Before scientists can test any new medicines on animals they will first have to determine that no other method is "reasonably or practicably available". Such methods, according to the EC, include testing human embryonic stem cells - a procedure controversial in most European countries because the embryos are destroyed during the process of extraction of such tissue. If the EC directive is approved by MEPs next month it will be binding on all 27 EU member states, including Britain.
Article 13 of the directive reads: "Member states shall ensure that a procedure is not carried out if another scientifically satisfactory method or testing strategy of obtaining the result sought, not entailing the use of an animal, is recognised by Community legislation. In the absence of such a method, a procedure may not be carried out if a scientifically satisfactory method or testing strategy for obtaining the result sought, including computer-supported, in vitro and other methodologies, not entailing the use of an animal, is reasonably and practicably available."
Among the tools that are considered are the cap-and-trade system for controlling carbon emissions that has been espoused by the Obama administration; "carbon taxes" on imported fuels and energy-intensive goods and industries, including airline transportation; and lower subsidies for those same goods, as well as new or higher subsidies for goods that are considered "environmentally sound."
Other tools are referred to only vaguely, including "energy policy reform," which the report indicates could affect "large-scale transportation infrastructure such as roads, rail and airports." When it comes to the results of such reform, the note says only that it could have "positive consequences for alternative transportation providers and producers of alternative fuels."
In the same bland manner, the note informs negotiators without going into details that cap-and-trade schemes "may induce some industrial relocation" to "less regulated host countries." Cap-and-trade functions by creating decreasing numbers of pollution-emission permits to be traded by industrial users, and thus pay more for each unit of carbon-based pollution, a market-driven system that aims to drive manufacturers toward less polluting technologies.
The note adds only that industrial relocation "would involve negative consequences for the implementing country, which loses employment and investment." But at the same time it "would involve indeterminate consequences for the countries that would host the relocated industries."
There are also entirely new kinds of tariffs and trade protectionist barriers such as those termed in the note as "border carbon adjustment"— which, the note says, can impose "a levy on imported goods equal to that which would have been imposed had they been produced domestically" under more strict environmental regimes.
Another form of "adjustment" would require exporters to "buy [carbon] offsets at the border equal to that which the producer would have been forced to purchase had the good been produced domestically."
The impact of both schemes, the note says, "would be functionally equivalent to an increased tariff: decreased market share for covered foreign producers." (There is no definition in the report of who, exactly, is "foreign.") The note adds that "If they were implemented fairly, such schemes would leave trade and investment patterns unchanged." Nothing is said about the consequences if such fairness was not achieved.
In Australia last year, Earth Hour's organisers required participating businesses to pledge to reduce their emissions by 5 per cent during the following year. This year, that requirement has been dropped. "We decided we'd actually downplay (concrete cuts)this time," the chief executive of WWF Australia told The Sunday Age. There apparently has been no accounting of whether last year's sponsors lived up to their pledge. The Sunday Age reported last week: "An analysis of the key sponsors of Earth Hour reveals that most have reported increased emissions in their most recent figures."
And it gets worse: the event could cause higher overall pollution than if we just left our lights on. When asked to extinguish electricity, people turn to candlelight. Candles seem natural, but are almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light globes, and more than 300 times less efficient than fluorescent lights. If you use one candle for each extinguished globe, you're essentially not cutting CO2 at all, and with two candles you'll emit more CO2. Moreover, candles produce indoor air pollution 10 to 100 times the level of pollution caused by all cars, industry and electricity production.
No wonder that even committed climate campaigners are sceptical. Clive Hamilton, author of Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change, told The Sunday Age last week that "we are well past the time for feel-good exercises aimed at raising awareness. It's like the band playing on as the Titanic sinks."
He said there was a real danger that Earth Hour convinced people we were making progress on climate change when we were not. And it let business and government off the hook.
TOPEKA, Kan. — Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signs a bill ensuring that women and girls seeking abortions can see ultrasound images before the procedure.
The legislation, signed Friday and taking effect July 1, also ensures that abortion patients can listen to the fetal heartbeat.
Sebelius signed the measure as she awaits U.S. Senate confirmation as federal Health and Human Services secretary. Anti-abortion groups in Washington have criticized her nomination because of her abortion rights stance.
The Kansas governor offered no explanation of why she signed the bill, though she's never targeted such provisions when she's vetoed past abortion measures.
The bill amends a state law requiring doctors to obtain a patient's informed consent before performing an abortion.
Washington, D.C., March 19, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a leading free-market think tank, plans to recognize “Human Achievement Hour” between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on March 28, 2009. The new one-hour holiday coincides with Earth Hour, a period of time during which governments, individuals, and corporations have agreed to dim or shut off lights in an effort to draw attention to climate change.
“We are so proud that millions of people plan to show their appreciation for human achievement by doing things like eating dinner, watching television, going to the movies, and brushing their teeth,” says Human Achievement Hour Founder and CEI Policy Analyst Michelle Minton [1]. “Never before has a new holiday caught on so quickly.”
The new one-hour holiday, unknown prior to this press release, has already received overwhelming support from many of Washington, D.C.’s leading institutions. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, for example, tells CEI that it does not plan to shut down all of the city’s bus and rail lines for the “Earth Hour.” The Kennedy Center, likewise, has scheduled a performance of the long-running play Sheer Madness, a jazz concert, and a dance performance to coincide with the Human Achievement Hour. Washington, D.C.’s Target store, furthermore, will remain open until 10:00pm on the evening of the 28th. The Smithsonian Institution also plans a film showing that will extend into Human Achievement Hour.
“We salute the people who keep the lights on and produce the energy that helps make human achievement possible,” says Myron Ebell [2], CEI’s Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy.
The state should exist primarily in the capacity of a protector of persons—of their lives, clearly, and also of their liberty to shape their lives as selves through time. The decisions regarding embryo-destructive research and the repeal or revision of health care provider conscience clauses seriously jeopardize the present administration’s claims to be fulfilling this fundamental task. And failure in this domain, much more than failure in the provision of some limited set of benefits, constitutes a terrible injustice against the persons for whose sake the state exists in the first place.
But Biazon said he also could not understand why the soldiers and commanders were being blamed and the “terrorist being considered as men of word of honor.”This man gets it. Really gets it.
The rest is all politics And we should let politics decide, without being ambushed by a chimera of political prescriptiveness dressed up as (false) scientific unanimity.
In this regard, it may be profitable to consider the current and projected security situation among the nations of Europe. Why Europe? Europe is the first region that has apparently completed the “demographic transition,” from high fertility to extremely below replacement-rate fertility. Although it remains uncertain how low fertility may still drop in some European countries, most have now been in a state of below replacement-rate fertility for at least two to three decades; thus, the implications of this level of fertility are being acted out now – reducing the need for conjecture. What is more, the fact that the European landmass is bordered by countries with fertility rates (and corresponding “youth bulges”) relatively higher than Europe’s, may also illustrate the security ramifications of uneven fertility decline. For these reasons, it may prove useful to investigate Europe as the model for the world’s low-fertility future – it could be considered either the harbinger of a new age of relative tranquility or the canary in the mineshaft, alerting the rest of the world to the security problems resulting from low fertility.
The basic demographic facts are startling. According to the European Parliament, by 2050, the average resident of Europe will be 49 years of age. (Draft Report on the Demographic Future of Europe, European Parliament, 2007) Joseph Chamie, former head of the United Nations Population Division, estimates that, without continued immigration or an unexpected spike in fertility, the population of Europe will drop by around 20 per cent, from a current level of 730 million to “well below 600 million by mid-century.” (Chamie, 2007) Because of the anticipated “contraction” in the working age population, the governments of Europe and the EU are actively planning for “a drop in the potential growth of European GDP of up to 1.2% between 2031 and 2050.” (Draft Report on the Demographic Future of Europe, European Parliament, 2007) The status of France and Germany – the major drivers of EU integration – is therefore particularly problematic (but not unusual among European nations); according to Haas,France and Germany confront similar problems…Both states presently face a daunting fiscal challenge created by their aging populations. Over the next thirty years, annual spending on elderly care is expected to rise by nearly 14 percent of GDP in France and by more than 10 percent of GDP in Germany. In both states, seniors rely heavily on their government for retirement support, and both will be hard-pressed to pay for this support without significant cuts in discretionary spending, given that tax and deficit rates are already high. (Haas, 2007)
European governments are mainly concerned about such economic ramifications. But as Haas, makes clear, beyond the issue of how relative economic vitality affects national security, there is an even more direct link between demographics and security: if governments are forced to spend the lion’s share of their budgets on care for the aged, there will be less money left over for other budget items, such as the military The projected increases in government spending for the elderly in coming decades are sobering….The ratio of working-age people to seniors is steadily declining. These anticipated increases in welfare payments will add hundreds of billions of dollars, in real terms, to governments’ annual expenditures for many decades. To give some perspective on their magnitude, consider the following: roughly thirty-five years from now, the annual amount of money that the great powers will have to spend on elderly care is going to increase, in real terms, many times what these states currently spend on their militaries. By 2040 Germany will have to increase its annual spending on elderly care more than seven times what it currently spends on defense. France will have to spend more than five times as much… (Haas, 2007)
MONTREAL, March 17, 2009 (LifeSIteNews.com) - A Quebec couple have launched a $3.5-million lawsuit against Montreal Children's Hospital for allegedly putting their infant daughter back on artificial food and hydration without their approval.
Marie-Eve Laurendeau gave birth to Phebe Mantha at LaSalle Hospital in November 2007. After a difficult delivery Phebe was transferred to Montreal Children's Hospital in serious condition and put on life support.
According to the lawsuit Laurendeau and Phebe's father, Stephane Mantha, were told by doctors that their daughter had little chance for survival and advised them to take her off respiratory support and hydration, to which they agreed.
After withdrawing respiratory support, however, it was found that Phebe could breathe on her own, and the hospital's ethics committee reversed the parents' decision to withhold fluids and food from their baby.
The research team has found the warming trend of the past 30 years has stopped and in fact global temperatures have leveled off since 2001.
The most recent climate shift probably occurred at about the year 2000.
Now the question is how has warming slowed and how much influence does human activity have?
But if we don't understand what is natural, I don't think we can say much about what the humans are doing. So our interest is to understand -- first the natural variability of climate -- and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural ...
What?! We Can't Kill Embryos Yet
Poor President Obama. He makes a big deal of signing legislation declaring it open season on embryos and then just two days later he, perhaps unwittingly, signed legislation buried in his humongous Omnibus bill that outright makes federal funding of the destruction of human embryos illegal. Oops.
“the greatest Filipino from Mindanao” whose “brilliance and love for the island had celebrated the triumph of the human spirit.”
At the luncheon, retired NASA climatologist John Theon rose to lament the fact that he hadn't fired James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an ardent advocate of the idea that man-made global warming is a catastrophe in the making. The audience burst into applause when Theon called Hansen an "embarrassment." In 1988, Hansen launched global warming as a public policy issue in his testimony before a congressional committee. Theon admitted that he actually couldn't have fired Hansen, who had powerful political protectors, most notably then-Senator and later Vice President Al Gore. So had Theon tried to do it, it's much more likely that he himself would have been out on the street rather than Hansen.
Theon told the audience that while he remained silent on the issue of global warming when he retired from NASA, he now felt he needed to speak out. "This whole thing is a fraud," said Theon. "We need to educate the public about what we're going to get into unless we stop this nonsense." The nonsense being the deleterious effect that carbon rationing would have on economic growth and jobs.
Next up was Christopher Monckton, a former advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Monckton delivered a high energy stem-winder mocking global warming "bedwetters" and praising the conference participants for their courage in opposing the activists' global warming juggernaut.
The real disaster hanging over us lies in all those astronomically costly measures proposed by politicians, to meet a crisis which in reality never existed.And he was not talking about the global financial crisis, although, these measures, if pushed forward with even more "urgency", could make life more miserable.
It just shows that what counts with climate hysterics is not the greenness of the planet but the brownie points they gain.
I think - the answer is I think that we'll work it through. If - particularly if it's done right. If it's obvious that we're not taking embryos that can - that under any conceivable scenario would be used for a process that would allow them to be fertilized and become little babies, and I think if it's obvious that we're not talking about some science fiction cloning of human beings, then I think the American people will support this....
I don't know that I have any reservations, but I was - he has apparently decided to leave to the relevant professional committees the definition of which frozen embryos are basically going to be discarded, because they're not going to be fertilized. I believe the American people believe it's a pro-life decision to use an embryo that's frozen and never going to be fertilized for embryonic stem cell research....
But those committees need to be really careful to make sure if they don't want a big storm to be stirred up here, that any of the embryos that are used clearly have been placed beyond the pale of being fertilized before their use. There are a large number of embryos that we know are never going to be fertilized, where the people who are in control of them have made that clear. The research ought to be confined to those....
But there are values involved that we all ought to feel free to discuss in all scientific research. And that is the one thing that I think these committees need to make it clear that they're not going to fool with any embryos where there's any possibility, even if it's somewhat remote, that they could be fertilized and become human beings.
But let me say, I feel very strongly about this. I think that I worked hard on the sequencing of the human genome. We finished it when I was president. Now there are all these practical applications being spun out of it. We've identified the genes that were high predictors of breast cancer. We're getting close on Parkinson's. We're even making headway on Alzheimer's. But this stem cell research, if the stem cells are frozen embryonic stem cells, if they are never going to be used to be fertilized, to bring a life into being, then I think making them available for medical research is the pro-life position and I honestly don't understand -- I would understand it if we were going and raiding stem cell banks, where these stem cells were going to be used to actually fertilize eggs and have babies.
