Christoph, In turn, I will apologise for mis-remembering Yellowstone (not Yosemite) as the location of an inevitable super-volcano in the near or longer-term future. I haven't been saying that we should take no action on the IPCC report and the Kyoto Protocol on the basis that a worse catastrophe is likely. I am saying is that when the IPCC report is doubted by some eminent experts (not second-rate maverick scientists), we should not be carried away with hysteria but wait a while for more evidence. Five or ten more years of research will clarify the situation enormously. If the IPCC report is indeed justified by further evidence, then the action that needs to be taken will far exceed anything that the Kyoto Protocol suggests. We can then be reasonably certain of concerted action in all the important decision-making countries in the world. A tragedy of monumental proportions is occurring in the UK right now because it was based on insufficient evidence. It is very relevant to Kyoto. If anybody wants to read about it, here we go: About two months ago, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) was discovered in an animal trader's sheds in the north of England. (An animal trader is a so-called farmer who is really a commodity-trader, buying and selling sheep, cattle and pigs in large numbers from and to all over the country.) But by the time FMD was discovered, some diseased animals had already been dispersed all over the country and, indeed, some had been exported to Europe. FMD is not a killer disease and has no effects on humans but it is highly infectious, is probably carried on the wind, and so these dispersed pockets of animals served as focal points for further outbreaks -- which indeed occurred, and still is occurring. The Ministry of Food and Fisheries (MAFF) decided on a policy of slaughter of infected herds and flocks (and of non-infected animals on neighbouring farms to act as a 'firebreak') by default because that is what MAFF did during a previous outbreak in 1967. MAFF dismissed out-of-hand the possibility of vaccination (though this is what many other countries do successfully) because they relied on second-rate scientists and veterinarians within its own department and of scientific assessments of a previous generation of vaccines, ignoring the properties of the latest and most powerful vaccines (which, ironically, are exported from this country all over the world!). MAFF ignored the advice of the most eminent epidemiologist in the UK, two of the most eminent experts on FMD in the UK, and three or four of the most eminent FMD experts in the USA. So what do we have now? Hysteria. Almost the whole of the countryside is quarantined and one dare not set foot in it for fear of physical assault. One million animals have been slaughtered, set on fire in huge pyres, or buried in pits. A further 250,000 slaughtered animals are now still lying around in farmers' fields and no doubt being spread further by wild life. A further 250,000 animls are due to be slaughtered. And the disease is still spreading. The result so far is that thousands of small farmers will go bankrupt, thousands of businesses which rely on tourists (home-grown ramblers and foreign visitors) are also going bankrupt, the tourist industry (far larger than the livestock industry) will take years to recover. (The airlines say that tens of thousands of Americans will not even visit London for fear of being infected!) Quite apart from the barbaric treatment of animals in some cases (shooters chasing fear-crazed sheep around fields in order to dispatch them), and the bankruptcies, the total effect has been that several billions have been taken out of the economy (it is estimated that economic growth will decline from 2.5 to 1.5% this year), and millions of people will not go for their usual walks through the countryside all during this summer. During this Easter holiday, 250,000 people (in addition to the usual 1,000,000) decided to go abroad instead of staying at hotels and bed-and-breakfast in the countryside. And for why? Because the MAFF and its 'captured' Minister of Agricuture did not seek the best possible advice right at the beginning. Had they done so, and vaccinated immediately, then the outbreak would probably have been stopped within two or three weeks and there would have been no photographs or videos of funeral pyres sent all over the world by the media. No more than about 0.25% of livestock farming would have been affected. No animals would have suffered. No farmers would have suffered. Tens of thousands of modest family bed-and-breakfast businesses would not have been affected. That's what happens if the advice of the most eminent experts are ignored. Back to climate change very briefly. No one doubts that weird things have been happening to the weather in recent years and warming has been taking place. I believe this more than most because the fish in my garden pond have been feeding all through this past winter -- something they haven't done in over 40 years to my personal knowledge. But until all the evidence is got in, and until *all* the most eminent climate scientists are fully consulted, then half-cocked decisions would undoubtedly be followed by the Law of Unintended Consequences -- with, probably, far more serious world-wide effects in the case of Kyoto (were it to be carried out) than FMD in the UK. Keith Hudson ___________________________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org> 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
