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The World Wildlife Foundation continuously makes so called "climate scorecards" for the G8 countries. Since the issue of whether a nation is acting in an environmentaly sound manner or not is a very complex one, the WWF is making these scorecards that summarize the G8 countries and gives them a ranking which makes it easier to see how they are doing.
In July 2009, the three top ranked countries were Germany, the United Kingdom and France. As you are probably aware, Germany and the UK rely heavilly on coal (24% and 28% of total respectively) and gas (23% and 35% respectively) for their energy production while France only gets 5% from coal and 14% from gas. That is 1/5 the amount of coal and about 1/2 to 1/3 the amount of gas. France's emissions per produced kilowatthour of electricity is 86 grams carbon dioxide, while Germany outputs 495 grams per kilowatthour and the UK a whooping 572 grams per kilowatthour.
One would imagine that this should give France a great advantage over Germany and the UK and easily beat them at the top. Right?
Wrong!
The WWF ranks both Germany and the UK higher than France. Why? Because the WWF changed the figures. In the climate scorecard for France, we find the following footnote:
1 WWF does not consider nuclear power to be a viable policy option. The indicators “emissions per capita”, “emissions per GDP” and “CO2 per kWh electricity” for all countries have therefore been adjusted as if the generation of electricity from nuclear power had produced 350 g CO2/kWh (emission factor for natural gas). Without the adjustment, the original indicators for France would have been much lower, e.g. 86 g CO2/kWh.
There it is, in plain writing. They changed the numbers, simply because they don't like nuclear power, thus down-ranking France despite being the lowest emitter of carbon dioxide by far of the G8 countries. They cheated on the scorecard by tweaking the numbers.
And it's not some small tweak either. From 86 grams to 362 grams... that is upping the numbers to 400% of their actual value! What is their reasoning for this? "[The] WWF does not consider nuclear power to be a viable policy option". In short: they don't like it. So they quadrupled the number, just like that.
The WWF also ranked Sweden, there boosting of the numbers even more. For Sweden they change the number from 47 grams per kilowatthour to 212 grams. That is 450% of its original value.
UPDATE: At the Energy From Thorium forum, a person got in touch with Allianz Insurance and asked them what was the meaning of this obvious manipulation of number. The reply was this:
Re measurement in the report: We received criticism last year for not acknowledging the fact that some countries (i.e. France) have lower CO2 emissions thanks to nuclear power. But neither WWF nor Allianz wants to encourage nuclear power as the power source for the future. The fact that there is no solution for ultimate storage is a particular concern. And we think that this world needs a different strategy for its energy needs (renewables, efficiency) - which also leads to different investments in grids and other infrastructure.
They don't want to "encourage" the use of nuclear power. But why would anyone be enouraged? Because it is environmentally friendly of course! And here I foolishly assumed that WWF was in it for the environment... but apparently not, because they don't want people to be "enouraged" by the fact that nuclear power has extremely low emissions. So they changed that number outright.
Not only that but they are dead wrong when they say there are no viable solutions. KBS-3 is in the final stages of development. The work to grant the method environmental approval starts next year.
This is quite simply outtrageous. It is neither scientific, nor honest. This kind of smearing and badmouthing of nuclear power is what made us start this website, because even though one would hope that this is simply an isolated incident, it is not. This kind of deception is taking place constantly. The only thing unique about this particular case is the gall they have in admitting that they actually did it.
How are we meant to trust bodies like WWF when they do this sort of thing? Had this kind of behaviour taken place at a nuclear plant, their permit would have been rescinded and the people in charge would most likely be facing criminal charges for falsifying information! But the WWF gets away with it. Why? Why should they be allowed to cheat on the numbers just to make them fit the policy, rather than fitting the policy after the numbers? Science gets ripped to shreds because the truth is too unpalatable for the nuclear opponents to swallow. What gave them the right to do so?
And maybe the most important question of all: how is the climate, the environment and the population of this planet benefiting by bodies like the WWF lying to us? What gave them the right to defend their policy first rather than the environment? What becomes better from this?
Nuclear power opponents trying to silence harsh criticism
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009This article is long overdue. Earlier I didn't pay much notice to people using the power of the "delete" button on their blogs to shut out criticism of their reasoning - or lack of such. Just now however things stepped up a bit as Allianz Insurance, partner to the World Wildlife Foundation in creating the so called Climate Scorecards, just did the same thing.
Before we get to them, take a look at others who have discovered some of the practical buttons that comes with being a blog administrator.
Monica Antonsson, of the blog "Änglagård, Tjernobyl och Jag", recently turned off the ability to post comments on her blog. She claims that this was because "[She] was terrorized by a rabid nuclear power lover". What happened was that practically every blog post she made was quoting some other nuclear opponent. She admitted herself that she did not even fact check these quotes, only that she found them "interesting". Most of these quotes had errors of fact, grossly exaggerated the state of matters or were in some other way worthy of criticism. When members of Nuclear Power Yes Please pointed that out to her, she claims we "spit on the information".
Monica claims that she is not opposed to nuclear power, that she is "only collecting information". But the links on her blog, not to mention her behaviour in general in the matter, tells a very different story. You don't have a link with the headline "No to more nuclear power. You can sign (the petition) here!" when you are "just collecting information".
The thing that finally made her snap and turn off comments was when I relayed to her the fact that every nuclear reactor that replaces the equivalent amount of coal power saves up to 15 000 lives. Her immediate reaction was to lash out and call me a liar, without checking the fact. I relayed to her the data behind the statements, and she immediately dismissed them as conspiracies by the EU and the UN, and shortly thereafter turned off the ability to further criticise what she posed.
This is what she calls "being terrorized". Well, I guess someone coming up to you telling you "You're so very wrong" and showing he has good cause for it(!) is quite terrifying.
Peter Swedenmark is a former editor in chief, and chief of the opinions & debate desk of a Swedish newspaper. After only two posts he made opposed to nuclear power under which I had discussions with other people on his blog, he quickly shut me out because "[he] didn't want this to become a playground for nuclear proponents". I guess having had the say-so of who gets to voice their opinion in the paper and who doesn't was stuck as an old habit.
Anders Grönwall, press secretary of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation(SNF) did not appreciate when I criticised their hate-campaign against nuclear power where they among other things constantly and next to obsessively call it "expensive and dangerous". I wrote a comment on that saying that this had a certain likeness in method to another well known hate-campaign we all know about. The exact comment was:
Nobody except ardent opponents of nuclear power believes the scare-mongering where you are saying "Beware of the Jew...", sorry, "Beware of Radiation, it will come and get you!
Anders Grönvall mailed me and said "It feels as if you are trying to say that nuclear opponents are like nazis". I mailed him back and told him that this was of course not the case since trying to conserve nature and nazism were of course(!) completely unrelated. Such a connection would be completely invalid and silly. I also told him that I did not intend to not remove the comparison of the method since scare-mongering was the key issue I was criticising. He ignored all of those arguments and just repeated he wanted that wording removed. When I again wrote him a lengthy email explaining that if SNF did not agree, all they needed to do was defend themselves and argue the case. This mail he just ignored completely, never answered and withheld the comment.
And now, the latest one, Thilo Kunzemannof Allianz SE. As you know we posted a critical blog entry about how WWF and Allianz wantonly manipulated emissions data on the climate scorecards. A bit later I found the Allianz web page about the scorecards for 2009. A conversation had already started and Thilo had posted a sour comment where he tried to defend Allianz saying they had not lied because they had in some places told people that they had changed and misepresented the data. I posted a comment saying that a lie does not become diminished just because you admit to it.
A strange turn of events then followed. Thilo mailed me and said he wasn't going to approve the comment, claiming it was insulting to call them liars just because they admitted to lying.
When I checked the page though, the comment was there, despite him saying he wouldn't approve it. 24 hours later still, I got a email saying that the comment had been removed, and indeed it had. Luckily I saved a screenshot of it; you can grab it here.
All in all, we are seeing a pattern where nuclear opponents are getting increasingly desperate when their claims are getting challenged. Having had the stage practically to themselves for over 30 years, they are finding themselves stumped when someone else gets up there with them and starts criticising their arguments.
Well they better get used to it. Trying to shut us out will not make us go silent. Oh no, quite the contrary.
P.S: Greenpeace didn't approve my comment critical of their Hiroshima Day article either. But I might write that one off since they don't seem to be accepting any comments at all on those pages.
Tags: Allianz, blog, censorship, comments, debate, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Foundation, WWF
Posted in Bad Science, Commentary, English | 5 Comments »