Greens support lunatic fringe on food irradiation so why believe them on climate change?

The Green Party says it believes in science and evidence, and to present itself as the face of reason.

Yet the latest press release from Green MP Steffan Browning demonstrates how quickly the Green Party is beholden to the lunatic fringe of the radical environmental movement.

He says:

"Irradiation is not safe. It is the treating a food with ionizing radiation to kill bugs."

This assertion is backed up with nothing whatsoever.  It is the sort of simpleton view seen in this leaflet which claims without citation that "Numerous scientific studies have exposed the harmful effects of food irradiation".

No, they haven't.

The Health department of Queensland produces a leaflet that is more sober, as does the IAEA.

Browning makes not one claim about why irradiation is not safe. Nothing.

So let's speculate on what he thinks, or rather, fears.

- Irradiating food means it is radioactive:  Hilarious.  It is like saying that if you are exposed to light, you start to glow. 

- Irradiating food "changes its structure" so that it "degrades vitamins and nutrition":  Well yes, it can if it is used for preservation.  Much like drying does, and cooking does.  Cooking changes the molecular structure of food, and the chemistry of food and can destroy vitamins.  The obvious examples would be to boil vegetables to death or cooking food till it is blackened and charred.  However, do the Greens want to stop people having that food or cooking their food incorrectly?

It's bullshit to say irradiated food is not safe.  It's scaremongering, hysterical, anti-scientific and irresponsible for the Green Party to embrace such a stance.

Indeed, let me quote the summary of a World Health Organisation report on the topic (High-dose irradiation: wholesomeness of food irradiated with doses above 10 KGy, a joint FAO/IAEA/WHO study group. Geneva, Switzerland, 15-20 September 1997), given the Greens regularly cite UN organisations to hit governments over the head:

On the basis of the extensive scientific evidence reviewed, the report concludes that food irradiated to any dose appropriate to achieve the intended technological objective is both safe to consume and nutritionally adequate. The experts further conclude that no upper dose limit need be imposed, and that irradiated foods are deemed wholesome throughout the technologically useful dose range from below 10 kGy to envisioned doses above 10 kGy.

So.

Given how willingly the Greens are to make unsubstantiated claims that are essentially the baggage of scaremongering hysterical anti-technology, anti-scientific luddites, why the hell should anyone listen to them when they talk about climate change?

Why should the Greens be any more credible when preaching about science on that topic than they are on food irradiation?

Oh, and we've been here before.  Remember Russel Norman's rant two years ago about mobile phone towers that, when challenged (because Russel doesn't seem to mind TV and radio masts for broadcasting) descends into ad-hominem attacks against me?  

Yes - that's the Greens on science.  On the one hand, claim science is right behind you on climate change and that people who challenge that are unscientific, unreasonable and lunatic fringe.

On the other hand, make non-evidence based scaremongering claims based on little more than the ranting fears of fringe groups that don't even have an elementary understanding of science.

In other words - the Greens are not serious about science.

Why do the Greens get such an easy ride? Part Two - 50 questions that should have been asked of the Greens

As I wrote previously, it appears the Greens are having a media honeymoon.  However, is this justified?  Do the Greens not have policies that could be seen as controversial?  Do their MPs not make statements that deserve further scrutiny?

Well I have composed a long list of questions I think journalists should ask, and more importantly questions YOU should ask your local Green candidate, especially if you are thinking about voting Green.   You may wonder if the Greens are quite so cuddly and inoffensive as the media makes them out to be.

So here it is - 50 questions to ask the Green Party (and one light-hearted one at the end)

My only other question is, why hasn't anyone else been asking them?...

Does your Treaty of Waitangi policy that “All claimants to have the opportunity to have their land and resources returned to them” include claims of private land?  If not, why is that not clear?

Do the Greens still believe Sue Kedgley’s claim that it is wrong to “shift responsibility for health and improving diets from the state to society and to convince people that public health is all about personal responsibility"?  If so, how do see the state leading responsibility for people changing their diets, how would the state adequately replace personal responsibility?

What are “all reasonable steps to prevent immigration numbers and the sale of land to rich immigrants from having an adverse impact on Aotearoa/NZ and its Taonga.”?  How can they have an adverse impact?  What is a rich immigrant?  What will an immigrant do to land than a locally born New Zealander wouldn't? 

How does the Green Party plan to implement its policy to ”Minimise exposure to electromagnetic radiation especially for children and pregnant women”?  How many TV and radio stations would you shut down?  Will you want to close wifi networks at schools and home?  Will you demand children and pregnant women not use laptops, TVs or any other electrical appliance?  Will you demand all homes with children and pregnant women to be outside mobile phone coverage?  Does the party understand how pervasive EMR is and has been for decades?  Does it understand that visible light is electromagnetic radication, and if not, how can anyone trust the Greens on science in other fields?

Do the Greens still believe it is ok to frighten people about non-ionising radiation from mobile phone towers, despite the complete absence of evidence about negative health effects? Is it appropriate for the leader of a major political party to engage in name calling when someone calls him out on not scaremongering Radio NZ transmitter sites, which emit more of the same type of radiation and have done so for decades?

Do the Greens still believe there is a media conspiracy against them on this issue because telcos advertise in the media? What evidence do they have of this?  Could it just be that your science is extremely flimsy and the media refuses to engage with such ignorance?

Do the Greens trust potatoes still, or do they stand by Jeanette Fitzsimon’s press release of 1999 that it was then "the last Xmas when you could trust potatoes"?  Wasn’t all of the fuss over genetic engineering in 2002 just scaremongering?  How many people have been killed, hurt or harmed by genetic engineering anywhere in the world? 

What do the Greens mean about  “Recognise ancestral land ownership in rural areas” for Maori?  Why shouldn’t private land owners in rural areas be worried?  What will you stop them doing?  What isn't recognised now?

What did Catherine Delahunty mean when she said that the Pakeha nation is "racist"?  Does she stand by her use of the term “genocidal spindoctors” to describe National Party speechwriters in 2005?  Does she stand by her hope that Maori will be the largest cultural grouping in New Zealand by the late 21^st century?  Is this also Green policy?  Why is it that other parties don't care about the ethnic composition of the country?

When Catherine Delahunty said “We have plenty of beaten women; gutted communities and whanau living in state housing that have never had proper electricity or water supplies. But lots of Pakeha are drinking wine and surfing, and they say so loudly without saying a word, would you please shut up about the connection between racism and poverty” is she blaming Pakeha for Maori women being beaten up?  Why are Pakeha who drink wine and surf to blame for beaten women?

Do the Greens agree with Catherine Delahunty when she describes Pakeha as having "colonial privilege" even if they were born in New Zealand?  At what point can Pakeha be described by Catherine Delahunty as being equal to Maori as New Zealand citizens with equal rights, if ever?  Do you think Pakeha voters of the Greens know that you believe that?

Do the Greens agree with Kennedy Graham when he said “The political rights we enjoy today are to be calibrated by the responsibility we carry for tomorrow.”?  What political rights does he think should be “calibrated” and what does he mean by that?  When he said “Individual freedoms are no longer unlicensed, but henceforth subordinate to the twin principles of survival and sustainable living”, what freedoms do the Greens want to “licence”?  What individual freedoms must be subordinate?

Don’t the Greens think Kennedy Graham flying to London to discuss climate change at taxpayers’ expense is remarkably hypocritical?  How many more long haul flights will Green MPs seek to undertake to support fighting climate change and why?

Does the Green Party still share the view of Sue Kedgley that “We need to challenge the doctrine of free trade and accept that people's right to food, to be free from hunger, must have priority over an ideological fixation on allowing market forces to prevail at all costs” so abandoning New Zealand’s long standing bi-partisan trade policy goal of opening up markets to its agricultural products?  Does it share her view supporting the official French policy to effectively continue the EU’s highly subsidised highly protectionist Common Agricultural Policy?  Does it believe that free trade actually really means highly subsidising exports?  If so, why? What future do the Greens see in New Zealand's farming sector if farmers face a world that is protectionist, subsidised and engaging in "food sovereignty" policies?  

Why is it good value for taxpayers to have spent $1.3 billion on a railway that private companies would only have paid a quarter of that for?  Why do you think the private sector hasn't bothered investing in it, despite you being convinced of "peak oil" and that the end of mass use of the private car and road transport is nigh?

Do the Greens still think that it was appropriate to blame the Brisbane floods on climate change linked to the coal exported from Queensland, as if Queensland was getting its just desserts?

How do the Greens think that making membership of student unions voluntary “takes away choices”?  Isn’t it the exact opposite?  Would you think differently of student unions if they had been  hot beds of free market capitalist and pro-entrepreneurial activism?  Doesn't this make you claims about believing in human rights superficial?

The Greens want to force electricity companies to generate a proportion of their power from expensive renewable sources.  In the UK a similar policy is estimated to be putting up prices by an average of 50% in real terms by 2020, with a fully privatised sector. How much will this policy of renewables put up power prices to New Zealanders? 

When Metiria Turei says “We need to get smokes out of our homes and out of our shops” what will you do to achieve this? Do you really want to stop the sale of tobacco products altogether? Why don’t you have the same attitude towards marijuana?  Why don’t you think tobacco smokers should be left alone? 

Do the Greens still believe Don Brash wants to smash Maori culture and force women to be subservient?  Do you have any evidence for such exagerrated claims?

How will the Greens “Support equitable access for Māori to secure employment and decent wages”? How do Maori not have equitable access?  Who is stopping them? 

Do you think Maori can be racist? Why do you think people of Maori descent should be given different political structures from those of other citizens? Why do you think this should be constitutionally entrenched?  Why should the accident of your birth determine how the state interacts with or consults with you?

How does offering Maori the same democratic rights as all other citizens shut them out of participation?

What examples do the Greens have of “unnecessary production and consumption”, and how do they propose to curb them?  Will this mean banning the production and sale of certain goods?  If so, what ones?

What products will be banned when the Greens implement their policy to  “Require domestic and imported products to be durable and recyclable”? Does this mean every producer of goods that are neither will be regulated out of business?  Does this mean no New Zealander could import a product that is neither durable nor recyclable?  Doesn't this ban anything perishable?

What exactly is "hugely harmful" to the public in private companies being contracted by local government to manage water services?  Where in the world has this proven to be the case?

Does the Green party still believe all of the Cuban government’s claims that its health care system is fantastic?  Is it in the habit of believing the official reports of one party states that imprison political dissidents as mental patients?  Why is Cuba exempt from the sort of scrutiny on human rights that the Greens apply to China or Burma?

Why do the Greens think parental choice of schools is a myth?  Why do they think the state always knows what’s best in education?

When you want to “Ensure all new houses and buildings fully comply with disability access requirements unless specifically exempted.”  Will this mean anyone building a house on a hill about a road having to build a ramp or lift unless they get a special exemption from a bureaucracy?  Wont this make it prohibitively expensive to build homes anywhere that isn't on flat land adjacent to a road?  Wont this just increase the price of homes and reduce the supply?

When the Greens want to regulate broadcasting and the press with an authority that will “have the power to impose appropriate sanctions against media outlets in cases where it can be clearly demonstrated that it has exhibited wilful or negligent abuse of power and by doing so has either visited material harm on another party or pursued its own self-interest at the expense of the public interest.”, what examples of the media pursuing its own self interest do they have in mind? Doesn’t this mean introducing newspaper censorship in New Zealand for the first time in decades?

Why do the Greens fear foreign investment?  Do you share this fear of New Zealanders owning land and businesses in other countries, if not why not?  Why do you want to welcome refugees and migrants from all and sundry, but if anyone from another country wants to own a business, you treat them like the devil?

More specifically, what was the security threat posed by a Canadian company buying a New Zealand airport?  Should the British government be fearful that New Zealand company Infratil owns Prestwick Airport near Glasgow for the same reasons?

The Greens repeatedly criticise the trade choices made by New Zealanders in such banal terms as “swapping water with China”.  What exports do the Greens want stopped? What imports do they want stopped? Why do they think they know best what people should sell and buy?

Does the party’s support for taxpayer funding of the voluntary sector not make it the state sector?  Why should taxpayers be forced to support political advocacy groups?

What are the implications of “Requiring the inclusion of environmental science and ethics in all study programs.” involving science education?  Why is this relevant to physics for example?

What does “Support legislation that increases the reliability of the Internet” mean?  How do the Greens propose improving the reliability of a disaggregated global network by a law passed in New Zealand?  Can you pass laws to fix most problems?

Why do the Greens think that if central government doesn’t tell primary schools how to teach arts,science, technology, or physical education, that the schools are incapable ofknowing what or how to teach?  Does only the Ministry of Education know how to write a curriculum?

How many other traffic laws do the Greens endorse breaking besides walking on a motorway?

Do the Greens still stand by the view of Sue Kedgley that heavy freight be forced to go by rail?  Do the Greens still believe it is ok for their MPs to make speeches that are full of errors, hyperboles and misrepresentations?

Does Russel Norman still think that if customers of a shop want plastic bags, the shop shouldn’t offer them?  How is that democratic decision making?

Does Russel Norman stick to his belief that the London riots were caused by poverty, not opportunistic criminals seeking designer goods and electronics?

Do the Greens support the view of their blogger “Toad” that democracy doesn’t have to be secular, or liberal, and that it’s “ok” if democracies start a war if the people support it?  In which case, would the Greens support a Christian theocratic state that sent troops to Iran if it was democratically elected?

If the Greens think there should be fruit in schools, why don’t they set up a charity to raise money for it?  In fact, why don’t they ever advocate people raise money themselves voluntarily rather than make taxpayers pay?

When you expect that “significant time for environmental education” will be included in the teacher training curriculum, what should be excluded from the curriculum to allow for this?

Why do you think small business owners should be criminalised because they want to open on a religiously based public holiday?  How do owner-operator shops with no employees exploit people by merely opening their shops for people to choose to enter?

Why is it that a New Zealand Government following the US when a Republican is a President is “imperialism” but when a Democrat is a President, New Zealand should follow the US which is “leading the way”? Isn't it just about what policies you like and dislike? 

Why do you dismiss electric cars so flippantly, but treat electric trains as being the saviour to all of Auckland’s transport problems?  What proportion of trips in Auckland do you expect will be by train by 2014?

Do the Greens still support a Hamilton-Auckland train service, even though it would be slower than a bus, lose money and the local authorities wont pay for it? 

What’s Green about banning foreign ships that happen to be going from port to port within New Zealand as part of an international voyage, from selling empty space to carry cargo around New Zealand –when the ships would still be sailing regardless?  Isn't that policy just about pleasing militant  maritime unions?

The Greens paint a picture of the environment getting worse,and Russel Norman selectively quotes the Environment 2007 report from the Ministry for the Environment to support stopping road building, even though the report does not say that and provides plenty of facts that are inconvenient such as “Home heating is the main cause of air pollution in populated areas in the winter”  yet the Greens beat up on cars and trucks. The report also said  “Levels of PM10 particulates at roadside locations in Auckland appear to have fallen over the past 10 years”.  Why does a party that purports to be about the environment ignore good news about it?

Do any of you laugh at Catherine Delahunty’s tweets too? Like “Despite the pretty words and new clothes am hoping new puppy at white house will stop killing afghanis and funding Israel wars on Palestine"?

So ask yourself if the Greens DO get around 10% of the vote on Saturday, how much they might have got if a few of those questions had been asked over the campaign, or the past few years, and why the mainstream media seems to have its tongue up the Green Party's proverbial.  Moreover, ask yourself why the National Party hasn't been doing that - is it because it has seen this party as a partner?  If you're planning to vote National, how will you feel if that is exactly what happens?

P.S.  Go here, register instantly and tick an up for this post if you like what you see, it seems the obvious people have been doing the opposite (and I have inspired over 100 comments there).

Looking for innovation? Try a bureaucracy

Innovators, creators, producers, inventors.   Think of the greatest leaps forward in modern history that have changed economies and how people lived.  Think how many were spearheaded by a government bureaucracy.  Think how many benefited from being in a high tax economy.  Then read this from Wayne Mapp, a man who knows about innovation with his extensive entrepreneurial and  military and political background:

The Government is backing innovation to drive New Zealand’s economy forward and raise New Zealanders’ standard of living... Prime Minister John Key today launched the new Ministry of Science and Innovation (MSI)

Think of every single technological innovation in the last 30 years, do you really think there would be more if there had been the MSI?  

What else could government do?

How about get out of the way?  How about cutting company tax to 10%, so that businesses that do want to engage in research, development and be cutting edge about technology have an environment when they don't see the state taking a third of the "winnings"?

How about opening up the education sector so schools and universities are not dominated by a centrally planned bureaucratically specified curriculum, but that parents can withdraw their children from state schools and take their taxpayer funding with them to free private schools?  In other words, let innovators get involved in educating future innovators, not schools dominated by sclerotic unionists whose main philosophy is a burning envy of distrust of business and a politically driven view of the environment and humanity's relationship with it.

How about saying openly and loudly that you don't know what's best and you can't hire bureaucratics who can pick winners either?  You would be telling the truth, you'd be confronting the myth perpetuated by the left and most other parties that they can magically rescue the economy and advance it by spending other people's money on bureaucratically assessed beneficiaries.

However, it is clear National is of the left, given it's interest in growing the state.  So why vote for more of the same this year?

Nuclear fusion achieved?

Well so says the Korean Central News Agency

So I can't wait for that country's willing idiots in NZ to cheer this on, since it already cheered on the DPRK nuclear weapons programme.

The same agency of course says US troops commit 60% of the crimes in South Korea.

It also claims the US is the worst offender of human rights in the world in that:

"In this society one can live only by way of racketeering and through fraud and swindle. Without these practices one cannot but be pushed to the fringes of society where one can not keep body and soul together, denied even the elementary rights to eat, get clad and have a shelter....Drug abuses getting more rife in the U.S. with each passing day are producing an increasing number of mental and physical cripples."

So methinks that scientists need not be planning a trip to Pyongyang soon to discover fusion.

Greens have another anti-science policy

I blogged about this a couple of months ago - the scaremongering hysteria of Sue Kedgley about cellphone towers.

Now it is Green Party policy - a policy on electromagnetic radiation!

Kedgley barked:

"Communities all over New Zealand are fighting the construction of cell towers. Many are desperate as some towers are near their homes and even children's bedrooms, and they are worried about the potential health effects - as well as the effect on their property values."

Only because you're scaring them you evil conniving bitch. How utterly despicable she is, "children's bedrooms". Have you mapped all of the TV translator locations near "children's bedrooms"? Have you told them the REAL evidence you have of health effects?

No.

You go around the country scaring the scientifically dumb, scaring them for votes. Painting the telecommunications industry as evil, threatening the health of children and with what evidence?

Nothing.

However, big foreign telecommunications companies are an easy target for a mediocre, scientifically illiterate socialist.

Do you talk about the effect of broadcasting transmitters? No. Even though they have been around a lot longer, have far higher powers. Because you couldn't tell people TV and radio is harming them could you.

Do you talk about the effect of EMR from electric railway catenary? No - because you like electric trains. After all, there couldn't be EMR from

Do you stop using your cellphone? No of course not, don't be silly.

Oh and Sue? You're bathed in electromagnetic frequencies every day - in fact you're about to hit the period of the year when it gets most intense. Visible light is electromagnetic radiation you ignorant twit.

So what WOULD this policy mean?

It would ban any new TV or radio stations, the sale of home wireless routers, laptops with wifi capability, cellphones. Because:

"protecting public health and taking preventative action before certainty of harm is proven must be the basis of decision making" (sic) would mean no more EMR".

Kids wont use laptops, wont use radios (they emit EMR as well as receive it), will stay indoors, and will not use lights because the Greens will "Minimise exposure to electromagnetic radiation especially for children". After all light, infrared, ultraviolent, radio waves (which is what cellphone towers emit) are all forms of EMR.

You might find you can't use your cellphone at all in many areas because the Greens would "Not permit cell phone towers in residential areas or near schools and childcare centres, and ensure communities get to decide where they go".

So that's it - why have a cellphone? You wont have coverage near your home.

The policy is utterly brainless, it is completely divorced from science and evidence, and shows exactly where reason and the Greens are located - on other planets. The worst part of the policy is how the despicable scaremongering Sue Kedgley scares ignorant mothers to think their children are at risk from cellphone transmitters.

That is simply plain evil.

Reason vs the irrational

As the Hadron Collidor was switched on (and yes I know it was funded by taxpayers), few can fail to be amazed at the constant seeking of knowledge by humanity and science, to understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

Meanwhile, sadly the ignorant paid a price, as according to the Times, a teenage girl in India drank pesticide because she was convinced the world would come to an end, after talking to relatives (and reading parts of the local media which were hysterical about it.

What could more starkly show the difference between those who seek to take humanity forward, peacefully, in leaps and bounds, and the superstition bound anti-reality hysterics who spread fear, loathing and doubt.

Though it has always been like that - ancient Greece was the first great attempt to embrace reason, and it took the Enlightenment to throw off the shackles of oppressive Christianity suppressing science and reason - a process that has yet to be completed against all religions and all philosophies of subjectivist irrationality.

Arthur C. Clarke's passing

According to the BBC, scientist and novelist Arthur C. Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

He wrote over 100 books, but is best known for writing the novel "2001: A Space Odyssey" that became a famous film directed by Stanley Kubrick, but perhaps his greatest contribution to history is his design of the concept of the geostationary satellite. Clark in a 1945 article in Wireless World proposed how a satellite orbiting over the equator at around 35,787 km over mean sea level could remain stationary over its "footprint" area. Whether or not his article was in fact the catalyst for geostationary satellites is unclear, but his science was impeccable. This ultimately had a profound influence over telecommunications and more recently television.

A dark cloud was briefly pulled over his life by the leftwing tabloid the Sunday Mirror alleging that he was a pedophile. Clark denied the allegations and a police investigation found no evidence to support the comments attributed to him, and the Sunday Mirror ultimately having to publish a retraction.

However Clark was a fascinating man - he was seen by me first in a TV series called "Arthur C. Clarke's mysterious world" which was unforgettable for the Mitchell-Hedges Skull that was part of the introduction to every episode. He had a remarkable imagination and whilst fascinated by the paranormal, was ever the scientist seeking rational answers to unexplained phenomena.

He is survived by his foundation which exists to:

• "Stimulate creative use of communications technologies and social resources to improve health, education, and the quality of life for people everywhere, with emphasis on the needs of developing countries."
• "Integrate science and technology with literature, film and other means of outreach to enhance recognition of our increasingly complex, interconnected world."
• "Deepen public understanding of science and technology, and their impact on humanity and all the other components of our universe."

these are all noble pursuits inspired by a man who looked at the stars and saw endless possibilities for humanity to use science, go forth, create and discover.