The Today programme this morning suspended rules of impartiality once again when it came to the climate change debate. There was no spokesman to put a sceptical view. The interviewers were all primed to constantly repeat the assertion that climate change scientists (unspecified) are now 95% certain -which is apparently “more” certain” – that most global warming (recent presumably) is man made. Past prolonged periods of global warming were clearly not man made.
The scientists they interviewed were not repeatedly interrupted as politicians are. Nor were they asked the same question more than once when they failed to answer. They were allowed to say that they should not be expected to have to face a critic or enter a debate about the “science” because the “science” was 95% settled. No-one asked where the 95% figure came from. It is 100% certain that global warming prior to the last few centuries had nothing to do with man made CO2. What is the 95% certainty about recent years based on? Why has it risen 5% since last time? What has happened to the forces of nature that caused global warming prior to mankind’s arrival?
They do now accept that the warming has slowed in recent years. They claim this is due to the warmth being absorbed by the oceans, something they did not forecast before. According to the BBC they also now forecast that whilst the world as a whole will get warmer, the UK is going to get colder. They tell us warming will shift ocean currents, so we will no longer get so much benefit from a warm current.
It strikes me that this change of forecast for UK weather is another hostage to fortune. It was not so long ago some were forecasting hot dry summers and droughts for the UK, with mild winters. This proved wrong in the short term. We had a series of cool wet summers and cold snowy winters. Given the variability of the climate we may now experience a milder winter or two. It is fascinating that the scientists are said to have nailed their colours to a new mast, and threatened us with colder winters from here. We will watch with interest to see if these latest forecasts work better than the last lot.
As they now think that ocean currents and ocean warming and cooling are more important influences on climate than before, will they be changing their climate forecasting models to take these factors into account?
September 27, 2013
I wonder what the Panel (Since when does one need a “Panel” to decide on Science, if it can be called that?) would have said. had it been composed solely of real scientists financially independent of the alarmists. Prediction remains everything and the present lot have failed. Their bias is manifest and their “models” (actually equations based on wrong assumptions) rubbish.
September 27, 2013
The real issue here is the BBC’s bias.
Its funding needs to be cut.
September 27, 2013
The real issue is the BBC? What does this tell us of your thinking.Poverty? BBC. Economy? BBC. etc. Who would you blame for the countries ills without the Beeb? Labour? Straight out of the Soviet Union aren’t we?
September 28, 2013
Response to Bazman:
My answer was in keeping with the theme of this post which was about conduct of the BBC, not so much about climate-change (global warming as it used to be.) Mr Redwood outlines clearly some examples of how the BBC behaves in biased ways.
HBO, Sky, Discovery, Al Jazeera … are but a few examples of what great media can be achieved by the private sector. The BBC could provide what it does best with far less than it receives – we could fill in the rest.
The BBC is biased and what’s more those working within it admit that it is.
For balance they could produce the other side of the coin on climate change. The amount of deaths and suffering which are going to be caused by artificially created energy shortages.
Not a bit of it. Today we had Gavin Esler taking an expert climate-change skeptic to task as though he was suffering a mental illness. In the process of doing so he made the rather odd comparison with the volume of evidence collated to prove Darwinism in order to point out that climate-change ‘deniers’ were as mad as those who denied evolution.
The poor chap was simply stating that the 15 year pause in global warming (hence it has been renamed climate change) was not mentioned in the IPPC report. Mr Esler was pressing him to explain why a global body of scientists would collude on this matter. The chap’s response was a very reasonable “I really don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.”
This wasn’t enough. Mr Esler was rude to the man and he seemed to express disgust with him.
September 28, 2013
Bazman is right for the first time on this site – Pravda could learn a few things from the Biased BBC and it’s pro-Labour, pro-Democrat, (words removed ed), pro-AGW Scam total media onslaught.
The IPCC has just admitted that there has been no global warming for 15 years, all their models are defunct and they cannot explain or predict the future weather, or make the connection between Carbon and Temperature. So all the B-BBC can say is they are 95% sure there is global warming.
September 29, 2013
If they were 95 % sure there was no global warming would you be convinced? You would. Not very clever are we lojo? Right wing and stupid is not an insult but a statement of fact. Pumping billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere will have no effect? Why? No! Do tell us why? God/fate will help us? How absurd! As a Tory fundamentalist you should know we help ourselves as the ‘uman race that is. Not a street in London or your house, billionaires rights. Until you can and the rest can answer this. Ram it.
September 30, 2013
Only 95 % sure? Would you have agreed with the if they were 95% sure warming was not happening? How do you know and we do not?
September 27, 2013
You seem to have raised a lot of concerns during the past few days over the one-sided reporting of the BBC. However it surprises me that the BBC’s disproportionate and spiteful treatment of Godfrey Bloom last Friday did not trouble you.
Reply I did not hear it
September 27, 2013
It was dreadful but then the BBC is dreadful. Totally over the top. The power they have to take a joke take it out of context then attack someone with it and indeed control the whole political debate.
September 27, 2013
He got more coverage than the (word left out ed) acts of McBride and what he did to others, yet the BBC did not mention how this should impact the Labour conference or fully pursue what Miliband or Balls exactly knew knew when. The BBC is no longer fit for purpose it needs to be sold off.
September 27, 2013
A jokes a joke and he is, but not funny.
September 28, 2013
A joke clearly needs to be heard in context, apparently it was found funny at the time.
September 29, 2013
It’s the way he tells em’? Frank Carson he is not.
September 27, 2013
The BBC World Service (you know that one, the worlds radio station – NOT) seemed to have a metric running to ensure that every sentence blurted out contained the term ‘climate change’ at least twice.
In a saner version of UK I would have called that brain washing/indoctrination. It was bollox anyway as with most of the silly WS stuff.
Don’t forget (some Asians ed) sooting out the ice masses,
September 27, 2013
Well, I can remember the BBC giving a ‘balanced’ view on whether or not the MMR vaccine caused autism. That seemed to result in a lot of children not being vaccinated with serious consequences later.
If the BBC gives equal time to the minority who deny climate change that may also have serious consequences later. I have some sympathy with those trying to present a fair view of the climate change controversy at a time when there are vociferous voices on each side, so that to the layman – which is most of us – the minority and their supporters can sound as convincing as the consensus.
The consensus may turn out to be wrong, but it is the consensus and the BBC should, in my view, report that. I think it is right to report the deniers’ viewpoint as the minority one.
September 27, 2013
You make a very fair point Alan.
My only concern is that minority opinion is very rarely given any airtime at all.
For example, when was the last time the BBC had a proper debate on the issues of global warming and the effects of climate change.
September 27, 2013
It is not the consensus other than among people whose grants and income depends on it. A bit the like political parties consensus on the dreadfully damaging ERM and the EUROall mere group think loonacy.
September 27, 2013
Hindsight is never a good guide and you oversimplify the MMR situation. At the time there was no clear evidence either way on the MMR vaccine and the actions of the government in banning single vaccines based on a specious argument exacerbated the situation enormously. HMG then spent an amount on advertising the MMR vaccine which was ten times the amount spent on research into the causes of Autism and tried to vilify those parents who were left frantic with worry.
You do not make an objective point with the latest situation either, the use of the word “deny” is a clear indication of your beliefs, but seek to have the same autocratic measures imposed on the “herd” where the state knows best and we must do as the chosen experts say. It doesn’t help your case that some of those past experts “massaged” the data and got found out.
As far as I am aware people do not deny that climate changes, simply that the extent of effect by man as predicted by the AGW protagonists and their model is exagerated and does not warrant the extreme taxation and energy strategy imposed in the UK.
Over the last two days the BBC has reported on findings by the IPCC that hadn’t even been published – the press summary and policy makers summary were published today. The WG1 full report won’t be published till September 30th and the full AR5 not for another year.
The BBC and it’s friends are up to exactly the same tricks that have caused mistrust before and give no reason to trust the veracity of the message this time either.
September 29, 2013
I was only using the word ‘deny’ as a shorthand for ‘those who find unconvincing the argument that the world’s climate is changing because of the amount of carbon dioxide produced by human actions and argue strongly against it’. It wasn’t meant to imply they are wrong.
I think that the role of scepticism in working towards scientific truth is very important.
I have done a lot of work with mathematical modelling myself – not on the climate – and know very well that it can lead you astray at times, and that close attention to its correspondence with good data about the real world is very important to try and prevent this. But I also remember how difficult it often is to get ‘good’ data, so the fact that people have to work on the data to try to ensure it is correct does not alarm me.
But it is easy to subconsciously select the data that gives the result you expect. It’s easy to be satisfied with a model that gives the results you expect but to examine closely a model which gives unexpected results, so it is easy to have an unconscious bias.
So it would not astonish me if the scientific view on climate change is slowly modified if its predictions turn out not to be validated in the real world. But I expect that to come about as part of the normal scientific process, not as an outcome of the discussions in the media. I would hate to see the scientific process stopped because of the conclusions it has come to so far. I think we are getting a lot of very valuable science out of this investigation into the world’s weather.
September 29, 2013
As you say a model of a system is not reality it is a representation of aspects of the thing being modeled and as such incorporates the prejudices of the modeler. If the model does not track reality you must change your model, skepticism is an essential element of that process that emphasises that the model is never the real thing.
Manipulation of the climate data went beyond cleaning up the noise into the realms of changing reality to match the dogmatic model. That and the politicisation of the field has significantly damaged the scientific process to the extent that any announcement cannot be taken at face value. Despite the declared qualifications of individuals even if a study has been “peer reviewed” one must now ask who were the peers and who did they exclude. If anyone was excluded merely because they were skeptical then it was no longer a scientific process.
There is no single “scientific view” on climate change, even the latest IPCC SPR accepts that with the lack of “concensus” climate sensitivity so to claim that the scientific view will adjust is misleading if it is simply to maintain the current tax and energy burdens.
Thanks to the zeolots it has become very much harder to determine what is objective or truthful and important environmental issues have become hostage to questionable agendas.
September 27, 2013
Alan ,
There is no consensus on anthropogenic climate change .
If there was the media would not have to repeatedly feed us the message that there is .
UN Agenda 21 , “the precautionary principle” empowers governments to do anything they want without the need to provide any proof so long as it’s in the name of nature and the environment .
It gives them the power to throw you off your land just by claiming that an endangered species lives there . They don’t have to prove it does , only say it does .
It’s bad enough that the BBC provides unbalanced coverage . Far worse that school kids get taught it as a fact rather than one hypothesis among many .
This is really selling young minds short .
The dumbing down which has lowered the bar for a theorem from requiring a proof to only requiring a consensus puts us on a very slippery slope in so many ways .
September 27, 2013
Indeed the nonsense & fake science, rammed into young children in Schools on over catastrophic global warming (and indeed other religions) and so called “renewable” energy is appalling.
Another form of child abuse brain, rather than genital, mutilation this time for the new religion.
September 29, 2013
We had a lovely day in London and called into the Festival Hall where school children were rehearsing a Benjamin Britten piece about the Ark. It was a propaganda effort by the Warmista zealots as part of the combined effort to put down the growing revolt and back up the whitewash. In front was a large sign saying ‘ The planet is still warming’.
I thought for a minute and realised that they could say this because the planet is still having the benefit of warming from the existing gases. If not we would be dead and plants would not grow. They do not understand the difference between the increase or decrease in the rate and the status quo.
September 27, 2013
Why should air time be given to people who have no evidence to back up their claims? Until climate change deniers have any scientific evidence to back up their claims allowing them on TV would be a waste of time.
September 28, 2013
@uanime5
“people who have no evidence to back up their claims?”
The people making the “claims” are the warmists; the sceptics are just pointing out that the warmists predictions have not materialised.
September 28, 2013
So Uanime5 please link me to a scientific paper showing any evidence at all for AGW. Go one, just one…. Oh you can’t because there aren’t any.
The whole climate scam is based on conjecture, opinion, group think, fudged computer models and wishful thinking.
In science you provide experiments and evidence that prove that a phenomena exists you don’t/cant provide experiments that something doesn’t exist
September 28, 2013
There is plenty of such evidence, including in particular the failure of the global warming models to forecasts the climate correctly the last 20 years
September 28, 2013
They have load of scientific evidence by far the majority is on their side.
September 27, 2013
In answer to your last question, yes of course they will update their climate models to reflect their new ideas, that is all their models are good for – representing past data – they have been shown to be worthless in predicting the future.
September 27, 2013
Lots of fudge factors will doubtless be found.
September 27, 2013
These people don’t have a bloody clue and should admit as much.
I am sure that it isn’t difficult to show that a higher level of carbon increases/decreases things like the reflection and absorbtion coefficients for the sun’s EM waves.
Unfortunately the earth is a rather complex system and there are many factors other than just CO2 levels that affect the temperature. Climate ‘scientists’ are about as competent at understanding this complex system as idiot economists who believe they can precisely control the economy and predict its direction with crude macro tools (who amazingly like the climate guys, the media still listens to intently after 2008!).
It is also very hard to believe the science is objective when so much money has been thrown at climate change and thus so many people’s research depends on the idea that it is serious. Thus we can’t take people’s word for it and those with the time must investigate any results presented in depth.
Finally, given the uk can’t affect any of this, why are we so obsessed with it
September 27, 2013
The IPCC report lists many factors the affect the temperature and evidence showing how much they effect the temperature. Guess what man made CO2 was shown to be the main cause of the current global warming.
Also just because you don’t understand climate doesn’t mean it’s too complex for other people to understand.
September 29, 2013
The point is we now know that it’s too complex for climate scientists to understand because their hypotheses have been disproven by their own evidence.
To be clear, I’m referring in particular to the one about how we must take urgent and ruinously expensive (and, as it turns out, ineffective at tackling even the supposed source of the supposed problem) action to avert a catastrophe which has not even begun to occur within the timeframe they claimed.
Just as with religious types, as soon as things that are disprovable get disproved, the level of abstraction goes up until you’re left with something so vague as to be meaningless. The latest one I’ve seen is “Where’re your peer reviewed papers, huh?” – the answer is very simple: the climate ‘scientists’ came up with the various hypotheses; it’s up to them to prove that they’re right, not up to everyone else to show that they’re not. Frankly, so far, it’s not looking good based on the woeful performance of these models which as David says proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they have no idea how the earth’s climate works overall.
September 28, 2013
Perhaps it is when the various TV channels make those stories up and show movies demonstrating polar ice melting and glaciers breaking in their dozens, that we actually begin to believe that warming causes melt down. It is amazing how the BBC can fool people in this way.
September 27, 2013
1) I noted that the BBC keep saying that global warming has slowed when in fact it has stopped for 18 years.
2) The question they never ask is how do those who advocate that man is primarily responsible for global warming/climate change explain the fact that the geological record shows that the planet has been here before well before man and any man made emissions.
3) The last scientist that they had on said that we had to stop it, adapt to it or suffer it. Perhaps the scientists would be better coming up with ways to adapt to it rather than wringing their hands and forcing us all back in to pre-industrial immobility and coldness.
4) Meanwhile it would be interesting to known how all these eminent global warming scientist earn their money. I suspect they have a vested interest in arguing as they do.
September 27, 2013
Group think & few charities, government departments or quangos ever close themselves down – saying our work is now complete we have cured the problem. I will find another job!
September 27, 2013
1) The scientific evidence shows that global warming has increased for 18 years. So it clearly hasn’t stopped.
2) These scientists have come up with several reasons why in the past the climate was different and have tested them. All of these possible cause have been ruled out, this man made CO2 is the most likely cause.
3) Part 3 of the IPCC report explains several ways to adapt. Perhaps you should read it rather than making baseless assumptions.
4) The scientists earn their money by doing the work the Government pays them to do (measure the average global temperature). What I want to know is how much money the oil industry pays the deniers.
September 28, 2013
None of the IPCC AR5 reports have been published yet so what exactly are you basing your comment on, The part 3 you refer to is the WG2 report and isn’t due till march-2014 earliest so perhaps you shouldn’t make baseless claims.
If you are going off the policy makers summary then there is at least one significant error of fact in that document.
BTW while the climate has been varying as it has normally done there hasn’t been global warming for 15+ years.
September 28, 2013
Uanime5
Suggest you actually try reading the IPCC report first as in fact it actually ADMITS that temperatures HAVEN’T risen for passed 17 years.
September 27, 2013
Since your comment the Today programme has gone one stage further with their alarmist propaganda. Two more voices brooking no resistance (although none was offered) and incredibly accusing the media of being too balanced in its coverage. The issue was not one to which non-scientists should be able to contribute according to them. They were dismissive of any view that didn’t meekly accept their views. Lord Lawson came in for personal attack for having the temerity to question their views.
September 27, 2013
The BBC coverage was appalling and complete disgrace.
Sensible scientists, (preferably honest Physicists, with no axe to grind) know perfectly well that the climate in 100 years is not predictable with any certainty whatsoever. Even the climate for this November is not predictable. They know that humans have some influence as does the Suns output, volcanoes, agriculture and millions of other things many not even known or knowable. They also know that spending billions now to control just one factor c02 concentrations is totally absurd.
The BBC coverage failed to mention that fact that most renewable energy systems do not even, in practice, save much or any CO2 and cost up to 10 times the price.
They failed to mention (or question) the fact they we are just exporting jobs and the carbon dioxide is still emitted anyway without any world agreement. Which is not going to happen.
The government pushes bikes, buses and public transport endlessly but they save little or no CO2 in reality. Bus occupancy depot to depot for one huge dirty bus stopping every few hundred yard can be as low as 6 people.
The government block the roads endlessly with silly islands, bus lanes, bike lanes, red anti-car light, environmental areas etc. all this pushes up c02 emissions and wastes peoples time by government design.
They also failed to discuss the huge opportunity costs – of what might usefully be done with the billions now with certain positive life saving results rather than waste it trying to guess the climate in 100 years and control it with reductions in just carbon.
At universities I studied Maths & Physics and later Electronics but even to a non scientist surely it is patently scientific drivel. A new religions for the gullible using all the old methods, guilt, hell, heaven, and taxation to absolve you soul ………………..
September 27, 2013
Spend the money to save lives now, adapt building to earth quakes, flood defenses, fire breaks, malaria, nutrition, clean water, basic medical care – then adapt later as is needed at the time being colder or hotter we shall see how it goes. C02 has on balance positive effects or crops and a little hotter is surely better on balance than colder anyway.
Unlike the chief government scientific adviser (immunology, rheumatology specialist) who sounded more like a politician and a priest than a scientist. Where are the new real scientist the Freeman Dysons, Richard Feynmans, Albert Einsteins & Richard Lindzens in UK academia. Are we so “BBC think” that they can not get posts or research funds?
Reply Interesting question for spending on UK adaptation – do we spend on more water supplies and more air conditioning to deal with warming, or have we now to invest in better heating and insulation to deal with the UK’s possible cooling?
September 27, 2013
Or are they all frightened to speak out?
September 27, 2013
Scientists have stood up and questioned the warmist creed, their letters to Ban Ki-Moon and NASA last year for example – strange they were never reported by the BBC.
September 27, 2013
The more the better.
September 27, 2013
The people in 100 years time will likely be far richer, have far better technology and a thus a better ability to adapt if needed anyway. Even if it is to the increasing cold at the time, as is quite likely.
September 27, 2013
A cold perhaps augmented by these loopy greens.
Does Cameron ever say anything on this (or the EU) nowadays or is he in purdah on these two vital issues?
September 27, 2013
In the third world? You cannot even see why a British person cannot compete with a third world peasant on pay and conditions. Your sources are not credible and can easily be taken down and some have links to the oil industry.
What about Delingpole? Is he a scientist?
September 27, 2013
I have some sympathy for your views on this Baz, because I my enjoyable career (and my standard of living) in manufacturing engineering was rudely interrupted by competition from China and India.
However without building counter productive free trade tariff barriers and thus becoming isolated like an East German state how can we all, in the UK, stop globalisation affecting our standards of living, in a increasingly competitive and shrinking world.
This is not just an issue for left wing politicians to cure nor is it caused and encouraged by right wing politicians.
We are all fighting for a decent standard of living against a new powerful second industrial revolution.
September 27, 2013
Delingpole is very perceptive indeed, for an Oxford English lit Graduate.
September 27, 2013
To reply the warming and cooling can be left to building owners and designers to decide for their personal needs as needed and in the light of the cost of energy.
Certainly we should have more reservoirs so that people and businesses are not water rationed every summer. The UK has plenty of water to go round after all. With good design they can sometimes assist in flood control too or even power production. Certainly stop building on flood planes without suitable protection.
September 28, 2013
Since water privatisation many reservoirs have been closed and can building owners and designers really choose how effective their insulation is? It’s a fantasy and you know it. weasel words as many householders cannot even choose a house with a wheeely bin or car parking space. Does everyone in you dreamworld get to design their own house in the centre of London or the Cotswold’s? Legislation would help them. I know car saety has been entirely due to customer choice as you would have us believe, but past evidence says different.
September 29, 2013
However, we could expect the government advisers to give cost effective realistic advice, based on competent expertise. The advice given is a farce, and wastng resources and delating an urgent need for simple insulation and anti convection measures.
September 27, 2013
@Reply “Interesting question for spending on UK adaptation”
either measures will require sustainable energy supplies so it makes sense to concentrate on that first. We also needt to limit immigration to relieve the stress on infrastructure and resources
September 29, 2013
Sustainable energy supplies are the key then make them cleaner. Anyone want to argue against this? Nuclear is neither, but maybe a short term expensive solution like generators powered by large jet engines in a power cut. Ram it.
September 30, 2013
Sustainable means not interrupted or changing with the weather. Hydro and Nuclear are the only viable options in our climate that provide the power needed for domestic and industrial use. We don’t have access to a lot of hydro so nuclear makes the most sense along with investment in the Thorium fuel cycle.
Unless you want to rely on wood chips from the USA.
September 30, 2013
Sustainability also means safe and expansion of nuclear power will depend on many factors, including availability of uranium, fuel used in today’s nuclear reactors. Uranium shortages could within a few decades constrain any significant global expansion of uranium nuclear plants, unless major new uranium reserves can be identified and exploited economically. Thorium is still experimental and controversial so don’t promote it as an easy answer.
How about the deal with Russia? You all like a free market fantasy, so why not?
September 27, 2013
Hotter isn’t better if you live on the equator, as it makes this area too hot to grow crops.
September 28, 2013
That extra one degree in the last century has made it very hot on the Equator!
Come on Uni get real.
September 28, 2013
UANIME5
“Hotter isn’t better if you live on the equator, as it makes this area too hot to grow crops”
WRONG ( again, do you NEVER check anything you spout?)
From World Bank Agriculture fact book
Agriculture is essential for sub-Saharan Africa’s growth and for achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015.
Agriculture employs 65 percent of Africa’s labor force and accounts for 32 percent of gross domestic product.
Agricultural performance has IMPROVED year on year since 2000.
In the past ten years, growth in Africa has surpassed that of East Asia.Data suggest parts of the continent are now experiencing fast growth, thanks to their resources and increasing political stability and steadily increased levels of peacefulness since 2007′. The amount of growth that has been occurring is comparable or greater to that of the Asian Tiger, Latin Puma markets, gaining them the new nickname, the Lion Markets. The World Bank reports the economy of Sub-Saharan African countries grew at rates that match or surpass global rates.
September 27, 2013
Sensible scientists, (preferably honest Physicists, with no axe to grind) know perfectly well that the climate in 100 years is not predictable with any certainty whatsoever.
What about all the data that was collected over a century which shows that the average global temperature has continued to rise? Using this data it’s possible to predict how much the average global temperature will rise if we keep adding more CO2 to the atmosphere.
They also know that spending billions now to control just one factor c02 concentrations is totally absurd.
Spending money on the greatest cause of global warming is the best way to prevent it getting worse.
The government pushes bikes, buses and public transport endlessly but they save little or no CO2 in reality.
Either provide the figures to show that a person on a bike produces over 400g of CO2 per kilometre (more than most cars) or admit you just made this up. Also if you’re going to claim that growing food produces CO2 make sure you include how much CO2 is produced by drilling for oil and refining it into petrol.
September 28, 2013
What about all the data that was collected over a century which shows that the average global temperature has continued to rise?
What about all the data from hundreds of thousands of years that shows that temperature and CO2 levels cycle between extremes and the current values are falling back from a level that is less than past maxima?
Spending money on the greatest cause of global warming is the best way to prevent it getting worse.
The climate cycled through extremes when man wasn’t about, so why are you warmists so arrogant to believe you can prevent that? Worse you are going about it in a way that causes increased deaths. For example it is estimated that CAFE standards arising directly from warmist activism resulted in 2200 – 3900 additional road deaths per year.
On 29 November 2012 the ONS published a report reviewed excess winter mortality 2010 – 2012. In 2011/12 the EWD was 24,000 with the majority of deaths in the over 75’s, the vulnerable sector of our population. This represented a reduction from the 26,000 in winter 2010/11 and a reversal of an increasing trend during the Labour years from 2000 when the EWD were increasing. Lack of access to energy contributes to EWD and using your logic Labour’s introduction of climate levies have therefore contributed to excess deaths.
So your warmist argument is that we should accept the extra deaths and costs in this country now to possibly stave off a change in climate sometime in the future that would happen anyway so they can grow crops at the equator.
Meanwhile the warmists now predict it will get colder in the UK even if it does get hotter further south but insist must still not establish secure energy but piss the money away on wholely insufficient windmills imported from our competitors. At the same time the countries that generate magnitudes more CO2 haven’t even signed up to Kyoto.
How can you claim to be a socialist if you have so little concern for people in the society that supports and protects you?
September 28, 2013
A meat eating cyclist produces as much greenhouse gases roughly as a car per mile.
So a full car is five times more efficient than that. Walking is even worse by about 3 times.
Just look it up. Ask yourself is it really likely that 5 people walking perhaps 100 miles over three days will produce lower emissions than a small efficient car carrying them all there in an hour and a half? Steak and chips and claret do not an efficient fuel make. If they did they would redesign a car to use them!
September 29, 2013
Does this take into account weight, hills and air resistance? It is an interesting comparison. And methane of course.
September 27, 2013
Just how does the ocean absorb this heat? Does this mean that to heat water we must hold the flame above the kettle in future?
September 27, 2013
Well I for one believe 100% the man is causing global warming. I just wonder who the other 5% are. You can’t light a fire without causing global warming just as you can’t make a chicken without an egg.
The question is the degree of global warming or climate change created by man. On radio 5 Nicky Campbell spun more lies about polar bears and them being trapped on icebergs. They swim off the icebergs, and their numbers are increasing – thanks largely to man not hunting them any more. The BOD he was speaking to talked in the trillions of tons about man made carbon dioxide without telling us how many trillions of tons we already have in the atmosphere. The only think he could come up with as evidence of global warming was the arctic ice cap receding, but he didn’t tell us that the ‘science’ behind this was only a few decades old. He wouldn’t know whether this was a natural phenomenon or not.
The climate change analysts are always shifting their analysis along with changing climate conditions because the climate is always changing – like the weather.
September 27, 2013
The science of climate is over a century old. Also using modern techniques it’s also possible to try and determine what the climate was like millions of years ago. So it is possible to determiner whether it’s a natural phenomenon or not (it isn’t).
September 28, 2013
You mean to say that climate and a changing climate isn’t a natural phenomenon?
BTW collected data shows the earth has gone through at least 4 ice age cycles in the last million years. I expect the amount of ice has varied quite a lot in that time.
September 27, 2013
Agreed, but they do the same on lots of other topics too. They constantly reinforce their metro elite view of the world and ignore the opposite viewpoints.
So for instance they have a generally anti car stance, which peddles the speed kills nonsense and fails to address the views of the common sense majority as documented by the likes of abd.org.uk
Their reporting of immigration issues is very limited and they never have any middle of the road views put across which represent the views of the vast majortiy of the population.
Far too pro NHS even when its obvious the NHS is killing lots of us, they fail to address this state religion.
And of course their views of the BBC itself are rather lazy.
September 27, 2013
Clever scam.
If it’s colder it’ll be “we predicted that would happen because of global warming”.
If it’s warmer it’ll be “see it’s global warming”.
Is there somewhere I can register so that when the backlash happens I can say I was not fooled by the green scam? Membership of UKIP perhaps?
September 27, 2013
Today today! They have been doing this all week. Loved the contrast with the last item this morning – the debate about the rising price of energy. Actually the first time I can remember they allowed someone to say on air an estimate of what the “renewables” subsidy costs the hard pressed consumer.
September 27, 2013
Essentially this post is about the BBC’s politicisation, but I’m afraid it’ll turn into a debate with uanime5 about AGW.
The BBC decided that AGW skeptics were no longer to be given airtime because in the opinion of “twenty eight” carefully selected AGW proponents including the BBC Head of Comedy, the science is settled.
As I said previously, the current political establishment do not have the courage to deal with the BBC problem. They saw what happened to Murdoch when he challenged the BBC’s dominance.
It’s really up to us individual to vote with our checkbooks and stop buying their TV Licenses.
September 27, 2013
Indeed and the BBC even spent lots of our money on lawyers trying to prevent us knowing who the 28 were I understand.
September 27, 2013
The BBC decides that the climate change deniers weren’t worth listening to because they lack any evidence to support their position. Given that according to the IPCC scientists are 95% sure that man man CO2 is causing climate change it’s clear that the BBC’s position was correct.
September 28, 2013
The BBC decision making process involved a meeting of 28 scientists (there weren’t) which included the BBC Head of Comedy, which says it all.
Are you paid for all your work supporting the IPCC and BBC?
September 27, 2013
They did it last night too. Mr Pachaury, (personal attack removed ed), was given a statement as Head of the IPCC. No mention was made, of course, of all the lies (yes) about tree rings, the falsification of evidence by senior politicians about arctic ice samples (yes) and the very real discussion about the disappearance of Arctic and Antarctic ice caps. The number of Polar Bears, too, and the under-waterness of the Maldives and BanglaDesh were simply not mentioned.
Here is the true fact: 96.743% of all scientists throughout the world realise that, to get a decent grant for your pet project, you have to come up with the right answer.
If you do not check on people, they get away with anything. And the BBC has not been checking at all.
September 27, 2013
“96.743% of all scientists throughout the world realise that, to get a decent grant for your pet project, you have to come up with the right answer.”
You have no clue. Scientists don’t have to come up with the right answer, they have to come up with the right question, although of course what is deemed the right question depends on the current fancy of the research councils. Funnily enough research councils aren’t too keen on funding people who don’t want to do any serious science, which is the unfortunate situation of most denialists.
September 27, 2013
Here is the true fact: 96.743% of all scientists throughout the world realise that, to get a decent grant for your pet project, you have to come up with the right answer.
Care to explain why scientists were claiming global warming was real when George W Bush was president, even though they would be more likely to get a grant by doing the opposite.
It seems that the deniers have lost the argument regarding scientific evidence so they’ve turned to muckraking instead.
September 28, 2013
“Care to explain etc.”
UN Agenda 21
“deniers etc.”
They are not denying anything, we all know that the climate changes.
Care to explain why it should remain constant, which is something that it never has done since the Earth was born?
For an example of an accurate prediction see this comment:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2013/09/27/bbc-peddles-climate-change-alarmism/#comment-229640
“Essentially this post is about the BBC’s politicisation, but I’m afraid it’ll turn into a debate with uanime5 about AGW.”
September 27, 2013
Nothing stands in the way of a popular theory better than failed forecasts.
The IPCC global warming hysteria has crashed into the hard reality of observations.
In coming years more people will realize that more co2 is good for life on earth- better crop yields more greening of desert borders.
The natural variability of climate is now being appreciated by governments -Harper in Canada, Abbott in Australia -who have rowed back from the gloom and ‘we’re all doomed Captain Mainwaring ‘ of the IPCC
Sadly here we are still in the grip of (gurus ed) of the BBC ,not to mention Miliband of the Climate Change Act plus the Lib Dems and any number of Tories.
September 27, 2013
In coming years more people will realize that more co2 is good for life on earth- better crop yields more greening of desert borders.
Given that more CO2 has lead to increased desertification, more droughts, and poorer crop yields it’s clear that your claims have no basis in reality.
September 28, 2013
If global warming raises sea levels it will be negative overall but there will be winners as well as losers. For instance, if the Northern Gulf Stream is forced South, as climate modellers predict, there would probaly be a lot more rain in the poverty-stricken North West Sahara region and in drought-hit Spain. The Baltic would also be warmer, good for several EU countries and Russia.
September 28, 2013
Given that more CO2 has lead to increased desertification, more droughts, and poorer crop yields it’s clear that your claims have no basis in reality.
Provide a link to substantiate these claims scientifically
September 27, 2013
I’m afraid, JR, that once again we have Margaret Thatcher to thank for her espousal of this nonsense as a weapon in her conflict with the coal miners.
Incidentally, somewhat off-topic, I have been looking into the details of why Osborne cannot just veto the EU proposals on bankers’ bonuses and instead is scurrying off to the ECJ to try to get them stopped, and I find that the veto he now lacks was indeed one of those that Thatcher had abolished through her Single European Act.
According to the original Article 100 in the 1957 Treaty of Rome decisions were to be made unanimously, but she had that changed to transnational qualified majority voting in what has since become Article 114 TFEU; that is a treaty article which keeps cropping up as the purported legal base for current EU actions, some of which the UK government opposes but can no longer veto.
September 27, 2013
If for a moment one accepts all the IPPC says is correct, then you have to move to the next stage which is getting all nations to decarbonise the world.
To do that you first need to get all nations to agree a top limit of world CO2 output and then divide this out to each nation as their ration of CO2.
Then you have to make that a legal and auditable figure and then keep that process going for several decades until you see the rise in Global temperatures decline
I think that is an impossible task, but even if that level of Global governance and discipline was achieved, who then sets the future CO2 limits and more importantly who decides what the worlds ideal temperature is for ever more.
Man would be acting like a God setting and adjusting the planet’s thermostat.
Mankind trying to control the global average temperature by yearly micro management of CO2 levels.
For me the argument about who is currently to blame and how strong the correlation between CO2 and global temperature rises is immaterial, because the proposed cure is politically and practically unachievable.
Best to spend the money on mitigating (and taking advantage) of the effects of warming.
Reply Indeed – if man could regulate the temperature by adding or subtracting CO2, there would still be big disagreements between countries over what temperature to set on the thermostat depending on where you lived.
September 27, 2013
The problem with mitigation is that those who will be most effected tend to be the poorer countries, who are least able to adapt.
September 28, 2013
So you would have more people definitely die in this country through climate levies and insecure energy supplies just in case those in poorer countries might not be able to adapt to possible future changes in climate?
September 28, 2013
Not if foreign aid is provided Uni.
If not then good luck with controlling the climate of the world you demi god.
September 28, 2013
Dear unaime5, If mankind’s increased economic activity is a major cause of global warming (which I accept is likely) there is statistically nothing the UK can do to stop it since the UK’s share of global emissions is less than the annual, repeat annual, global increase. Action across the EU can certainly slow the process in future but its total share of emissions is only equal to about 5 years average global growth.
So the only sensible UK policy is to focus our future planning on adaptation to the predicted colder climate and higher sea level, while meanwhile doing our bit for mitigation.
The simplest, surest and probably only practical way that the UK and the EU as a whole can make a step change in emissions over a generation is to switch to the French level of nuclear power (about two thirds of electricity there). Relying on 2010 International Energy Agency figures, if our emissions were the same per head or in total as the like-sized French economy we should cut our CO2 by 30 per cent.
If Germany did the same (per head), instead of phasing out nuclear power, it would cut emissions by 40 per cent. It is not rocket science, let alone climate science, just domestic party politics.
That is not an argument against more wind, wave and solar power, if only because the change in the UK climate predicted by modellers would require a lot more electricity, as would any switch away from diesel and petrol for transport or gas for space heating .
September 27, 2013
As expected, more arm waving. The heat caused by anthropogenic CO2, did not heat the atmosphere as we said it would. It must have been absorbed in the deep oceans. So why have surface temperatures not increased? More arm waving. No real explanation.
After years of stating Global warming would not affect the incidence of bad weather: the IPCC is now blaming it on the recent hurricanes. Unfortunately, the official data does not bear this out. There has been no increase in these bad weather events over the years of interest.
If this arm waving and wild guesswork were found in any other branch of science, it would be laughed at.
September 27, 2013
The heat caused by anthropogenic CO2, did not heat the atmosphere as we said it would. It must have been absorbed in the deep oceans. So why have surface temperatures not increased?
The surface temperatures have increased, just at a much slower rate. By contrast the deep water temperatures have increased at the same rate.
After years of stating Global warming would not affect the incidence of bad weather: the IPCC is now blaming it on the recent hurricanes. Unfortunately, the official data does not bear this out. There has been no increase in these bad weather events over the years of interest.
According to the IPCC a warmer ocean would make hurricanes more violent. This has been confirmed by the increasing number of category 5 hurricanes.
September 28, 2013
Uanime5
“This has been confirmed by the increasing number of category 5 hurricanes”
What increasing number? This year has seen the LOWEST number of hurricanes for decades. Provide some evidence for your posts or don’t bother to post
September 27, 2013
As the forecast suggests that Britain is going to get colder, isn’t this a strong argument for putting far more effort into fracking and abandon windmills? Invariably in this country during cold spells it is quite calm with little wind. If nothing is done we will all freeze as the price of gas and oil from outside this country will escalate.
September 27, 2013
John, whatever happens we are going to be bullied by the BBC et al about climate change and a carbon free economy until the cows come home. Until we are completely de-industrialised and living in yurts, there will be no respite.
We actually pay these people through our taxes to willingly bankrupt us with their pseudo science and alarmist crap.
UKIP is the only answer. BTW there was a new slogan announced for the Tory g.e. campaign.
NOT QUITE AS CRAP AS LABOUR. Says it all.
September 27, 2013
Just don’t accept this report as being ‘Science’. Rather it is an exercise in left wing policies. Truth is the first casualty of war and politics and this is what is happening here.
September 27, 2013
I have just heard a disgusting piece where 2 alarmists, one from the Met Office, were introduced to tell a group of children, in simple words about the dying polar bears and the disappearance of the ice, both of which are lies. The BBC first induced soundbites from selected kids about how scared they are. This, apart from anything else, is child abuse.(fortunately not the evil sexual kind ed)
It is conceivable that North Korea’s media is as totalitarian as the BBC but apart from that
I see no case for claiming that there is another state owned broadcaster as (one sided on some things? ed) anywhere.
Nor is this (bias? ed) limited to them – it also spills into our judicial system. Helen Boaden, subsequently promoted to head of BBC radio, said, under oath in court that the “28 scientists” who supported censoring dissent on CAGW were 28 scientist when they assuredly were not.(the rest of us would not get away with misleading people so ed)
September 27, 2013
Indeed Neil.
Some years ago now, I had a problem with my children’s school Head, because I refused to let them see the Al Gore propaganda film, unless other balancing films were shown, or at least the teachers were to explain to the children that there was another side to the argument which should be at least considered.
They refused saying there was no alternative version of these “facts”
So I refused to send them to school on that day, along with several other parents children.
September 27, 2013
The disappearance of Arctic sea ice is no lie. I don’t understand how anybody with even the slightest knowledge of the scientific data could think this, unless your sole source of information is Daily Mail-style propaganda.
September 28, 2013
Yet according to NSDIC the extent of Arctic sea ice has been increasing since 2007.
September 27, 2013
What bothers me here, more than anything, is the focus on CO2 gas. CO2 represents just 3% of all greenhouse gases and the man-made element of that is around 50% or just 1.5% of the total. So why are we spending such enormous amounts of tax payers money on trying to reduce just 1.5% of the total? Even more silly is the fact that GB contributes a mere 2% to the global man-made CO2 emissions. And that represents a paltry 0.03% of the global emissions. So, we dumbos are paying £Billions to save a microbe in CO2 which is immediately wiped out by the small volcano eruptions which happen daily around the planet. We are in a solar system and the clue to what controls our climate is in the name. Now, I have to wonder how (some of? ed)the hierarchy running the IPCC et al, became (well off? ed).
September 27, 2013
Terry ,
Where do you get the figure that mankind is responsible for 50% of CO2 emmissions ?
Figures I’ve previously seen quoted range from 2.5% to 4% of CO2 .
How would someone arrive at neat figures anyway ? Using the assumption that CO2 from fossil fuels has a different isotopic signature that CO2 from other sources ?
Wouldn’t it be ironic if man was significantly affecting the climate and the cause was something other than CO2 .
The Establishment would be guilty of something akin to the Geordie Yorkshire Ripper hoax .
September 28, 2013
For petes sake don’t you realise I used round numbers for simplicity?
September 27, 2013
It appears that any climate changes are compatible with the the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. What the IPCC and its cohorts should explain is what evidence would cause them to revise their opinion.
September 27, 2013
The combination of this being politically driven and the fact that IPCC Scientists are nailing their careers to these predictions without it appears being held to account properly unfortunately leads us to where we are now.
With my limited understanding of this subject, their models have no hope if:
1. You can’t measure how much CO2 and methane leaks from the sea bed
2. Suplhur plays a part in cooling – how has this been taken into account from volcanoes and what proportion of this is from man burning coal?
3. Arctic ice caps must be melting from below – I can’t see how a 1c variation in temp would lead to this – this must be happening from the earth’s crust which is known to be thin in the arctic
4. The sun has natural cycles which are belived to be the main factor in the Roman warm period then the mini ice age in the 15-1600’s – how has this been modelled?
Lastly I read somewhere that it has been proven that the earth has had periods of much higher CO2 levels than it has now and there was not the claimed correlation between temperatures and co2………
I won’t say anymore as I’m not a scientist – this is something that scientists and geologists need to work out how to complete their models and understand the inputs without any political or ideological interference.
-Not the leftie BBC journos, unis or the Millibands of this world who preach whatever their ideologies demand.
When you have data being twisted to suit opinions and agendas and those that argue against being sidelined, is it little wonder that so many people are sceptical of those in authority?
September 27, 2013
1) It is possible to measure this by measuring the levels of CO2 and methane in the sea.
2) How exactly does sulphur play any part in cooling?
3) Why are you assuming that the Arctic ice caps are melting from below? Also if it’s due to the earth’s crust then why isn’t there the most global warming on the fault lines, where the crust is the thinnest?
4) The sun’s cycles last for 11 years so it’s impossible for them to cause the Roman warm period or the mini ice age. That’s why no scientist claims that either were caused by the sun.
Finally if you were a scientist you’d know that the models are used to predict how increasing the amount of CO2 will effect the planet. They’re not used to prove that man made CO2 increases the average global temperature (this can be done by measuring CO2 levels and average global temperature over several decades).
September 28, 2013
1. which part of the sea, bear in mind solubility will vary with temperature and sea water components
2. do your own research – hint: Sulphur is associated with volcanoes
3. how do you get global warming in a localised area?
4. According to scientists sun cycles are 11, 90 and 200 years. In any case ice ages occured when man wasn’t around so how do you explain the cause?
The models are wrong, they failed to predict the last 15+ years of climate. Seems like the predictions of dissappearing Arctic ice were also wrong. When your predictions are wrong you should change your theory …
September 28, 2013
Indeed nature will not be fooled, if the model does not agree with experiment it is wrong.
September 28, 2013
Hello @uni
Thanks to @David Price for answering my question, here are mine:
1. They have no idea how much/where leakage of co2/methane occurs – there are millions of small volcanoes under the sea bed all over the world which I don’t think are surveyed.
2. Sulphur has been known to play a part in previous cool periods – I know your not a scientist but I’m sure you are capable of looking this up! Maybe its all the sulphur being kicked out by Chinese and Indian coal power stations and some volcanoes that have contributed to the pause – who knows?
3. Why am I assuming ice caps are melting from below? – Quite simply because an av 1c air variation should not be enough for mass melting – I have worked in the arctic, trust me when you have lows of -50 c – the 1c is won’t make an ounce of difference – so all that leaves below. The reason I used ice caps as an example is that is the common barometer that is referred to and of course the “fuel” that triggers the ocean conveyor belt which governs climate more than anything else.
4. Sun cycles aren’t just the 11 year ones, and you would know this if you took some time to research it – they used to grow grapes in the Scottish lowlands during Roman times.
“That’s why no scientist claims that either were caused by the sun” – I would suggest you rephrase to say NO IPCC Scientist claims that any warming or ice age were caused by the sun – which is an absurd claim that I think you will find that is not true amongst the scientific community – checkout Kste Humbles “Secrets of The Sun” – BBC as well!
Finally if you were a scientist you would know that ice cap sampling have showed a huge lag (200 years – 1000 years or more) between temperature temperature and co2 variations.
For what its worth, I DO care strongly about the environment and wish to see a cleaner world but I feel that the IPCC has been hijacked by the wrong people with a clear mission and their lack of transparency and especially the fact that they do not have all the important inputs is of huge concern – group think is a worrying phenomenon – if you disagree you are frozen out or your research funds stopped.
September 27, 2013
They have it all their own way – if it gets warmer they call it “global warming”. When it gets cooler, they call it “climate change with a pause”. The first alert came 10 years ago when the activists first dropped the GW for climate change.
Windmills are a total scam, they take money from the poorest citizens who need to warm themselves and pass it to the utility companies and rich landowners. One would certainly have expected the Conservatives AND Labour to be against this whole scam. Instead, as you say, John, the BBC is biasedly and blindly promoting warmist views and we have the full cabinet and the opposition front bench all believing in the emperor’s new clothes, no matter how many times disproved.
September 27, 2013
Oddly enough, spookily even, global warming stopped ( or paused in IPCC talk) at the same time that the temperature readings from individual weather stations came under scrutiny from ‘deniers’.
As they challenged the readings of badly placed or badly calibrated thermometers, as well as those which were merely faked,…
( source removed as I cannot check it ed) ..the supposed increase in temperatures abruptly stopped.
I have to say that I don’t know of a single sceptic who has been convicted of falsifying evidence in court. etc
September 27, 2013
The BBC is the propaganda arm of the green lobby. Past experience, and evidence, reveals that they are ready to say anything to promote the cause they peddle. The awkward reality for them is that the climate cannot be forecast in the way they state. The science chapters in previous IPCC reports (ignored in earlier advice to policy makers) pointed out that the earth`s climate is a chaotic non-linear system. As such it is incapable of being forecast – as recent evidence confirms.
September 27, 2013
There is still not a shred of physical, factual observation that proves the central hypothesis that man’s CO2 contribution are the cause of any climate changes.
The fact that the computer models on which the theory is based, predicted a continued global warming – and the fact that global warming has ceased for the last 15 years even though CO2 has continued to increase in atmospheric concentration, proves to me that the computer models are flawed and unreliable.
The fact that those computer models were deliberately altered to reach a defined output – as revealed in the Climategate affair – suggests conspiracy and hoax for the purpose of fleecing the public on a worldwide basis.
Close this scam down asap.
September 27, 2013
There is still not a shred of physical, factual observation that proves the central hypothesis that man’s CO2 contribution are the cause of any climate changes.
What about the century of evidence showing a connection between CO2 levels and the increase in the average global temperature.
The fact that the computer models on which the theory is based
These facts are based on observed temperature increases, not a computer model.
predicted a continued global warming – and the fact that global warming has ceased for the last 15 years
The average global temperature has increased over the last 15 years, just at a slower rate than previously. Something you would know if you did real research.
September 27, 2013
As I’ve said elsewhere, it doesn’t matter whether the arguments for “Climate Change” are correct or not; when you have to have a conference with representatives from world governments two weeks before you publish a report, it makes the report totally dubious.
Also, there’s a lot of talk that even though the climate has changed far, far less than predicted, the models are still generally correct. As Richard Feynman stated regarding hypothesis: “If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong…It doesn’t matter how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, what his name is. If it disagrees with experiement, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”
Imagine if the people who got man to the moon had told the world that they were about to blast the spacecraft off, knowing that their calculations were wrong but generally heading in the right direction.
September 27, 2013
Got any evidence that the hypothesis is wrong? Thought not.
September 28, 2013
The catastrophic changes predicted by the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory and models have not occured, so that hypothesis is wrong as proven by scientific data. The AGW proponents admit the predictions are wrong. Apparently the report that hasn’t been published that you keep referring to had in it’s draft the recognition that solar forcing was a factor and independent scientific research finds around 50% of past climate changes correlate to solar activity.
Strangely, the AGW theory refused to accept the proven scientific fact that the sun is an influence on our climate.
September 27, 2013
On the Daily Politics the BBC did finally get the very sensible Matt Ridley (a climate realist) to defend his position against Polly Toynbee (the great “BBC thinker” who seems exceptionally dim to me and Greg Barker (why on earth is he in the Tory party let alone the government). The main reason seemed to be so they could both attack Mr Ridley over Northern Rock. The BBC person was hardly neutral either one assumes she had been to “BBC think” lessons too.
Despite this bias and the underhand attacks, Matt Ridley (the only scientist there) defended his rational position extremely well indeed. But logic rarely takes you far when talking to the faithful “believers”. It is clearly a religion for the very dim, gullible and “BBC think” arts graduates.
Matt’s book “The Rational Optimist” is very good. I agreed fully with everything in it, as far as I can remember.
September 27, 2013
So exactly how much has Miliband’s tax wasted since the CCA came into effect and what is the average impact to a typical household in the UK?
Also what is the likely impact upon business due to less internal investment and external investment scared off by high energy prices?
I think we deserve to know how much has been spent on preventing warming which didn’t happen anyway.
September 27, 2013
It will surely end up being far more than Major wasted destroying businesses and defending the currency in the ERM fiasco.
September 27, 2013
Googling around for the effects of the CCA I instead found references to the CCL, or climate control levy…
.43p per KWh – somewhere around an £800 million tax on industry.
I’ll bet the CCa is a lot higher….
September 27, 2013
Even if we accept that climate change is occurring are we actually tackling the consequences correctly. I suggest that we are not. It will not be a case that climate change will be bad for everyone there is the possibility that there will be more winners than losers. For example one effect of more CO2 in the atmosphere has been that the planet is becoming greener and plants are growing larger. Other aspects that do not appear to been considered are a financial and technological ones. Is the cost of doing what we are doing by subsidizing green energy solutions and blighting our environment with bird mincers going to have bad unintended consequences and cost more than the damage climate change will have. If so what is the point of driving us in to poverty on so many unknowns. Also the carbon tax on it’s own is sufficient to drive technological innovation that will reduce carbon emissions if it is indeed a problem. It must be born in mind that scientists have a vested interest in convincing us that unless we keep spending billions on green technologies and funding their research as they have never had it so good financially.
September 27, 2013
For example one effect of more CO2 in the atmosphere has been that the planet is becoming greener and plants are growing larger.
There’s no evidence to support this claim. Plants can’t grow larger just with more CO2; they also need more water, sunlight, a suitable temperature, and all the mineral they require.
As global warming is causing increased desertification in much of Africa it seems that the world is becoming less green.
It must be born in mind that scientists have a vested interest in convincing us that unless we keep spending billions on green technologies and funding their research as they have never had it so good financially.
What exactly is this vested interest? Scientists don’t benefit from the private companies that produce green technology.
September 28, 2013
It has been demonstrated that more CO2 promotes more plant growth where CO2 is the only variable. The experiment was conducted in an actual greenhouse.
Climate scientists benefit through huge research grants payed for by taxpayers.
September 27, 2013
Since the whole certainty assessment is calculated on a show of hands and is purely for political purposes it matters not what the scientists say.
The only thing that matters now is how the government reacts.
If the government continues along its previously stated path i.e. 80% decarbonisation by 2050 despite a projection of cooling over the next 80 years – they will be held responsible for the inevitable increasing number of fuel poverty related deaths in this country which will far out-weigh any perceived benefit from “meeting our international obligations”.
September 27, 2013
My impression is that the IPCC report is an Executive Summary of other reviews and reports. Coupled with headline grabbing assertions many of which (where they can be tested) do not stand up to investigation. According to websites like “Watts up with That”many of the individual bricks on which the report are wrong (because the events have not happened) and/ or because data has been “adjusted” to provide the required global warming result. It seems to me to come back to:
The Climate is changing but then it has always changed.
Man made CO2 can have very little impact on any change in climate (based on total CO2 and the very small size of the “man” component).
Fossil fuels will run out one day so it would be prudent before they do and over a long period of time to reduce our dependency on them. That time is not yet because reliable, viable alternatives (other than nuclear) don’t exist.
Unfortunately too many people have a vested interest in the global warming/climate change religion (politicians, traders in carbon, funded scientists and the Greens who believe man is fundamentally evil and that energy use is a symptom of that evil.
September 27, 2013
If you actually read information by scientists rather than deniers your post wouldn’t contains so many error.
1) The climate is changing because humanity is producing too much CO2.
2) Just because an effect is small doesn’t mean it won’t cause problems.
3) Viable alternatives don’t magically appear, they will only be created because people research them.
September 27, 2013
There appears to be no conceivable evidence which would cause the IPCC to question anthropogenic global warming; cooling is explained away by ocean sinks, absence of warming is dismissed as a ‘pause’. Science operates on the basis that contradictory evidence puts the hypothesis concerned in doubt and requires its revision. This never happens with the AGW acolytes, so its scientific basis is equally compromised.
September 27, 2013
A follow up to my earlier post.
The BBC World at One gave a more balanced report, providing air time to Professor Robert Carter a prominent sceptic. Perhaps a response to this post?
He reminded us that the remit of the IPCC is to search for mans contribution to global warming; it is not to pursue disinterested scienctific investigation. It has provided the science community with the chance to secure billions of $ funding to pursue climate related research; it is a bountiful money go round. Of course, it would all come to an abrupt halt if the climate scientists declared they had got it all wrong or did not know what caused climate change. It is not in their pecuniary interest to do so.
The report also gave Mr Davey the opportunity to make an insulting remark about “flat earthers”. He is not fit to be a Secreary of State.
September 27, 2013
Oldtimer
Which side was Mr Davey referring to as “flat earthers” ?
September 28, 2013
He was referring to those who do not buy the IPCC line. It is curious that Mr Davey should choose to employ the language of Mr Gordon Brown.
September 27, 2013
It has provided the science community with the chance to secure billions of $ funding to pursue climate related research
Who exactly is giving them billions of dollars for research and what exactly are they paying them to investigate? Make sure you explain why scientists would be paid to prove that CO2 causes global warming when this has already been proven.
Of course, it would all come to an abrupt halt if the climate scientists declared they had got it all wrong or did not know what caused climate change.
Wouldn’t scientists be more likely to be paid to research global warming if they didn’t know what was causing it?
It seems that you have no idea what research is.
September 28, 2013
If you paid attention you would knw that this funding is provided by governments using taxpayers money.
The problem with IPCC climate research is that it is dedicated to proving that man is responsible for climate change – that is the remit of the IPCC. Its origins were political. It certainly was not a case of science for science`s sake.
September 28, 2013
@uanime5
Computer models cannot be relied upon.
Ever heard the adage “rubbish in rubbish out” ?
And we know for a fact that (some? of ed)the so called “scientists” have been tweaking the data to fit their agenda.
It’s a massive money scam, and when it’s finally exposed as such those on the bandwagon will have already sauntered all the money away, so us poor suckers will be poorer and (the warmists ) will be much richer.
September 27, 2013
This is all about money, getting grants and jobs for the team players. Meanwhile they continue to wreak our economy whilst other nations totally ignore them. What fools they all are.
September 27, 2013
Why are the BBC allowed to get away with it. Yet another thing Mr Cameron has done nothing about.
September 27, 2013
Hug a husky windmill Dave takes no action against fraudulent use of the taxpayers money?
It beggars belief that you are surprised!
September 27, 2013
What the report accepts is that if you take 1987 as a base, warming has slowed down. However choosing 1987, the hottest year for many years as a base produces skewd results and if almost any other year is chosen as the base there is virtually no slowing down in warming.
September 27, 2013
bhtf
The year should be 1998 as this was a “hot” year and since then no statistically significant warming has occurred despite repeated statements from “peer reviewed” scientists with their predictions of “tipping point” runaway warming from this point.
But note that the total warming in the whole of the 20th century was 0.7 of one degree.
I think we would probably not describe this as a catastrophic amount which is why the warmists have quietly dropped this term from their headline.
September 27, 2013
Define “statistically significant warming”. So far denier keep using this phrase so they don’t have to admit that there has been warming during this period.
Also just because you don’t understand the harm raising the average global temperature by 0.7C doesn’t mean that it won’t cause problems. A fever only raises a person’s body temperature by 2C but it causes many problems.
September 28, 2013
Uni
Even warmists scientists call the change since 1998 statisically insignificant so go ask them
After 2000 your predictions were for runaway increases, you talked of tipping points being reached, you spoke of the climate running out of control, you said oceans would rise up by several feet, and none repeat none of it has come true.
Still no answer from you why Al Gore’s islands are still above water.
September 27, 2013
… and John Redwood peddles what, exactly?
the view of the oil and gas industry via the “Panel” of right-wing profit-searching lobbying industrialists? or is it really an unbiased and informed point of view?
Reply I have no connections with the lobbyists you mention.
September 27, 2013
So NE
If you cannot even start to try to defeat the argument then just attack the motives of those who speak.
Yes that old lefty method of debate.
Bit of a cliché I think.
September 27, 2013
Dear Notelgnis Eilsel.
I have no trouble accepting that we are undergoing climate change linked to man-made global warming. But why do you assume that “right-wing profit-searching lobbying industrialists” are all on one side? There is just as much money to be made out of climate change, often by the same people.
You have only to ask yourself how we should react to climate change and to help limit the global warming rate by switching from fossil fuels. Having been trained in economics, I learnt that there is a right-wing and a left-wing theory and response to almost everything other than rigorous experimental science, which is not available here.
The left-wing view seems to be that the proper response, yet again, is to abandon the affluent consumer society and live more modest, simpler lives, relying more on public services than private spending. However virtuous, this view is negative and unrealistic.
The obvious way for the EU to slash carbon emissions would simply be for all member states to generate the same proportion of their electricity from nuclear power as France, about two thirds, with the rest coming mainly from non-thermal sources. It is not really possible, let alone economic, to do it the other way round, not least because the UK would need a lot more electricity to cope with much colder winters and to power all our electric cars, buses and trains. Would you agree?
September 27, 2013
The BBC has committed the sin of crying wolf too often about climate change. It has committed the even worse sin of becoming a propagandist on this issue.
We are crying out for journalism that gives us straight facts, a role that should be well suited to the BBC with all its resources and so-called impartiality.
The BBC has blown it. Even if it decided that from today it would stick to impartial facts and cut out the spin, it is too late. The BBC cannot be trusted on this issue.
September 27, 2013
Sorry ken we missed what you thought of the report and its accuracy? The BBC did not write it.The IPPC is not the BBC. They just both have C in the acronym.
September 28, 2013
The IPCC has not published it’s report yet so why were the BBC jumping the gun?
September 28, 2013
Is SKY and the rest jumping the gun too?
September 28, 2013
The report is OK Baz, no real surprises.
We could do with some analytical journalism on it rather than just quoting chunks from it as being gospel.
It might even reduce the 40% recently polled who said they who said they would describe themselves as skeptical to some degree.
September 29, 2013
Many people are sceptical of the forces involved in a car accident believing that they could stop themselves flying forward with their arms. when pointed out that it is quite possible for their arms to snap or be forced through their own bodies at quite low speeds still remain sceptical….!?
September 30, 2013
A very poor analogy Baz.
That correlation could be easily proven.
Unlike the CAGW theory which has yet to prove the correlation between just man’s carbon dioxide output and the 0.7 degree increase in global average temperature in the 20th century nor why whilst CO2 has continued to rise, that the predicted large temperature increase from 2000 hasn’t happened.
September 30, 2013
Thats not the point. Your beliefs are political and not scientific. Like the belief in the trickle down effect when much evidence says different. A core belief that if denied would cause many others to fail.
September 27, 2013
The Daily Politics Show did so today also with the Conservative sceptic peer Viscount Ridley out muscled by the other guests, although Mr Brown tried to be supportive.
In particular however it was Jo Coburn who was her typical pro BBC stance self, constantly interrupting the Viscount as he tried to make his point and defend his corner, whilst listening almost reverentially to the spouting of Toynbee and the Coalition Minister of State for Energy Gregg Barker, who seemed in disbelief that anybody could doubt that humans were 95% responsible for the tragedy that we all now face. Apparently only we can save the Planet and he hopes that others will follow suit?
Meanwhile, as Mr Brown said – our industry is disappearing to Indonesia etc, who are burning fossil fuels, oblivious to the new findings of the IPCC.
Ms Coburn needs to be taught the art of remaining neutral or else replaced. This is not the first time she has appeared to set herself up as judge and jury against a Conservative politician
It is also time that the BBC was prevented from using the Guardian as its recruitment assistant. Even better would be to cancel the licence fee and make the BBC recover its costs from advertising revenue.
September 27, 2013
No no no… You’d simply give them a chance to squirm out of it.
Best solution is to make the BBC a disabled first employer. All of their ‘stars’ would have to re-interview or whatever passes for recruitment in that organisation with disabled people given priority over the able bodied.
Net result would be a cut in the welfare bill, interesting jobs for the disabled. Original programming and no more of whatever the luvvie says is clearly correct.
All these people do is sit on a sofa for 1 hour a week and rake in their hundreds of thousands in salary. The disabled, starting with our injured servicemen, would jump at the chance…
Simples.
September 27, 2013
Our industries have being going abroad for sometime, mainly because companies can make bigger profits using cheaper labour in developing nations.
September 28, 2013
It may surprise you to learn that labour costs for industries such as aluminium smelting, iron and steel or mainstream chemicals are only a very small component of cost compared with the cost of energy, and that it is energy costs that are one of the principle drivers of moving industry abroad. When the suppliers of base materials move out, the businesses that convert those materials into useful products follow, because they benefit from being close to sources of supply – especially where they need such things as specialised alloys and other production tweaks. Tightly integrated supply chains have efficiencies that give them economic advantages.
The end result tends to be that global CO2 emissions are increased, because production moves to countries such as China, which is 70% dependent on coal for all its energy (that includes the energy consumed in transport fuels – not just power generation and heating). So the move to high energy costs here increases global emissions, instead of reducing them as intended.
September 28, 2013
Dear Uanime5, You are partly right, although some UK bsuinesses are being lost because of the cost of power and associated environmental levies, notably aluminium smelting, steelmaking and, ironically, oil refining.
The main point, however, is that the transfer of industries from the UK and Western Europe to China, India etc brings a rise in CO2 emissions, because they will predominantly be powered from coal rather than by gas/nuclear, as well as having to be transported vast distances by shipping which, as memory serves, still emits more CO2 than air travel.
Thus, many of the reductions in our industrial CO2 emissions lead to a rise in global emissions.
September 27, 2013
Just so much hot air !
For more of the same ? – enter Parliament – and weep !
September 27, 2013
“BBC peddles climate change alarmism”
“Pope discovered to be Roman Catholic”.
If you listen to BBC radio you’ll find that they inject a reference to CAGW as if it were fact, into every other programme. This has gone on for years and is a matter of deliberate policy which they pretend is done acknowledging their obligation to show lack of bias.
etc
September 27, 2013
The absolute frothing vehemence with which the BBC and their ilk are pushing this agenda must be regarded with great suspicion. The conspiracists will claim that there is at root a Marxist agenda for global control based on depopulation, destruction of organised religion, destruction of the family unit, mass brainwashing, and global taxation to be gathered based on borderless Co2 emissions, which everyone that has a pulse emits.
The real scary part is that lately the conspiracists have more often than not been proved correct.
September 27, 2013
A very interesting post Gary.
The current argument over climate change is just the first stage of the plan.
The next stage of the warmists policy to control the climate, would be the need to control global CO2 output.
So there would need to be a system imposed of global governance with legal powers over national governments.
I just hope your vision of the future doesn’t ever come true.
September 28, 2013
@Edward2
“The next stage of the warmists policy to control the climate, would be the need to control global CO2 output.”
If you’re sufficiently open minded you might like to look into chem-trailing.
The establishment try to pass it off as con-trails, but a little research will reveal that:
– genuine con-trails stretch back about six to ten times the length of the plane, whereas chem-trails stretch from horizon to horizon.
– con-trails cannot be switched on and off. I saw a jet last week which was leaving a long trail and then the trail suddenly stopped, and the plane then did a 180 and flew back from whence it came.
There is plenty of footage of such activity on YouTube and yet the establishment continue to pass it off as con-trails, which it obviously is not. Call me a tin foil hat merchant if you want, but check it out yourself first.
September 27, 2013
No matter how scientific it is and who writes the reports. It will never be enough for you as it does not write what most of you want to believe. Nothing is happening and if it is nothing can or should be done. Fate for all.
This report was not wrote by the BBC. Do some of you think it was? It was also reported on SKY with more or less bias either way it was reported and this is what you all do not like and are now having a child like tantrum blaming the BBC for this. Cry to your Mummies instead. This is a highly scientific and respected consensual report not mindless chuntering as you prefer. some of you like lifogic are now saying we must spend the money on building flood defences, fire breaks anti malnutrition and malaria measures with CO2 helping crops at the same time. Confused? Well not as confused as him as only a short time ago global warming was not occurring. Now it is lidogic? Well…? What do you have to say? Nothing as usual when cornered.
He follows the five stages of climate denial quite well.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/16/climate-change-contrarians-5-stages-denial
When you can tell us why the trickle down effect never fails and will always work for the best for everyone and why the energy companies fronted by Angela Knight ironically in both cases, should be trusted? The banking crash did happen and was caused by the banks being allowed to do what they wanted by both the Tories and Labour. You trust them on energy? A bail out and a riot are the same for both. Not to mention missed business opportunities for cleaner greener energy in the world.
Ram it.
Reply I note the Guardian does not tackle the argument that the UK on its own can not cut the world’s output of CO2, merely transfer high energy using activities from us elsewhere – it would need global enforced action. It does not deal with the Lawson argument, that if we assume the scientists are right it is cheaper and easier to spend money on tackling the results of global warming -p more flood defences and better water supply – than on trying to stop it. It does not deal with the possibility that the forces which caused past global warming or cooling will reappear and be more important than man made CO2 etc
September 28, 2013
The IPCC AR5 policy makers summary, which involved 59 scientists but doesn’t declare their qualifications or affiliations, has not been published yet so how is it the BBC declares results with so much presumed authority?
I think you will find if you bother to read the comments from skeptics is that no-one thinks the climate doesn’t change, it’s the extent of himan contribution to the continual cycles of changing climate that is open to question.
Why do you continue deny that the AGW proponents are wrong even after they have admitted they got it wrong? As to green business opportunities, that would be the importing of windmills and state control of your freezer would it?
September 28, 2013
There you go with the BBC again. Where they only ones to report it? Why this obsession with them and not others. The red herring of the licence is just that. If the BBC where to be closed who would you then target as the messenger?
September 29, 2013
What Sky did is beside the point, I don’t subscribe to them or watch their service.
The BBC is the UK PBS funded by a mandatory tax but it operates biassed reporting despite it’s charter. It is not properly held to account nor is it’s regulator.
The BBC is propagandist, wastes money and overpays it’s people, in particular it’s so-called “talent”. Even if I don’t watch it but want to watch other broadcasters I am under threat of fine and imprisonment if I don’t pay the BBC tax.
It should be shrunk to the minimum required of a PBS and balanced reporting enforced or make the whole thing a subscription service then we all have a choice.
September 28, 2013
Good points John and ones I have never denied. However there is opportunities in developing alternative technology to sell for the good of the world and if we fall behind with this then what. The Germany and Japan will be selling clean technology to the world and we will have missed the boat. Green often means cheaper such as with insulation and conservation. House builders will never do this accept for their own luxury homes without legislation forcing them and as long as the utility companies can charge what they like will never develop cleaner cheaper power. In fact as insulation and conservation gets better will be inclined even less to do this and maybe charge more for the same.
Putting unlimited CO2 and other pollution into the atmosphere will have no effect and if it does will be good and if it is bad can be dealt with? Not real. No artificial eco system has ever been successfully recreated and we should be cautious. 100’s of millions burning dirty fires to cook on does not allow us to burn car tyres in our gardens. Maybe you could tell you neighbour this is not illegal in you area before the ambulance came?
September 27, 2013
John,
Have you actually read the IPCC report?
September 28, 2013
No one could, it hasn’t been published yet, the final stage is not due until October 2014.
September 28, 2013
The summary for policymakers is available now.
September 29, 2013
It was not available when the BBC was reporting and the final report which includes much analysis will take a year anyway.
September 30, 2013
It is common practice for information to be released to the media ahead of publication.
For example, “The Information in this press release is embargoed until after the start of IPCC Press Conference” is printed in red and upper case.
September 28, 2013
Apparently, it contains a million words. I just can’t wait, having suffered from insomnia in recent years. Can it be summarised into fewer words than the Gettysburg address?
September 29, 2013
It could even be set to music… “feeling hot, Hot, HOT” !
September 27, 2013
The actual report is not going to be released until Monday so all this BBC stuff is 1984 propaganda.
Hey, you visit your doctor and he tells you he is 95% certain you have a serious illness, what are you going to do?
And another thing if you guys have nothing else to do take another look at the UN Sustainable Development Agenda 21.
September 27, 2013
Perhaps the BBC couldn’t find an expert in climate who thinks that anthropomorphic global warming isn’t very likely. It’s very easy to find politicians and journalists and other scientifically illiterates and vested interests, or 87 year old retired geologists and physicists to claim that it isn’t, can’t, won’t happen. Actual experts, not so much.
If there is an opposite to irony, the fact that most of the people currently in denial about climate change are too rich or too old to be affected by it is a wonderful exemplar.
Reply To create “balance” as the BBC are meant to do, there is no rule which says only a limited group of people trained in a certain way can talk about a subject. As a politician they sometimes ask me to debate matters with non politicians (i.e. non specialists) which I am very happy to do!
September 27, 2013
Not at all; it is over a decade ago that the increasing levels in and of sea water causing dilution in salinity was discussed. This was predicted to cool down warm streams and take away the incoming warmth of sea water away from land. The salt concentration in H20 has a mass effect keeping in the heat in an area or stream . This information was given on a scientific programme and is not my speculation.
September 27, 2013
“What is the 95% certainty about recent years based on? Why has it risen 5% since last time?”
Mr Redwood will have to wait for the full report like the rest of us. The likely and obvious answer: more data.
“What has happened to the forces of nature that caused global warming prior to mankind’s arrival?”
Mr Redwood should go and look it up in the library since he evidently has no faith in anything any scientist says.
“As they now think that ocean currents and ocean warming and cooling are more important influences on climate than before, will they be changing their climate forecasting models to take these factors into account?”
Gee whiz, I wonder if they have.
The fact that Mr Redwood asks these questions indicates that he is more interested in cute rhetoric than in the answers.
Reply Why not answer my questions if the answers are so obvious?
September 27, 2013
There was no spokesman to put a sceptical view.
That’s because there’s no scientific evidence to back up the denier’s point of view.
The interviewers were all primed to constantly repeat the assertion that climate change scientists (unspecified) are now 95% certain -which is apparently “more” certain” – that most global warming (recent presumably) is man made.
The scientists were listed in the IPCC report. You know the one that they wrote which was released today.
Past prolonged periods of global warming were clearly not man made.
Past periods of global warming had different causes, which have been ruled out.
The scientists they interviewed were not repeatedly interrupted as politicians are.
Well they generally do know what they’re talking about.
Nor were they asked the same question more than once when they failed to answer.
Care to provide some examples of this. I trust that you’re not considering not giving the answer you wanted as not answering your question.
They were allowed to say that they should not be expected to have to face a critic or enter a debate about the “science” because the “science” was 95% settled.
Well none of these “critics” have any evidence to back up any of their claims.
No-one asked where the 95% figure came from.
It’s in the IPCC report. Scientists have identified all the possible things that can cause global warming and have tested them to see which is the most likely. They’re 95% sure that it’s man made CO2.
It is 100% certain that global warming prior to the last few centuries had nothing to do with man made CO2.
Give the difficulty in measuring these things without a time machine you can’t be 100% certain.
Why has it risen 5% since last time?
Scientists have tested more variable and determined that they’re not having a major effect on global warming.
What has happened to the forces of nature that caused global warming prior to mankind’s arrival?
The North Atlantic oscillation is no longer causing these problems. This can be easily proven by measuring pressure in Iceland and the Azores.
As they now think that ocean currents and ocean warming and cooling are more important influences on climate than before, will they be changing their climate forecasting models to take these factors into account?
John they said that “warming will shift ocean currents” because they have taken the oceans into account.
Also trying to dismiss scientific evidence by raising a host of pointless questions in the hope that other people won’t be able to answer one of them is a common tactic used by deniers. Try to focus more on specific things you want answered.
Reply Have you read Professor Curry’s blog (Prof of Earth and Atmospheric sciences) who raises interesting questions about the “95%” certainty, and about the sequestered heat in the oceans. Care to have a go at answering those?
September 28, 2013
Uni you say…Try to focus on specific things you want answered…
1 why did the climate get hotter and cooler before recent human industrial times?
2 why have the dire predictions made in first IPCC report already not come true?
3 why are Al Gore’s islands still above water?
4 how are you going to control the world’s thermostat for evermore?
Looking forward to your reply
Please try to be scientific rather than use personal criticism.
September 27, 2013
A lot of sensible comments on here, but we’re just going round in circles. Here in West Wales, they’re far more worried about the spread of TB in dairy herds and would like some action on the badger population. Don’t watch live TV, don’t buy a TV licence and put some more coal on the fire. It’s about all you can do.
September 27, 2013
The level of CO2 has risen and is rising. Whatever side of the argument you are on, it’s a good idea to think of ways of slowing down or ending that trend.
There is suitable energy technology, until it gets too expensive. Wind farms, tidal power, nuclear power and clean coal are all expensive at the moment. There is reducing energy consumption and using solar panels, in houses. Improving automobile technology helps too.
But what about the effect of fewer people on energy consumption? And of growing more trees where Nick Boles would like to build houses; that too is easier if there are fewer people. So why do the climate change ‘experts’ (David Attenborough excepted) never propose world ZPG in their solutions? Could it be that they want to avoid conflict with organised religion and would prefer us all to live like enslaved ants rather than do so?
Reply Fewer migrants, a more stable population, and more trees would be a successful and popular strategy for dealing with the UK’s net CO2 but would not necessarily cut the world’s overall output.
September 28, 2013
I have considered the idea that migration should only be permitted from countries with high per capita emissions to countries with lower per capita emissions. The problem might soon be that Chinese would be able to emigrate almost anywhere under such a rule as their per capita emissions rise up the rankings: numbers too large for immigration to cope with. Their emissions per capita will probably overtake ours next year.
September 28, 2013
Let’s develop the ideas behind that reply. One of the things that the Indian sub-continent is very good at exporting is people. I worked in Colombo, Sri Lanka, between May and December 2011. In the bars, the MAJORITY of customers had worked for a few years in the UK; many lived in the UK and were taking a holiday ‘back home’. It was admittedly a biased sample. Colombo bars occupied by locals mainly have a male, educated clientele, but even so ……………….. So could we put a halt to this?
Reply The government is limiting numbers of migrants, but rightly keeps schemes to allow people with necessary skills to come to the UK, and allows multinational companies to switch personnel around the world.If you want to live with the benefits of world trade you do need to welcome good people, overseas companies, foreign investors, visitors etc.
September 28, 2013
Why is it that almost everyone on this blog including John who are complaining about the BBC bias have the opposite view and deny climate change?
It all comes down to: I disagree with the BBC and so consider their view biased.
Surely they were accurately reporting on the statement from the climate change conference.
September 29, 2013
Btf
No one on here that I have read “denies climate change” as it is obvious to all that the climate has been changing on our planet for millions of years.
The argument is about how much is caused by mankind’s activities and how crucial just man’s carbon dioxide is to that change in the climate.
Some say its just man and just man’s CO2 output but others like me think other things are also involved.
The other matter which hasn’t been explained to me is how we would control world CO2 output up and down for ever more to adjust the world’s thermostat to an arbitrary figure.
September 28, 2013
Sorry posted this in the wrong place previously.
To summarise.
97% of ‘scientists’, 95% ‘believe’ that probably 50%+ global warming is manmade.
‘Scientists’ previously said they were 90% confident their models correctly accounted for all possible natural factors affecting global warming, so global warming could only be due to Mankind.
They now say absence of the 90% confidently predicted global warming is due to heat disappearing into the deep oceans, clearly, if true, not correctly accounted for in their models, thereby invalidating them, but which has increased their confidence in them to 95% as a consequence, but assign Manmade global warming contribution as anywhere between 50% and 100% but do not know the actual figure, and are 95% confident in it whatever it is.
And we must take these folk seriously?
What is a worry is we are ruled by people who clearly do.
September 28, 2013
When it comes to climate change, you are better off looking into a crystal ball. The whole thing is a SCAM !!!
Trouble is, they have all bought into this SCAM and cannot now back out – scandalous.
The real crime though, is the maintenance of the Climate Change Act. This piece of legislation should be repealed. But until ‘The Greenest Government – Ever !” take their heads out their **** we will get guff like this.
—
The BBC is no longer fit for purpose and does not even bother to pay lip service too its charter, let a lone follow it. I strongly urge reform.
September 28, 2013
CO2 rise improves crop growth, currently by about 20%.
A couple of degrees of warming (as per the medieval warming) would be beneficial (if it were to happen, of which there is no sign)
As Czech President Vaclav Klaus said “The climate will do fine, it is human freedom that is under threat”
September 28, 2013
On Any Questions the far left Green MP Caroline Lucas objected to a sceptical scientist being given any airtime on the World at One. The guy was followed by a warmist (note the warmist obviously wasn’t prepared to debate the issue directly) who was not interviewed at all, just given a platform. Given the costs of green policies we need journalists to subject global warming theorists to robust questioning to justify their conclusions. It is a disgrace that the BBC refuses to do so.
September 28, 2013
Perhaps you might permit a link to the Spectator?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/james-delingpole/8758121/heres-a-bbc-scandal-that-should-really-make-you-disgusted/
the 28-gate saga really should be the subject of questions in Parliament.