UK Climate Change Politics: Cameron, Brown and Miliband
Climate change politics is moving apace in the UK.(Left: Future drought in the UK is a real concern)
The currently ruling Labour* govornment is planning a climate change bill to inshrine in law a 60% cut in ghg emissions (possibly bar aviation and shiping) by 2050. The environment secretary David Miliband talks about this on the today program. Gordon Brown the current chancellor and favourite to be the next prime minister made a speech on the same topic.
The opposition party, the Conservatives, have announced a range of 'green' taxes, emphasising the fact that this is a tax shift...not a tax hike. Party leader David Cameron talks about these proposals, also on the Today Program. The talk he gave a couple of days ago was recieved with much apparent confusion from the righting press, taxes just arent Tory, there is though a realisation within the broadsheets that a repositioning is required for media elites to be cloaser to there political leaders. In some ways this is welcome new but I am still left with the impression that the typical 'man on the street' fails to recognise why the media and politicians are moving. There is still a real need for eduction. The policy document that Cameron bases his speech also now available.
*The govornment is nominally Labour but recently I heard emminent Economist and political activist Milton Friedman wrily state that Blair is 'Blairite in rhetoric but thatcherite in policy'. Friedman was please about this as his laize-faire politico-economic stance was opitimised by Thatcher and Regan and abhored by the traditional left!
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posted by Calvin Jones @ 7:14 PM
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5 Comments:
Education is what we need is it. I have had a look at the sneering and supercilious threads you mentioned and there is nothing definitive in them except that weakest of points , "some clever people have said"...everything you might go on to finish.
For example you refer t the old problem of the medieval warm period but I don1t think you understand where it fits into the discussion. The Green argument presented itself as if the climate was unchanging and by act of godless vandalism we have messed it up . Such angst in the pants has an obvious appeal to much the same people who are running around bombing scientists on behalf of furry things . I see nothing that actually explain why that might be without admitting the truth The truth is that any prediction must be founded on an overwhelming mass of ignorance about such an infinitely complex system with patterns we almost certainly have not even identified.
Scientists like it because it makes them feel important and gets there grant out of the government.
Governments like it because it allows them to tax and control and appear virtuous whilst being active
Large companies like it because a mass of regulation outs market entrants out of business and leaves them a quasi monopoly
Socialists like it for the same reasons as governments in that it bulwarks the odious idea of a societal relationship that can only be expressed through bureaucracies
A lot of people just like being trendy and having a cause
Public Sector employees like it because it justifies further tax which allows larger empires, promotions, and increases to their already overly large slice of a dwindling pie.They contribute little and need all the justification they can get
It is entirely reasonable therefore that everything coming from these interested groups should be viewed with the greatest scepticism. Their evidence of a medieval warm period is not one that requires wine if you have read Chaucer.It is obvious from the activities of all the characters at times of the year, that it must have been a good deal warmer . It has been argued that the writers were drawing on a French Traditions and characters re enact pastimes of the Loire valley in a quite unsuitable climate, but the simple explanation id surely worth considering .
Grapes by the way were not the only unsuitable fruit to have been grown .Peaches and other unlikely visitors are mentioned in Marvell.
In fact the very determination of the Greenists to remove the medieval warm period is itself highly suspicious .
You need to wake up to the fact that we cannot be dictated to by the claims of state hirelings whose near relations the BMA and the Hand S have been so useful to those wishing to reduce the citizen to a state of a serfdom.
You never listen and until I see VAT lopped off virtuous products I will assume it is all Guano.. How hard do you imagine it would be for me to find the sonorous pronouncements of scientists on behalf of this or that dictatorship or indeed the US tobacco industry. Right or wrong you have become the lackeys of the state doing their dirty work for them with your drip feed propaganda.
Perhaps you need to be educated. You ceryainly need to aquire some humility
Oh for gods sake comments moderation.Typical
Perhaps you need to be educated. You ceryainly need to aquire some humility
---I never claimed to be a nice person but I will try yo be humble. I wonder if that will effect the logic of the argument.
---It is all very high spirited, much of what you say I would disagree with but your position seems to answer itself. Switching between attacking me, diving into ideology, then cynicism, never looking to closely at the science.
--Sorry i should be cooler than that. You have some concerns that I understand and make some points that seem valid to me.
--Concerns: Climate complexity, how can we know. We can knoe because the basic science is very simple, it is the refinement that is dificult. Global warming is caused by a 'thickening blanket' of greenhouse gases such as co2. Co2 is a heat traping gas, this was first discovored by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.
That much we know.
What the scientists have been doing for quite a while now--so that the 1800 IPCC scientists can say that there is >90% chance that climate change is largely human caused--is looking at what is a very complex problem using th3 worlds most poweful computers and a good deal of climate records. From this they have been able to atribute the largest part of the warming to mankind. It was always a matter of degree...just how much are we contributing.
You are a conservative right? SO you have read Machivelli ;-) He said that the most difficult challenge was to change the status quo...those with vested intersts know exactly what they face to loose, those who might gain dont have a clear picture of what that this gain will be. In terms of people wanting to believe things, climate change does not fit the picture well.
Your point about skepticism being reasonable is well taken. I would be more skeptical of messages that argue against curbing one of the worlds largest industries than arguments that dont have nearly as much money behind them. At the end of the day that is personal judgement. I studied science and from my experiance it is impossible that 1800 top scientists from 100 countries would conspire. You can believe that or not; it is my honest opinion.
Your point about vat being looped off virtuous goods is well taken.
The fact that you shift arguemnts so much and even make the productive comment about a useful policy suggest to me that your hear isnt into the denial of established science.
The debate should be over climate protection policies...as an evil left winger i have my own thoughts, i`m sure you have yours (cap and trade sysstem reasonable?). That would be a very productive debate. Leave the facts alone they should not be politicised.
My comments upon your own demeanour were expressed personally but really referred to the a priori assumption of the Green religion that they uniquely have access to a revealed truth about, the planet ,and the lives we should live on it. Your “terrifying” threat to judge any ensuing discussion contains this implicit assumption.
." Switching between attacking me, diving into ideology, then cynicism, never looking to closely at the science."
I have explained that the “ Science “ is politically loaded . There are plenty of facts to be selectively quoted and as Don Quixote said “ facts are the enemy of truth”. Often he would be right. The science is not established and the fact it isn`t ………is !
--Sorry I should be cooler than that-
Why ? I am only as sceptic whereas you are a believer. The believer is always hotter under the collar and only maintains saing froid whilst the possibility of conversion exists.
--"Concerns: Climate complexity, how can we know. We can knoe because the basic science is very simple, it is the refinement that is dificult. Global warming is caused by a 'thickening blanket' of greenhouse gases such as co2. Co2 is a heat traping gas, this was first discovored by Svante Arrhenius in 1896."
That much we know.- We know that conceivable at unknown levels carbon cause by unknown sources/causes in a changing and dynamic system could have such an effect . In other words we know nothing. Without a scale a map is not just useless it is worse because it pretends to an authority it does not have. This is , in fact the way the Greemn movement have undermined their own position by lying
What the scientists have been doing for quite a while now… poweful computers and a good deal of climate records. From this they have been able to attribute the largest part of the warming to mankind
I am hardly likely to believe what the IPCC have to say . Their pronouncements were so implausibly self serving that the extreme positive feed back element of the report had to be removed by the politicians who actually benefit from it. It is obvious that a dubious element of positive feedback will warp any results on a geometric scale
"You are a conservative right? SO you have read Machivelli ;-) He said that the most difficult challenge was to change the status quo...those with vested interests know exactly what they face to loose, those who might gain don’t have a clear picture of what that this gain will be. In terms of people wanting to believe things, climate change does not fit the picture well.- "
You are not following the debate, are you ?The staus quo could not be happier and people are desperate to believe in it for a number of cultural and emotional reasons I won’t go into now .They are desperate also to believe that their Oxfam donations help Sub Saharan Africa and in endless ways try to apply a moral order to a world which will not conform to the requirements of the new religionsists
"Your point about scepticism being reasonable is well taken. I would be more skeptical of messages that argue against curbing one of the worlds largest industries than arguments that don’t have nearly as much money behind them. At the end of the day that is personal judgement. I studied science and from my experience it is impossible that 1800 top scientists from 100 countries would conspire. You can believe that or not; it is my honest opinion."
Your point about vat being looped off virtuous goods is well taken.-
Good. In equating the power of industry politcally with that of governemnt your scale is childish . Governments have armies...hint hint
What you say is established science is not what I say is established science and during similarly dogmatic period of intolerance science has always done as it is told . Environmental studies is nopt really a science anyway it is mish-mash of other disciplines in which conclusions are un-testable like all lucrative frontiers of inter disciplinary studies it attracts snake oil salesmen. Remember all of this goes on in a supra state context where nothing lkke the sortvof scrutiny we are used to in a democracy applies and odious parasite organisations like the UN are entirely politically not to say financially motivated
The debate should be over climate protection policies...as an evil left winger i have my own thoughts, i`m sure you have yours (cap and trade sysstem reasonable?).
. Leave the facts alone they should not be politicised.
The facts are the politics . From the problem flows the solution you are naive beyond belief if you imagine otherwise .
I am not a denier I think given the observable changes of the last century it would be surprising if there was no effect . That effect has been exaggerated and as time catches up with early “ scientific “ predictions their gross inaccuracy naturally impinges on the credibility of any new doom mongering . Perhaps you recall the very expert opinion that lead the globe to waste billions on a mythic Y2K catastrophe ?
You have admitted that you are a socialist and I have explained why this green cause is so very useful to socialists whose previous beliefs have imploded leaving no reputable repository for left wing opinion.
In fact I take a balanced view. I am against any suggestion of increased government control super state despotism and taxation . If they think they are going to micro manage our lives through personal carbon counting then they are profoundly wrong. I would approve of incentives to research environmentally friendly products and encourage proper costing and responsibility.
You have not grasped a distinction I have tried to make which is that the fact that a " Scientists" says something and "science" are not the same thing .In fact the nature of science itself has been systematically misrepresented to the detriment of what may , in fact , be a cause for concern. Put the politics back into your thoughts and you will gain a more balanced perspective.
Paradoxically Green single issue acticvists are doing great damage to their own cause .
Marxism of course claimed to be scientific as did eugenics ...it still does and in an unimportant sense ..is
I completely agree, climate change is nonsense. You know these climate-catastrophists nearly got to me! 1800 International scientists from 100 countries, each at the top of there fields, producing a consensus document for the IPCC. They nearly had me persuaded (I hadn't considered them as a poweful vested interest). Now though, a few slect scientists have been interviewed, there views distorted and the old skeptic positions reborn! I feel very much relieved, you know i really don't want to believe in climate change. My hummer, hollidays in Australia etc..all at threat. So now i can rest assured that i understand that the entire international field of climate science is corrupt and the fossil fuel industry (worth only a few trillion a year) can continue as usuall!
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