The UK has many campaigners against carbon dioxide who worry about levels of man made gas being put into the atmosphere. I suggest today to them that the UK has been one of the most successful countries at getting its CO2 emissions down. They should now divert their energies to cutting CO 2 in places putting out much more and not cutting in the way the UK has.
They should start with China. China adds around Ā around 30 times more CO2 to the atmosphere each year Ā than the UK. It also puts out considerably more CO2 Ā per head. At around 30% of world new CO2 output it is surely the place to start, as its output is still increasing.
If that is too difficult then surely they could turn their talents to changing the EU. After our departure they account for around 8 times our output with a higher CO2 Ā output per head. They still mine and burn a lot of coal, which we have stopped doing,
Germany in particular needs attention. At more than double our CO2 output there could be quick wins. They might also like to campaign about the German motor industry which is still based around fossil fuels for most of its output.
Clearly it is much easier and cheaper to cut CO2 output in a country like China where there are quick wins and easy changes the UK has already made. It should also be welcome to the EU if we offer them advice on how we got to much lower levels per head than them, as their whole new economic and regulatory policy is based around CO2 reduction.
February 10, 2020
We don’t need to remove everybody’s gas boilers.
We don’t need to ban petrol cars.
February 10, 2020
Indeed.
Removing gas boilers to replace with electric heating would be totally irrational given current technology even in pure C02 terms.
February 10, 2020
Yes, I’m inclined to agree, since boilers are about 90% efficient, but electricity generation only about 30% from the same fuel.
Replacing the gas with biomethane and/or gasified wood – especially if the charcoal were sequestered – would be optimal on the other hand.
Huddersfield has just recorded its all-time 24hr record rainfall, and the Calder valley has suffered its third “once in two hundred years” flooding devastation in eight years.
This, I think, is unlikely to be normal, and underlines the need for global action.
February 10, 2020
So hotter or colder, wetter or drier, anywhere on the planet is all now due to climate change.
Rather clever because every day something happens to make a new headline.
Once it was just warming.
February 11, 2020
Record after record is falling, for all kinds of event, and with ever increasing frequency.
February 11, 2020
I notice how selective these news stories are and how they carefully use their statistics and date comparisons to get the headline they want.
But as I said previously of all hot cold wet and dry weather can be used as evidence of climate change then every day you can take your pick.
Somewhere in world there will be a drought or a flood or cold spell or heatwave.
This week it was the Penguin population having gone quiet on Polar Bears.
February 10, 2020
once in 200 years strikes me as normal. If it had happened say 3 times in last 10 years- that would not be normal.
February 11, 2020
Yes. It has happened three times in the last ten years, but the first time it was described as a once in two hundred years event.
Glad you agree.
February 11, 2020
Because no one allows farmers and locals to do the work that will stop these things happening.
Engineers are stopped by local councils overseen by the Environment Agency from interfering in nature.
February 10, 2020
We do.
And we are.
February 10, 2020
If you look at the numbers, engineering and the current technology then removing gas boilers would increase C02 emissions not decrease them! It would be idiotic with current technology.
February 10, 2020
That will make your children (and mine) poorer, Andy.
February 10, 2020
Mr Priest –
No – we don’t need to – but it serves as a useful displacement activity.
We are being insulted and cheated all the time, in a big way.
I never would have believed our own Government would be so hell-bent on ruining our country rather than running it. Was it just a typo?
February 10, 2020
Try telling the flood victims of Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd, Sowerby Bridge, Brighouse and Mirfield that.
February 10, 2020
That will be all the houses we are building in the flood run off areas to accommodate free movement and other necessary mitigation of skill shortages Martin.
February 11, 2020
They are nearly all about 120 years old.
You know nothing about the Calder valley, evidently.
February 11, 2020
The Calder Valley needs a great deal of overdue clearing and maintenance work which is refused permission by local councils and the EA.
February 10, 2020
Try looking at local Councils and the Environmental Agency who have stopped local farmers continuing the century old practice of clearing out ditches and dredging streams and rivers.
The theme has been, do nothing, let nature take its course.
February 11, 2020
These are narrow valleys in the Pennines.
The only farming is hill farming.
There are no ditches nor streams to dredge.
You don’t even know the basic geography of your own country.
February 11, 2020
They flow down the hills into the towns.
Get your facts right.
What I said was correct.
Eg Somerset Levels
February 10, 2020
Look up some history of floods! We have had lots flooding for millions & millions of years before we started burning coal.
February 11, 2020
See above.
February 10, 2020
The Tory govt prefer to act on the advice of Greta.
February 10, 2020
Seem so. Or indeed from Prince Charles. The quack medicine enthusiast, big user of private jets and helicopters and large beneficiary from offshore wind farms.
February 10, 2020
@Stephen Priest; Has anyone in Govt. said existing boilers and cars are being banned?!
As far as I’m aware all that has been announced is that no gas boilers will be allowed to be installed in new build after a certain date, and the installation of petrol and diesel engines will be banned in new cars sold after a certain date.
February 10, 2020
Indeed but they are both idiotic things to do with current technology.
February 10, 2020
Well, my reaction to seeing it burst into being is that, once again, project fear techniques were put into play, one aim might be to make the government look stupid. Seems to be working….
February 10, 2020
Yes – that’ the plan – to rip out all existing gas boilers.
February 11, 2020
@Stephen Priest; Could you please direct me to such an policy announcement – I have not found any that states already installed, or even replacement, gas fired boilers will be out-right banned.
Obviously when replacement is due there will be pressure on property owner and installer to consider a different type of heating but that is nothing new, in the 1950s there was the move way from heating by coal to oil, and in the 1970s from oil to a gas/electric mix, now we appear to be shifting away from gas to electricity and alternate technologies.
February 10, 2020
True. But how can you explain that to science and technical illiterates with classics degrees, or just as bad, PPE’s? All the evidence over the years is you can’t because they refuse to listen. The only Tory I can think of who has a clue is Peter Lilley, and he is a magnificent exception to the rule. Not that the Tories ever took a blind bit of notice of anything he said.
Three Hundred Billion. The cost of the Climate Change Act.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2016/12/CCACost-Dec16.pdf
February 10, 2020
Exactly Matt Ridley is sound too as is Corbynās brother Piers, Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen and very many other honest and sound scientist. But the government is not interest in the truth.
Just as with HS2, they must know it is an idiotic project – but it is an idiotic one that suits them.
February 10, 2020
PPE is rather worse than classics in my experience. The sort of people who aspire to Oxford PPE is the problem I suspect. Often they are would be politicians! What sensible and balanced teenager want that?
February 10, 2020
I know of someone with that qualification. Inherited a small company his father had built up. It was a gold mine. I won’t go into the detail of that. But it could have grown into something of considerable size. But all that happened was he milked it dry over the years to walk off with a fortune. The wasters there were treated like gods, and those that kept him in business treated like dirt. He reminded me of Cameron for his cluelessness. When Ricky Gervais’ The Office came on TV we were gob smacked at the resemblance to what went on there. Truly a PPE is a wonder of nature when it comesto addling someone’s brain.
February 10, 2020
I am a scientist, and I believe in climate change.
Also, the global average temperature has rise by one degree centigrade since 1850. I don’t think anyone disputes that.
This rise is caused by CO2 (and methane and other pollutants) as a result of human activity. I don’t think anyone disputes that.
I happen to be a conservative with a small c – so I like the climate just as it is (as I suspect many do). I do not believe anyone knows what the consequence of increased average global temperatures will be. (And, yes, the world was 7 degrees hotter in the Holocene Optimum – but we don’t know what the weather and flooding was like then. Somewhat terrifying I imagine.
I am willing to pay some money in order that we get to grips with this problem (in much the same way that I remain willing to sacrifice a bit on the economy to get our country back). Such sacrifices seem worth making. Is this really so controversial?
I do wonder if a lot of these views I read are actually about a dislike of Greta and left-wing greenies more than anything else.
February 10, 2020
“This rise is caused by CO2…”
I have yet to see any evidence to back up that statement; and 1 degree C over 170 years could be just as easily attributable to natural variation, aside from being a long, long way from the nightmare predictions we’ve had to listen to for the last 40 years.
I take it you’re a social scientist rather than the other sort.
February 11, 2020
No. I am the other sort – mathematics and physics. Though not a climatologist I freely admit. Climatology is a ferociously complex and still evolving field, and I really wouldn’t listen to anyone who doesn’t have a PHD in the area, which Matt Ridley and Piers Corbyn don’t.
February 11, 2020
Leaver, I dispute co 2 has caused climate change. Your bold statements have no substance or evidence to support your claims. I doubt you are a scientist involved in climate change. It would be stupid and ignorant to make claims when there is overwhelming evidence, including ice ages, to dispute your false claims.
February 11, 2020
Hope. Please read my post. I am not a climatologist. Indeed, I think Hefner’s posts are far better than mine. I simply resent Martin R dismissing everyone who disagrees with him as science and technical illiterates.
Indeed I think there is generally far too much abuse on this site, rather than data-driven debate.
February 11, 2020
Leaver
Very few of the legendary 97% had relevant PhD’s either.
February 10, 2020
If your a scientist then you should be aware that when the Romans were here grapes were grown in Scotland.
You should also aware that we had a mini ice age in the 18th century.
You must also be aware that there has been no rise in temperature since 1998.
What part did CO2 play in any of these activities.
February 11, 2020
Climate change is about global average temperatures, so grapes being grown in Scotland isn’t relevant.
The mini ice age you are referring to, was again localised and largely affected northern Europe.
(The Holocene Optimum which many refer to was also localised.)
There has been a rise in average global temperature since 1998. However, it went undetected for a while because the heat rise was in the deep ocean (climate science is still evolving, though the broad conclusions haven’t changed).
CO2 is responsible, as it is the equivalent of a blanket around the earth keeping the heat in.
You are correct that temperatures change according to the earth’s orbit. These are called Milankovich cycles, but they occur over tens of thousands of years, not a hundred.
However, you really shouldn’t listen to my opinion on this, as I am not an expert. Climatology is a highly complex field. I really wouldn’t listen to anyone who hasn’t got a Phd in the area.
February 10, 2020
Leaver, Wrong. I, and many others, including the IPCC, dispute that there has been an exact 1 deg K rise in global temperature since 1850, and dispute that the entire rise has been directly caused by CO2 (and other GHGs) solely as a result of human activity. The IPCC and sceptical scientists use words such as: “likely”; “confidence level”; “influence”; etc.
Above everything else I have found only one scientist who believes in CAGW. There are, however, plenty of activists like Prince Charles and Greta Thunberg, who think we are doomed in a decade. And they have been saying so for the last 30 years or so, yet it’s never happened.
February 10, 2020
@Leaver
I will grant you that polluting the planet is not a good thing and we should do what we can about it.
I will not grant you that there has been a 1C increase in temperatures since 1850 as it can’t possibly be measured accurately.
I will also not grant you that any increase (see above there may not have been an increase) has been caused by CO2 and methane. The sun’s activity is more likely to have caused any change in temperature.
To sum up, happy to help stop polluting the planet and atmosphere, not happy to be forced to do so by legislation driven by project fear.
Greta? She is used as a symbol by those promoting the cause, therefore she is also seen as a symbol by those cynical of the cause. In a similar vein to Ms Markle, the proletariat don’t like being lectured to by those who can afford to be inconvenienced as they do not have normal lives to survive.
February 10, 2020
It isn’t a belief system.
If you are a scientist then look at data and keep an open mind.
February 10, 2020
“Also, the global average temperature has rise by one degree centigrade since 1850”
No Sweat
Absolute Zero – 273C
An increase of 0.36%
February 10, 2020
I think Leaver, that as a scientist you should be working on a way of producing energy without pollution. Banning this and banning that without a sensible substitute is going to get us nowhere.
February 10, 2020
Plenty of people dispute that, including Jeremy Corbyn’s climatologist brother Piers.
You wouldn’t know that if you rely on the BBC for your information because they will not allow any challenge of the AGW hypothesis on their broadcasts – a bit like the flat Earthers of old.
February 11, 2020
As I said before, Piers Corbyn and Matt Ridley are not climatologists. Climatology is highly complex, perhaps similar to quantum physics. I wouldn’t trust a layman’s view on quantum physics any more that I would trust these fellows’ views on climate change.
February 11, 2020
Oh yeh Of yeh, peasants are to believe the high priests.
Refusal to obey is heresy.
February 10, 2020
So you haven’t noticed yet that the climate has gone through a number of cycles during the Holocene, not a single one of which could possibly have been attributed to CO2, or even to human activity. You think you can develop a theory of climate based on a few specially chosen intervals during the 20th century and ignore every other period where climate and CO2 show no correspondence, i.e. the overwhelming majority of the time. And you call yourself a scientist. I don’t think I’ll bother to comment on that.
February 11, 2020
Yes, I have noticed the climate has gone through a number of cycles. However, not over the period of a hundred and fifty years (except during meteor strikes obviously).
I never said I was a climatologist. I was merely rebutting your claim that ‘But how can you explain that to science and technical illiterates with classics degrees, or just as bad, PPEās? All the evidence over the years is you canāt because they refuse to listen. ‘
I do have a solid scientific credentials. I have listened. I happen to believe increased manmade CO2 emissions leading to an increase in average global temperatures, on the basis of the evidence I have read. I make no apologies for that.
February 10, 2020
There are numerous scientists who dispute the the figures obtained by criminal amendments of the raw figures recorded scrupulously in the past and who would love to dispute that CO2 is to blame.
The problem is that all discussion has been shut down by factions who are making huge incomes from the various so called remedies that have been foisted upon us.
The time has come for a full debate of the so called science behind the scam accompanied by disclosure of what the costs of the remedial actions will be and who will benefit from the money generated.
A referendum should then be held so that any action is agreed by the populace.
You are very niave if you believe the green mantras.
February 11, 2020
If you were a scientist you wouldn’t use the term “climate change”, unless you were a political scientist.
February 11, 2020
@ Leaver; “I am a scientist, and I believe in climate change.”
If you “believe” you are no scientists, more likely a follower of a religion – Science constantly questions and requestions everything as nothing is ever proven nor settled, argument is good, for without nothing would ever be improved upon.
Also there is a several miles of difference between being a (toilet) paper scientist and quantum nuclear scientist, I’m sure you would agree, same applies to engineers – of which I’m one, but not in either of those disciplines!
“global average temperature has rise by one degree centigrade since 1850. I donāt think anyone disputes that.”
Oh dear, here we go again, cue the hockey stick graphs … yes but what about the 1Ā¾ millennium before, never mind the years 1BC and back into pre history?
February 11, 2020
Google Tony Heller and watch his presentations on YouTube. Then come back and discuss. Greta is a child not yet educated.
February 10, 2020
Stephen, Indeed, that is so. I would ban (pure) battery electric vehicles until batteries were capable of at least 5x the current practical range, at half the weight. Battery EVs are an environmental disaster waiting to happen, just like every other green wheeze has been.
February 10, 2020
Will you also ban all laptops, tablets, mobile phones, cordless appliances and power tools?
February 10, 2020
Dixie, Why?
February 11, 2020
More Li-Ion materials are used in all other products than EVs and must be already causing the environmental disaster you predict.
So why wouldn’t you ban them immediately.
February 11, 2020
Dixie, Tosh. A laptop battery is about 10Wh; a typical car battery is 70KWh, or 7000 bigger. Even if a household has 7 such appliances, and only one EV car, the ratio is still 1000:1.
The environmental disaster also includes the doubling of electricity generation, Grid capacity, street cabling, etc.
February 10, 2020
Why? – their battery life permits use of the appliance nearly as well as when plugged in. Unlike an electric car which does not have the range of a petrol or diesel.
February 11, 2020
the “environmental disaster” associated with batteries would be at the start when they are fabricated and at the end of their useful life when they are disposed of. This applies to common appliances used for last 20 years and certainly the mobile phones that everyone seems to change on a yearly basis.
It would not have anything to do with the designed range of an EV.
February 11, 2020
@Narrow Shoulders; ” their battery life permits use of the appliance nearly as well as when plugged in.”
Err, so why the need to recharge their batteries?! There is no such thing as perpetual motion, much less magic electricity from a chemical reaction, even in nuclear power.
Also what happens when the chemical life of the battery is spent, which is the point @dixie made, far more environmental problems are being caused by hand-held cordless technology than will ever be caused by spent EV batteries.
February 10, 2020
NickC
Reported in the Sunday Times yesterday, Land Rover shutting down some of its production lines due to a shortage of the right batteries.
Suggested that Battery manufacturing capacity and raw materials was the problem.
The very point I made a couple of weeks ago, the raw materials for batteries are in a very different part of the World to oil.
The balance of power could move to South America and China !!
Is the World ready for that ?
February 10, 2020
One of those South American countries has already been the subject of a coup recently-with it’s lithium reserves very much in mind.
February 10, 2020
Or diesel. Germany’s diesel price at the pump is on average some 24p/litre cheaper than the UK.
February 10, 2020
madness. But probably simply tax difference?
February 10, 2020
On 03/02 average German price for diesel was 1.258 ā¬/l, on 31/01 it was 1.322 Ā£/l.
February 10, 2020
You seem to be getting your ā¬ and Ā£ muddled, hefner. ā¬ is correct which puts it around Ā£1.10 for ā¬1.30.
In Luxembourg, where they have snaffled a lot of EU turnover and can thus have much lower taxes, it is around ā¬1.12 which equals Ā£0.95.
February 11, 2020
Yes, youāre, sorry. Thanks.
February 11, 2020
Yes, youāre right. Sorry. And thanks
February 10, 2020
There will be no protests against China because it is a totalitarian communist regime that the Extinction Regime would be far too scared of.
There will be no protests against India because that would surely be racist.
There will be no protests against Germany because, as Martin in Cardiff so often assures us, nothing bad ever happens in the EU, and therefore any excess CO2 emitted there is purely beneficial.
February 10, 2020
The European Union, unlike our now-elected one, is not a dictatorship.
Any laws proposed must be passed by MEPs from all countries, as well as by the Council. Germany has about ninety, but they tend to vote along ideological and not nationalist lines anyway.
At least Germany has a Green movement with which to reckon, and a PR system which gives it real teeth.
There are lots of environmental protests in Germany.
The European Union is doing all that it can to reduce energy demands and the CO2 thereby produced.
You opposed everything that it has done, from promoting high efficiency lighting and electrical products to specifying standards for insulation materials, however.
The UK’s departure will probably be very helpful to its aims in this and in other respects.
February 10, 2020
Martin, Boris was elected; the EU Commission is not. The EU “parliament” is a fig-leaf which does what it’s told. There is, unfortunately, a “green” (ie anti CO2) movement in the UK as well. The EU is not doing all it can to reduce CO2 – it has allowed Germany to switch from Nuclear to coal (and dirty coal at that). No one opposed “high efficiency” lighting; we opposed impositions and bans. The low wattage EU kettles were a fatuous wheeze from non-scientists. The UK’s departure may help the EU to become even more dirigiste.
Not doing well, are you Martin? – you’ve not got one thing right.
February 10, 2020
‘The UKās departure will probably be very helpful to its aims in this and in other respects.’
You’d have thought they would have made it easier for us to leave!
February 11, 2020
It is this country which has begged for extensions, not the other way around.
February 11, 2020
Martin, The EU has wanted to delay Brexit as much as it can, even to the point of cancelling Brexit. Don’t you pay any attention?
February 10, 2020
So 28 nations.
9 paying in.
The rest taking out.
One vote in 28 with increasingly reduced veto powers.
The powers lying really with the Commission.
Most rules regulations and directives passed into law by the EU straight member states on the grounds they signed up to them via previous treaties.
It is a cunning plan.
But it isn’t anywhere near democratic.
February 11, 2020
Mostly complete rubbish as ever.
February 11, 2020
Nothing I said was factually incorrect Martin.
Which is why you could only reply as you did.
February 11, 2020
Martin in Cardiff
“Mostly complete rubbish as ever.”
Couldn’t agree with you more.
February 12, 2020
Well that the two of you making five word comments yet adding no actual facts to back it up.
Nothing I said was factually incorrect, which is why you could only reply as you have
February 10, 2020
My apologies, that should read ‘Extinction Rebellion’. I shouldn’t post so early in the morning!
February 10, 2020
Edit: “would be far too scared” to be replaced by “fully approve”.
February 10, 2020
@SM; That’s who I though you meant and nearly posted a correction on your behalf, along with changing the second from last word from “scared” to proud… š®
February 10, 2020
If the EU is demanding a level playing field then we can increase our CO2 to their level or they should reduce to ours. And likewise do the same for diesel prices.
February 10, 2020
The real question is whether CO2 is a threat at all. In prehistory CO2 levels were 10 – 20 times those of today without untoward effect – no runaway warming and even ice ages at those concentrations.
Laboratory studies, confirmed by satellite observations, show the modest rise in the gas over recent years is boosting world food output by 14%. Isn’t this cause for celebration rather than to be fought against?
February 10, 2020
Indeed there is no climate catastrophe (caused by slightly higher CO2 levels) round the corner at all.
But lots of other things to worry about for those who like worrying about such things – infectious diseases we cannot control, earth quakes, meteor impacts, wars, hurricanes, mass shooting & stabbing, religious driven terrorists, volcanoes, car crashes, parasites like malaria, falling down the stairs, being killed riding your bike, the incompetence of the NHS, the idiotic waste of money on subsidies for renewables, HS2 and the likes (that could be spent to saving many thousands of lives instead) ā¦ā¦ā¦
Is The obsession with `Climate Change` Turning Out To Be The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History?
February 10, 2020
You forgot, crabs, very unpleasant.
February 10, 2020
STDs are increasing among the over 50s.
February 10, 2020
Nice with a dry white and a good mayonnaise.
February 11, 2020
Or ginger, garlic and spring onions.
February 10, 2020
@Ian Wilson
If CO2 levels were reduced and food production dropped the BBC and XR protesters would have something else to bellyache about.
February 10, 2020
Ian, The last three decades has seen many predictions of CAGW as a direct result of CO2 emitted by man. None of them have come true. Yet each one has been accompanied by strictures that “the scientists” really know this will happen. In any other sphere such a lamentable record would induce some humility and soul-searching.
February 10, 2020
Strictly speaking you are wrong: since the first report in 1990, the IPCC has maintained their story. There have not been many predictions as you say, simply with every new issue, from AR1 to AR5, a more detailed picture of what the impact might be and what adaptation/mitigation might be required.
The basic science (the scientific report) has not changed, simply adding more diagnostics related to surface, vegetation, extreme events, more details on the impact on ice and oceanic processes. With each new release, what have changed are the technical and socio-economic reports.
The problem that I see is that most people, journalists and politicians included, have never read the full reports, they are just happy reading the Executive Summaries, which are much more than the original full reports, the results of toing and froing between politicians, a good deal of them not having a clue about science but obviously very keen on defending the interests of their countries. There are some wonderful stories about the interactions between various country representatives, particularly those involving representatives of some oil-producing countries.
February 10, 2020
Hefner, “Strictly speaking, since I said “predictions” not “the science” I am right. Strictly speaking, you are right that politicians and journalists tend not to read the IPCC main scientific reports, which have been fairly consistent, and rather less fanciful than the executive summaries.
February 10, 2020
None of their reports say the world will end in 12 years.
February 11, 2020
Greta is probably considering when to predict it.
February 10, 2020
Wise words indeed……however this situation will continue while government fund climate scientists and appease the green lobby
February 10, 2020
Also many politicians are being paid as consultants to the green lobby (and indeed the HS2 lobby).
February 10, 2020
More likely to appease the Club of Rome?
February 10, 2020
Absolutely marvellous, calling on the Club of Rome but never having a word on the Heartland Institute, Cato Institute, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Heritage Foundation, … (and one of the best for me, the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation) … and thatās only for the US. Their UK equivalents are as expected mainly below the radar or considered on this blog to be the tenants of the āTruthā.
I am old enough basically not to care for myself but would love a bit of sanity for my grand-children. But some hope …
February 10, 2020
Yes. As noted by many Switzerland and Sweden already ‘import’ more emissions than they produce, there is little point in going zero domestically if this does not happen . EU has been talking a carbon border adjustment for some time, but hasn’t implemented and its own ETS has not been that good. A carbon tax with dividend and border adjustment is the way to start, but getting USA and China to not retaliate to border adjustments elsewhere will be tough.
February 10, 2020
Er, first please explain why something that is hugely beneficial (CO2), that is absolutely essential to the continuance of all life on this planet, that has no measurable effect on the climate, should be taxed to extinction? Answers on a postage stamp please.
February 10, 2020
Martin R,
I am not supporting the absolute position that the C building block of life is bad. All I am saying is that if UK is going zero CO2 then it un-levels the playing field as other countries do not. If the UK insists on its policy then it should have border adjustment taxes to relevel.
In terms of the anti-carbon position per se, I do not believe it is well thought through. At the simplest level there is an assumption that non-condensing GHG are effectively a control knob for global warming (and GW then causes other CC). Given H2O being the major GHG and being condensing, under a simple model, one can see that adding more non-condensing GHG would heat up the atmosphere allowing it to hold more water vapour and this, being the bigger effect, would heat up the atmosphere further – hence the fears of positive feedback runaway heating (the additional CO2 is leveraged by the additional water vapour which then reinforces). On the other hand, water vapour can also be a negative feedback depending on cloud formation and height in atmosphere. This is complex and this causes one to seriously question whether current climate models are suitable for policy formation [even in weather forecasting AI pattern recognition can outperform doing the math]. Personally, given that plant growth does respond positively to increased CO2 subject to other constraints (temperature, water, mineral availability, oil based fertilisers etc) and data (as opposed to models) showing world rainfall spatial distribution changing, of course it seems more robust (sensible) to adapt by local changes to crop variety, irrigation/drainage type etc. in order to maximise yield from increased CO2 – but I don’t hear of govts pushing hard to do this.
So to restate, all I am saying is that if the UK is going to turnoff its presumed control knob then the policy ought to include border tax on other countriesā knobs.
February 10, 2020
One might realise that what is debated is not zero CO2, but no net-growth of CO2, say keeping its concentration around 410 ppm (parts per million, which BTW I do not find to be any scarier than a percent).
February 10, 2020
Hefner, Why do you think 410ppm atmospheric CO2 is the optimum? And how are you going to control the sinks and sources? And aren’t you assuming there are no other effects?
February 11, 2020
Hello, did I say it was the optimum? it is what we have got right now. And indeed there are plenty of other effects, but at least I try to inform myself on whether these other effects might induce a positive or a negative feedback, and I try to follow (thatās easy) and understand (thatās much tougher) the scientific developments when they occur.
I also try not to follow any bandwagon specially full of people with a priori biases.
February 11, 2020
Hefner, Yes, you did. You stated “no net-growth of CO2, say keeping its concentration around 410 ppm”. Why would you “keep” CO2 at 410ppm unless you thought that was optimal?
February 10, 2020
That’s is interesting hef.
The IPCC want to reduce the average global temperature back to 1900 ie 350ppm
My thought is if successful at what point would the UN faced with falling global temperatures begin policies to increase CO2 emissions to stop the potentially fatal CO2 fall and freezing temperatures.
February 11, 2020
I think you didnāt understand part of my comment as I had not been clear. Someone had said that ppm (part per million) was not understandable, I was just commenting that 1/10^6 is as easy to understand as part per hundred or percent: 1/10^2, or ppb (part per billion: 1/10^9 or ppt (part per trillion 1/10^12).
February 13, 2020
I cannot see where you get your statement “someone had said that ppm…was not understandable” hef.
I’ve looked above and cannot see anyone saying that.
February 10, 2020
Money and control.
February 10, 2020
Is CO2 the right target. Please apportion the cause of climate change between levels of CO2 and changes in Sun activity. Assuming the level of certainty among climate change worshipers there should be no problem in doing this.
There are much greater pollutants on land, in
the sea and in the atmosphere than plant food CO2. All of them a direct result of human activity and all of them controllable. Can we have an audit of the use of plastic in the UK and EU. USA, India and China, and it’s wonton disposal.
As with speeding, HS2, and now a bridge of very limited usefulness, are we being totally misled at great expense to distract us from the real ills that surround us, crime being just one, and the abysmal infrastructure on our doorstep.
February 10, 2020
Boris and his New Conservatives are great at Grand Gestures – with your money I might add.
But, are beginning to show that they do not have the stature to govern the country so that its people can strive and fulfill their asperations.
Maybe there should be a referendum on any deal negotiated with the EU or the default WTO
February 10, 2020
Has the climate actually changed? From what, to what and when? There has been little movement in UK temperatures over the last 30 years, in spite of rising CO2.
In the 30 years prior to that, temperatures declined, again with rising CO2. Met office summaries show 2019 as the 23rd warmest in the 361 year Central England Temperature record, behind, amongst others, 1868, 1779, 1733, 1834, and 1949.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_mean_sort.txt
The CET annual average declined from 1949 to 1986, by 1.88Ā°C, in spite of an atmospheric CO2 increase of 36.5ppm. There was a sharp rise of 0.72Ā°C in 1988 and a further 0.73Ā°C in 1989, to reach the CET high of 10.63Ā°C in 1990. There has been no trend since, in spite of being told that every year is the hottest on record. Hottest year was 2014, last year was colder than 1990. Temperature has not tracked CO2 increases.
February 10, 2020
you’ll never see that reported on the BBC
February 10, 2020
Exactly. No would a sensible scientist expect it too far too many other factors!
February 10, 2020
And the Stevenson screens that they have taken these hottest ever temperatures do not qualify as their sighting does not meet the necessary standards to obtain accurate temperature readings due to such things as proximity to buildings etc.
February 10, 2020
Oh no!
Don’t confuse the message with facts
This does not suit the narrative,
February 10, 2020
Can I suggest that we have a look at Heliogen and the use of hydrogen as a means of propulsion, before we ban anything more for an electrification system that fails to answer our needs for personal transport.
February 10, 2020
Agricola said: “Is CO2 the right target?” There is an even more basic question: Was the global temperature in 1850 the optimum?
February 10, 2020
if the climate generally got warmer we would use less energy to get warmer!
February 10, 2020
Indeed, what exactly is the correct global temperature?
February 10, 2020
One will soonish know, as we are or we will soon be moving from one solar cycle to another, with potential impact on solar irradiance and according to the latest theory potential increase in cosmic rays leading to more and more reflecting cloudiness, therefore giving a cooling. A typical solar cycle is 11 years, the cosmic rays theory does not really say much how and whether an increase in cosmic rays is actually synchronous with a solar cycle.
Well I would think around 2025-6 we should all have a better picture of this link. I just hope we will all still be around to see who won or lost their bets.
February 10, 2020
Let’s see irrefutable evidence that CO2 is causing climate change. You need to convince everyone that reducing CO2 is going to make a beneficial difference before you bankrupt us all!
If there is irrefutable evidence, then let’s penalise those who cause the most, ie. those food producers who pump CO2 into their greenhouses (please also explain why that is necessary?). Those who fly here, there, and everywhere virtually every day of the week. Plant trees instead of ripping them up for wind farms. There are many changes that could reduce costs instead of bankrupting everyone with massive changes to every house and business in the country.
February 10, 2020
It boosts plant growth.
They want to grow and sell lots of lettuce!
February 10, 2020
Iceberg or Cos?
February 10, 2020
C o 2 captures the suns heat in the atmosphere hence the rise in temperatures. The question as I see it is to what effect that is man made.
Scientific arguments. I donāt care. I am getting fed up with quasi experts. My common sense tells me that human beings pouring vast unnecessary amounts into the atmosphere is not beneficial and should be stopped.
Yesterday Sir J R was quite happy to tell us that we couldnāt expect the police to keep us safe, whilst of course sending umpteen billions abroad, much wasted and to some nations that are wealthy in their own right. Now we have a government determined to hammer us financially on green taxes, boiler replacement etc whilst the rest of the world suffocates us.
When will this/any government put the citizens of the U.K. first?
February 10, 2020
If you want to stop say bush fires in Australia or Hurricane damage in the Carabean they do you A. reduce manmade C02 by very little and at great cost, then wait many years and pray or B. removed the flammable materials near to housing and build stronger houses in hurricane areas with escape basements. The first will almost certainly not work and cost billions the second will clearly work and would cost at least 1/1,000,000 less. Adaptation is the way to go as the climate changes (hotter or colder, wetter or drier) as it always has done.
February 10, 2020
But what do you do when there is no irrefutable evidence? Not a shred of credible evidence at all in fact? Then you resort to scaremongering and hysteria. And bullying and strong arm tactics, as many scientists and researchers who have given the lie to climate alarmism have found to their cost.
February 10, 2020
Martin R, do you have a list of all these atmospheric/oceanographic/solar physicist scientists and researchers who have given the lie to climate alarmism and were bullied and/or strong armed to recant their position.
Thanks in advance.
February 10, 2020
In the nineties I was alerted that something fishy was going on. That information happened to came by way of the late Chris Tame, Director of the Libertarian Alliance. Up to that time I like most people took for granted what I had been told about climate change. It didn’t even occur to me to think I had been lied to.
Since then I accumulated thousands of articles, graphs, etc., on every aspect relating to climate and the climate scam. Every day I review the output of different power sources, renewables, etc. If you have an open mind you can do what I did for two and a half decades. The information is all there on the internet for anyone prepared to do the research, anyone reasonably intelligent. But I won’t do it for you, it’s up to you to make the effort.
February 10, 2020
Yes, Ā£7k for a battery Storage unit to tack onto solar panels. Where do politicians think ordinary people on low or medium incomes are going to get this kind of money? They are all living in another world.
February 10, 2020
A Ā£7k battery might perhaps store perhaps just Ā£2 of electricity when fully charges. But the battery might depreciate at perhaps Ā£3 per day! Make the stored electricity rather pricey! It will perhaps also waste about 30% of the energy stored too in the charge and discharge!
It is economic lunacy!
February 10, 2020
only useful for an unsatisfactory and unreliable supply.
February 10, 2020
Shirley, There is no evidence that CO2 is a simple direct thermostatic controller of the global temperature.
There is plenty of evidence to show: that in isolation CO2 is a greenhouse gas (GHG); that man is emitting about 37bn tons of CO2 annually (2018); that about half of what man emits is absorbed – so half isn’t; that the amount man emits annually is tiny in comparison to the CO2 sinks; that this tiny amount is materially affecting the “free” (ie atmospheric) balance of CO2.
The adherents of CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming) are almost all activists and/or politicians, not scientists. CAGW promoters assume that overall the climate has a positive feedback from CO2; and that the temperature in 1850 (thereabouts) is the optimum. Neither of those are true.
February 10, 2020
No respected scientist claimed that it was a simple anything at all.
February 11, 2020
Martin, All the CAGW activists do.
February 10, 2020
NickC, you are really pig-headed: how many times do you need to be told that 1850 is neither the optimum or the worse temperature. It is the date when a large number of meteorogical stations started to report their observations in a standardized format, therefore the beginning of long-term archives of these measurements.
February 11, 2020
Hefner, False. There is no point in complaining about recent global warming if the optimum won’t be reached until, say, 2152. Therefore the optimum is critical. If you claim we have warmed, it must be because you think the pre-warming temperature was optimal.
February 13, 2020
The MetOffice started their daily archive on 03/09/1860, before that it was relying on private weather diaries. The site datarevue.climate.copernicus.eu (in one of its subChapters) will give you the dates when various measurements were started to be āoperationallyā collected in various locations on land and sea.
How does one want to make any comparison if one does not have a base for such comparison? It has nothing to do with 1850 or any date after being an optimum.
February 10, 2020
Shirley
+1
February 10, 2020
Well said.
My main beef is that at ground zero fumes from motor vehicles within built up areas are a health hazard.In particular vehicles which are parked with their engines running.
My other main beef is the disposal of waste. I live in a block of flats.The waste is not sorted before collection.I suspect it all goes to landfill.
February 10, 2020
Councils where charged to set systems in place for the recycling of waste but NOT its disposal. We now have different colour bins but the waste all ends up in the same landfill. Tick box exercise completed, they have a system in place, and no fines to councils.
February 10, 2020
Plug in hybrids that can do the city bit on a 30 mile range battery is the best solution for city air with current technology for most people anyway.
February 10, 2020
MPs should try to focus instead on important and pressing matters.
February 10, 2020
The Tories conned the British Public into giving them an 80 seat majority and now it’s on with BRINO & continuing their globalist agenda. Every announcement they made last week is opposed by most of the people that voted for them and their green policies are nothing short of lunacy.
This is what happens when you allow yourselves to be browbeaten into the binary two party con trick and by the time you realise that both of the parties are controlled by a little old man behind a curtain it will be too late, and recovery from the disastrous consequences with be long and painful.
Call me Toto.
February 10, 2020
The electorate needs to vote for single issue parties rather than trying to pick a winner from one of the main two.
February 10, 2020
Bob, Exactly right. There is really very little difference between Boris and Corbyn. Depressing, isn’t it?
February 10, 2020
One might be mad with unstable policies, and the other might be unstable and has mad policies. But which is which?
February 10, 2020
These are the same campaigner mentality as CND. Only the west should disarm only in this case impoverish ourselves.
I note St. Greta of Thunberg isn’t in Tiananmen square shouting her mouth off.
February 10, 2020
Indeed she could walk or cycle there perhaps. Nor indeed is David Attenborough or Prince (where’s my helicopter and private jet) Charles.
Surprising that I have not heard anyone blame the Corona Virus on global warming as yet? It can only be a matter of time.
February 10, 2020
Funny you should say that. I think you’re right. I wonder why?
February 10, 2020
Ian, Yes it’s odd isn’t it? According to our resident Remains “young people” object to us leaving the EU because – so they imagine – it “will make us poorer”. Yet at the same time “young people” like Greta Thunberg really do want to make us poorer by banning “fossil” fuels and the industrial/capitalist system that has universally lifted mankind from poverty over the last 200 years.
February 10, 2020
The word you are missing is āpointlessly,ā
Brexit makes us āpointlesslyā poorer than we would otherwise be. There is zero gain and much unnecessary pain. Particularly for your children and grandchildren – who will undo Brexit in due course anyway.
Tackling the climate emergency also makes us poorer – but not pointlessly so. Our choice is simple – we pay the bill, which is big. Or we face the consequences, which are bigger. It is not a hard equation.
Your generation has left us a poisoned legacy. We will put things right.
February 10, 2020
Andy, If you are in your mid 40s, as you claim, then your generation has also helped to make your claimed “poisoned legacy” – you’ve had 25 years as an adult. Even more so as the pensioners you hate actually did live in a much poorer and more sustainable era than you do.
Your view that we will be poorer as a result of leaving the EU is entirely imaginary. You have no proof at all. Firstly, no-one but God “knows” the future; secondly, because the forecasters you rely on for your false confidence have been demonstrably and recklessly wrong all along.
I believe we will be better off out. The evidence is that UK GDP growth post WW2 pre-1973 was higher than our growth post-1973, and less volatile. Moreover most countries believe they are better off independent – and there’s no reason it should be different for the UK.
February 10, 2020
Poorer is a prediction made by economists.
Actually the reports say that growth will still happen.
They guess that it might have been a bit higher had we remained in the EU.
So still richer but not quite as rich.
Do you understand the difference andy?
February 10, 2020
I thought you were telling us it is too late, at least young Greta thinks so.
February 11, 2020
There is no climate emergency. Nothing has occurred outwith the historic range of weather or temperature extremes. Learn a bit of climate history and expand your range of reading on the subject.
My generation and all the generations before have left the current population with greater benefits and riches than their grandparents could ever have dreamed of, mostly through the use of fossil fuels.
February 10, 2020
Not that you are likely to hear any of this real science from the absurd BBC. They are an anti-scientific, climate alarmist, propaganda outfit. It is a shame that Boris now seems to have been taken in by this BBC/Attenborough type of drivel too.
A shame too that his clearly socialist Chancellor Javid is looking to increase taxes and borrowing and then largely piss it down the drain on things like HS2 and greencrap subsidies. This at a time when the country is crying out for completely the opposite policy.
February 10, 2020
The USA Solar Orbiter probe has been launched successfully and has left Earth’s immediate environment and is powering towards the sun. I watched it but a couple of hours ago.
I did not listen to one single broadcast by British media nor any MPs speech about anything on Earth or elsewhere for days. If I, no longer care a jot about British political talk, and I genuinely don’t, after decades of such a bad habit (with the exception of JR’s) then England is up to the neck in Seawater not caused by Alice in Wonderland Global Warming but it’s body politic suffering hallucinations. It is.
February 10, 2020
@Sane Person; The Solar Orbiter probe is a UK/ESA mission, other than the launch vehicle the USA had little involvement.
February 10, 2020
CO2 is not a problem and this post is a waste of time.
February 10, 2020
Exactly. Not even a good idea politically!
Set up some sound independent climate realist scientists with funding to debunk the absurd alarmism. Also get the BBC to be balanced on this issue they are totally absurd currently!
February 10, 2020
Proof is required, not hearsay.
Unless you can prove your claim, then the Precautionary Principle indicates that something must be done to forestall the deduced probable risks.
February 10, 2020
So spend trillions just in case.
Blomburg gives a good account of the alternative spending which could eliviate human suffering whilst still reducing most of effects of possible increased future temperatures.
February 11, 2020
Martin. If you are wrong then the consequences will be even worse.
February 11, 2020
Following the precautionary principle we would all still be living in caves, if not trees.
February 11, 2020
Rubbish.
February 10, 2020
F U S
From this post one must assume you are totally pissed off with all of this CO2 crap?
February 10, 2020
Fus,
Absolutely right. My inclination was to say to Sir John “NotU2”, but I am hoping that today’s article was to reveal the differing feelings of contributors rather, I hope, than his personal beliefs.
HS2 good. CO2 bad, seems to be the belief of too many politicians. Combined, the intended action looks likely to totally bankrupt the UK, whilst the almost total lack of concern about CO2 emissions in the USA will mean that Trump’s second term in office will deliver dynamic economic growth, the likes of which are desperately needed in the UK.
Common sense by those in power is now more necessary than ever.
February 10, 2020
Poor Little Greta says that nobody has done anything so that’s why we have to force people to give up their cars and central heating.
February 10, 2020
and stop going to school?
February 10, 2020
I think the Government have simply lost the plot on this one, and will eventually commit political suicide if it continues with the environmental policies suggested recently.
Far too much, far too quickly for our own good.
February 10, 2020
Alan Jutson, Very true. So far we have had the non-Brexit Brexit on 31 Jan, then a torrent of green lunacy. It’s certainly not what I voted for.
February 10, 2020
We have a previous history of needing to save the world even if it does not need saving. The Crusades were similar in the past. Good intentions, but in reality killing people.
February 10, 2020
The Crusades were a French invention.
February 10, 2020
If CO2 reduction is the objective, then the government should ban steel and concrete building, rather than petrol and diesel engines.
The obsession with CO2 reduction is a distraction from the pollution problem, which really should be tackled.
It’s people that produce pollution, so the government policy should be to stop immigration. That’s the best way we can do our bit.
February 10, 2020
You’ve left. Move on. It’s getting embarassing.
February 10, 2020
Tab – – you don’t have to read or post – thinking about that myself.
February 10, 2020
Whut???
February 10, 2020
CO2 is beneficial for the environment because it helps promote plant growth. That evident from both practical experience (greenhouses) and satellite observation. Below about 150ppm these processes no longer work. The connection between global warming and CO2 is an assertion not a law of science (or guess as the late Professor Feynman famously put it). Brainwash (the preferred and default policy option of the the UK political class) is no substitute for hard, practical thinking.
February 10, 2020
Good morning
A very tongue in cheek article today.
The reason why the West is under attack from theses Ecoloons and zealots is two fold. Greed and the knowledge that their actions are supported by the elected governments. We are being deliberately led into dystopia. Any decent is slowly being crushed. If you speak out you will be hounded and bullied into silence and even forced from your job.
Reading many of the posts both here and elsewhere one gets the distinct impression that disappointment in this government has already set in. This is neither a good start or sign.
February 10, 2020
Hear, hear – well put, Mark B
I feel weāre now in volume two of Alice in Wonderland, volume one being the insanity that went on (and to an extent still is from Brussels) as we were trying to exit the EU!
February 10, 2020
Brussels is anti competitive and demand what they call a level playing field.
Pity they do not put their own in order on reducing CO2 emissions, as you point out we are way ahead of them.
I hope you and other MP’s refuse to grant any fishing rights in our regained waters. We need to let them recover and be sustainable once again.
Baltic States in the EU have no rights ti fish in our waters. Follow Iceland’s example.
February 10, 2020
All blindingly obvious to an impartial observer.
The trouble is that climate change activism/awareness/awokeness or whatever term is in favour, has the some of the attributes of religious fanaticism. Logic, objectivity, common sense and compassion are in short supply. The apocalypse is coming- ā we must punish ourselves!ā, the true believers cry (whether this is an effective way of tackling the problem they perceive or not).
And then the politics follows, with even our new government playing along. Offering our automotive industry as a sacrifice, and the rest. This government has a mandate from sensible, often poorer, people who will stand to lose by reactionary attacks on our manufacturing and energy generating industries. Just like they stood to lose from unfettered immigration by low paid workers. After a few years of that, they stood up to the establishment. Is that going to happen again at the next election, or the following one?
February 10, 2020
Of course it is correct to point out that CO2 emissions have fallen in the UK and the US, they coninue to increase a lot in China and India and many other non-western countries ( and some western ones, quite a few in the EU.). But its disingeneous to say this without pointing out why this is the case.
Quite correctly from their perspective China, India and many other countries want to improve the health and living standards of the citizens. Fossil-based fuel has powered the western increases in living standards, and is now doing the same elsewhere. It is only the twisted motives of some in the west who would deny the rest the same opportunities.
Turning to the UK’s drop in CO2 emissions, this is down to the switch from coal to gas power electricity generation in the main. Plus significant out-sourcing of industrial manufacturing to places in Asia which generally use fossil fuel electricity generation. The uk has exported its emissions to countries with lower efficiency and probably overall increased emissions globally.
Does any of this matter? Climate-wise not at all, unless you want to get paranoid about 0.8C/century average temperature increases, most of which are caused by slight increases in winter and nightime minimums. However the increase in atmospheric CO2 from say 3290ppm to just over 400ppm has helped create about an extra 14% in plant growth on land and increases in plankton in oceans. That is good, not bad.
We shouldn’t export our extremists or pseudo-religious biggots anywhere else. We should recover the ability to think and analyse real data and reduce our over-reactions to computer model produced rubbish. We should plug our ears to the din produced by the media who are complicit in amplifying any sort of climate hysteria to generate ‘clicks’.
Its up to politicians such as yourself to remember that science is not subject to consensus, that is politics. Science is about continually questioning and trying to disprove hypothesis until repeatable experimental evidence is available. Science is most definitely not computer modelling with unproven and untested assumptions.
February 10, 2020
I know it is anathema to free marketers and goes against the tariff free cries of leaving the EU but why don’t we put tariffs on those countries that give themselves an advantage over us by not cutting their carbon emissions?
There is either a problem or there is not. If not let us stop self flagellating with added costs and regulations to assuage campaigners. If there is then paying more for our imported toys and tat is reasonable, tariffs evens the playing field with the costs we have imposed on ourselves.
February 10, 2020
No, that would just amount to self-flagellation for no benefit.
February 10, 2020
Of the worlds three main economies, China, the USA and the EU, the EU is by far the least polluting. The UK has indeed done well in ending coal powered electricity but we are a predominantly service economy only doing last stage manufacturing
We import and consume goods and components where the carbon output is allocated elsewhere but the benefit derived here so this sort of comparison is not very meaningful.
This is an issue which has to be tacked internationally for this and other reasons and as the UK has chosen to have no voice on the world stage , what we may think about other people doesn’t matter much .Welcome to little England
February 10, 2020
Newie
Of the three main economies the EU is the second worst
The USA is by far the least polluting of the three
The UK service economy is 80% of GDP , The French Service Economy is 80% of GDP the German service economy is 70% the manufacturing sector in Germany is reliant on dirty coal ( lignite) power generation
Youre welcome
February 10, 2020
I am very disappointed with you, Libertarian, usually you have your facts right(ish) but clearly not this time:
China represents 27.5% of emissions, the USA 14.7% and the EU 9.33% (2018 figures). Per capita it is tricky as China is 8.0 metric tonnes, the USA is 16.1, the UK is 5.6, and countries within the EU27 vary between Luxembourg 16.9, Netherlands 9.5, Norway 9.4, Belgium 9.2, Germany 9.1, Poland 8.8, Austria 8.2, Bulgaria 6.3, Spain 6.0, Italy 5.8, Denmark 5.8, France 5.0, Italy 5.8, Sweden 4.5, Romania 4.1, … all figures for 2018 from the EDGAR database (you can get it from eea.europa.eu).
Donāt mention it.
February 10, 2020
Just goes to show how little effect the UK will have on the overall climate by getting to net zero.
As Blackadder’s general said to him…we need a futile gesture.
February 10, 2020
Newmania, On the contrary, by leaving the EU, the UK has positively chosen to restore our voice on the world stage. Witness the UK seat at the WTO.
February 10, 2020
NASA have reported (from a Boston University study) that increasing levels of CO2 have resulted in huge plant growth across the globe:
āThe greening over the past 33 years reported in this study is equivalent to adding a green continent about two-times the size of mainland USA (18 million km2)ā¦ā
It seems the ecosystem is balancing itself without human intervention. Governments should just stick to reducing pollution at every level and stop trying to fool us that they can adjust the temperature of the globe within an accuracy of 0.5c to suit their targets. Sheer political arrogance. Why is the current climate the optimal anyway?
February 10, 2020
Remember the hole in the ozone layer? That closed up by itself too!
February 10, 2020
Really? You are arguing it had nothing to do with the 1987 Montreal Protocol?
February 10, 2020
No, because the world agreed to ban chlorofluorocarbons.
It still has a long way to go too.
February 10, 2020
The politics of this is interesting. Johnson, weak, virtue signalling pandering to the green lobby, selling his country out. Trump, strong fighting in every way for his countryās people. I know who I would want on my side.
February 10, 2020
We would all like cleaner air, but that is not the aim of the eco-zealots. They want us to emulate life as it was in the Middle ages.
These same people will never see any sort of balance – They pick on easy targets and shame politicians into action.
The science they use is questionable, but who in authority questions them?
We live in a PC world where going against established liberal views is bad for the career – so all the zealots have to do is keep turning up the pressure, aided by establishment MSM, but assumptions made of computer generated and fiddled statistics never get questioned.
February 10, 2020
And yet BEIS reported that our UK air pollution has reduced dramatically since 1970ā¦our air has never been cleaner. Source research by Ricardo Energy & Environment for government dept BEIS published in their annual report
February 11, 2020
you will of course lend a sympathetic ear to all the people dying of lung issues in hospital and hospices. They will be happier knowing ‘it used to be worse’.
February 10, 2020
“After our departure [the EU] account[s] for around 8 times our [carbon dioxide] output with a higher output per head.”
This brings us back to the ālevel playing fieldā clause (Clause 77) of the Political Declaration (āPDā), which refers to the areas of state aid, competition, social and employment standards, environment, climate change, and relevant tax matters. In the area of state aid, in his recent Greenwich speech, Boris Johnson said that France and Germany spend, respectively, two and three times as much as the UK. On the subject of public procurement, critics have long alleged a discrepancy between theory and practice in the application of the rules of Level Playing Field 1.0 (the Single Market). Now, as regards environmental policy, you report the above. These should all serve as reminders – as if the People’s Vote itself were not enough – that the UK Government should not be submitting to Level Playing Field 2.0.
P.S.: 326 days till the Conservatives’ gift to the EU of legislative power over the UK expires; or,
1,056 days if Boris offers it the three-year, “premium vassalage”, upgrade.
February 10, 2020
Kevin, Well said all round.
February 10, 2020
I understand your government is now proposing to make gas boilers illegal ‘within a decade’. This is the most outrageous of BJ’s climate proposals. Gas heating is by far the most efficient and economic way of heating our homes and with the high take up of newer condensing boilers the emissions are minimal. Changing to electric will increase household budgets several times, not to mention the increase in electricity generation needed to power this and all the electric cars supposedly being charged.
I agree with our host, we have done enough ourselves and now should be turning our attention to those countries who have not. Not that there is even a ‘climate emergency’ in the first place.
February 10, 2020
If you could go back in time and you told the inhabitants that there was a constituent in air that comes from the bodies of all dead life and then passes into the bodies of all new life to make it grow, you would find that they would worship it as a God particle.
Nowadays CO2 is regarded as a Devil particle. How times change.
February 10, 2020
Rather than our country committing economy suicide we should be concentrating our efforts on what we do best, which is inventing a clean, renewable energy source we can export to the rest of the world. Our Government seem to have lost the plot and been infected with the Greta virus. I despair.
February 10, 2020
JR
Lecturing the EU on how to reduce their carbon levels?
Per capita their emissions are no worse than ours – in fact France does rather better at 5.2 per capita against our 5.7 and the EU as a whole comes in at 7.o – so we are hardly in a position to lecture them. And Germany at 9.7 per cent is not much worse seeing the amount the country produces in goods with the world’s highest export record compared to ours. In fact maybe we should take advice from countries like Ukraine who produce only 4.7%.
Seeing we are hoping to hitch our wagon post Brexit onto the US economy and those of commonwealth countries it is more appropriate to compare ourselves to those countries. Now the US produced a whopping 15.7% , Canada 16.9% and Australia 16.5%. Shocking figures.
Even you hyped reduction levels don’t stack up when compared to other countries. Our 35.5% don’t look too good when compared to, say Ukraine again who have managed 73.7″
So as Mark Twain is supposed to have said:
There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics.
February 10, 2020
Maggie
Germany is reliant on burning dirty coal ( lignite) for its power and France has abundant nuclear power , we’re trying to do it with windmills
So yes the EU needs to be taken to task
February 11, 2020
Libby
“The UKās reliance on importing French power to keep the lights on has increased by almost a quarter this year in further evidence of Britainās energy cost crunch.
Meanwhile, nuclear power plants have flooded France with cheap electricity which is being sold at a tidy profit to struggling British suppliers.”
Daily Telegraph
As regards us ‘trying to do it with windmills’
Germany has 21,607 wind turbines against our 4,148.
Second comes Spain and we are 3rd with France in 4th place.
In addition Denmark produce 90% of the world’s wind turbines.
February 10, 2020
Do you think the planet thinks, oh well that’s OK then because of the per capita percentages Margaret quotes.
It is the CO2 emissions in tonnes going into the air that creates the problem
And I’m not surprised Ukraine looks good.
It is a low population mainly agricultural nation compared to America Germany and UK.
Your last sentence sums up the many and varied claims in this area.
February 10, 2020
Ukraine is a poor example to use -it’s population has seen substantial decline(no-one seems to know exactly what it is these days) and it’s economy,although apparently stabilising last year,has been in free fall-by end 2018 the country had fallen below Moldava as Europe’s poorest county .
February 10, 2020
I am surprised you can even write straight Maggie.
The EU average is 25% higher than ours and there are 450 million of them as you are often quick to point out.
Germany is nearly double our CO2 output and yet you let them off with a “Hey ho”
Could you hate your own country any more?
February 10, 2020
I’m sure she will allege she is a patriot!
February 10, 2020
Margaret H, Weren’t you telling us that the UK leaving the EU would be catastrophic? And here we at the start of the transition, and the thing that has really hit our economy is the coronavirus in China, not Brexit. So much for the so-called importance of your polluting corrupt dirigiste EU.
February 11, 2020
Mags your post is a joke. Ukraine? You are having a laugh.
February 11, 2020
Feduup
Yes, I was.
February 10, 2020
Say…for example…a group of elites sought global governance how useful it would be to discover a common enemy to unite all nations and persuade them to relinquish their sovereignty.
Dire warnings of imminent planetary implosion allegedly caused by human activity ( activity imposed on humanity by previous elites) would fit the bill.
We saw similar with Project Fear…just manipulation based on nothing.
We kind of left the EU but the CO2 mania proves that there are much greater forces at work determined to control us.
February 10, 2020
Spot on, Everhopeful.
Except – they’re NOT ”elite”.
February 10, 2020
Using the EU methodology of a rule book and standards to block trade from competitive nations.
Shouldn’t the UK now require a CO2 certificate for all goods sold in the UK. Not just the CO2 in the use of a product, but the CO2 in its production (including that of 2nd & 3rd parties) and delivery to market.
It is dishonest the way it is done at the moment in that a small part of the equation is used to reflect on a products suitability.
The UK doesn’t need to go as far as the EU’s playbook goes in its isolation and barriers against the World, but, if the consumer was informed of the true facts they could make informed choices. The Consumer is far better at causing change than the petty bickering of governments.
February 10, 2020
Ian
“The UK doesnāt need to go as far as the EUās playbook goes in its isolation and barriers against the World,”
If these rules are so harmful to trade how come the EU has become the world largest, wealthiest trading bloc?
Or is its success due to the fact that sophisticated consumers across the globe prefer to buy goods that have a reputation for high quality rather than the “buy Chinese, buy twice” mentality?
And that its workers earn a decent wage and work in a safe, regulated environment?
February 10, 2020
Margaret, And every year that goes by the EU’s share of world GDP, and global trade, sinks lower and lower.
February 10, 2020
Because they have Germany and France and Holland.
And they used to have the UK.
The remaining growth is through growing from 6 to 28 members.
February 10, 2020
Margaret
As you’ve been told multiple times the EU IS NOT the largest wealthiest trading block NAFTA is much larger and wealthier than the EU
February 11, 2020
Libby
NAFTA – Canada – America – Mexico?
You mean the trading bloc where one of its main members is building an 8m high fence to keep its other “partner” out?
You must be joking. Can’t imagine they’ll have a ‘Schengen’ any time soon.
February 11, 2020
The wall doesn’t have any affect on trade.
It just stops illegal immigration.
February 10, 2020
I bet China and India are laughing all the way to economic superiority as the West allows its economies to be hamstrung by climate change extremists.
February 10, 2020
Off topic, the Irish election shows further evidence of the worrying trend for electorates in EU countries to cast votes in large numbers for political extremists.
February 10, 2020
Richard1
Indeed across large parts of the EU 27 the workers are totally fed up with the ruling establishments obsession with the EU
Ive been working in France the last few weeks, the mood is very ugly and many many Frexit posters can be seen adorning roadsides and walls
February 10, 2020
Libertarian
‘Ive been working in France the last few weeks, the mood is very ugly and many many Frexit posters can be seen adorning roadsides and walls”
Yes and rather disgustingly it’s blocked from media coverage. Same too for coverage of fighting on French streets between firemen and gendarmerie.
The EU is geo-blocking this all this stuff, much the same as any pariah does during it’s last days of power.
The EU is in trouble, and what many have warned of over the years will come to pass……that the federalist projekt would lead to implosion.
Give it time and we will see many an official attempting to do one with the money.
Or, like many dictatorships come to grief by doing something really desperate in their last days. Thank God we got out when we did.
February 13, 2020
Stevie dear, Thatās wrong. I donāt know whether EU does anything but the information is available in all French newspapers, on the various radio channels available in France (France Inter, France Info, RTL, Sud Radio, …), on the Le Monde and France Info web sites.
Right now the incidents are not so much related to the gilets jaunes (which were not particularly linked to trade-unions) but to the attempted reforms of the pensions (with a noticeable presence of the trade-unions).
If you donāt get the info in the UK, could that be a UK problem? What about learning French and/or German to read that/listen to it for yourself?
And stop pretending you know anything about āgeo-blockingā, that borders on (word edited).
February 10, 2020
Richard
Can you give us some examples? And how do they compare to the 2-party American state with the Republican party under their ultra nationalist president Trump?
Have any of them erected 8 meter high fences against their neighbouring countries yet?
Reply EU countries have erected large amounts of border fence
February 10, 2020
Reply to reply
Yes, to keep out refugees who have flooded into Europe because of the Middle East wars starting with the US/UK illegal invasion of Iraq.
February 10, 2020
hmm…..odd how they are in the main all young males.
Fleeing their home nations not for safety but for a better life in Europe.
February 11, 2020
armed with wads of US dollars and the latest mobile phones.
February 10, 2020
Maggs
Heres an example from your beloved Germany
Angela Merkelās designated successor has announced she is not planning to run for the German chancellorship at the next federal election and plans to step down as leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), German media reported on Monday morning.
The surprise announcement comes in the middle of a major row over the centre-right partyās āfirewallā against the far-right, after CDU delegates in eastern Germany defied the party headquarterās ban on cooperating with the Alternative fĆ¼r Deutschland (AfD).
Questions over her control over an increasingly divided CDU returned to the fore last week, when politicians from the partyās branch in Thuringia voted with the far right AfD to oust the stateās premier Bodo Ramelow
The EU has built 1,000km of border walls reports The Independent
You need to get out more Margaret
February 10, 2020
MH
“Have any of them erected 8 meter high fences against their neighbouring countries yet?”
You obviously haven’t heard of Viktor Orban.
February 10, 2020
Can someone please explain what is wrong with having a secure border? The USA has a problem with illegal immigration from Mexico, existing measures to combat it aren’t working, so they’re going to try something new.
Borders are necessary. This site’s regular EU fans often insisted on a secure border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
February 10, 2020
‘ trend for electorates in EU countries to cast votes in large numbers for political extremists.’
I’m not surprised, in fact we probably would have voted out 20 years ago, but the naive youngsters driven by the peace and love and green spoiled that chance.
February 10, 2020
During 2018 and 2019 I have been asking as many people as possible ā as many as will reply ā what they think the Carbon Dioxide percentage is of the atmosphere. Usually they reply saying they do not know so I ask them to guess the figure in view of the forecast of the ā climate emergency issueā. Only one or two have refused. The maximum estimate of 70% came from a very bright property developer and the lowest is 1%. The average of all the figures is just over 15%. One senior Tory Politician and ex minister said ā I donāt really know but I think it is about 60%ā The actual concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.04% When they learn the actual figure they are reluctant to believe it. But they check quite simply and see it is right. They then ask what all the fuss is about. My only response is āExactlyā.
Why has the public, including Greta Thunberg, been so fooled
February 10, 2020
Mr Redwood
I think that most of the these comments should be printed out and shown to Boris Johnson.
The comments made, show many people to be far better informed than the government appear to be.
And these views and comments are widely typical of what Iām seeing elsewhere, as said too by another reader earlier on.
February 10, 2020
Maybe its time for the government to actually educate the public of these facts….maybe a public broadcast or a full page in newspapers
February 10, 2020
Ferdinand, Because it seems that some people cannot do without a substitute religion. And in post-Christian Britain that means the new god is the EU or CO2.
February 10, 2020
Not ”fooled” so much as ”coerced”.
February 10, 2020
Ignore CO2. Ban diesels soon as possible -2030? Ban them in cities 2022.
Subsidise replacement of gas boilers with only the best models Bosch Worcester or Vaillant.
Provide free loft insulation fitted -via local councils. Subsidise replacement windows where no double glazing exists. Increase duty on diesel, reduce on petrol.
All councils should have a target tree planting budget from government.
Local bus services should be subsidised.
Fly tipping should be fined double, and have vehicle assets confiscated on non payment.
February 10, 2020
why ban any fuel engine…..the government via BEIS report that our air has never been cleaner….therefore no problem
February 10, 2020
stand outside inner city schools during rush hours and after you stop coughing, sneezing and eyes watering you might suspect all that traffic just might have something to do with it.
February 11, 2020
And yet scientific researched evidence submitted to and published by BEIS charts clearly show all particulates of pollution are down from the 1970s, go to BEIS website
February 11, 2020
so we should console all the asthmatics and people who will die from lung disease/cancer by saying ‘but it was worse 50 years ago’.
or even it was worse we had the pea-soupers in the 1950s.
But of course diesel engines were quite rare by comparison.
February 10, 2020
What is your problem with diesel? My wife’s modern diesel car has less emissions than nearly all petrol cars and produces less Co2. The government should instead have insisted that all new vehicles should have catalytic converters and AdBlue systems. Loughborough University recently developed a miniaturised and low temperature version to be used on vehicle systems which would potentially have made millions, however they have now probably been completely undermined by virtual signalling politicians and lobbyists.
February 10, 2020
Are you paying?
February 10, 2020
indirectly – YES.
February 10, 2020
I have a diesel and my road tax is zero due to low CO2 emissions!! My aunt had a (named electric vehicle ed) and her road tax was in excess of Ā£250. Whilst on charge over night the car caught fire and thank goodness it wasnāt parked in the garage! Took the fire men over five hours to extinguish the flames because the car kept reigniting due to the chemicals in the battery and they only had water available to them, they basically watched the car burn itself out in a controlled way. Tesla have still not provided an explanation!! She now has a diesel and pays zero car tax.
February 10, 2020
In the names of fairness and balance these pressure groups should tackle the biggest ‘polluters’ but why should they bother when they are pushing at an open door here and can claim success easily.
They demand a target for this or that and as if by prior arrangement government falls in line. It could be said it tries to beat them at their own game.
Opponents are treated with disdain and hostility. Government, and by this I include our globalist PM and virtue signaller press on. The idea that Boris is a distrupter and on the side of common sense is a fantasy.
February 10, 2020
If I say I’m sick of the demonisation of CO2 no doubt I’ll be labelled a “denier”. Nevertheless, life as we know it on earth couldn’t exist without CO2. Carbon is the backbone of life. Yet daily we are bombarded with threats to our future if we don’t “become carbon neutral” or some other such slogan. We have a 17 year old Swedish school girl touring the western world lecturing all and sundry about what we should be doing and many politicians and members of our own Royal family supporting and parroting her utterances. We have extinction rebellion causing chaos. It is reported that some of the protesters are paid to so do. Who is financing all these events and why? Why do some of those sold on the idea that ‘greenhouse gasses’ are responsible for increases in the earth’s temperature ignore all other explanations and even want to replace burning carbon products with burning hydrogen, thereby producing water vapour the most abundant greenhouse gas?
It seems our Johnson government has swallowed all of this and we shall be forced to pay a very heavy price for the plethora of ill-thought out schemes and initiatives in the pipeline.
It surprises me that when people can see how incompetent much of government is around the world that they believe that politicians are capable of controlling the temperature of the earth like some kind of human thermostat.
February 10, 2020
Yes after years of giving us all so-called “Guilt Trips” the extremists and BBC don’t criticise India and China but USA and UK instead.
Folks are just punch drunk with it!
Meanwhile we give these countries foreign aid….
When there’s no news a controversy keeps 24/7 broadcasting relevant by MSM.
February 10, 2020
I doubt that any advice will be welcome to the EU.
February 10, 2020
WL – – good luck with that!
February 10, 2020
The climate change scam has nothing to do with data nor statistics .
It is all political to achieve a UN led World Government funded by climate levies.
If there were a real emergency then the cause and effect would be easily identifiable and there would be no need for the BBC propaganda and false claims of climate change .This nonsense has obviously infected the whole Johnson family like a corona virus .
What a tragedy . I wonāt be around to see the end game but grand children are being infected now in schools and universities .
February 10, 2020
Man of Kent, If there was a real climate emergency the rich and powerful would be leading the way, not finger-wagging at the rest of us. Instead they buy seaside chalets, yachts, personal jets, and large gas-guzzlers.
February 10, 2020
‘the rich and powerful’ don’t give a shit – oops sorry – a fig for the rest of us.
February 10, 2020
Sir John
To solve the non existing problem of global warming we are about to spend several trillion pounds going all electric in heating and transport in the next fifteen years. Except we are not! From the comments on your blog it is clear that your readers are aware that we cannot build the generating capacity needed and will soon be struggling to keep the lights on after closing reliable coal stations. I despair that the Conservatives are prepared to virtue signal to the Greens and St Greta with this nonsense.
Roger
February 10, 2020
Loud applause for this reasoned, balanced, correct response. The Conservatives need again to embrace the facts or they will again become irrelevant as they began to do with Brexit.
February 10, 2020
Interesting, according to various sources, the EDGAR database (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research), the knoema.com website and Wikipedia (all in rather good agreement), the CO2 per capita per country (evolution from 1980 to 2018) are (in metric tonnes):
China 1.o to 8.0
USA 20.8 to 16.1
UK 10.3 to 5.6
Australia 15.0 to 16.8
NZ 5.6 to 7.7
India 0.5 to 1.9
Singapore 13.0 to 9.7
Japan 8.1 to 9.4
Qatar 58.5 to 38.2
Kuwait 18.0 to 23.9
UAE 35.4 to 22.4
Luxembourg 30.3 to 16.9
Belgium 13.7 to 9.2
Denmark 11.8 to 5.8
Germany 10.6 (in 1995) to 9.1
France 9.1 to 5.0
Italy 6.9 to 5.8
Netherlands 12.5 to 9.5
Norway 9.3 to 9.4
Sweden 8.6 to 4.5
One can the results for practically all countries and dependencies on Earth.
Conclusion: Sir John is right that the UK has decreased its CO2 per capita. He is right saying that right now China as a country produces about 29 times as much as the UK (10,877 Million metric tonnes in 2017 for China compared to 379 for the UK).
But what about the spin including in his statement āIt also puts considerably more per headā: Today indeed a Chinese is 8, a Brit is 5.6. For years a Brit was about 10, a Chinese about 1.
February 10, 2020
Of course climate alarmists are not going to campaign in China, as they know perfectly well what would happen; in short order they’d be rounded up and be given lengthy prison sentences.
The obsession with CO2 is a thing of the West, where people are sufficiently well off to indulge it. Nobody else cares, apart from for what they can get out of it.
I’m very disappointed that the new government appears to be embracing this silliness, rather than playing it down, or better still actively rejecting it.
February 10, 2020
We used to be able to significantly influence what the EU did.
Now we donāt. They will do what they like and weāll have to lump it.
Fortunately the EU has the most advanced green agenda of any of the three major economic powers. It will lead the way in going carbon neutral.
And as new green technologies emerge itāll be EU standards that they conform to.
As for China, they really donāt care what Britain – a mid-ranking former colonial power – thinks.
They have more people in their four biggest cities alone than we have in our entire country.
We have a smaller population than Thailand, Vietnam and Congo. China will be more interested in all of these countries than in us.
Welcome to our post Brexit world of complete and utter international irrelevance.
February 10, 2020
‘We used to be able to significantly influence what the EU did. ‘
Examples?
‘As for China, they really donāt care what Britain’
You should write ‘As for China, they really donāt care what anybody thinks’.
‘China will be more interested in all of these countries than in us.’
Only if they identify what they can sell to them, or plunder reesources.
February 10, 2020
Brilliant argument for not doing anything to destroy our economy, in fact let’s get fracking!
February 10, 2020
Letās list some other irrelevant countries under this characterisation. Switzerland Singapore Canada Australia New Zealand South Korea Japan. Etc. Doesnāt sound too bad to me?
February 10, 2020
Andy:
”We used to be able to significantly influence what the EU did.”
Can you give us plebs a few examples?
February 10, 2020
PS Sorry about the split infinitive, but I was quoting, and I should have said ‘sic’.
February 10, 2020
Andy, I would be happy with international irrelevance. If only it were true, but it’s not. Most technologies are international, very often from the USA. So the EU conforms to international standards, rather than the other way round as you imagine.
February 10, 2020
Having listened to and read alternative scientific viewpoints, I am of the opinion that man made climate change is ridiculously minor which makes the war on CO2 a pointless exercise. There is very strong evidence that increases and decreases FOLLOW periods of global warming and global cooling. Perhaps in China, India and Germany this is better understood than here. Sadly Sir John, you and many people putting sensible suggestions forward are just spitting into the wind.
Instead of a war on carbon, I would rather see a war on ER law breakers in London and elsewhere that forces them to cover the cost of the disruption caused.
Is there a higher power behind the No 10 throne?
February 10, 2020
BOF
Is there a higher power behind the No 10 throne?
Wouldn’t bet against it.
February 10, 2020
Hear, hear Sir John. CO2 is a global problem and China, India and the U.S appear to be polluting massively and expecting everyone else to pick up the bill.
It seems far cheaper to put our efforts into supporting these countries into lowering their CO2 emissions, as we are likely to get a bigger bang for our buck.
I would also add, it’s not just CO2 – methane from cow belches, as well as cutting down forest are also big contributors to climate change.
I suspect there will be a lot of replies saying CO2 is not at an alarming level. That may be the case. However, I’m not sure anybody actually knows. And yes, the world may have been 8 degrees hotter during the Holocene Optimum. I also suspect the weather and flooding during that time may have been truly terrifying.
Also I’m curious to know what people would think be an alarming level of CO2 would be in ppm?
February 10, 2020
@Leaver; “CO2 is a global problem”
No it is not, COā is plant food, an essential gas for life on earth, mammals consume Oā and emit COā, plants consume COā and emit Oā.
Perhaps this is why verges next to busy highways are always lush in either or both hedgerows or grass/wild flowers, even when other areas in the locality are suffering from a lack of ground water – HāO also being a by-product from burning petrol…
February 10, 2020
Leaver, Why do you think current levels of CO2 and global temperature are optimal?
February 10, 2020
“They should now divert their energies to cutting CO 2 in places putting out much more and not cutting in the way the UK has.”
To be read as, and will be by those countries, make the same unscientific mistakes as the UK (and other western countries) have, doing nothing but drastically weaken herself both industrially and economically.
“Germany in particular needs attention.”
Strange that, Germany still emitting such large amounts of CO2, considering they are one of the few countries in the developed (if not the whole) world who is lead by a qualified scientist – after all, we are told by the AGW pushers that, the scientific community is united that AGW is a proven threat to both the world and mankind so why would a scientist choose to go against such consensus…
February 10, 2020
We would do well to focus attention on carbon capture.
As pressure increase to pursue carbon neutrality there will be significant demand.
There are various technologies with great opportunities for research and development.
As the home of the industrial revolution it would be fitting for us to lead the way.
Raised bogs in Scotland are particularly promising.
February 10, 2020
Cutting into bogs to build windfarms in Scotland has of course been a cause of significant CO2 emissions.
February 11, 2020
Mark you are right. Many ancient bogs have been destroyed for wind farms in Scotland. FoÄŗlow the money and sod the emissions.
February 10, 2020
In china our protesters would probably “disappear”. Here they know they can scream and shout and block traffic, disrupting the lives of those whose taxes they are living on, with no comeback.
February 10, 2020
If CO2 pollution is so bad for us, shouldn’t this warning be used to put off all those immigrants from the wild vehicleless areas of Africa and Asia from coming here? Next thing is, they’ll no doubt be getting legal aid to sue us for their health problems they got from coming here.
February 10, 2020
bigneil (nc)
Next thing is, theyāll no doubt be getting legal aid to sue us for their health problems they got from coming here.
Cynical!!
February 10, 2020
Sorry John but I do not buy the premise that CO2 levels need the draconian – and unrealistic – net-zero measures you have in mind.
Remember all this environmentalism, which started in West Germany, was more to do with the Stasi wanting a way to scupper W. German prosperity, it being in stark contrast to the poverty of E. Germany.
Reply Try reading what I write rather than ascribing views to me
February 10, 2020
Atlas, Have you heard of one of the first British NGOs, the Coal Smoke Abatement Society formed in 1898. Later about the efforts to get the Clean Air Act 1956.
What about people like Octavia Hill at the origin of the National Trust (1907) whose aims included and still includes environmental conservation.
What about John Muir and HD Thoreau in the USA who at the turn of the 20th century pushed for environmental conservation and helped create the US National Parks (sadly under attack from the current POTUS), and about the Sierra Club.
Thatās an awful lot of Stasi agents even before the creation of East Germany. Are you a case of ātoo much readingā John Le Carreās novels?
February 10, 2020
Indeed Sir John. Assuming C02 is a problem (itself debatable) then targeting the Big Wins clearly is the sensible way forward…..
Sadly I think our new PM has not got the memo though, and is still on the woke bandwagon. If he doesnāt get off it pretty soon, he will find the loans on the votes being recalled…..
People in general and the Brits in particular are really getting teed-off with the continuous diktats of the green blob. Eating meat , owning and driving private vehicles and now it seems home heating all under threat – itās madness…..
February 10, 2020
I have to wonder whether any of those who obsess over CO2 has even got the beginnings of a clue just how rare this trace gas is in the atmosphere? CO2 is so rare that it has to be measured in parts per million (ppm) in order to frighten people. The sums are easy to do. Divide a million by four hundred on a calculator. The answer is 2,500. That means that CO2 is just one molecule in every two thousand five hundred in the air we breath. That is not just rare, it is extremely rare. Yet years of propaganda have managed to convince otherwise intelligent people, and sadly I have to include our good host, that this mere trace gas in the air controls the climate, without a shred of evidence that it does, and that it constitutes a threat to our way of life.
The only evidence that CO2 affects climate is completely dependent on cherry picking periods in the twentieth century when the weather got warmer and CO2 was increasing. And ignoring the fact that it isn’t possible to find any such correspondence during the rest of the Holocene (last 12,000 years). Not just during the Holocene but over the entire span of geologic time that has been studied, CO2 has never done anything that suggests it has an effect on the weather. Climate goes in cycles, cycles within cycles in fact, but in even the last 12,000 years temperatures have on average decreased from the peak 9,000 years ago to the present day, while CO2 has increased. There is no possible way that can provide evidence that CO2 controls climate. Likewise over every timescale you choose, the evidence is not there. And that is why hysteria has to be used to put the demon carbon message across. It is not true. CO2 is a benefit, an enormous benefit. We are in CO2 famine and we need more to green the planet (which satellites show is happening) and to feed the third world millions who have never heard of birth control.
February 12, 2020
Just a quiz for you: do you know how many molecules there are in a mole of air, thatās a volume of 22.4 litres at standard conditions of temperature (15C, 288 K) and of pressure (1 atmosphere, 1013.25 hPa). The answer: 6.022 x 10^23 molecules. Which means that in such a volume (typically a bucket) there are 2.5 x 10^18 CO2 molecules (410 ppmv).
Concentrations of Trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) was 233 pptv (parts per trillion in volume in 2015), of Dichlorodifluoromethane (CFC-12) was 523 pptv, CFC-113 was 72 pptv, CCl4 was 81 pptv and SF6 was 8 pptv. All with such tiny concentrations (at least a million times smaller than CO2 concentration) and responsible for the photochemical havoc they produced in the ozone layer and the creation of the ozone holes.
All these components are 100% human-made, so no way to twist some palaeoclimate-related measurements to say they are of no effect.
Tough, isnāt it?
February 10, 2020
I must have missed something. Where are the United States and the various Persian Gulf countries in Sir Johnās proposal to help countries to follow the UKās efforts at decarbonisation? Either by CO2 per country or CO2 per capita, arenāt they near the top of such lists?
Then I wonder whether China would be keen on following the UK lead. China has indeed jumped to the top polluter position. Would it accept so readily to export most of their industrial companies? And if China were to transform itself into a country with 80% of its GDP originating from services, would there not be a danger on a sizeable increase in competition with the UK?
Reply The US government does not share the view that CO2 needs curbing in this way whereas China and the EU do.
February 10, 2020
Reply to reply..
Yes, I expect China will make most of the solar panels and batteries and boiler required for this madness. No wonder they agree. All manufacturing to be provided using coal for energy.
February 10, 2020
F U S
Not only China. India, Germany and USA
February 10, 2020
And it wouldn’t do for BJ to be seen agreeing too much with the US. That wouldn’t please his EU friends at all.
He’s been doing well, making the right noises, thus far – those ‘friends’ must be quite gleeful.
February 10, 2020
L. Jones
Boris is also making a lot of enemies, notably those daft enough to elect him and his party.
February 10, 2020
Sir John, please explain why you have become convinced that CO2 needs to be reduced? I know enormous noise and hysteria has been created to convince people that CO2 is a problem, but surely you can see through it?
CO2 is a completely normal constituent of the atmosphere, and the CO2 we produce is identical to the CO2 already in the air. In fact the CO2 produced by man is estimated to be just 3% net of natural annual flows of carbon in the carbon cycle. And the UK’s contribution is a mere hundredth of that. Totally insignificant yet our economy is to be crucified for it.
CO2 (along with water) is plant food. It is what plants are made of. Without it they die. And without plants all animal life dies. That includes mankind. Looking across geologic time CO2 is extremely rare now at one part in two thousand five hundred in the air, or 400 ppm (ppm are the units used to frighten people). Plants evolved originally when CO2 was many times its current level in the air and under produce currently. Which is why horticulturalists aim to treble the level of CO2 in the air in greenhouses.
What evidence have you ever seen, apart from a few cherry picked periods in the 20th century, to prove that CO2 can effect the climate? No credible evidence that isn’t cherry picked has ever been produced because there is none. CO2 follows climate change, it doesn’t precede it and the evidence shows that is the case.
CO2 is a miracle gas. Only politicians could seek to demonise it.
Reply I wrote about this recently at some length
February 10, 2020
I agree, as do most of the sensible & honest scientists (especially the physicists). It is true that many, research grant seeking, scientists tend to keep quiet about it. If anything we are in a period of a relative dearth of atmospheric C02.
So is Boris now a believer in this Catastrophic St Greta religion or is he just pretending to go along with it for political reasons?
Far more votes in cheap energy anyway mate.
February 10, 2020
The only time the Tory Party seems to think about votes and voters is just in the immediate run-up to an election. I see from reading comments to articles on the Torygraph that the conservatively inclined are furious about the policies BJ is now signed up to, the suicidal climate nonsense, the gas boiler nonsense, likely continuance of the HS2 debacle, brexit in name only, and so on, yet there is not a hope in hell he will listen and change course. Not a cause for any kind of optimism I’m afraid to say.
February 10, 2020
Boris has done the job he was elected to the head of the Tory Party and to the Premiership for – forcing Brexit through. As he now seems to have become infected by the Greta virus I think we should think about replacing him with someone who hasn’t, and who won’t ban diesel/petrol cars and gas central heating. Anyone got any ideas how to get him out and who should replace him?
February 11, 2020
The above post is not from me, the Chris that has posted on this site for some years. There is a real need to get the ID registration on this site more secure.
Reply People choose their own names. It is not my job to tell them what to call themselves. Make your own ID more distinctive as there are many people called Chris
February 10, 2020
@LL; Second from last paragraph, my thoughts entirely, what is more similar questions now need to be asked of our host too.
February 10, 2020
Lifelogic
Far more votes in cheap energy ? Correct.
Even more votes in providing a meaningful, plausible alternative to the route we are on. Hydrogen is hardly seem as a real competitor in the EV nad domestic gas heating markets. It is not as if it is some thing new. Would do a lot for the automobile industry if existing new generation engines can be just converted to run on hydrogen. Would save a hell of a lot of jobs.
February 10, 2020
Reply to reply
My apologies. I was under the mistaken impression you were suggesting some countries should output less CO2. That of course would be extremely mistaken, we need every country to try to produce more CO2 than they do already. It is perhaps the most beneficial thing they can possibly produce. CO2 levels are dangerously low at the moment as I have pointed out elsewhere. Every addition to atmospheric CO2 improves crop yields worldwide, increases drought resistance, means more output for less fertiliser, and reduces food prices by inexpensively increasing supply. It does those things because plants struggle at the current unusually low CO2 concentration in the air. And more CO2 would take us further from the possible extinction of all plant life in the next glacial phase of this Ice Age. We were not far from that last time around. About time insane carbon taxation was seen for the madness it is and abolished too. I do appreciate that you are prepared to publish such dissenting views however.
February 10, 2020
So, the Evil Empire “…account for around 8 times our output with a higher output per head”! Is there no end to its wickedness?
As for “…the German motor industry which is still based around fossil fuels for most of its output” you do not have to tell me, being the operative of one of its products. I have banned additional ICE vehicles in my household from this year (so beating Boris’s 2035 by some way) and I hope some similar clause can be inserted in any trade deal that permits the Evil Empire to sell us motor-cars.
February 10, 2020
It isn’t just the emissions in China:
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/current-policy-projections/
“Chinaās actions abroad will also have an important impact on future global greenhouse gas emissions, also due to the financing and building both fossil-fuel and renewables infrastructure worldwide through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative, which involves 126 countries that could account for as much as 66% of global carbon emissions in 2050 (Jun et al., 2019).
While 2018 marked the first year in four decades coal capacity outside of China declined (by 8.1 GW) due to retiring and decommissioning, China increased its coal capacity by 42.9 GW over the same period, thus raising the global coal fleet (Shearer, Yu and Nace, 2019).
Chinaās continuing dedication to the fuel domestically and abroad is concerning.” [but not to China]
The UK is “leading the world” with its Net Zero Carbon policy. I would like to feel a warm glow, but I think that will become more and more difficult.
February 10, 2020
Science is not based on consensus, if it were, we would still believe the world was flat and in the centre of the universe. Rather, science is based on truth, observation and objective reasoning. To proceed on this basis, raw evidence has be demonstrably accurate, untampered, and signposted as to how it has been collated and presented, so it can be open to testing with discrepancies and absence of evidence acknowledged. Opposing views should be welcomed and tested on this basis. When open academic debate is closed down in favour of virtue signalling, then it ceases to be science, it becomes an hysterical political movement.
The ideal level of Co2 for plants is (I understand) 1,000 parts per million (ppm). Plants are the basis of all life on earth. At 200 ppm, plants stop growing, and at 150 ppm they, and we, die.
It is time the Government instigated a proper academic debate, with contributors from all relevant aspects of science.
February 10, 2020
CO2 levels in the atmosphere are now so incredibly low that in the glacial phases of this current Ice Age CO2 concentration is getting into that danger zone, perhaps as low as 180 ppm. That is of course because CO2 in the air is taken up by the oceans (with a time lag) as the climate cools, with its increasing solubility in water, and vice versa when the climate warms. So anyway, the case can be made that mankind’s contribution to returning some carbon to the atmosphere (increased CO2) has staved off disaster in years to come. That is, when the glaciers advance again, as they have done regularly over the past two and a half million years, the increase in CO2 will mean the planet is further from the point at which all plant life will die, a point we were uncomfortably close to before we entered this current interglacial.
We need more CO2, much more, not less. I’d settle for 1,000 ppm any day (0.1 % of atmosphere) and even at that CO2 would still be a rare trace gas.
February 10, 2020
a breath of fresh air (boom boom).
February 10, 2020
What is the economic arguement for the building of the Boris Bridge. We sell Ireland about Ā£21billion and they sell us about Ā£7 billion per annum. Does it all go from Scotland. If not who in their right mind would drive from Birmingham to Ireland via Scotland . Goods go by sea via Fishguard or Holyhead. People the same or by air from Birmingham for Ā£19.00.
Apart from vanity or a spurious logic to physicaly link the UK I can see no sense in this idea whatsoever. Our host is big on economics, can he please shed light.
February 10, 2020
Agricola
In addition to your comments, Scotland want to leave the UK. so why should we build them a bridge at Mainly English taxpayers expense.
February 10, 2020
We give Scotland enough already and they are an ungrateful lot. How long before they clear off taking all the assets with them and leaving us with the debt?
February 10, 2020
@agricola; “What is the economic arguement for the building of the Boris Bridge.”
I’m just waiting for someone in Whitehall or the MSM to suggest this should be a rail bridge between Scotland and NI….
February 11, 2020
a steam hauled service?
February 10, 2020
agricola
Further proof that it is beginning to happen on a weekly basis that Boris is off of the wall and scaring a lot of the electorate with some of the schemes that he is putting about.
Like HS2, EVs, no gas heating/cooking etc all being considered with no consideration to the logistical problems in providing a proper efficient infra structure to support them. Fine getting to Birmingham 30 ins quicker, but useless if the infrastructure at the other end is not there to get you quickly to where you want to go. Power cuts through storms yesterday great for all those with electric electric vehicles. No gas heating and cooking fine if all properties are super insulated but the most power required will be to provide hot water, the support system is not in place and don’t even add the load for all the EVs.
It is all back of a fag packet politics and the majority of the current parliament do not have a clue about real infrastructure and logistics they just believe what they are being told and hope to god its true. You don’t have to be a scientist to make a computer come up with what you want to see on the screen. All our energy eggs are being thrown into the electric basket and and are rapidly becoming scrambled. This madness has got to stop. !,5% of the world CO2 and we are being led to industrial oblivion whilst all the big polluters build up their manufacturing base to be the foundations for the next 50 years and they don’t give a stuff how they do it. Boris hs taken the hook, line, sinker and the boat over all this nonsense. No more quango committees get together the best brains and engineers from all facets of the energy supply process and come up with a straight forward plan that Joe Public can understand and trust.
February 11, 2020
I noticed a comment in the Spectator under Charles Moore’s article on this:
“It’s also been pointed out that during the art ice age, the level of CO2 dropped to around 180 ppm, because of increased absorption by the colder oceans. This level was very close to the 150 ppm level where plants die from lack of CO2.
Plants die, everything dies.
If CO2 does not increase significantly, and there is another ice age, the world could well see levels drop again to below 150 ppm, at which point life on Earth (the land, at least) really will be in trouble.
h
February 10, 2020
Indeed, I agree 100% with your view on science. Have you read āMerchants of doubtā by N.Oreskes and E.Conway, 2010. Climate questions are only a part of the book, most of it is about tobacco smoking, acid rain, ozone hole.
You might get a feeling that it is not so much opposing scientific views within āacademyā that create problems, but opposing views between people presenting some scientific results and people completely outside academy whose usually direct economic interests might be affected by a decision taken by politicians following these scientific findings.
And in such cases, do you think that scientists are usually getting on top?
February 10, 2020
Martin C
It is time the Government instigated a proper academic debate, with contributors from all relevant aspects of science.
It ain’t going to happen. Too many are making billions out of the scaremongering to want it to end. Follow the money trail.
February 11, 2020
Ian Terry,
We’re not in Europe any longer. Of course, having had 47 years of being told what to do by the EU (in all its various guises) has given a platform for grievance holders who have little or no academic fortitude, especially in respect of the historical background to their grievance. This is especially true of the various governments since 1973 who have been lulled into the poppy fields (Wizard of Oz) and simply forgotten what it means to govern. We don’t have to be subject to the globalist agenda any more. It is part of the Government’s raison d’etre to bang heads together and uphold academic principles.
February 10, 2020
I implore people to visit weather action and examine the real science of climate change and co2
Interesting also to note the waste of tax payers money (reported Ā£1.3bn) and resources to fund the European space agency āsolar orbiterā to take pictures of the Sun. I wonder how much co2 that produced
February 10, 2020
The coronavirus is going to do our job for us. Chinese oil demand down by 20% and forecasts of 40% drop for the year.
International flights worldwide will be greatly reduced, and many will be put off cruising, seeing what is happening on the Diamond Princess.
February 10, 2020
The campaigners against CO2 should realise that they produce CO2 just breathing. Being alive in fact.
Governments do not give the % of CO2 produced by human activity as a % of that being released into the atmosphere by nature. No account is taken of the amount of heat energy produced which will warm the atmosphere. Just warming the sea will release trapped CO2.
No mention is made of the fact that between 1955 and 2005 a third of global warming was caused by the ozone depleting chemicals (ODS) which included CFCs
CO2 is produced along with toxic pollutants in many Heat and Energy generating machines and devices. It can can be said that in reducing CO2 output we by default eliminate the pollutants. But CO2 in itself is harmless and makes things grow.
The Green House Gas theory cannot be established. There is not the equivalent of a glass cover in the upper atmosphere. The CO2 only reflects radiated heat back to the ground not convicted heat. Heat from a 1 bar electric fire compared to the heat from a central heating radiator. It should also be considered that the CO2 will reflect the Sun’s heat back into space. Will it get warmer or colder as the CO2 layer thickens ?
The focus on Human made CO2 is a political distraction. Not many Politicians are going to say we must reduce the amount of Heat we generate, and reduce the rate of population increase.
February 10, 2020
The assumption is that CO2 is bad. Donāt follow the herd; discover the truth for yourself. Read:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-benefits-of-carbon-dioxide/
and plenty of other sites.
February 10, 2020
I have huge respect for you Sir John but sadly have come to the conclusion that almost all involved in this NON debate give up common sense altogether.
You will all wake up one day a deeply regret your stance. and lack of reasoned thinking.
February 10, 2020
William Pentelow
“You will all wake up one day a deeply regret your stance. and lack of reasoned thinking.”
Rather we might all wake up one day and realise how daft we were to let China and India stink the planet out.
Or we might all wake up and find ourselves truly sickened to have sheep walked into an Orwellian nightmare, where we drive around in crappy little battery powered plastic cars and live our lives the way globalists want us to.
Oh, and Sir, I say this as politely as I can…….there is no need to accuse us of ‘non – debate’…..did the government ask us for our thoughts before announcing the effective ban on petrol powered cars ? Or was it that our electing them gave automatic divine right for them to do as they and their globalist masters please ?
February 11, 2020
if the CO2 levels rise the way the alarmists suggest, we simply won’t wake up!
February 10, 2020
The CO2/Climate Change/ Paris climate accord is the Globalist / UN agenda.
It is all TOTAL BS and the snowflakes, tree huggers, lefty liberals ALL buy into it,
just as the Globalist media planned. Look who owns the media corporations.
Wake up people.
February 10, 2020
On HS2 I find myself on the same side as the tree huggers!
February 11, 2020
My reply to you on this subject has apparently been blocked. I too support the view that there needs to be a great awakening, as there has been in the USA and elsewhere.
February 10, 2020
It may be appropriate to research the activity of virus’s in a high CO2 atmosphere.
February 10, 2020
It was either due to brexit or climate change.
February 10, 2020
Reading the comments here, there certainly appears to be a HUGE amount of scepticism about the detrimental effects of CO2, anthropogenic ”climate change” – and a recognition that we’re being bamboozled big time.
I’d like to bet that this is fairly representative of the thinking in the country as a whole (the part that thinks, anyway).
February 10, 2020
Indeed, and in my experience the more science that people know the more āclimate realistā they are.
The more āemotion thinkā they are the more they just accept the BBC propaganda and deluded group think.
February 10, 2020
If the so-called climate emergency is as serious as claimed, no amount of tinkering by the UK is going to make much difference. The government is misguided in planning to spend so much of our money when we can be sure that other countries with a far worse record than the UK will not do their bit.
The extremist British Eco-Warriors are not going to pursue China and the other big polluters because their real objective is to take the UK back to the dark ages and destroy our capitalist way of life. If they were genuine, they would be campaigning for more Nuclear Power here and to stop the increasing use of filthy Lignite coal in Germany, which the idiotic Merkel is using to replace her clean Nuclear power stations.
As this is a world problem, there needs to be an agreement on an achievable goal of emissions per head of population and every country needs to work towards achieving the goal by an agreed date.
Anything less is a pointless exercise in political correctness.
February 10, 2020
ChrisS
“….we can be sure that other countries with a far worse record than the UK will not do their bit.”
Of course they won’t. The purpose of the whole Co2 thing is to cause weakness, vulnerability, and reduce competitiveness. It’s nothing to do with saving the planet.
We’re being had over.
February 11, 2020
ChrisS
“to stop the increasing use of filthy Lignite coal in Germany, which the idiotic Merkel is using to replace her clean Nuclear power stations.”
Really? So why does Germany have 21,607 wind turbines against our 4,148 making it the EU’s top wind power capacity user? Followed by Spain and France?
February 11, 2020
That’s a false argument Margaret.
Germany does have a lot of wind turbines.
But it is currently a major user of coal and the worst sort too.
Far more than the UK or France or Holland
February 10, 2020
I see the government is starting to look at the idea of a NI-Scotland bridge.
This vanity project would inevitably have to be paid for by English taxpayers as both Scotland and NI have to be subsidised by us to the tune of more than Ā£10bn a year.
Why would we want to spend our money on this idiocy when Scotland wants to be independent and Ireland seems to be heading for reunification.
If Sturgeon and Varadkar want it built, they can pay for it.
February 11, 2020
It’s the EU way. Why make the effort to earn loyalty when you can buy it with other peoples money?
February 10, 2020
Probably a mistake to close down coal mining completely.
February 11, 2020
agree
February 10, 2020
The scare stories over our CO2 emissions are no doubt supported and probably funded by those who have much to gain from the deliberate termination of our use of fossil fuels. I would not be surprised if China was among them for they would want our energy costs to rise to effectively increase the costs of manufacture in our country.. Therefore giving them even more advantage in the global markets.
Germany has realised that its Green policies have had a damaging effect on their own manufacturing both in risings costs and lack of energy supplies caused by the inefficiency of renewables. So much so, they are building more coal-fired power stations. Given that Britan emits just 2% of the Global emissions when Chine emits 30%, can anyone explain the point in our following the GW activist like sheep? All they will do for our country is weaken it.
February 10, 2020
Another topic but interesting all the same. I read this encouraging comment from P.Collinson 08/02/2020:
āThe two decades of fat, lazy profits made on the backs of squeezing as much rental cash as possible out of young adults while smugly sitting on vast unearned house price gains look to be over. This April the final phase of the tax changes on buy-to-let income comes into force, and the good news is that landlords are giving up the gameā.
Given that a number of financial publications had been warning for at least a full year that this was to happen, it is very good to see it becoming effective. Anyone with children in their 20s-30s, sometimes even 40s should rejoice. It had always been madness that prior to April ā17, multiple BTL landlords could take out interest-only mortgages and deduct these interests in their tax return, while first-time buyers were forced to take out more expensive repayment mortgages.
From Aprilā17 to Aprilā20, the ability to deduct interest against tax has been cut a bit every year. Now this ludicrous tax advantage will completely disappear, and it is not too soon.
February 10, 2020
An apposite topic JR.
Thank you for choosing this one and making some very valid points.
At last, a politician who also rightly believes this argument should be taken to other countries.
February 10, 2020
At least it takes your mind off the brexit hole you have dug for yourselves
February 10, 2020
OFF TOPIC.
from BBC website.
The government will give the go-ahead for the entire High Speed 2 (HS2) rail line to be built, the BBC can confirm. An announcement on the rail project linking London to Birmingham and Manchester and Leeds is expected by the Prime Minister on Tuesday.
While the whole line will be built, the government will seek a review of the second phase covering the North. It hopes it will identify cost savings as well as integrating these lines into the existing railways. A source close to the project has confirmed that Boris Johnson will also announce a series of other transport projects on Tuesday. Some of them will be situated in the north of England and the Midlands as part of the government’s manifesto promise to “level up” the UK by investing more in regions outside of London.
so the months of delay confirm what we suspected all along…..
Oh Boris you really are a soft touch. Enjoy the job while you’ve got it.
February 11, 2020
A huge mistake.
February 10, 2020
JR as always talks sense. As JR writes, surely those who are concerned about CO2 would be better to persuade large producer countries to reduce CO2 output – if they have a genuine concern about CO2. But instead outfits like XR take disruptive action in the UK.
No evidence is given by climate activists that Climate Change is man-made other than the output from contrived computer programs, which they have changed a number of times as they’ve been wrong. They say “the science is proven”, when in reality much contrary real evidence is ignored.
I conclude that “Climate Change” has become a rallying political tool used by left wingers to cause disruption for their own nihilistic political ends.
It’s a pity that Boris has allowed himself to be swept along by it all and is now making some bad decisions to appease – but haven’t heard that XR is going to call off future disruptions.
O/T At the election we rejected the wealth taxes and overly high state spending proposed by the Labour party. Why do we hear Boris is wanting to do just that. Surely the conservative understanding has always been that one pays taxes on income but after that one gets to keep one’s assets and not have them confiscated.
It is doubly irksome when we hear the government is likely to spend huge money on HS2, when the obvious decision is to cancel HS2 in its current form. In other countries such a project would cost far less (about Ā£20B) – we need to know where the costs arise and to devise a cheaper solution – reducing the top speed to 150mph would help – and only add a few minutes to the journey time compared to 220mph.
Plus a bad decision to allow Huawei – the advice to ministers as reported is technically wrong – those who wish to believe the report can stay happy while Huawei eavesdrops undetectably.
Its over to Conservative back benchers to vote against these bad decisions – to reverse this CPINO.
February 11, 2020
people seem to be worried about carbon dioxide levels reach 400 parts per million history shows they have reached 7000 parts per million and the planet was fine.
However many times in earth’s history we have been hit by large comets worldwide terrible loss of life, yet nobody is spent looking for these threats.
February 11, 2020
The planet was, but humans would not have been, were they here then.
There’s 45% more CO2 now than in pre-industrial times.
That equates to a layer six metres thick, as opposed to one about four metres thick.
If there were none, then the Earth would be an ice ball. If the atmosphere were all CO2 then the planet would be frying like Venus.
In absolute terms, Kelvin, the window for life is extremely narrow.
February 12, 2020
Still only about 1 degree warmer since 1850.
And the rate of increase since 2000 has reduced contrary to the predictions of an increase in the rate of temperature rise by by the experts with their computer models.
Which is a puzzle because with CO2 parts per million still rising this should not have happened.
The Earth is far more resilient and self correcting than you think it is.
February 11, 2020
May I attempt to make a contribution to this discussion from a somewhat novel angle? From the best modern text books it would appear that at all times one large contributor to climate change has been continental drift and the movement of tectonic plates around the earth’s surface. This never ceases and has happened in every age, including the present. We can assume that it is quite beyond any human power to control it. The time scale is very great and very slow but nonetheless enormously powerful. Perhaps this should be given weight in our calculations.
February 11, 2020
For those of us who think in terms of geological time, the polar ice caps are very much a new arrival, the joining of North and South America only happened quite recently, and the fact of the separation of Africa and America is only just sinking in.
February 12, 2020
The joining of North and South Americas is thought to have happened around three million years ago. It might be quite recent on a geological time scale, but the question I would have is: would the effects of plate tectonics be in any way relevant to the present day people? their children? grandchildren? further generations?
February 13, 2020
Yes, indeed, as you say, the joining up of the Americas is pretty recent as was the period of the ice ages and the glaciation of the polar ice caps. This is because we still have four billion years of global history to go and life on earth has only two or three billion years behind us. The whole process of climate change should be looked on as a marathon, not a sprint. It is of course possible at any point along the way to select apparently crucial or decisive developments which may in the end bear little relation to the long term story.