Like some other media driven campaigns, the anti global warming movement is being damaged by its share of hypocrites. Some grandstand on the issue yet live their own lives ignoring the imperatives they set for others.
It is most important that those who lecture the rest of us to change our lifestyles to lower our carbon footprint show us by example how to do it. It is true that Miss Thunberg’s supporters and funders have been very keen to show she will use trains and sail boats , though it has led to questions about how realistic it is to sail across the Atlantic and how green it is to need so many people to support one traveller’s journey.
Others in government and the business world seem to think the rules should not apply to them. Attending important environmental or business conferences apparently justifies international jet travel and chauffered cars whilst telling others they should not take a plane for a holiday and should leave the car at home. Nor should we regard diesel trains or even electric trains fed by the general grid with fossil fuel power as necessarily the answer. Trains with few passengers may be a high carbon way of travelling. The idea that carbon dioxide emissions should be the prerogative of those able and willing to pay premium prices for their comforts is not a good way to promote the cause. Many of the green answers are higher taxes on normal behaviours for personal transport and domestic heating, which the rich can afford.
There is also the position of some countries that talk the talk on cutting carbon dioxide but do not cut their output in the way the UK has done. China for example buys into the problem yet keeps on increasing its own carbon dioxide output. It has been able to use the argument that as an emerging economy it needs leeway to increase its use of fossil fuels. Now it is better off and more successful surely it should ask itself if its conduct conforms with its concerns. It opens new coal mines and is very reliant on fossil fuels for its industrial activity. It is the largest source of manmade CO2 in the world. Germany closer to home and much richer than China also is a heavy user of coal and gas to generate electricity, and a big user of fossil fuels in homes and factories for heating and power.
There is also a question of whether it works well enough to sell pardons in the form of offsets . There is now a market in various assets and activities thought to provide some offset to more carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, which again allows those with the money to continue with fossil fuel comforts whilst paying for an offset.
I do not wish to publish personalised attacks on named individuals in reply.
February 19, 2020
Wakey wakey.
February 19, 2020
Well, yes.
John’s piece uses a shallow, fallacious definition of hypocrisy, which is a common resort of the unprincipled, and is easily accepted by the intellectually and morally uncritical.
It is not hypocrisy, for those campaigning for new global agreements and laws, and which will change the behaviour of billions, to be constrained by the necessity to use the practical systems which exist by dint of the laws and agreements which are in force today.
I think that John knows this, and it is ignoble of him to pretend otherwise.
A similar tired, worn argument is used against those who campaign for far better, wider, absolute standards in education, and who, in the absence of that, send their loved ones to private schools where they might afford to do so.
February 19, 2020
Here you have the unashamed hypocrisy of the left.
Brilliantly displayed for all to read.
Thanks Martin.
February 19, 2020
No, you just can’t be bothered to analyse properly the simplest of fallacies, because it suits your low-minded cause.
Join the faceless, plodding rabble with the rest.
February 19, 2020
Martin, “Don’t do as I do, do as I say” has reached new heights of hypocrisy in the hands of your catastrophe hucksters. I am amazed that you should be so gullible and so in awe of the global elite that you defend them as they peddle their CAGW hoax. No wonder you got suckered into worshipping the EU ideology. Still, it’s entertaining for the rest of us to watch you.
February 19, 2020
If you believe in something then set an example.
Lead the way.
Dont believe in private schools?
Want them abolished?
Then don’t send your own children to private schools.
Want a fossil fuel free carbon neutral future?
Well then reduce your own carbon footprint first before you preach to the rest of us.
February 19, 2020
This double-think is precisely why Labour got dumped and long before John mentioned it.
Of course someone calling for zero carbon should demonstrate personal austerity and not ostentation.
Of course someone calling for the abolition of private schools should not send their own children to them.
February 19, 2020
If life were an infantile cartoon caricature then that would be true, but it isn’t like that at all.
A person calling for grammar-standard education for all, which would facilitate the closing of private schools without detriment to anyone’s education, is in no way a hypocrite for using them until that condition be met.
If you can’t grasp that then you do not understand the simplest of sentences.
February 19, 2020
Your argument doesn’t wash.
Your party now faces the prospect of at least two terms out of office because of personal hypocrisy.
Leading Labour lights are opposed to the selective methods of grammar schools but not the selective method of the ÂŁ.
You can’t grasp the simple understanding that grammar schools reach high standards by being selective about whom they admit to them by objective measurement of intelligence – and parental support (which translates into support of the staff and the school’s standards.)
February 19, 2020
Martin, But their telling the rest of us to accept the bog standard comprehensive the other side of town, whilst they send their little darlings to private schools is rank hypocrisy. When the local comprehensive actually does reach grammar school standards be sure to let us know. Until then don’t expect us to be as gullible as you.
February 20, 2020
Nobody has told you nor anyone else to do that, Nick.
Have they?
February 21, 2020
Martin, Yes, they have told us that, by providing the bog standard comprehensive, rather than the grammar school of your imagination.
February 19, 2020
Your usual nonsense Martin.
Sir Johns point is very well made. We are lectured on the perils of carbon emissions by people whose lifestyles are mostly carbon intensive in terms of their travel habits & consumer activities. Personally, I find the whole idea of ‘carbon off-setting’ illogical – but for many so-called celebrities it lets them virtue signal whilst making no life style change at all.
How nice to be able to fly your private jet in some glittering event at Cannes, rage against Climate Change and plant a few trees to off-set your indulgences. How nice to be able to afford to do so…
February 19, 2020
“Do as I say, not as I do” – that’s hypocrisy, MiC, just as our host described it.
February 19, 2020
@MiC; I think your last paragraph, regarding education, gives the real game away; There must be no alternate beliefs, vision, or thought from the prescribed, world government will not tolerate the individual – although of course some will be more equal than others.
Strange how the start of the demonisation of COâ can be traced back to the collapse of communism in Europe. This hoax not to be mistaken for or conflated with, the earlier concerns with regards to Acid Rain or particulate pollution etc. that are backed up by genuine science.
George Orwell was such a visionary, he just got the method and year wrong…
February 19, 2020
Doubleplusgood jerry!
zorro
February 19, 2020
Of course it is hypocrisy, there are perfectly good alternatives to physically attending a meeting.
Why believe, listen to or follow someone attempting to influence the public if they cannot or will not adopt the very behaviours they profess are essential and insist everyone else should follow.
February 19, 2020
Oh please, MiC, is it so much worse than the British lawmaker reported in Forbes on 12 November 2017 who was advising investors to take their money out of the UK? Oh he is the same, then what do you expect of right-wing politicians?
Reply Glad you did not mention a name as this is an often refuted lie.
February 19, 2020
Context hefner context! Did you read the article?
zorro
February 19, 2020
The original FT one that is….
zorro
February 19, 2020
Oh yes, but for me it was of no use as I had moved my UK-related ETFs to pastures new on Friday 24 June 2016.
February 19, 2020
We might be intellectualy and morally uncritical, but we have the measure of you sunshine. You can question private education when national education reches the same standard.
February 19, 2020
That is exactly for what Labour is campaigning.
Misrepresent as you will.
Sorry to have demolished one of the main pillars of your groundless case.
February 19, 2020
Martin, Labour “campaigning” is worthless – they didn’t manage it when they had power. Why not? It’s not as though grammar school standards are this year’s technology.
February 19, 2020
But by abolishing private schools first.
Levelling down
Typical of socialism all over the world.
Levelling down not up.
February 20, 2020
There is no Labour policy to abolish private schools.
February 20, 2020
Odd, I keep hearingtspeeches about that at Labour Party Conferences.
You need to check the ideas of the party you like Martin.
February 21, 2020
@MiC
If you are an active Labour supporter then you are lying;
September 22, 2019, Independent reported on the Labour conference where “Labour will pledge to abolish private schools if it wins the next election”
a government led by Jeremy Corbyn would âchallenge the elite privilege of private schoolsâ and claimed that âthe ongoing existence of private schools is incompatible with Labourâs pledge to promote social justiceâ.
It said the party would include in its next manifesto âa commitment to integrate all private schools into the state sectorâ.
… private schoolsâ property, land and other assets will be seized and âredistributed democratically and fairly across the countryâs educational institutionsâ.
February 19, 2020
MiC
You could add JR’s comparing us with China! We’ve had years of industrialisation for China to catch up with.
Ditto comparison with Germany whose industry is based on manufacture rather ours on finance and services. But we have to import their products like cars, white goods, machinery etc so as consumers are just as guilty of wasting fossil fuels.
February 19, 2020
MiC
“Johnâs piece uses a shallow, fallacious definition of hypocrisy, which is a common resort of the unprincipled,”
I don’t think you should be suggesting John Redwood is unprincipled, you will loose this one Martin.
Enough said.
February 20, 2020
Well, it has provoked a flutter of responses which simply repeat the fallacy which I identified.
That is not losing by my analysis.
You need to look up the meaning of the word hypocrisy, quite simply.
A person being constrained by immediate circumstance, to do things, which by their own ideals they would otherwise not, is in no way a hypocrite.
However, they perhaps would be if they did not work to further and to implement those ideals.
February 20, 2020
You need a better dictionary Martin.
Lead by example.
February 21, 2020
I normally don’t cite Wikipedia but I quite like their definition in this case;
“Hypocrisy is the contrivance of a false appearance of virtue or goodness, while concealing real character traits or inclinations, especially with respect to religious and moral beliefs; hence, in a general sense, hypocrisy may involve dissimulation, pretense, or a sham.”
This describes the thrusting worthies of Labour down to the gutter.
February 19, 2020
You mean Wakey Wokey!
February 19, 2020
Perhaps even Jiggery Wokery!
February 19, 2020
There was a nice story in Dominic Lawson’s column in the last Sunday Times which I paraphrase:
At St John’s College, Oxford slogan-shouting students occupied the quad declaring they wouldn’t leave until the college agreed to sell its shares in BP and Shell. They emailed Andrew Parker, the bursar demanding a meeting to address their demands that St John’s “declares a climate emergency and immediately divests from fossil fuels”. His answer was perhaps not what they expected. “I am not able to arrange any divestment at short notice, but I can arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off with immediate effect. Please let me know if you support this proposal.” …This was not appreciated by the protest organiser, Fergus Green: “It’s January and it would be borderline dangerous to switch off the central heating.”
Borderline hilarious, more like commented DL.
February 19, 2020
Good morning
Our kind hosts last paragraph on carbon offsets says it all. It’s a money making SCAM.
Of course the real tragedy is that the environment, both local and global is in danger and suffering from real pollution, and this goes unreported and unchallenged.
It had also good that our kind host mentions that those who promote this CO2 SCAM live by the rules they wish us to live by first. Let them learn to live without fossil fuels. No car. No aeroplanes. No modern lifestyle. Let them go back to pre-dawn of mankind and show us how it can be done.
But I worry. I worry that we have a government and Civil Service that no longer knows, or wants to, govern. Yes there are big ideas, but there is little detail or forward thinking.
February 19, 2020
” I worry that we have a government and Civil Service that no longer knows, or wants to, govern ”
That was what our entanglement with EU was all about, a loss of interest to govern our country, or any ambition for it.
February 19, 2020
Indeed we all know who the do as I say not as I do merchants, the deluded prophets and BBC propagandist are.
Some Prof. on the BBC this morning about use of ammonia manufactured by splitting hydrogen and electricity generated from wind then using this the produce ammonia. Taking expensive wind energy, wasting perhaps half to produce the ammonia then wasting perhaps another 60% when it is burned as a fuel does not sound too clever/economic or viable to me perhaps 70% of the wind energy wasted in the process. Surely hugely expensive.
Charles Moore yesterday has a good article on the BBC. But he said:- âThe greatest single wrong on which the BBC rests is the licence fee. It is an offence to freedom and a poll tax for anyone with a television (and, nowadays, a computer or mobile phone).â Clearly this is unfair competition but the greatest wrong is the absurd and totally wrong propaganda from them on climate alarmism, political correctness, magic money tree economics, the EU and other endless lefty lunacies.
February 19, 2020
Sorry âusingâ electricity …..
February 19, 2020
I hope that this govt will decriminalise the BBC
Licence.
The BBC and Guardian currently battalions of offence archaeologists trawling the internet looking for something to use against Dominic Cummings in the expectation that it could also undermine the PM, in the same way they tried to do with Andrew Sabisky.
February 19, 2020
They should abolish it!
February 19, 2020
Sir John,
you point out the ridiculous nature of the debate on CO2 and climate change. My personal yardstick – whenever you get politicians and actors exhorting the same argument, that is rightly in the realm of science and detailed, academic study, then you’d better expect a major confidence trick.
I do hope the new chancellor, in his upcoming budget, adds an addendum for leaving without any FTA. The sudden unexpected increase in revenue from an effective purchase tax (tariffs) should be allocated entirely towards tax relief in those areas most affected by the tariffs, and a reduction in VAT for all. This will encourage investment and development to replace those imports by home produced goods.
February 19, 2020
Can we find a new Norman Tebbit (or clone him) for this job!
February 19, 2020
You were literally m just elected on a manifesto to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. It was a guarantee signed by your party leader.
Meanwhile the Tories have announced their âclampdown on immigrationâ. The EU will, of course, reciprocate. This means a virtual end to young Britons taking unskilled jobs in Europe. The only people in all of Europe denied such opportunities. Stolen from them by elderly xenophobes.
February 19, 2020
Net zero by 2050 is an idiotic policy that will render the UK uncompetitive, cost billions and will achieve nothing – as any sensible physicist, economist or engineer can clearly show.
But religious figures, virtue signallying and soothsayers seem to be far preferred currently.
February 19, 2020
Let’s hope that the European Union countries will also reciprocate on the language point by e.g. Spain’s requiring that all the retired Essex and Yorkshiremen become fluent in Spanish.
They’re often Leave voters (he wrote, non-ironically.)
February 19, 2020
Good grief Martin, something I can agree with you on.
If you decide to live in a non English speaking country then you should absolutely learn and speak the local language.
February 19, 2020
I doubt it as they are retired and are spending their pensions there and not working and therefore required to communicate so seamlessly with customers. But I guess that you donât see that point?
zorro
February 19, 2020
What unskilled, low paid jobs are they applying for?
February 19, 2020
Some jobs one needs to be able to speak the language but many do not at all. People retiring to Spain on their pensions really do not need to. They can pick what they need when they get there. Dos therbasa por favour goes a long way.
I scraped a pass in my GCSE (O level) French (in order to get in to Cambridge as was required at the time) but suspect I would not pass any language test other than one in English now. Though I can, it seems, get an Italian Passport through my marriage. Italy now has an attractive tax cap of 100,000 euros, good food, almost no IHT, excellent skiing, a low cost of living, good connections and very pleasant and very cheap castellos too.
February 19, 2020
What unskilled jobs in the EU? Given the rising amount of youth unemployment there according to Statista, why do you want British youth to steal job opportunities from Greek youth?
February 19, 2020
@Andy; You miss the point, a promise built on lies is invalid…
February 19, 2020
They won’t need to if the UK stops importing unskilled labour. Duh!
February 19, 2020
Better get skilled then.
February 19, 2020
So, OUR young go to Europe and get unskilled jobs . . . .and the rest of the world gets here ( plenty of them illegally) and a few of them gets unskilled untaxed jobs here. The rest claim asylum and stay forever on our taxes, committing crime. What do OUR young working abroad get in taxpayer funded benefits, housing, Healthcare etc while over there? WE lose every time.
February 19, 2020
Young Britons are denying themselves – by abandoning foreign language classes.
February 19, 2020
Strange logic. Youth unemployment approaches 50% in Spain. It is probably no better in Italy and Greece. There are not enough unskilled jobs for the young indigenous in the EU so young Brits would be lucky to find any. If the old and xenophobic who run the EU thought differently maybe there would be jobs. It is nowt to do with old farts in the UK. Perhaps your young friends could go pick peas in the UK.
February 19, 2020
Youth unemployment is 32% in Spain. And it is better in Italy. Too high, of course, but nowhere near what you claim.
And you need to remember that the real figures are not as bad as they seem because young people in education – students for example – are excluded. So it is not 32% of all young people in Spain who are unemployed. It is 32% of those NOT in education or training. A recent study suggested this is around 13% of all young Spaniards. Bit wrong therefore, arenât you?
In the meantime plenty of young Britons used to choose to spend a few years working in bars, waiting tables etc throughout the EU in unskilled jobs. An experience now denied to them by Priti Patel and the Tory xenophobes.
February 19, 2020
Labour rubbed our noses in diversity.
That went well, didn’t it !
(The look on Blair’s face lately!!!)
February 20, 2020
enjoying dodgy stats again?
February 21, 2020
Andy, You’re wrong. Its about 33% unemployed out of the total of all youth. About 67% are in employment, education, or training.
February 19, 2020
Are you really proposing that we scrape our whole immigration policy because a small unknown number of unskilled young Britons canât be bothered to fill out a temp work visa ?
February 19, 2020
There wonât be temp work visas if the EU reciprocates. We wonât have their unskilled workers why should they have ours.
In any case you are proposed that we base our whole immigration policy on the demands of a small unknown number of elderly xenophobes.
February 19, 2020
Your description that an unknown number of elderly xenophobes are dictating immigration policy may very well to true, but thatâs how democracy works
February 19, 2020
Andy, Better than basing our whole immigration policy on the whining of a few middle-aged middle-class woke Remains then.
February 19, 2020
After the voters gave the Conservatives an 80 seat majority with that policy in their manifesto.
February 20, 2020
well once immigration dries up you will have your way. Us oldies will have to fill the potholes, pull up the veg, climb up to get the fruit, walk the parcel deliveries door to door having sold our shares in Deliveroo, UPS, DPD, Hermes etc.
February 19, 2020
Just what unskilled jobs do you believe are taken by young Britons in Europe? Pull the other one….
February 19, 2020
Ignoramus
“Just what unskilled jobs do you believe are taken by young Britons in Europe? Pull the other oneâŠ.”
Spends most of his time pulling it.
February 19, 2020
The Home Secretary has essentially admitted on LBC that the immigration scheme she is proposing would have stopped her own parents from coming to the UK had it been in place at the time.
February 19, 2020
Peter Parsons, We cannot take in the whole world, or even a substantial fraction of it, just to suit your prejudices.
February 19, 2020
Are the police really going to do absolutely nothing about the criminal damage at Trinity College? It seems they have also given up on bike crime in Cambridge, this even when they have clear evidence, DNA or tv footage of who did the crime – as reported in the Telegraph.
Augmenting and encouraging such crimes seem to be their main goal. That and recording ânon crimeâ hate incidents on social media of course.
February 19, 2020
The damage at Trinity College can be classed as a non hate crime and therefore the perps get a free pass.
February 20, 2020
seems to me the Police don’t do a lot about anything these days.
February 19, 2020
My suggestion to the extinction rebellion revellers who dug up the lawn at Kings/Trinity? College, Cambridge, is to volunteer their services to digging the weed and unwanted silt out of the rivers and canals neglected by the Environment Agency.
February 19, 2020
Not much chance of getting these publicity seeming criminals to do anything useful! Not it seems will the Cambridge police do their job in tackling them.
February 19, 2020
seeking criminals
February 19, 2020
Great idea (:
But one has to ask when the government is going to rescind many of the flawed EU regulations, that are still hurting us – For example, the rule that we cannot dredge rivers to avoid flooding?
February 19, 2020
The problems in Calderdale and in Pontypridd were nothing whatsoever to do with silt. The rivers there are rocky bedded and have never been dredged.
They were due to all-time record rainfall.
Exactly as predicted by climate science for many years now.
February 19, 2020
Martin, No, not as predicted. “In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale” IPCC AR5 WGI.
Even if flooding caused by heavy rain is increasing in frequency and intensity (which it may do, due to local weather changes), the correct response is to improve drainage. Wailing that we’ve never dredged this or that river before is not an adequate excuse.
February 19, 2020
Yet a few years ago they were predicting droughts and water shortages.
February 19, 2020
The rivers have been dredged.
The silt needs to be removed so they can flow freely.
Rivers stopped being dredged in 2000 because of an EU directive.
February 19, 2020
Some of those that were previously dredged stopped being dredged.
Those that were never dredged, such as the Calder at Hebden Bridge – now flooded – continued to be undredged.
The river Wye is at an all-time record high. Huddersfield recorded its highest ever twenty-four hour rainfall.
You can’t blame the European Union for that.
February 20, 2020
When was the River Wye or Avon or Severn last dredged or widened?
Did you know that the EU’s 2000 Water Directive thwarted plans to bid run off lakes of major rivers?
Did you know that the EUs 2000 water directive thwarted plans to build new reservoirs?
The EA is an enthusiastic follower of this directive and is against radical action on biodiversity grounds.
Yet when the neglected Somerset Levels eventually catastrophically flooded millions of creatures and animals died.
February 20, 2020
Martin, But you can blame the EU for turning ordinary river dredging spoil into “toxic waste”. Those rivers that can be dredged should be – the spoil is not toxic. Drainage schemes should be maintained or re-instated. Wailing that it the climate god’s fault is babyish.
February 20, 2020
The buried waste from the river beds in post industrial areas – or downstream of them – very often is toxic.
February 20, 2020
Let farmers and landowners decide.
For decades the spoils were spread on fields because they contained nutrients.
To define all as toxic and hazardous is ridiculous.
February 19, 2020
@oldtimer; “extinction rebellion should] volunteer their services to digging the weed and unwanted silt out of the rivers and canals neglected by the Environment Agency.”
Indeed, but that will upset the wild animals, can”t have that, Mr & Mrs Badger and their friends Rat, Mole, and Toad might have to find new homes…
February 19, 2020
We certainly wouldnât want to wake up any badgers.
February 19, 2020
But that would actually be useful.
The term “useful idiots” doesn’t mean they’re useful to their fellow citizens.
February 19, 2020
The constant banging on about Germanyâs numerous faults on your blog is rapidly becoming Mark Francois-esque.
Why the obsession?
You could point out instead that, whilst the UK has made some progress in cutting its CO2 emissions per capita, they are still 10% above those of a peers like France or Sweden.
Not bad but can do better.
February 19, 2020
Tabulazero, Does that mean you’re going to stop banging on about the UK’s numerous (supposed) faults? Hmmm, I shall be surprised. So that makes you a Remain hypocrite then, doesn’t it? Don’t give it out, if you can’t take it.
February 19, 2020
Is that really the best youâve got ?
You are getting soft NickC
Have another go.
February 19, 2020
Population of Sweden is under 11 million and yet it is twice the size of UK
France has a similar population to the UK but is over twice the size.
It is a poor result for them both to only get a few percentage points below the UK emissions per capita.
February 19, 2020
I fail to understand your link between a country size and a number per capita.
France being twice the size of the UK wouldnât you expect that car usage (and the attached CO2 emissions) to be higher ?
This would imply that France is outperforming the UK on the other source of CO2 emissions.
February 20, 2020
Really?
It is humans and their CO2 output that creates emissions especially in big cities and especially in crowded industrial countries.
Sweden and France have far greater acreage of deserted natural open spaces where the CO2 output is minimal.
You really need to think this comparison through.
February 20, 2020
Most of France’s electricity is from Nuclear.
February 19, 2020
In case you hadn’t noticed, JR is in full Devil’s Advocate mode; I don’t think he cares about German emissions at all ( other than those of Frau Merkel).
February 19, 2020
Having converted the electricity supply from coal to gas with 20% wind and 20% nuclear plus French nuclear and Irish wind, there is little more to reduce the CO2 further without expensive and so far unsuccessful carbon capture and hydrogen reformation at very large scale. The nuclear stations are going to close in ten years and only two may be running, increasing the CO2 and the building of more offshore wind is not guaranteed to come at a third of the present cost, which is three times that of gas.
All this means that electric vehicles and trains will not actually save CO2 when compared to diesels and petrol over the whole process. This is why the agencies putting UN agendas into force turned to pollution to educate the population into believing that the internal combustion engine was killing large numbers of people. In fact, pollution is much lower than before and diesels can produce no NO2 and no more particulates than electric vehicles. The banning of IC card is based on a lie. Possibly, politicians do not understand this. More likely the green lobby has been successful in steering very large amounts of customers and taxpayer’s money into big gas and wind business, most of which will be in the hands of foreign firms.
February 19, 2020
POLITICIANS ARE ALL SINGING FROM THE SAME HYMN SHEET AS REGARDS CLIMATE CHANGE – SOME KIND OF MIRACLE IN IT’S OWN RIGHT.
But the common feeling is that they have failed the public by allowing themselves to be indoctrinated by the GREEN movement In normal times we would be calling them lemmings.
One of the reasons that food is plentiful is because there is a greater supply of Co2.
There is also a reason why the big and powerful that preach to us on reducing carbon output avoid taxing volcanoes and ignore their own huge carbon footprints. They know something the politicians do not. Anthropogenic global warming is a scam.
February 19, 2020
Bryan, I’m open on whether Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a scam or not. Though Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) definitely is a political hoax.
February 19, 2020
Not on the issue of carbon footprint but on the heartbreaking damage to marine life due to plastic dumping, Surely some sort of legislation can be passed restricting the amount of plastic wrappings and containers in supermarkets. There is little choice for the customer to buy loose products . As a single person I buy in small amounts , therefore small plastic cartons, say for salad are ideal yet other containers could be used by the supermarkets which are biodegradable . The plastic producing firms could move over to these, subsidised for new machinery to enable this.
(Priti Patel was excellent on the BBC this am.)
February 19, 2020
Margaret, Yes “regular” pollution gets overlooked in the scramble to be woke about CO2. When the greens pushed diesels because they had lower CO2 emissions than petrol, they ignored the SOx, NOx, and particulate emissions. Indeed every attempt by the CAGW groupies to use technology come a cropper – from “re-cycled” rubbish which ends up in the sea, to bio-fuels that take food away from poor people, by way of dieselgate and wood pellets across the Atlantic. Greens damage the environment.
February 19, 2020
Much of that is caused by open top bin recycling near rivers and sea – a disastrous policy which causes masses of plastic to be blown about the place. And bogus recycling, where ours is sent away to countries that don’t care.
February 19, 2020
The whole green movement/religion is an hypochracy. It is questionable as to whether CO2 is the culprit that we are being sold. The sun is the main driver of climate with possible inputs from asteroids and volcanic eruptions. Many of the green priesthood seem to have decided that the sun is constant in it’s effect, a benign Toc H lamp, nothing could be further from the truth. It has been changing climate and what can survive on Earth for billions of years.
Imagine the self flagellation after man’s current behaviour on earth, in an environmental sense has ended and we are living a pure existence, if the World continues to warm or cool.
Current electrical solutions are totally inadequate from a supply and performance point of view. Why not encourage engineering and science to clean up the use of fossil fuel even further and use our green electricity to produce hydrogen as a fuel. Bill Gates has put money into it. Turn can’t do into will do and cease praying to St Greta.
February 19, 2020
I doubt few people need convincing that the climate is changing. It has been changing for all of time. We need to be convinced that CO2 is the problem before all life on the earth is destroyed, and so far, I have not been convinced.
On the plus side, reducing CO2 until all plant and animal life is unsustainable is one way of fixing the human overpopulation, but why should all life on this planet suffer because of it?
February 19, 2020
Surely that is the aim of this Government and their followers. You will follow, you will obey. But don’t get the idea you are allowed to think.
February 19, 2020
Most sensible scientist are not convinced on this either. CO2 is clearly one of millions of factors that affect the weather. Atmospheric temperature and other measurements suggest C02 poses no serious problem of a climate armageddon whatsoever.
Piers Corbyn (1st at Imperial Physics) is right on this issue as are very many other sensible scientists (mainly the retired ones not seeking grant funding who can be honest).
February 19, 2020
don’t forget 300 scientists blocked by google for having an alternative view on climate change
February 19, 2020
Whilst the debate and scientific information is collected and collated it may be wise to adapt Pascal’s Wager to fit and control CO2 emissions in the assumption that it is a significant cause of climate change rather than wait to find out that the originally theory has been proved when it is too late.
February 19, 2020
MBJ, Unless you cause more damage than you avert by following your advice.
February 22, 2020
I have been told that there is significantly more CO2 than say 60 years ago . Why should I not believe this.What motive do scientists have for lying? If it wasn’t harmful then ( and I do appreciate it is a short length of time) and climate is changing more rapidly today. Life on earth is about balance . We know that gasses, ions, trace elements,chemicals are all useful in amounts which triggered life itself . I can use the argument CO2 is required for plant respiration and emission of O2 into the atmosphere,..yes it is true this happens , but deforestation is reducing this plant food, Balance!
February 20, 2020
This is a very silly argument indeed. It is quite likely that C02 does more harm than good and you are doing more damage than good by these daft expensive & intermittent energy policies.
February 26, 2020
No it is not a silly argument. You are blind to reality and I know you try to show off about your teenage qualifications , but you are outnumbered by many proper scientists. In fact you are basing your argument on a supposition .. Not very scientific !
February 19, 2020
Shirley,
I think what you are really saying is that the common sense view of the majority of humankind needs to be openly supported by those, all around the world, in Government. There seems to be an absolute fear that stating the bloody obvious will undermine their re-election chances when the range of media outlets are apparently controlled by the minority liberal elite determined to impose global governance.
Balls are needed, but, as with Brexit, a sensible end will eventuate. It will not be a pleasant journey.
February 19, 2020
Yeah but to be on the save side the green wave would have us all living in the 16th century controlled by a green (lets face it a communist) commune stateâŠworshiping the evils of CO2. Like Labours mantra that everyone will be retrained to work in the green industryâŠwhat
February 19, 2020
Glen
Our pre industrialist forefathers didn’t live in the equivalent of communes. They lived individual lives in individual homes and prospered enough to drive civilisation forward without poisoning the atmosphere. Much deforestation is about the only environmental crime we can charge them with. But they conquered the globe without poisoning it.
We are now developing the technology to return to those days incl birth control to stem overpopulation.
What’s wrong with that? There are millions of young Gretas today who are keen to repair the damage our highly industrialised past has inflicted on the planet. In my experience this generation is the most impressive we have produced so far.
February 19, 2020
An interesting argument…but not a world I’d choose to live in
February 19, 2020
But our forefathers lived in a sparsely populated nation. Even so, polluted fog was an issue in London as early as the C13th, due to the burning of coal. Do you know anything real at all, Margaret?
And never mind birth control, you want even more people to come to this country via the EU, adding to the official current population of 66m, far in excess of C13th England. That would create even more pollution.
In my experience young people like Greta take all the benefits of an industrialised society but don’t understand how to run it, and don’t want to pay for it. They are feeble and inexperienced, yet strangely self-important.
February 19, 2020
The air quality in pre industrial times was far worse than now.
We burnt coal and peat and wood to cook and for heating and candles for lighting.
Living standards and life expectancy was way less than today.
You might want to live like people did in the 18th century but you are in a tiny minority.
Your millions of youngsters will soon change their minds once they realise exactly what that lifestyle entails.
February 20, 2020
“There are millions of young Gretas today who are keen to repair the damage our highly industrialised past has inflicted on the planet.”
They might be keen, but I am not sure I would trust Greta types to fix so much as puncture. She does not seem to have a clue about physics, climate, energy or engineering. She is however quite good at reading out lines like “the planet is burning”…..”we will never forgive you”……”you are stealing your children’s future”…. this while looking rather demented and at getting endless publicity for this total drivel.
What are her proposed solutions?
February 19, 2020
No one is proposing doing the ridiculous thing that you imply.
There is 45% more carbon dioxide in the air than there was in pre-industrial times.
Science is merely trying to stem that increase, not eliminate the existing.
February 19, 2020
Martin, Or there was 32% less CO2 in pre-industrial times. So which is the norm – then or now? And how do you know that? Certainly the lower figure (280ppm) was more dangerous for life on our planet. Now given that the Sun is entering a quiet cycle for the next 30 years or so, we need all the global warming we can get.
February 19, 2020
A 45% increase from a very low original concentration (about 200ppm, I think) is still a very small increase.
Water vapour and methane are far stronger greenhouse gases. Some of the latter e.g. from cows might be capable of reduction, but the former?
February 20, 2020
Water is circa 90% of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere!
February 19, 2020
UK carbon emmissions down to 1890 level – thats an offical government fact
February 20, 2020
By exporting heavy industries and their emissions. A rather foolish policy.
Also absurdly importing wood to burn instead of gas and then ignoring the CO2 thus produced.
February 19, 2020
Environmentalism is just the latest way for the authoritarians to exercise control over the rest of us.
Totalitarians are totalitarians whatever front they choose and their “do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy knows no bounds as with other dictating (populist) doctrines before them.
February 20, 2020
Exactly.
February 19, 2020
Why would you be pro-climate change? What an odd position.
Pro-filthy emissions from cars, trains and planes.
Pro-pointlessly wasting heat and power.
Pro-pointless plastic waste.
Pro-mass slaughter of animals because you refuse to eat slightly less meat.
The fact is that the climate change deniers have lost. You have been beaten.
Science and evidence has won and you have lost.
You can either get on board and try to influence the future or we will just decide it for you.
February 19, 2020
What temperature would you like the planet to be ? Where is the thermostat ?
February 19, 2020
As usual you mix up reducing pollution with climate change.
Two different things.
February 19, 2020
Andy, The global climate changes, and always has. It was the greens and CAGW believers that gave us the diesel scandals. Indeed every green blob technological attempt to “solve” the increase in CO2 has been a failure.
Why are you pro transporting wood pellets across the Atlantic? Why are you pro an intermittent electricity supply? Why are you pro snatching food from poor people so you can fly to the USA? Why are you pro exporting our waste under the pretext of it being “re-cycled” when it gets dumped in the oceans? Why are you pro BEVs when they are more polluting than ICE vehicles? Why are you so against eating animals when they are the only practical crop for hill farms?
Under your watch, and that of other middle aged wokes, science and evidence has lost. So your children will pay for it.
February 20, 2020
+1
February 19, 2020
What a distorted conclusion, I for one of many have no problem with the fact that climate is changing. I realised something was afoot around 1995/2000 when my roses flowered four times a year rather than twice. What we question is the reason. We don’t leap on CO2 when we know that the sun has controlled climate for billions of years. It has not gone to sleep for the convenience of those who have leapt on CO2 as the great satan.
All the ills you point out are symtoms of a very badly run environment, a very separate subject. You omitted all the surplus clothing that no doubt you send to charity, which they in turn send to West Africa for land and sea fill pollution. You are virtue signalling, they are wrecking the planet.
We also suspect that when man has rectified his desecration of the planet by applying scientific and engineering principals, the sun will be seen to have continued it’s work. What will you do then, find some other taxable scapegoat, religion, or continue to whinge rather than apply engineering to mitigate the consequences of a changing climate. You could of course emigrate and give us all a break.
February 19, 2020
Andy
Take it to China and India first, mate. When you can get their 2bn + population to go green then we’ll think about it.
February 20, 2020
I agree that burning carbon for energy should be stopped. Because it is dirty and causes pollution.
As for âscience and evidence has wonâ, can you provide evidence that a wet winter and some bush fires are caused by an alleged increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? All I have heard is 2 + 2 being made to equal whatever the âexpertâ wants it to be.
February 20, 2020
CO2 is not pollution it is clean, odourless, plant food essential for life on earth!
February 19, 2020
There are widely differing opinions on so called man made climate change but we have only one side of the argument shoved down our throats by nearly all the media.
Is it not time for Government to ensure that ALL arguments are heard. Science that is ‘settled’ is not science.
February 19, 2020
Many commenters here claim that serious science, but which diverges from the consensus is being suppressed.
Let’s examine that claim.
Over the last ten years, at least thirty-eight papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals, each claiming various reasons for which climate wasn’t changing, or if it was, then it wasn’t humans, or it wasn’t bad.
So they weren’t suppressed. They’re out there, where anyone can find them.
The respected scientist Rasmus Benestad took all of those papers, and with a great deal of painstaking work he recalculated all of their analyses, right from scratch.
And what did he find?
Every single one of those analyses had an error – in their assumptions, methodology, or analysis – that, when corrected, brought their results into line with the scientific consensus.
Some people need to face facts.
February 19, 2020
Martin, No one claims the climate isn’t changing.
February 19, 2020
So you agree with ER that the world will end in a decade or two?
February 20, 2020
If a paper were suppressed then it would have not been accepted by a journal, would not be published and so would not be part of any such analysis.
So your claim is invalid and proves nothing.
February 19, 2020
Correct – greenwash is definitely not the answer. I have rarely seen an age more adept than our’s (I mean our establishment’s) at making a virtue out of doing nothing. It is incredibly childish to expect the climate to remain benign when we know from history, geography and geology that it does no such thing.
The recent flooding is an example. Does DEFRA feel ashamed that its flood prevention measures are too feeble? No. It makes a virtue out of its own incompetence, rather than trying to solve the problems. If the frequency and intensity of heavy rain is increasing, we need more drainage, not less. Seems obvious? Not to DEFRA.
February 19, 2020
Why has this and previous governments allowed building construction on the original flood plains. The flood plains are /were there for a reason. I have witnessed instances whereby walls have been contructed to prevent flooding from rivers, only to move the problem further up stream. Look at Tewksbury, the cathederal is built on the hill and all around floods. The monks knew what they were doing. We had original thinkers many years ago now we have lemmings.
February 19, 2020
âGreenâ is a belief brand.
The green-ness of plants is from their solar energy harvesting leaves that converts CO2 into sugar, this is the energy supply that we use in our bodies, when we use it we generate CO2 it is a closed sustainable loop.
If we lived as farmers in a cave in a temperate latitude and walked as our mode of transport that would be carbon neutral. However the planetâs population is too high for us all to do this.
Anything other than that is not Carbon Neutral.
There are only 2 sources of power on this planet – Solar (Weather, photovoltaic, plant derived fuels) or Nuclear.
In my view, only nuclear will be able to provide for our inexorable increase in population.
February 19, 2020
Idiotic greenwash is absolutely everywhere. Countless products are sold as being “green” that are nothing of the sort (many being actively encourage by government). Electric cars even advertised as Zero emission! The transport secretary thinks this to it seems.
Even the fashion industry keeps pretending to be green. The fashion industry is largely dedicated selling people new products when there is nothing wrong with the old ones they have already. Items they might only wear or use once or twice. Buying new electric cars usually make less sense than keeping your old vehicle.
If you want to be really green drink tap water, wear your clothes until they wear out, flush the loo less often, wear warmer clothes, turn the heating down a notch and only heat rooms you use, have a smaller house, heat it with gas not electricity, live close to work or work from home, do not buy anything you do not need, buy thinks that are built to last when needed, eat less meat and veg and fruit in season ……
Might not be that much fun but better than virtue signalling, hypocritical rich people pretending to be green after spending thousands PA flying round the world!
February 19, 2020
Prince Charles and Germany are the 2 biggest hypocrites.
Charles latest wheeze we have 10 years to save the world as his last prediction has passed.
Germany continues to build lignite power stations and increasing their immissions .
We now have a police force actively assisting protesters and a government refusing to act
February 19, 2020
Prince Charles it seems flew 16,000 miles in just 11 days using three private jets and one helicopter before proudly posing with Greta Thunberg in Davos arriving in an electric car.
I keep my travel bill to less than 1/2% of his so as to do my bit!
February 19, 2020
Royalty move to dominate UK comedy scene:
Mar 2009: Prince Charles claims we have 100 months (8.33 years) to save the world.
July 2019: Charles claims we have 18 months to save the world.
Feb 2020: Charles claims we have 10 years to save the world.
February 19, 2020
Arenât they answering to higher authorities like The Club of Rome etc?
It ainât âhypocrisyâ when there is an agenda!
February 19, 2020
plus the evil United Nations
February 19, 2020
Ian Wragg
“Germany continues to build lignite power stations and increasing their immissions”
“Germany generated significantly less electricity from coal-fired power stations in the first half of 2019, with output down by more than a fifth compared to a year earlier.
Generation from brown coal (lignite) was down by 14 terawatt hours (TWh, 21%) and hard coal was down by 8TWh (24%). With gas generation only increasing moderately (3TWh), the German power sectorâs emissions fell by 20m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2, 19%).
This dramatic shift in Germanyâs power sector comes as the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) recently outlined its plan for a complete coal phaseout no later than 2038, in line with the recommendations of the countryâs coal commission”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-german-coal-power-is-falling-fast-in-2019
February 19, 2020
Still burning a huge amount of dirty coal.
Surprised to see you being an apologist for them.
February 20, 2020
MH – – âGermany generated significantly less electricity from coal-fired power stations in the first half of 2019, with output down by more than a fifth compared to a year earlier.’
Anything to do with recession and manufacturing declining?
Just saying…..
February 19, 2020
“Germany…much richer than China also is a heavy user of coal and gas”
In his Greenwich speech, Boris Johnson said that Britain was the first major economy in the world to impose upon itself the legal obligation of being carbon neutral by 2050, which he admits will put “huge strains on our system”. He also said, however, that he would not demand, as the price of free trade, that the EU adopt the same policies as he wants for our country. How is that consistent with calling this “perhaps the greatest issue facing humanity” (emphasis added)?
February 19, 2020
How is it even a ‘level playing field’ that they demand of us? We already have higher standards than the EU in many areas, particularly in animal husbandry and treatment yet they want us to toe their line on taxation and shutting out third world goods and any other thing which makes the UK economy more competitive than the sclerotic ways of the EU. We should demand that they bring their standards up to ours and outlaw bull fighting, foie gras, chicken and pig crates, long distance transportation of live animals etc.
February 19, 2020
Graham – The issues you mentioned may be valid but you need to live in Africa and Central America as I have to find out you are whistling into the wind. The EU is small in comparison.
February 20, 2020
I can’t quite see the point. We are discussing and negotiating our relationship with the EU after December 2020. We have no control over Africa or South America, but we can have influence on the EU and now is our only chance to change things like this. The UK is smaller still, but we can lead the way with standards. After all isn’t this the thoughts of Extinction Rebellion – that if we do it the world will follow. That’s a laugh and merely a smokescreen to cover their incapacity to change things where they really matter.
February 19, 2020
I was looking at the report given by the Head of Rosneft(Russia’s oil giant) to President Putin last week with regard to Vostok Oil,the largest of the nine new oil and gas related projects in the Arctic that Mr Putin signed off last week.
“The development of Vostok Oil is to include 100,000 jobs,15 new towns,two new airports,800km of new pipeline,3500 km of new electricity lines,2000 Mw of new power generation and a projected new seaport on the Taymyr peninsular to handle c25m tons of additional cargo pa on the Northern Sea Route.Total investment 144 bn euros.”
In the Green corner,Greta “Schoolstrike” Thunberg,in the (not so) Red corner Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Mesdames et messieurs,faites vos jeux!
(I also see from The Economist last week that Norway,despite being at the forefront of e-car promotion (and reducing parking spaces in Oslo),will shortly have the benefit of a large new oilfield that is expected to generate c$100 bn over it’s lifetime.)
February 19, 2020
If the Environmentalists were being true they wouldn’t go visiting around the world they would be encouraging investment in secure video conferencing and having their meetings virtually.
February 19, 2020
Indeed not would they fly first class or on private jets or eat meat. Gross hypocrisy is not an attractive trait. It shows that even many of the main pushers of climate alarmism do not believe the drivel they come out will.
February 19, 2020
Indeed nor ….
February 19, 2020
It is a Globalist Agenda. Follow the money.
February 20, 2020
Perhaps Cummings and Boris have their own vitual meetings on their own. Much easier to decide what to do – nobody argues or proposes ‘better’ ideas.
February 19, 2020
For EV with a range over 200 miles the environmental impact of manufacturing is two thirds more than an equivalent internal combustion engine vehicle.
It takes 125,000 miles of typical driving before the impact on the environment breaks even. Thatâs ten years or so for the average driver. Most cars arenât kept on the road that long!
As car use is disincentivised, by emission charges and the like, usage will go down making it even less likely to reach the break even point.
With current technology electric cars, except for short-distance âbuggiesâ, are damaging the environment more than internal combustion engines. Scrappage schemes to destroy perfectly serviceable vehicles make the impact of electric vehicles even worse. Itâs all a con by the car manufacturers
February 19, 2020
My ten year old 2.o litre Diesel can do 700 miles on a full tank and takes a couple of minutes to refill to 100%.
I’ll wager not many ten year old EVs could come close to that.
February 19, 2020
Bob
Most EV’s won’t last ten years. They give manufacturers endless possibilities for planned obsolescence / failure.
They’re a total con and in the final analysis not very environmentally at all.
Ultimately polluting the planet with heavy metal in addition to the CO2 produced to charge the damn things during their lifespan.
Look at how minute amounts of mercury have been criminalised…..then imagine billions of tons of spent lithium.
You see where the green crap argument falls flat on it’s face.
Petrol engines have never been cleaner, we should stick with that and run ’em on hydrogen if necessary.
PS I recently got a large V6 through an MOT emissions test without cats fitted. Which proves how clean a modern engine in good nick can be.
February 21, 2020
Please share the sources and details of your claims as they conflict with material I have seen such as the UCS report “Cleaner Cars from Cradle to Grave”.
This report reckoned a BEV would make up for higher manufacturing emissions within 18 months of driving, down to 6 months for shorter range models. DUring that period and thereafter ICE vehicles put out far more emissions than BEV during usage, even where the majority of electricity is generated from burning coal.
It should be noted that many BEV operators use solar panels and the impact of load on the grid and power generation emissions is reduced even further – even in the UK, over a year around 90% of my EV charging is from my PV panels.
February 19, 2020
Hypocrisy, lies and fraud riddle the climate change dogma. CO2 is essential to life and we need more of it not less. Given that fact the whole theory is exposed for the power grab and profiteering it really is.
February 19, 2020
Should you not question who you believe and their motives? First Government, your government your leaders, said you must drive diesels vehicles to save the Planet. Then our leaders said diesels pollute so taxes have to rise to deter use.
Government then said lets subsidies âHybridâ cars to save the planet. Then the guiding force, Government, said petrol, diesel and hybrid cars are all âbadâ so they can no longer be sold in the UK.
Government has convinced some that there is an alternative in battery power, but that concept is also flawed. For starters they are made in the most environmentally polluting factories on the planet, shipped to the user by the most polluting form of transport. Front loading pollution is still pollution
Then when you get comfortable with that someone points out the raw material for the batteries is in short supply so much so there are not enough known resources on the planet to even satisfy the needs of the UK on its own. Indonesia has band the sales of raw materials.
Total hierocracy from all those in media and positions of influence for flogging this dead horse without first coming up with a viable alternative. It comes over as more about control than government
February 19, 2020
Ian
Yes it’s a grand con trick on a global scale. I always ask not so much what someone does…..but WHY they do it.
Someone stands to make a killing out of lithium based EV’s. It’s the con of the century.
If this green crap was in any way honest, they’d be pushing for conversion to hydrogen. Especially as piston engines run extremely well on it.
Japan is the only country going for a hydrogen based economy – my guess is they’ll eventually develop gas turbine – electric for motive power.
February 19, 2020
The issue with the green agenda is that no matter what is done, it’s never, ever going to be enough. If we solved the alleged issues with CO2 tomorrow, they’d immediately focus on another cause to demonise.
Meanwhile, plastics are still produced with abandon, while environmentalists conveniently forget that it’s produced from fossil fuels and a whopping 99% that’s ever been produced, still exists somewhere on the planet. Despite the claims, they can’t do anything about the weather, but where are their concerns about things they can do something about, e.g. the policy that allows building on floodplains? Water doesn’t just disappear with drainage measures, it shifts it to other areas, often miles away, because it follows the path of least resistance. Result: flooding that might have been contained on various dedicated floodplains are dispersed to surrounding areas as if joining the dots, all with catastrophic effect……the genuine emergency. Apparently, we’ve now even got farmers proposing that their land is used for flooding…..that would be a floodplain, then! You couldn’t make it up.
XR’s “answer” to it all is to play politics with a proposal for an all-encompassing private members “Three Demands Bill”, where a 500 – 1000 strong unelected citizens assembly would be annointed with powers over government and drive policy. This preposterous proposal is designed to bypass the electorate, the medium by which Parliament gets its authority, so perhaps they’d care to show us a little more respect and test the robustness of their ideology through fielding their own candidates for election to Parliament.
February 19, 2020
Whatâs the plan?
We are told we are to be carbon neutral in by 2050. This is just 30 short years away. Whatâs the plan? Surely the government should publish a timeline. In construction we have Critical Path Programming. We need a program showing the critical elements of our path to carbon neutrality. This would highlight when the additional electricity generation capacity will be needed – as heating homes by gas is banned and cars all become electric or hydrogen. We need a plan. Is there a plan? Is there anyone in government with the wit to develop and implement a plan? I would have thought weâll need at least 10 new nuclear power stations. So we need to be bringing a new one on line every 3 years. You have to smile. It takes 30 years to get the planning permission granted in this lunatic asylum of a country. The money about to be wasted on HS2 could build 3 nuclear power stations that would provide 20% of our CURRENT needs. It would be a start. But, no, some genius has decided a new railway line, just one railway line, will solve all our problems.
February 20, 2020
Well maybe not so daft – build all the new houses around London and Birmingham – then say well we looked ahead and thought you will want to travel to friends and relatives in the other big city.
February 19, 2020
There is only one possible solution!
Cease all manufacture and all human movement over about 5 miles with immediate effect.
Stop selling stuff. Stop all commerce.
( Do wi-fi type things pollute…apart from frying our brains that is?).
All animals to be slaughtered, naturally…. methane..aaarrrgh!
Letâs have âPlant Weekâ and then try growing plants without manure!
And then thereâs humanity….all that breathing!
Oh well…all life forms to be extinguished forthwith ( no food available anyway).
Or maybe…MAYBE… just stop creating/inventing âproblemsâ the âsolutionâ to which has nice little pay offs in the form of increased state control and tax gathering.
Much the simplest thing to do…but then..the greedy powers that be never do simple …do they?
February 19, 2020
Why did The BBC run footage of The Brits? The winners speeches or songs or Rap were a disgrace.
I am passionate about free speech but found last nights awards beyond the pail.
This week Cambridge is being brought to a halt by Extinction Rebels and the police
have not intervened!
February 19, 2020
I’ll wager that Dave will soon be invited to join a Question Time panel.
How ridiculous that govt ministers should be required to respond on TV to unsubstantiated allegations of racism. Cultural Marxism needs nipping in the bud.
Scrap the Licence Fee.
February 19, 2020
The BBC really don’t like Dominic Cummings. They’re now telling us that many of the Tories are unhappy with him. Sounds like the BBC wooden spoons are in action.
Watch this space.
February 19, 2020
Absolutely agree, you can see, and hear, the cutlasses and mallets out for his head. he must be doing something right for their reaction to be so in your face.
February 19, 2020
their favourite item (the BBC’s that is)
February 19, 2020
I would assume that countries like the USA, China, India and Germany have access to the very latest ‘science’ regarding CO2, yet they see no reason to cut down and in fact increase theirs much faster than we could ever decrease ours, even if we shut down our entire country overnight. That such major nations do not consider it a ‘climate emergency,’ beloved of the anti modern life brigade must surely negate the opinions of a few deranged people who dig up lawns and stop people going about their work. The real problem is one of intolerance of any view other then one they have lighted on and convinced themselves about, even though I would guess very few have any real knowledge of what they espouse, hence a certain young lady breaks down when asked about her views and is shepherded away from the limelight she craves to make written speeches.
February 19, 2020
Great one John. Admitting there are a LOT of hypocrites out there. Like the stars in the USA who loudly proclaim they have a Prius to placate the Greenies, while also having large engine gas guzzlers parked round the back.
I’d also like to see a list of where the Extinction Rebellion lot go for their holidays.
February 19, 2020
You are right, these people talk a load of nonsense. But I do not think the UK government has the right answers either.
The only way to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide, is by finding a way to produce power cheaper than using fossil fuels. Only then will poorer countries be able to afford it. Simply subsidizing solar and wind will not work, because they are intermittent and storing electricity is expensive. Most of the world is not rich enough to afford subsidies.
Nobody knows which ways of producing clean power will work. The only way forward is to invest in R&D in a range of technologies and see which ones come out on top. Once they do, market forces will take over and the problem will be solved.
February 19, 2020
Conservation is the answer imho. This aligns environmental requirements with economic requirements and does not rely on forced instruments such as subsidies.
Rather than promoting and subsidising new “green” industries we need to become more efficient in how we use resources.
Re-using assets (e.g. packaging, e.g. repairing/reconfiguring appliances) rather than throwing them away and making new ones.
Heating people instead of empty rooms.
Video conferences instead of travel.
Swapping jobs so that we live closer to where we work/more working from home
February 19, 2020
The old CEGB R&D dept – I think it was – did some research into directly heating people with low intensity microwaves. Then considered the risk and consequences of ‘heating’ becoming ‘cooking’ they quietly shelved the idea.
February 19, 2020
As a layman, I cannot understand why politicians would sign up to agreements that result in huge costs and the loss of industries and to pay into a $100 billion per year pot to distribute to the less-developed countries [LDCs] such as China and India who are the ones who now have the industries that we are losing and who according to the agreement do not have to take action until 2035. The only one with an iota of sanity actually appears to be the one who gets vilified by the virtue signalling majority of politicians a Pres D. Trump, and who is withdrawing his country from the suicidal Paris agreement. Considering that statements from high level representatives of the UNIPCC, XR and others state that it is nothing to do with climate but is to re-distribute wealth and to destroy capitalism and change world politics. Why would our government go along with this?
February 19, 2020
We can’t look to this Tory government, led by Boris to adopt sensible policies. He seems to be in league with the environmental lobby. He fears opposing them so when it sets a target, he enthusiastically follows them.
He seems happy to destroy our industries in the name of extreme environmentalism. The idea that new ones will simply pop up to replace them is insane. I wonder if that is why the police do little and are always too late to act against the vandalism and subversion we see – they know they will not be challenged as they have secret approval.
February 19, 2020
If Boris pursues this Green agenda he will bankrupt the country, at the same time as placing unbearable tax burdens on the people. He seems completely lacking in common sense, knowledge and wisdom. I just wonder who is really directing Boris.
I don’t think it is Cummings as Cummings does not lack common sense.
February 19, 2020
Chris, I’ll believe Boris about battery electric cars when he starts building the extra power stations to provide the electrical energy to charge the batteries. Until then he’s just a joke.
February 19, 2020
“I do not wish to publish personalised attacks on named individuals in reply. ”
Quite so, but there’s no shortage of prominent humbugs. Possibly the most hilarious are those who win show business awards and use the occasion to deliver a sanctimonious lecture on how we should change our ways, then jet off.
Carbon offsets are curiously similar to the medieval practice of the Sale of Indulgences. I suspect some major scams work through them.
February 19, 2020
Cosmic, Nicely put.
February 19, 2020
It seems that CO2 is the big baddy re global warming. Trees absorb CO2 but it seems that far more are being cut down that are being planted. If we can’t even get that right which would cost little there is not much hope.
February 19, 2020
So Boris and government have decided to get our own home grown ‘Frankie Gallaghers’ types out in the fields instead of industrous hard working foreigners who can’t speak english as if Frankie Gallagher could speak English- well good luck with that then- I do hope government has some kind of Pol Pot style manoeuvre planned to manage this? But am afraid it’s all only more gobshitery!
February 19, 2020
Could your Government explain where our electricity will come from during a long cold winter with heavy snowfall and very light winds.
February 19, 2020
Quite so. Could any Government tell us were the raw materials for the batteries will come from? As yet they haven’t been discovered and don’t exist, just to cover the UK’s needs excluding any take up elsewhere in the World.
A real thought out sound bite, that will end in shame for all that pretend to govern.
February 19, 2020
Ian @ Barkham
“Could any Government tell us where the raw materials for the batteries will come from?”
You don’t need a government to tell you that, as it happens Afghanistan has a lot of lithium.
February 19, 2020
I believe the batteries will need vast quantities of cobalt which, apparently, can be mined from the seabed. So no worries about the environment there then!
February 19, 2020
They haven’t got a clue. It would have to be Gas/Nuclear and a tiny bit of hydro. Plus perhaps some of that absurdly imported (on diesel ships of course and doubtless chopped & prepared using fossil fuel energy) wood/biofuel from North America.
February 19, 2020
Lifelogic said: “They havenât got a clue.” That says it all. The credibility of this government is in tatters. BEVs but no fuel. It’s risible.
February 20, 2020
Its all a dastardly plot. How to reduce reliance on the GPs and NHS – stop diesel and petrol cars – make most people walk – they get fitter – its a win -win.
The elderly ones who can’t walk will starve, so hastening population decrease. Immigration will hall -after all who will want to come here with hopeless transport?
February 20, 2020
oops – -will fall not will hall !!
February 19, 2020
Richard P
Well I know where my electricity will come from during such conditions……from the diesel genny in my shed, running off waste oil.
February 19, 2020
Carbon offset is a con, it is an out for very rich people to carry on with their extravagant lifestyles while lecturing to the rest of us. All this greenery stuff is being advanced on the back of a lack of accountability , that is why they can get away with it. Governments who propose stupid and ruinously expensive eco targets that they know they will never be held accountable for as their political careers will be over long before then. Celebrities lecturing us from a plastic boat in the high street before taking a first class seat to the USA for their next gig. The BBC lecturing us about Climate Change every minute of the day like demented zealots while their staff rack up air miles like a petrol head.
To put a stop to this eco nonsense, that is allowing anarchists a free reign to block our streets and cause all sorts of nuisance, we need to make the people lecturing us about climate change walk the walk. Lets have all these virtue signalling MPs and Ministers, not only publish their expense accounts, let us also have an audited carbon footprint as well, and as the BBC has lost the plot on Climate Change they and their staff should instructed to go Carbon neutral. I have a feeling that if this was done we would be hearing a lot less about climate change.
February 19, 2020
The carbon-zero plans are just talk. Virtue-signaling at its worst.
There is not a hope that the infrastructure will be in place to support millions of EVs by 2035. Or 2032 or whatever the current virtue-signal year is now.
10 million EVs drawing 7kW at night is 70GW. Night-time will not be off-peak anymore, it will be on-peak.
Am I the only one to think “it ain’t gonna happen” ?
February 19, 2020
KZB, You are right – it ain’t gonna happen. Boris is not building the power stations (or the infrastructure) to make it happen. Most people use their cars and vans to commute or directly for work. There are over 38m licenced vehicles on UK roads. So we may be looking at 30m vehicles being charged during the night – even worse than your example. Unless, of course, Boris plans to stop us driving.
February 19, 2020
Exactly and indeed it is far better if it does not happen.
February 19, 2020
Until people wake up to the fact that carbon dioxide isnât a problem, itâs an essential gas and is a plant food which is responsible for greening the planet then thereâs no hope
We each exhale 30 tons of Co2 in our lifetime so thereâs absolutely no hope when people continue to demonise Co2
February 19, 2020
Of course itâs not going to happen. The chance of any political party getting into government with a manifesto to implement such green lunacy is negligible
February 19, 2020
John,
Your readers might be interested to know that the BBC broadcast, yesterday, a half-hour long interview with Prof Myles Allen, one of the movers and shakers of the Zero Carbon idea.
See BBC Sounds, Radio 4, Feb 18 2020, 9:30 PM, “The life scientific” – an interview with Jim Al-Khalili.
It is worth listening to, whether you believe the GW claims or not, as it is rare for people with a scientific background, as distinct from a pressure group with a political agenda, to be heard.
February 19, 2020
I see that the Royal Academy of Engineering has been in discussions with partners across the engineering profession on working together in recent times . This has resulted in the formation of the National Engineering Policy Centre involving 38 different engineering organisations . The purpose is to provide evidence based policy guidance from engineering expertise to policy makers . You can see a letter to the Prime Minister from the Royal Academy of Engineering on their website .
I hope that this means sanity will prevail .
February 19, 2020
Second ever post – definitely the last.
If anyone anywhere is serious about AGW and considers that the UK should make a move to reducing its emissions, the only even half-feasible option is to begin an immediate massive investment in nuclear generation. Firstly, in building several large power stations to come onstream within a decade, and secondly a parallel, similarly spectacular investment in advanced nuclear engineering to provide the wit and design capability to be ready for a new generation of stations (possibly distributed, probably much smaller in size, possibly local to need). There is no other feasible means of provision – and nor will there be in my lifetime – that will provide the power required to give a modern lifestyle to 70 million people. All protestations to the contrary are either deluded, deliberately deceitfully-framed or just ill-informed, politically-motivated cant. Sometimes a combination of these. It certainly cannot be done by building windmills, virtue-signalling at awards ceremonies, conflating other eco-issues as obfuscation, and then swapping carbon chits with each other and saying that that is alright then.
Idea 17: cancel HS2 and spend the dosh on nuclear power. Begin any day you like but I recommend tomorrow at the latest.
February 19, 2020
totally agree
February 19, 2020
Mongoose, Just so. The government needs to commence the build of one new Nuclear (Hinckley C size, 10 year build time) each year until 2035. Even with those we’ll only just make it. And then there’s all the infrastructure, and all the cars to make. In reality it’s not going to happen, of course.
February 20, 2020
Indeed, Nick, and if it isn’t going to happen, what do we do to keep the lights on and grannie warm at non-ruinous prices? That answer has to be to stop wrecking the energy infrastructure we have.
I used to hold out hope that an escape from the EU would include an escape from eco-extremism too but I fear that that is not to be.
February 19, 2020
So some Green celebs have a Carbon Foot Print in accordance no doubt with some greens are better than others. Brussels being a bottom.
But even if they logged off their shakey virtue signal platform and rose, back-packed up a mountain and sat in Plato’s Cave, they would still be wrong for all to see but themselves.
In short, they live in a theoretical statistical world based on heat measurement before thermometers were invented. There is something old yet babyish about their self-made problems and their offered solutions:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.
Up Jack got, and home did trot,
As fast as he could caper,
He went to bed to mend his head,
With vinegar and brown paper.
February 19, 2020
I see that the BBC is now having a go at 20-45 years jetting away for Stag/Hens-dos. Funny how the BBC never mention how many air-miles (never mind road-miles) their own staff generate, often for no other reason than presentational effect, and of course the biggest hypocrisy is when their environmental reporters and annalists jet all over the world to report on the effect of AGW or to report on meetings like COP (should they not be using pooled reports from the host countries nominated broadcasters)!…
I won’t post a URL but I’m sure those interested can find the video report by searching the BBC ‘news’ website for “How overseas stag parties are hurting the environment”.
February 19, 2020
I dread to think what my glass of port is doing to the environment
February 19, 2020
The hysteria over CO2 emissions and climate almost defies belief. How can any thinking person believe there is a climate emergency when for millions of years there was no runaway warming at CO2 levels over 10 times those of today?
Inevitably ministers are blaming climate change for flooding. They have lamentably failed to research weather history as there have been many higher rainfalls and windspeeds in the past. Ministers and MPs should read Daniel Defoe’s account of the 1703 storm.
February 19, 2020
JR
“Miss Thunbergâs supporters and funders have been very keen to show she will use trains and sail boats”
People managed it for thousands of years before the introduction of steam in the 1800’s. No doubt the modern equivalent will be ‘green’ solar power.
February 20, 2020
Except that firstly CO2 is almost certainly not a significant problem anyway and secondly solar and wind are rather inefficient and not on demand (nor is electricity easily or cheaply stored). âPlus the renewablesâ still produce considerable CO2 to manufacture, install, maintain and replace. On a world scale they make virtually no difference to total CO2 output.
February 20, 2020
Also very expensive energy and that is very damaging too.
February 19, 2020
Why is it that you only need 20 points in the âjob offerâ category?
Surely a job offer should be mandatoryâŠ..like the rest of the world
Isn’t it best to have a home grown labour force
February 20, 2020
Since when has it been a good idea to listen to a 16-year old girl and make TAX legislation because of what she says ?? Do you know how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere around our planet ? Only 0.04% – it is measured in Parts Per Million. Plants need a great deal to grow and flourish and all our food is plant based. Farmers with polytunnels or greenhouses pump CO2 into them to make the plants grow bigger and stronger and produce more fruit or vegetables. You are making laws which will REDUCE CO2 and the consequences could be famine in parts of the world. WELL DONE !