Rhythms del Mundo - Classics: out now! 28 August 09

The three trustees of Artists Project Earth (APE), Registered Charity number 1113451 (Note 3) May East, Herbert Girardet and Kenny Young may well be genuinely concerned about QUOTE: 1) The promotion for the benefit of the public of the conservation, protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment in particular but not exclusively in relation to the threat of global warming and by such charitable means as the Trustees may from time to time determine; 2) The advancement of education of the public in the conservation, protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment, in particular but not exclusively in relation to climate change and global warming and promoting ways to reduce greenhouse gases and to undertake and to procure research and study and to publish or otherwise widely disseminate the results of useful research; 3) The relief of financial need and suffering among victims of natural or other kinds of disaster, trouble or catastrophe in the form of money (or other means deemed suitable) for persons, bodies, organizations and/or countries affected; 4) To educate the public concerning the nature, causes and effects of such financial need or suffering; UNQUOTE but are they qualified to make financial decisions on behalf of the charity “particular but not exclusively in relation to climate change and global warming and promoting ways to reduce greenhouse gases and to undertake and to procure research and study and to publish or otherwise widely disseminate the results of useful research”?

I could find nothing out about May East but Herbert Girardet is apparently a social anthropologist and cultural ecologist, now working as a writer, consultant and filmmaker (Note 4). Kenny Young appears to be a song writer and producer who has co-produced a film or two (Note 5). Neither of these appear to be scientifically qualified, so are they competent to make statements like the following.

Kenny Young (Founder and Trustee of APE) explained (Note 1) how the Rythms del Mundo project developed. QUOTE: The project evolved when more environmental disasters struck .. But the big picture was climate change. You can call these natural disasters but after all the research and scientific data, we know that we’re at least partly to blame for some of these disasters. Global warming is now in the news daily. If we don’t act in the time frame our experts give us, our grandchildren will curse us eternally. UNQUOTE

Thom Yorke, who is associated with Rythms del Mundo, commented (Note 1) QUOTE: We need a law, we need to have the Government put climate change in its place. If you leave industry to sort it out on a voluntary basis that’s never going to happen. So everybody, if they’ve got any concerns about climate, change has to register that concern with their Government officials because it’s the only way to go. UNQUOTE.

Then we have APE telling us (Note 2) that QUOTE: Almost all climate scientists agree that manmade climate change is real and we need to take immediate action to avert catastrophic effects on both humans and ecosystems. The need to prevent global temperatures from rising by more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels is vital. The only way in which we can prevent this is by reducing the amount of fossil fuel we burn. Total world emissions must be stabilized and reduced, with the rich world taking the lead by making very large cuts within a few decades. UNQUOTE.

It is reported that Professor Girardet said (Note 6) QUOTE: Climate change is the direct result of two main changes: the unprecedented combustion of fossil fuels and the reduction in the capacity of the biosphere to deal with the release of greenhouse gases UNQUOTE.

The big question is are any of these individuals competent to make such unqualified statements about climate change, a subject that even the scientists who specialise in the many different scientific disciplines involved in climate science cannot comment on with such certainty. Even the UN’s IPCC, which is eagerly promoting propaganda supporting The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis laces its reports with uncertainties. I think not!

The Hypothesis has yet to be validated and serious doubts have been raised about it, more recently due to global temperatures remaining virtually static during the past 10 years despite it hbeing claimed that atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue to rise. Also it is looking more and more likely that it will soon be proven to be flawed (at least on the balance of probabilities). Dr. John Nicol is revising his 2008 paper “Climate Change (a fundamental analysis of the greenhouse effect)” (Note7) which shows that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations above a level that is well below the current level has virtually no impact upon global temperatures.

Nature controls global climates using processes and drivers about which scientists have poor understanding. Under these circumstances attempts by humans to control global climates would not appear to me to be a worthy environmental cause on which the APE charity should be wasting the valuable funds that others contribute, since there are for more worthy environmental and sociological causes around.

In 2006-7 APE seemed to be doing a lot of raising of funds but little distributing of funds to “worthy” environmental causes. Out of an income of £334k it paid out £2k in salaries, £132k in raising funds, £17k compliance costs and only £20k in undertaking charitable activities. That’s less than 10% of the funds raised, which does not seem to me to be a very convincing level of performance for a charity. From my experience as the treasurer of a charity I’d expect something much nearer 100%.

NOTES: 1) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythms_del_Mundo 2) see http://www.apeuk.org/ 3) see http://www.guidestar.org.uk/gs_organ.aspx?CCReg=IenbKT1W%2fxQV32yMSm709Q%3d%3d&strQuery= 4) see http://www.thinkers.sa.gov.au/images/CV_girardet2.pdf 5) see http://apeuk.org/kennyyoung.html 6) see http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oy25dIi5bpoC&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=Herbert+Girardet+climate+change&source=bl&ots=dp8JhF41_e&sig=NFrNnp3yJgIOGxRTIU41TCcUreE&hl=en&ei=Sn6dSoC8KeWhjAea96GTAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=climate%20change&f=false 7) see http://www.middlebury.net/nicol-08.doc

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

Rubbish. I’m on the board too, and at each meeting we supervise the donation of far more than £20k. It’s probably close to £100k, quarterly. You’re just wrong… as usual.

Well hello Mark, I must have hit a nerve with this one. That’s the first time you’ve responded to one of my comments in all of the time that I have been challenging your (or should I say highlighting your lack of) understanding of climate science.

I simply posted information that I found from the Charity Commission returns, so those must be rubbish too.

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

So why choose 2006-07 to report on APE accounts? Why not 2007-08 which would be more current? If i’m reading the accounts from the Charity Commission correctly in 2007-08 out of an income of £344k, APE paid out just under £2k in salaries, £59k in raising funds and over £250k in charitable expenditure (charitable activites). Wouldn’t it have made more sense to report on the most recent set of accounts?

Karl, I try again – hopefully Mark will stop his deletions and allow open debate to continue.

Karl, if I’d found those I would have done so. Have the 2007-8n accounts just recently been released?

BTW it looks as though Mark’s blogs have been attacked by spammers. maybe it is as well, since Mark now seems reluctant to allow any kind of adverse comments on his blogs. It seems to me that he is frightened that he and his environmentalist associates are losing the debate! Copenhagen Dec 2009 will tell us a lot more about that.

The 2007-08 accounts were received by the Charity Commission in January of this year. The accounts for 2007-08 are available on the same webpage as the accounts for 2006-07. http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/SHOWCHARITY/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1113451&SubsidiaryNumber=0

Karl (Letten) thanks for the link. I initially tried the Charity Commission’s site but couldn’t find the informaton that I wanted so went to another site. From that one I assumed that no returns had yet been made for 2007/8 but was obviously mistaken and apologise to APE for that.

Moving on, I wrote about 10 paragraphs in my first submission and all that has been commented on is my questioning of APE’s management of its funds. What about my other comments, e.g. QUOTE: but are they qualified to make financial decisions on behalf of the charity “particular but not exclusively in relation to climate change and global warming and promoting ways to reduce greenhouse gases and to undertake and to procure research and study and to publish or otherwise widely disseminate the results of useful research”? .. The big question is are any of these individuals competent to make such unqualified statements about climate change, a subject that even the scientists who specialise in the many different scientific disciplines involved in climate science cannot comment on with such certainty. Even the UN’s IPCC, which is eagerly promoting propaganda supporting The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis laces its reports with uncertainties. I think not! UNQUOTE.

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic