apparent stupidity of the English speaking world. They have no intention of adding to their energy costs or forcing their businesses to waste money on dreamtime research such as carbon sequestration - they are cynically planning exploit the declining competitiveness of western industries and to milk stupid westerners of any "carbon offset credits" they can find or invent.

There is already a groundswell of opposition from well informed scientists, engineers and individuals all over the world to the lack of evidence supporting the Greenhouse Religion. A recent scientific conference in Melbourne organised by the Lavoisier Society drew scientists and delegates from all over Australia and South Africa. Even the PM's own backbench contains well informed climate sceptics, and the ranks of scientific sceptics are growing all over the world.

A Royal Commission taking evidence from more than a few government or United Nations hacks would soon establish the facts that:

* 1934 was the hottest year of the twentieth century.

* There was no global warming from 1940 to 1980, a time when CO2 emissions grew strongly.

* There has been no global warming since 1998.

* Current temperatures are not extreme or unusual.

* Past records and scientific evidence show that changing surface temperature is more likely to be a cause (not a result) of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

* CO2 and water vapour have always been essential components of the atmosphere. Neither is toxic, both tend to retain some of the sun's warmth, and both are absolutely essential and beneficial to all life on earth.

* The most likely causes of variations in surface temperature are connected with solar cycles, variations in the heat output of the sun and eras of volcanic activity.

* More CO2, water vapour and warmth in the atmosphere would be a boon to most of humanity.

* There is empirical evidence to suggest that earth's temperature is more likely to fall than rise - ice ages are more normal than today's balmy climates.

* There is significant scientific opposition to the proposition that man's emissions of CO2 are causing global warming or any other harm.

Earth's climate is always changing and we must do what every generation of our ancestors did - "adapt to whatever nature has in store for us". Our ability to adapt is severely reduced by crippling our economy and misdirecting billions of dollars of research funds into nonsense like carbon sequestration or rich man's toys like windmills and solar panels.

While billions of dollars are being spent on na‹ve attempts to build ever more complex computer models of atmospheric heat circulation, our oceans are largely unexplored. The vast deposits of methane under our oceans are both a threat and a promise for future generations, but too little research is being done in this field. And the hundreds of thousands of undersea volcanoes, which may hold the key to past and future climate change, remain largely unmapped and un-monitored.

Australia, an island almost alone in the Great Southern Ocean which circles the globe, should take the lead in ocean research instead of letting scheming politicians from abroad mis-direct our research priorities to spurious questions.





The depersonalization of government medicine continues apace

HOSPITAL patients in Queensland are to be stamped with barcodes in a move to prevent operations being performed on the wrong body parts. Last financial year 31 mistaken procedures were performed, including three cases of the wrong tooth extracted and two operations on the incorrect part of patients' spines. In another instance, a person's left tonsil was removed in error and a separate patient had botox injected into the wrong body part.

Queensland Health's Patient Safety Centre senior director John Wakefield presented the figures to a Royal Australasian College of Surgeons state meeting near Cairns. They represented a huge increase on 2005-06 numbers, when six such cases were recorded, but Dr Wakefield said the centre had been actively encouraging public hospital staff to report incidents. "You might think: 'Oh gosh, how do these things happen?' " he said. "But as medicine has become more complex and we get people through the system quicker, there's more opportunities for mistakes to be made. "It usually happens in very busy hospitals. A major Brisbane hospital when I was working there three years ago had 22 operating theatres. That's a surgical factory."

Dr Wakefield said although the mistakes were rare, with more than 800,000 patients admitted to Queensland public hospitals in 2006-07, they were all preventable. "For the vast majority, there was very little harm but we regard all these errors potentially as leading to serious harm," Dr Wakefield said outside the meeting. "We're unearthing a problem, a risk in our system, which we've got to fix."

An analysis of the cases found patient misidentification was a significant cause of the problem. Dr Wakefield said Queensland Health planned pilot projects to eliminate the problem, including a study into the benefits of barcoding patients. "In the US veterans' health system, basically every patient has a barcode on the normal hospital wristband as well as their name and date of birth," he said. "It's a big technical investment but we'd like to explore that. "It doesn't just protect against patient misidentification, it protects against the wrong drug being administered as well."

Source







Australians to be paid to lose weight?



Many Australians who have recently been through what now passes for an Australian education will probably be unaware that the quote in the above cartoon is from a much-loved Australian poem by A.B. Paterson, called "The Man from Snowy River". Zeg appears to think that money might get results

TAXPAYERS should subsidise 12-week weight loss programs for overweight Australians, a leading doctors group says. The Australian General Practice Network also wants $40 million spent on a national program to teach good parenting techniques. And it is pushing for general practice nurses to visit nursing homes and carry out home visits to check on elderly and frail patients.

The network is calling on major parties to commit in this year's election to pay 75 per cent of the cost of a 12-week weight loss program, such as Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. The $170 subsidy would be triggered by a doctor's referral. Doctors would get feedback about a patient's progress six weeks into the program.

Subsidising weight-loss courses would cost taxpayers $27 million a year. The GP Network says evidence shows obesity is linked to low-income status. "Effective weight management programs do exist but access to them can be difficult," it says. "Fees to attend can be prohibitively high."

Source






Feds support private universities

THE latest round of higher education place allocations cements a plan by John Howard for private providers to be as important in tertiary education as they are in school education. Of 375 new teaching places announced by federal Education, Science and Training Minister Julie Bishop yesterday, more than 50 per cent went to Christian institutions including Avondale College (NSW), Tabor College (Adelaide and Melbourne), the University of Notre Dame (Sydney and Perth) and the Christian Heritage College (Brisbane). These colleges won just over 10 per cent of the 2300 new commonwealth-supported places, or 260 places, including 200 for teaching and 60 for nursing. Last year private colleges received a lower proportion, just 6 per cent of 4600places. Ms Bishop defended the allocations, saying they were for places in accredited courses in areas of national priority.

In contrast with recent years, when regional and outer metropolitan campuses subject to low student demand have been favoured in the allocation of new places, Group of Eight universities featured prominently this year. The University of NSW, Sydney, Adelaide, Monash, Melbourne and the University of Western Australia all were granted more than 100 places each.

Ms Bishop said allocations were based on national and state priorities and fields of workforce shortage. There are more new places in engineering than any other discipline, at 560, followed by nursing (395) and science (390). Ms Bishop said all institutions that applied and were eligible had been granted places. An unprecedented number, 15, did not apply. "This is strong evidence that we have now created as many commonwealth-supported places that are needed to meet eligible student demand," Ms Bishop said. These were the last places to be allocated under the Backing Australia's Future plan for more than 39,000 places over 10 years.

Alan Robson, vice-chancellor of the UWA and incoming president of the Group of Eight research intensive universities, said it was not surprising that Go8 universities had applied for and received more places. "I think the Group of Eight mainly are the universities of first choice for students and hence, when there is a weakening of demand, it filters less into the Group of Eight," he said.

Among regional universities, only Sunshine Coast, Charles Darwin and Ballarat applied for 2008 places. Last year several regional universities including Southern Queensland and James Cook struggled to fill their places, as did Edith Cowan University in Perth. The Government has also revealed figures showing private providers are blitzing public universities in the market for full-fee paying domestic undergraduate places.

Contrary to a recent erroneous media report seized on by the Australian Labor Party and National Union of Students, the number of domestic full-fee paying students in award courses at public universities has risen a modest 6.9 per cent, comparing enrolments for the first half of 2005 with the first half of 2006. That category of enrolments increased by 24 per cent for the private universities, Bond and Notre Dame, during the same period. Among other private higher education providers accredited for the FEE-HELP student loan scheme, domestic full-fee paying enrolments rose by 95 per cent to more than 8000.

Ms Bishop said this showed students were discerning in their choice of educators. "No eligible student is forced to take a place at a private university because there are now sufficient commonwealth-supported places. This is evidence that students are making choices based on factors other than (the availability of government places)." Quality, flexibility in course provision and the availability of niche courses might be among the factors, she said.

University of Adelaide acting vice-chancellor Fred McDougall said the institution was very happy with the additional 235 places, which fit with the university's strategic plan to increase student numbers from 16,000 to 20,000. He said most of the courses targeted areas of high demand such as engineering and mining as well as nursing and other health sciences. "Clearly, given the mining boom, it was important to get extra places in engineering," Professor McDougall said. He said the extra federal funding also allowed the university to establish South Australia's first veterinary school. "We know there is unmet demand nationally for students wanting to study veterinary science," Professor McDougall said. "A new school will help to slow the brain drain of students from South Australia who are leaving to study at vet schools interstate or overseas." ...

Source