Carbon dioxide, jobs and the UK

Some green policies   really do destroy jobs, plunge people into fuel poverty and make our lives difficult. A recent report says that the UK should make its carbon dioxide targets even more taxing, to allow for all the CO2 emitted in places like China when making items to export to us.

So let’s get this straight. The UK has lost a lot of industrial capacity, in no small measure because Green energy policies have driven up our price of energy and helped make us uncompetitive with lower energy cost countries. This at least allowed us to hit CO2 targets a bit more easily, as we no longer use all that energy to make things. Under international rules each country accounts for the CO2 it generates. If a country decides to gain industrial market share, it has to do more to cut CO2 emissions elsewhere in its society if it is going to be part of the international agreements on these matters. If a country decides on deindustrialisation as one way to hit CO2 targets, that works under current accounting rules.

Some of us have gone hoarse warning that pushing up UK and EU energy prices will simply shift CO2 generating activities from us to parts of the world who do not share this concern. Now that has come to pass, it is amazing that we are being told it is our fault and we need to penalise ourselves further. If we do so, then we will lose even more industry, and doubtless be told that we need to tighten further to allow for more imports.

When interviewed on the radio, a proponent of this  approach said he wanted people to change their behaviours. He gave two examples. People should not expect to own their own car, but should use public transport or hire and share cars when needed. He also thought that  we should run household appliances like fridges for many more years than we currently do, with more repairs. He seemed to think this would save a lot of energy, reducing the amount expended on making new machines. It would also mean running older less fuel efficient equipment for longer, whilst  destroying the jobs of appliance and car makers. More reliance on public transport can raise the amount of CO2 and other emissions , depending on bus and train utilisation  rates, age of the trains and buses, and on the way they are driven.

We also hear the good news that there are no US tornadoes in March, a most unusual outcome. The climate change forecasters who have told us to expect more extreme weather, have now amended this forecast to less frequent extreme weather but more extreme extreme weather. Maybe that covers the good news this March. It just goes to show how difficult forecasting is.

Personally I want the UK to have a stronger industrial base, not a smaller one, and want people to afford enough energy to have decent lives. The idea that we need more wind energy, which in turn means we will need more back up energy for when the wind is not  blowing does  not sound to me to be very green  let alone cost efficient.

110 Comments

  1. Lifelogic
    March 20, 2015

    Indeed but all this is all obvious to any sensible numerate person, engineer or scientist. But the EU, Labour, the Greens and 90%+ of the Tories who voted for the absurd climate change act. They are just in thrall to a mad & irrational hugely exaggerated religion. Worse still some do not really “believe” at all but just think votes can be garnered by pretending to be green.

    Door to door, depot to depot public transport is often not even more efficient that a car. certainly not a full car. It takes indirect routes, needs connections, need staff, is empty much of the day. Even walking and cycling uses food as fuel, which can actually be quite inefficient when all the energy used in production, livestock, refrigeration and cooking if counted.

    It is nearly always slower and less convenient too and very much more expensive. If trains are so energy efficient why are they so expensive? Seven people, door to door, London to Manchester return by car perhaps ÂŁ100 – by train ÂŁ2200+ the taxis at each end. You even have to suffer the irritating and endless announcements too.

    1. Lifelogic
      March 20, 2015

      Of course we do not have many scientists or engineers in parliament. It is mainly lawyers, PPE grads, self publicists, expenses fiddlers, career seekers, pointless warmongers, no compunction liars, and bent salesmen types crossed with quack green crap religious priests.

      Attracted like moths to a light bulb with perhaps just 15% of honourable exceptions.

      1. Hope
        March 22, 2015

        JR, why have you not included the latest agreement/ deal between the cartel at the behest of the EU. After all it will make it clear that if any got into power they would have the same EU energy policy.

    2. Lifelogic
      March 20, 2015

      When an engineer, physicist etc. looks at numbers & statistics he tends to think: what is this really telling me, are the figures correct and meaningful and how could we best change things to make it better or more efficient for people.

      When most career politicians look at number & statistics they are more likely to think which bit of this can we selectively use to con the public that we have made things better and the other party were useless? Or to defend and push through their latest expensive lunacy and/or tax increase.

      I particularly liked Labour’s old claim of “huge increase in numbers going to university” – caused mainly by just changing the names of polytechnics to universities.

      Or the often silly claim that people earn more “due” to going to university. When generally it is just that people earn more if they are clever (the same reason they might well choose to university) that and their different class backgrounds, better family connections and aspirations.

    3. Lifelogic
      March 20, 2015

      Many (indeed probably most) “green policies” destroy jobs. Furthermore many green policies are totally misguided even in their own green terms. They are not green in meaningful & real sense.

      Most greens I find seem to be against nuclear power, technical advances in general and GM crops but are for “organic” food and quack medicine. They invariably have little or no knowledge of physics or engineering. It is after all mainly an irrational belief systems.

      So often they are often in the Prince Charles mode, though of them some do at least practise what they preach.

  2. Mark W
    March 20, 2015

    Why do we have to share a country with these people? I sometimes wish East Germany still existed so these spiteful imbeciles could have somewhere pointed out to them. (Not that it was short of industry, but wasn’t short of state control).

    Surely there are places in the world that rely on subsistence cave dwelling for them and leave us to our free market exciting world forged in the 80s.

    1. Lifelogic
      March 20, 2015

      We too and quite enough state control from the EU telling what power our vacuum cleaners can be, littering the country with often stationary huge, bird and bat killing, crucifixes and telling us that we cannot have nice bright halogen light bulbs. Also that our gas boilers have to be much more expensive, far more complex and rather less reliable.

      So much for subsidiarity or taking decisions at the lowest sensible level.

      1. Bazman
        March 20, 2015

        Vacuum cleaners and light bulbs have been covered. You could not further your arguments and were scientifically and economically wrong so why are you writing this propaganda again?

        1. Mondeo Man
          March 21, 2015

          Bazman – You’ve never voted Tory and never will.

          1. Mondeo Man
            March 21, 2015

            Bazman – You’ve never voted Tory and never will, no matter how much the Tories try to appeal to you.

          2. Bazman
            March 22, 2015

            Are they trying to appeal to me by increasing my taxes, cutting my tax credits and giving priority to the wealthy over a people on minimum wage with family whilst telling me against all personal experience and any report that is not Tory propaganda is that my living standards are better than in 2010? As if. With further threats to cut services that myself, my family and the rest of the average population needs and may well need in order to give tax cuts to the rich and put profits for tax dodging companies first.
            The election will not be fought on facts and reasoned argument as Cameron’s example shows us. It will be fought against the likes of yourself and lierlogics deluded and repetitive rhetoric of basically trickle down economics and bigoted right wing religious conservatism with the Tories believing they own the facts. I predict they will be out this time with many of the real fruitcakes wasting their vote on turbo Tories UKIP.
            My main point being what have they done to help the average person since the crash? Nothing, just made them pay for it and carried on as per supported by a few vested interests via donations
            Does anyone seriously believe anything they say or expect them to increase living standards except for a few who already have to much and do little work except causing trouble for the rest?

        2. Lifelogic
          March 22, 2015

          If you think I was scientifically wrong anywhere do please let me know where, preferable in a manner that makes some sense.

          1. Bazman
            March 22, 2015

            You have been tackled many times on a scientific and logical basis, you either refuse to answer or just waffle and obstruficate with conservative nonsense of a 19th century landlord. Got your number.

        3. APL
          March 22, 2015

          Bazman: “You could not further your arguments and were scientifically and economically wrong”

          Baz, you are a funny man.

          The arguments about Tungsten firmament bulbs were that they were inefficient – burning electricity to produce heat rather than light. True.

          But nonetheless, a pointless argument. Since the vast majority of Tungsten filament light bulbs were employed inside domestic dwellings all the owners needed to do was turn their thermostat down a degree.

          Instead of that simple solution. Government got involved and introduced poisonous heavy metals into domestic houses – in the so called long life (they are not), claimed to be high efficiency light bulbs. But because of the much more complex manufacturing process – more expensive lamps.

          The cost of retooling an entire industry?
          The waste of perfectly adequate investment?
          The unknown effects of introducing dangerous mercury into the domestic environment?

          (at a time when they claimed it was too unsafe to use the old tried and tested conventional mercury medical thermometer. )

          Thanks to all the long life fluorescent lamps in the domestic environment, there is more risk of heavy metal poisoning than there ever was with the one medical mercury thermometer that a few households might have had in the bathroom medical cabinet.

          1. Bazman
            March 22, 2015

            Where you ever worried about florescent light pollution in an industrial or commercial environment? You where not and modern bulbs with the correct processing far outweigh their pollutants and additional costs and space heating directly by electricity is very expensive and inefficient. What about the heat being removed by air con? As for retooling. Why are we all not driving round in model T’s? Well do tell us and tell us why if a more expensive bulb saves money we should not use it if it gives the same light?

    2. Mondeo Man
      March 20, 2015

      Effectively these imbeciles ARE creating East Germany.

      Communism by limiting consumption through size of wheelie bin. Reducing people to car sharing and repairing fridges sounds like they want to make people poorer to me.

      So how do they square mass immigration with Greenism then ? For the economic migrant the sole purpose is to enable them to consume more of the world’s resources than they could back at home.

      That “We’ve forgotten to include emissions that have now been outsourced to China” indicates that these people are really slow. It is what many of us have been saying here for years when they closed down our power stations to save the planet.

      1. Jagman84
        March 20, 2015

        They are Socialists ( including elements of the Tory party). What more is there to say?

        1. APL
          March 22, 2015

          Jagman84: “including elements of the Tory party”

          Refuse to vote official Tory.

    3. Timaction
      March 20, 2015

      The legacy parties are (inviting too many in ed) England with their support for free movement. I don’t believe the climate change religion but how does importing 623,000 people a year and their energy use/demand help with our “carbon footprint?”. Kind of an own goal.

  3. Martyn G
    March 20, 2015

    Truly, those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad!
    We are plagued and governed by those mad people who are unable to see the real world for what it is and, worse, possess an economic death-wish for the UK…..

  4. Old Albion
    March 20, 2015

    And it’s all based on a load of hot air. Pun intended.

  5. alan jutson
    March 20, 2015

    Perhaps we should have a new law that precludes anyone from talking about climate change, because all the hot air it produces is bad for the environment.

    Sounds like this report, like so many we see nowadays, was written by someone who produces absolutely nothing tangible for a living, otherwise they would not produce such absolute nonsense.

    So use Public transport, what when it stops at 18.00 hours where web live.
    How about rural areas where they get just the odd bus in a day.
    Perhaps tradesmen should carry all of their tools to working sites on a bike.

    Please do not tell me this report was government funded John !

    Was it ?

    1. alan jutson
      March 20, 2015

      Sorry for Government funded

      Read

      taxpayer funded.

  6. Hefner
    March 20, 2015

    A bit too easy an explanation, and seriously lacking historical perspective especially from someone who has been politically around for more than 28 years , with some of those in charge of Corporate Affairs at DTI!

    A somewhat more balanced historical view can be found at (quick, garlic and crucifix, the Guardian vampires are coming …)

    http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/nov/16/why-britain-doesnt-make-things-manufacturing

    The main point is that the de-industrialization did not start because of green constraints, and was pursued by all, the Conservative-, the Labour- and less so by the Coalition governments mainly driven by ideological reasons, the green constraints only appearing later. And all that under the watchful eyes of the Right Hon. MP for Wokingham since his election to the HoC in 1997.

    So there might be some hot air, but check twice to be sure where it comes from.

    Reply Not so. The 1970s and 1980s decline of industry had much to do with the failures of nationalisation hitting our shipbuilding, steel and car industry. In recent years energy prices have become a major problem.

    1. Gary
      March 20, 2015

      finacialization is the real cause of the destruction of industry. It is the cause that cannot be mentioned by those who get funding from financial houses.

      When you oversupplly credit and rates drop as they did for 30 years you destroy capital and industries cannot stay in business. Jobs go abroad. The money flows to the financiers instead and huge asset bubbles appear. You end up with a ponzi economy cheered on by charlatans.

      When the history of this period is written , it will be recorded as the greatest theft in history. We can only hope that many will be jailed for these crimes.

      Climate change hocus doesn’t help, it is the same charlatans peddling that.

    2. libertarian
      March 21, 2015

      Hefner & Gary

      Sadly there is nothing balanced in that article, a lot of it is just plain wrong & makes the same mistakes others make which is to compare how things were manufactured in the past and conclude that we don’t do that anymore. You don’t say, nothing to do with innovation, technology and manufacturing moving on in the last 40 years then? Just so you know a large percentage of manufacturing ( software and in bedded technology) isn’t allocated to manufacturing any more but to services.

      Rather than rely on under qualified socialist journalists how about you hear from the people that actually do it. Here’s what UK manufacturing has to say.

      http://www.themanufacturer.com/uk-manufacturing-statistics/

      1. Hefner
        March 26, 2015

        Libertarian, thanks for pointing out TheManufacturer website, and the switch from “manufacture” to “service”.

  7. Richard1
    March 20, 2015

    Green obsessed people are not interested in or capable of rational thought and argument. Most are motivated by anti-capitalism. Otherwise intelligent and educated people make absurd arguments such as that above. rational argument with such people is neither possible nor worthwhile. But it is important to expose the absurdity of green policies and argument s em public are clear about them and will reject them at the ballot box. A mistake made by Mr Cameron has been pandering to green absurdities, thereby bolstering their credibility (and costing us all a lot for no purpose in the meantime

    1. Mike Stallard
      March 20, 2015

      Mr Cameron (remember vote blue get green?) warmly supported green policy. Mr Paterson spoke out against it and was sacked. The Green Blob in secret Brussels is, apparently, very influential. Greenpeace is no longer, I read, all fluffy and nice. Which quangos and advisers were ed, responsible for the flooding in the Somerset levels. But we shall never know the full details because, like all Brussels politics, it is kept private and not at all open to you and me.
      Mr Miliband who introduced the original bill, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the rising fuel prices. That,( did you guess?), is due entirely to Big Oil’s Greed.

      1. Richard1
        March 21, 2015

        I think Mr Cameron’s early attempts to appease the environmental left were a mistake, and a very expensive one given the policies he has agreed to. But I don’t think we have heard Mr Cameron utter the phrase ‘global warming’ for at least 4 years. Shorn of the LibDem baggage I think there is some chance a Conservative govt, under pressure from Conservative MPs will finally ditch green crap.

        1. Lifelogic
          March 22, 2015

          Personally I do not think Cameron believes in the catastrophic warming exaggeration at all he just inflicted this hugely wasteful & expensive nonsense on the nation just to garner a few votes. What could be more immoral than that? It does not even garner net votes anyway.

          Then again perhaps he really is that scientifically illiterate and stupid.

          Which is it?

  8. Ted Monbiot
    March 20, 2015

    Until there is a proper agreement by all nations to reduce CO2 by equal percentage amounts and equal timescales to the UK, we should refuse to go any further than our current comittment of an 80% reduction by 2050.
    Our own target is very difficult to achieve unless engineers invent some new technologies.
    And the amount of CO2 the UK outputs, by comparison to world total CO2 output, is tiny.
    Gesture politics by our leaders here in the UK, may make our own leaders feel all nice and proud, but it will not affect the world’s climate on its own.

  9. Ian wragg
    March 20, 2015

    Agenda 21 John
    The world government strategy to de industrialised the West
    Actively followed by Brussels but ignored by France and Germany. We are lead by some of most stupid people on the planet and it won’t end well.
    Daily I finish my blog with wind power contribution. Yesterday on 50 gigawatt peak demand wind supplying 0.5 gigawatt or 1% . At minimum demand this morning wind is supplying 3%.
    Insurrection is the only answer. I see immigration, EU and defence don’t feature in your grid chart. Possibly the most important topics for the voter
    Growth fuelled by immigration.
    Will you still blog in opposition?

    Reply I regularly write about the EU, immigration and defence. I do not currently foresee circumstances to end this blog

  10. DaveM
    March 20, 2015

    I find today’s post mildly amusing. A bit like a fable without a moral. I would – if asked – make up a slightly different fable but with the same moral:

    There was an island called Britain, and the people who lived there liked eating fish. So, the people who lived near the sea used to catch fish in the summer and sell it. The people ate some, and the rest of it they used to smoke and salt and pickle to eat in the winter. They didn’t catch many fish in the winter because they knew the fish needed to regenerate and the weather wasn’t nice and fishermen used to drown when their boats overturned. This was all good, because the fishermen had livelihoods, and so did the fishmongers, the boat builders, the marketeers, the transporters, the restarauteurs, and so on. The same sort of thing happened in places like France and Spain.

    However, the boats got too good and the fishermen caught too many fish. So, what do you think happened? Do you think the fishermen decided to go fishing a bit less or make smaller nets? NOOOO silly, that would be stupid.

    What happened was, all these really clever people from the fishing countries (no, Johnny, they were from GOVERNMENTS, they knew absolutely nothing about fishing or common sense) got together and decided to limit the amount of fish caught by telling fishermen they could only go fishing a couple of times a month.

    But only the people in Britain followed the rules – the other fishermen decided they’d go in to the British waters and catch the British fish too!!! I know Johnny, it’s not fair is it? But guess what? Sometimes, on the days the British fishermen went fishing they didn’t always catch fish, so they didn’t have any money to feed their families, and all the other people who had fishing-related jobs had similar problems.

    So – what Johnny? No, the GOVERNMENT didn’t help them at all, so the fishermen, in desperation, went fishing when they shouldn’t have (including in the winter when it was really dangerous). And when they got caught, the government made things even worse by putting the fishermen in prison. So, all the once-thriving towns on the coast are now full of people who live hand-to-mouth on government handouts.

    The moral of this story is……yes Johnny (aged 5)?

    “Do what you think is right and sensible, and don’t expect foreigners to do what they say their going to do even though you agree to it to the detriment of your own people”.

    You couldn’t make it up.

  11. Ex-expat Colin
    March 20, 2015

    Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam is regarded as the worst natural disaster in the history of Vanuatu. And only 11 people perished. Bad enough. Will CO2 be causal as in the likely rise in number of prostitutes – House Concurrent Resolution 36 of the 113th Congress (“Recognizing the disparate impact of climate change on women and the efforts of women globally to address climate change”), dated April 26.

    BBC World Service informs us that this is an area of severe cyclones. So how come much more people did not perish. BBC says that the people largely knew what to do at such events by hiding down a hole, going to a cave or keeping low(?). So its not knew and as such people are effectively prepared from long experience. Still need help though in terms of preparedness.

    Gore wants punishments applied to deniers and fossil fuel investors, “we need to put a price on denial in politics”. etc ed

  12. agricola
    March 20, 2015

    Who I would ask would make such bizarre recommendations. Who writes this errant nonsense.

    I would point out that this CO2, which is incidentally plant food, religious zeal has grown up during the watch of the conservative party, under the leadership of CMD with his rooftop windmill. You may care to blame the EU and the Lib/Dems in cabinet, but only a fool would believe that your party were not complicit in the process.

    When I see in your awaited manifesto that windmills and associated green crap are dead in the water, that fracking is to go ahead bigtime, that new nuclear facilities are to be built, I will begin to believe your party has woken up. It is a different matter to insulate and have efficient boilers via a levy on power bills. I would also advocate solar domestic hot water generation, but not electrical generation , the benefits of which can be too easily manipulated.

    Your radio proponent should be co-opted and sent out to India and China to spread the good news, but without diplomatic immunity.

    A strong industrial base yes, but do not get nostalgic over the industries we have lost to low labour cost centres. Being dirty and labour intensive they are best gone. We are better off buying the product and adding value before re-exporting it as a high tech item not readily copied in a low tech environment. However we ever need to be light on our feet because the competition are always playing catch up.

    At risk of being facetious, you are beginning to sound like our friend Lifelogic. How long before your party realises that most of this green nonsense is yet further reason for Brexit.

  13. Bert Young
    March 20, 2015

    The tentacles of the EU have a stranglehold on our endeavours ; we must simply ignore them . Much of our manufacturing depends on a readily available and cheap energy source ; employment levels , wage levels , the use of apprentices all are related to this basic . The EU must not be allowed to stand in the way of our progress and we rely on our leadership to produce .

  14. JimS
    March 20, 2015

    The ‘ethical’ approach is to muck up our own backyard, rather than get someone else to muck up theirs on our behalf.

  15. Shieldsman
    March 20, 2015

    Might I remind you of the 2010 Manifesto:
    Vote blue, go green
    A Conservative government will cut carbon emissions and rebuild our energy security. We will make it easier for people to go green, with incentives for people to do the right thing.
    Combat climate change
    We will reduce carbon emissions in line with our international commitments. We will promote small- and large-scale low carbon energy production, including nuclear, wind, clean coal and biogas. We will safeguard our energy security by ensuring there is sufficient spare capacity in the energy system
    Our national security is threatened by a looming energy crunch in which a third of our electricity generating capacity will close, and most of our gas will need to be imported by 2020.
    Yet Britain is uniquely placed to be the world’s first low carbon economy: we have the natural resources to generate wind and wave power, a skilled workforce trained in the energy industry, a hi-tech manufacturing sector and a green financial centre in the City of London.
    5 years on and energy has got more expensive, renewables are part time due to the vagaries of the wind, and heavily subsidised by an 8% levy on our fuel bills.
    Still not to worry, Cameron having blown the election once again we will have Milband and the unions cunning plan for ‘a million green jobs’.

    1. Mike Stallard
      March 20, 2015

      I have just come back from Queensland, Australia where I was staying with determinedly Green people.
      1. The solar panels on the roof produced scalding water when the sun shone. This hot water lasted all night, including showers. When the rain came in the tropics, though, the water went tepid as the sun disappeared. No sun, no solar.
      2. The hydro electric scheme where the Barron River poured out of the hills worked brilliantly until the end of the second world war. then, with all the new white goods, it was no longer enough for the town of Cairns. The hydro only produced enough electricity for morning and evening. The rest had to be produced in other ways.
      3. In India, I am told, and in parts of Johannesburg, both modern countries, electricity is now intermittent. So the supply which we enjoy in this cold, wet little island can also become intermittent – as it was last time we were broke in the 1970s.

  16. English Pensioner
    March 20, 2015

    I am happy to believe that climate change is taking place, just as it has done ever since the earth was formed, but I am far from convinced that its man-made.

    But the worse thing about those who believe in climate change is that they want to shut down all discussion of the subject on the grounds that it is “proven science” and are thus advocating that no-one should be allowed access to media to put any other viewpoint, an argument that the BBC seems quite happy to accept. Some extreme climate change fanatics even seem happy to compare “climate-change deniers” to “holocaust deniers” and want similar laws applied to the subject.
    To me, anyone who is unwilling to engage in a proper debate on the subject knows that he has a case which won’t stand up to detailed scrutiny. Personally, I’m interested in the theory that the incidence of sun-spots could be affecting our climate, but research on the subject is very limited, presumably because we couldn’t do anything about it (so there is no money to be made).

    Science is never settled, although there have always been those who have wanted to ban discussion going back to the time of Galileo. If we’d accepted the argument put forward by the scientists of the day that the astronomy of the sun was settled, we’d still believe that the sun went around the earth rather than the earth spinning on its own axis.

    Meanwhile we continue with the biggest confidence trick that man has ever thought of which is cost us billions, or should that be trillions?

  17. Denis Cooper
    March 20, 2015

    Driven purely by typical chauvinistic jealousy the French have deliberately scuppered our eclipse by sending across their pollution, another reason to leave the EU!

    But the good news is that while the levels of airborne particulate pollutants are now very high there has been a small reduction in the level of the most dangerous pollutant of all, carbon dioxide. I saw this on TV, either Channel 4 or Sky, so it must be true.

    1. forthurst
      March 20, 2015

      “…there has been a small reduction in the level of the most dangerous pollutant of all, carbon dioxide.”

      This would be occur were the oceans to be cooling. As sane climatologists are aware that we have already passed the latest solar driven peak towards a cooler climate, a reduction in atmospheric CO2 through oceanic absorption is predicatable however many green loons replaced their cars with bicycles.

    2. Excalibur
      March 21, 2015

      Quite so, Denis. I see that in a Press Review this week Sky allowed a woman from Civitas, no less, to assert that the latest UKIP scandal was ‘somehow more grubby’ than the misconduct of other political parties. Really ? Like Cyril Smith perhaps ?

  18. Javelin
    March 20, 2015

    They are not green policies they are not even Marxist policies. They are capitalist bashing policies. There are numerous examples of industry being driven off shore where it can be more polluting. The Eco warriors don’t care they just want to destroy industry.

  19. Graham
    March 20, 2015

    John

    You have my sympathy having to share your time with these foolish people who clearly are never going to change their view however economically illerate it is.

    These people are not necessarily the danger it is the politicians who support them that do the most to harm the country.

    1. Lifelogic
      March 20, 2015

      Exactly.

      1. Bazman
        March 20, 2015

        LOL! Take a look at you own posts. Deluded does not cover it.

  20. Matt
    March 20, 2015

    There are always people in society who demand control of how we live our lives.
    Climate change is just the latest in a very long line of statist schemes to bring us all in to line with somebody’s idealised lifestyle.
    It’s been particularly effective because it’s built upon and conflated with the very rigorous and solid science of global warming. It’s really rather ingenious if you think about it:
    1. Take a good solid piece of science such as global warming physics
    2. Inflate it to the point where it appears to threaten civilisation.
    3. Tell everybody that your solution is the only one which can save us.
    4. Viciously attack anybody who questions you.

    1. agricola
      March 20, 2015

      I might add, take a perfectly normal occurrence like global warming /global cooling, that has been going on for millions of years. Then sell the idea that it is nothing to do with the Sun but all the fault of human kind and it’s efforts to improve the lot of the people. Then create a whole fake religion around it while passing out the plate to collect green taxes in order to support these eco druids. I await the appearance of the various manifestos to see if anyone has woken up to this nonsense.

      1. Lifelogic
        March 20, 2015

        The Tory manifesto will surely be full of the Cameron greencrap. The interesting question is Cameron so deluded that he actually believes in it or is he just a total con merchant who foolishly thinks there are votes in fake greenery.

        I tend to think the latter myself – but the votes are really in cheap energy and jobs anyway.

        1. Bazman
          March 20, 2015

          Again what is greencrap and where is the cheap energy coming from and who is going to produce it. Did you feel the pollution yesterday and the number of deaths it is causing?
          Are you proposing real greenery or more pollution?

          1. Edward2
            March 22, 2015

            You are confusing pollution and climate change again Baz

          2. Lifelogic
            March 22, 2015

            Gas and nuclear are both quite clean.

          3. Bazman
            March 22, 2015

            CO2 is pollution there is no confusion.

          4. Edward2
            March 23, 2015

            CO2 maybe many things but is not a pollutant at the levels it is and has been in our our atmosphere.
            Smoke is pollution and things like Nitrous Oxide at high levels are pollutants.

          5. Matt
            March 23, 2015

            CO2 is emphatically not a pollutant. That’s flat out lies.
            Yet again Baz, trying to conflate solid science (in this case air pollution rather than global warming) with the speculative climate change guff.
            Still my position is not that climate change is incorrect. It’s possible there’s truth in it. i.e. that the positive feedbacks in the climate dramatically enhance the very small CO2 warming effect. I really don’t mind operating operating on this very unlikely worst case assumption.

            But I must point out, yet again, that if we really wanted to cut CO2 we could do it easily with a bunch of nuclear power stations.
            Yes nuclear waste is a problem that needs to be sensible managed, but it is manageable. Yes there is a risk of the escape of highly toxic materials from reactors., but that is manageable as well. But there is also a risk from using intermittent power generation, and a risk from artificially inflating energy prices to the vulnerable to whom the cold is life-threatening.
            Nobody is suggesting that running nuclear power stations is going to bring about the end of the world. Climate change supposedly is. If this is the case, what on earth are we doing messing around with speculative power generation technologies whilst still emitting masses of CO2 when we could put a 20 year plan in place right now to switch to nuclear and eliminate CO2 from electricity generation for ever.

          6. Matt
            March 23, 2015

            Bazman,

            Whilst we’re on the subject, perhaps you’d like to join me in my campaign to ban another very dangerous “pollutant”, di-hydrogen monoxide.
            This is nasty stuff. It’s found in almost all the most deadly poisons and has killed countless people over recorded human history by filling their lungs and preventing them from breathing. Furthermore it causes devastating erosion to our coastlines.
            Surely urgent international action must be taken to keep this stuff out of our homes and our food supply.

  21. They Work for Us?
    March 20, 2015

    We continue to bump against a tipping point that the Greens, and anyone else, have NO authority to impose such changes on us, their prospective employers.
    We need less politicsfewer laws and regulation, more personal liberty and referenda on all major issues. We need to cut the cord that gives politicians Carte Blanche to do what they like and inflict it on us, they must become more like delegates following their constituents instructions. We must hear MPs say to Whips, I am sorry I have no mandate to support this issue and will not do so. We need a proper right of recall by constituents!

    1. fedupsouthener
      March 20, 2015

      Where are all the conservative MP’s who were so against renewable energy once upon a time? Are they worried about rocking the boat when an election is up and coming? It’s about time ministers started thinking about the economy and the people and put this issue to bed.

  22. Vanessa
    March 20, 2015

    Why don’t you legislate against it? We know you are wonderful at legislating against all sorts of things which YOU, the government have to abide by (rather than the people).

    We have the 5-year terms now which YOU have to obey.
    We have the reduction in CO2 by 80% which YOU have obey.
    We have foreign aid which has to be 7% of GDP which YOU have to obey.

    This government loves making laws for itself rather than we, the people !

    Reply 0.7%, not 7%

  23. Ex-expat Colin
    March 20, 2015

    Another IT system bites the dust, literally? Sorry sidelined, placed on the side whatever. IACS

    Wonderful stuff?

  24. fedupsouthener
    March 20, 2015

    Thanks John for bringing this up. If anyone wants to read the latest report by the Centre for Policy Studies then here is the link. The further you read down the report, the worse it gets. It really is quite frightening to see what politicians have done to our energy sector and the knock on effect it is having on the public and businesses. It is all utter madness and I am glad John can see what is happening. Only thing is nobody else wants to address this problem. Read the report from this link.

    http://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/150313101309-HowrenewablesubsidiesdestroyedtheUKelectricitymarket1.pdf

    A summary goes like this.

    No British government has yet to produce an analysis demonstrating
    renewables are the most efficient way of cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
    Neither has any government published any value-for-money analysis to
    justify the use of high cost private sector capital against a public sector
    comparator using the State’s balance sheet.

    Including capacity to cover for intermittency and extra grid
    infrastructure, the annualised capital cost of renewables is approximately
    ÂŁ9 billion. Against this needs to be set the saved fuel costs of generating
    electricity from conventional power stations. For gas, this would be around
    ÂŁ3 billion a year at current wholesale prices, implying an annual net cost
    of renewables of around ÂŁ6 billion a year.

    Intermittent renewables destroy markets

    The above analysis leads to a straightforward conclusion. You can have
    renewables. Or you can have the market. You cannot have both.

    1. BeeCee
      March 20, 2015

      As I have posted before:-

      1 KWH of Electricity to the consumer is 4 times the cost of 1 KWH of gas.

      Nuff said.

      1. petermartin2001
        March 20, 2015

        Not sure what your point is here. Conversion of energy from gas to electricity is never going to be better than at about 40% efficiency. Then there’s the cost of the electricity generators and transmission lines etc.

        So, if the economic efficiency works out at about 25% that would seem quite reasonable.

        1. Ted Monbiot
          March 21, 2015

          The point Peter is that the UK is committed to running the country by electricity alone.
          Generated by heavily subsidised non fossil fuel sources.
          Cars buses trains homes factories shops offices all using electric only.
          No trendy wood burners either, they will be banned.

          Not only will this prove increasingly expensive for bill payers but the cost of converting your home heating and cooking methods will also be expensive.
          And by experts calculations we will need many times the current electricity generated to keep the lights on if we are only allowed to use electric power.
          All due to our legally binding Climate Change Act requiring us to reduce CO2 by 80% by 2050.

  25. Iain Moore
    March 20, 2015

    If their logic is to penalise us for the CO2 production of imported goods, then then the logic of their argument should also extend to ‘importing’ people into the country, for unless immigrants hold their breath they will have a CO2 footprint.

    As such the recent mass immigration has added at the very least 10% to our CO2 output, and adding to our total at the rate of 2.5 million tons a year. So we should surely get a CO2 credit back from other counties for taking their people?

    PS I note the Climate Change Minister has in three months in travel to China, Kenya, South Korea, Sweden and UAE produced more CO2 than two British people out put in the year.

    1. Matt
      March 20, 2015

      Iain,

      You’ve missed the point. The idea is for other people to produce less CO2.
      Clearly an exception has to be made for environmentalists and our political leaders. In fact the rest of us drones actually have to cut our CO2 more to compensate.

  26. fedupsouthener
    March 20, 2015

    Basically, all these so called scientists who work for the IPCC (SHOULD BE QUESTIONED RE THE FACTS ED) None of the predictions over CO2 emissions has been proved and science can only be verified with proof. Our school children are being brainwashed into believing things that have not been proved as if it is an absolute fact when it is not. All this sending CO2 emissions to other countries is a total farce. It is about time Cameron put a halt to this. It costs more to send energy to the grid from onshore wind in Scotland than anywhere else and yet where do we find the most onshore wind farms????? Yes, that’s right, Scotland!! The amount of wind farms that have been approved on top of what we already have here is unbelievable. Yet still more applications come in on a scale that is hard to get your head around. Not one SNP minister has listened to the professors or the engineers who tell them we are heading for a disaster. Some of us in Scotland have had our lives turned up side down and for what??? Our house prices have fallen and in some cases cannot be sold at all. All hope for our future has gone and all we see are greedy foreign developers and landowners all raking in the money provided by us on our ever rising bills. An absolute tragedy for the UK who once had the best energy sector in the world. Wiped out by short thinking politicians who didn’t do their sums properly before implementing this policy. I wish there were more like you John but sadly that is not the case.

  27. forthurst
    March 20, 2015

    Why do these green loons never demand a total cessation of immigration, especially from parts of the world where they produce notoriously large families for religious reasons if they are so concerned about CO2 production? People cannot have a fridge repaired until they own one.

    Never mind, JR will do nothing to rock the boat of the ‘Greenest Government Ever’ by attacking directly those whose policies are so flawed. We are awash with congenital idiots who have a natural affinity with the BBC; however if the government governed in the interests of the country instead of in the interests of greedy or loudmouthed pressure groups of one sort or another, it really would not matter much whether those employed by the BBC liked to interview those whose views coincided with their own childish, stupid and unscientific ones.

    1. Lifelogic
      March 20, 2015

      Indeed the BBC rather like the Libdems and Cameron wrong on every issue.

  28. Atlas
    March 20, 2015

    Indeed John, but when Global Warming is raised to the status of a religion what more can you expect?

    1. Lifelogic
      March 20, 2015

      Indeed that and government enforced “equality”.

  29. A different Simon
    March 20, 2015

    It’s clear that it all has nothing to do about the climate and everything to do with exercising control over people .

    That is why(global ed) warming is like crack cocaine to politicians , malthusians , lefties and other authoritarians .

    For these people who believe the ends justify the means , lieing and no-platform policies are acceptable .

    If it becomes apparent over the next decade that we are entering a maunder minimum and we have another little ice age , average temperatures , which have hardly moved over the last 18 years will go down . Fuel consumption will then inevitably rise .

    The most serious consequences are not even economic :-

    Education has been perverted to brain wash the young by telling them this specific hypothesis is factual . Worse still they are now taught that a consensus has the same standing as a proof . Whoever thought this was a good idea ?

    To paraphrase MacMillan the divine right of Kings has been replaced with the divine right of experts .

    Scientific fields and societies such as our own Royal Society have surrendered their integrity .

    Needless to say there is only one party pushing against the LibLabCon machine on this one .

  30. The Prangwizard
    March 20, 2015

    The international UN ‘sustainability’ policy is taking us back relentlessly to a primitive, superstitious and anti-development culture. Science and scientific experimentation is accused of being the creator, not the solver, of problems, except of course when it is now deemed ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ by those very same people, although theirs is often backward-looking. We see it in many guises, not all obvious, and sometimes at a minor and detailed level. They have assumed the authority to decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. Our children are taught to feel guilty about their very existence.

    We can see this in a base form from the way the climate change ‘warmists’ treat their opponents. They attempt to criminalise them and close down debate. There is a dangerous fanaticism about it. No matter how crazy the green ideas are, they are deemed to be sane and sensible, because they are ultimately ‘sustainable’ ideas. It is their ‘truth’ we must follow.

    The idea that the Earth is incapable of sustaining the present population and certainly a no larger one is palpable nonsense but it gives any ‘green’ proposal no matter how extreme the encouragement to thrive and grow. But your party leader and most of the other political parties have signed up to it. They do it cynically, daring not to challenge it.

    Today we have had a partial solar eclipse. Why did the BBC for example, decide to go to somewhere in Scotland where there is a giant stone circle and show pictures of Stonehenge in Wiltshire? The symbolic connection with primitivism is there for all to see; yet we know why eclipses happen, there is no uncertainty, there is no need to fear them.

    It is foolish and dangerous to make the link, and talk about birds stopping singing and the clouds ‘mysteriously parting’, there are many impressionable and poorly educated people about.

    We should all be aiming higher not lower.

    1. stred
      March 23, 2015

      Patrick Moore used to present interesting and educational facts about astronomy, single handed with guests specialising in the subjects. The latest version has been upgraded by BBC thickos to a sort of Top Gear format, hosted by a comedian with a science degree and a panel of professors and astronauts, who are allowed to talk about astrofood and simple ideas that a 9 year old could grasp- nothing to technical or detailed. Around them is a circle of enthusiasts planet heads to replicate the petrol heads on Top Gear, clapping and laughing at the astrofood and titbits of information about how difficult it was to land on the Moon. It makes you wonder what Patrick would have made of it.

  31. BobE
    March 20, 2015

    I wish that this proponent had been asked about how they journeyed to the radio station for the interview?. Do they own a car? What do they use to bring the shopping home.? Simple questions to flummox these fools.
    Its about time that all publicly owned cars were changed to be electric. Just to show the elite how daft it all is. Senior policemen being chauffeur driven to work, MPs in limousines. All of these should be electric cars. The tune would soon change?
    BobE

  32. stred
    March 20, 2015

    Some of us agree with the greensi instructor referred to in your piece, in that it is a good idea to keep older machines, but only if they are still reasonably efficient. It can take 4 years of use before the CO2 emitted to make a car equals the amount taken to make it. If the car is scrapped and the new one 10% more efficient, it would take a very long time to save anything, including the cost of owning it. This seems to be the only idea that made sense.

    We recently bought a nearly new car to replace a 20 year old one and were impressed with the claimed very high fuel economy and low tax. Over 60mpg in the EU test is the official performance. In fact we can’t get more than 45mpg out of it even on a run, and according to the internet, neither can anyone else. It has a new prize winning petrol engine, which we chose because Boris is going to charge ÂŁ10 every time we go out in London in 4 years time, midnight to midnight, and as far as can be seen this will cover the whole city out to the M25 like the low emission zone, which they say has not worked. At the moment half the cars, and most vans and trucks in London are blighted and hard to sell. Incidentally my diesel does 65mpg and hits the declared level by 99%, not 68% for the new petrol, on Honest John. It also has a particulates filter, but still emits the new horror-NO2.

    It is interesting to see the’ Review of Local Air Quality-‘ report to DEFRA 2010, in which the first paragraph states that the pollution cause by NO2 and particulates has actually gone down. Then ‘Cars and CO2’ report by the DfT in which they were urging us all to change to economical cars and was the reason we bought diesels. Then lastly have a look at ‘Air quality plans for the achievement EU air quality limit values for NO2 in the UK’ in which this is described at the start as ‘very challenging’. If you ever wondered how all this stuff was devised, it’s all there on the PDF download. Everything from getting us to use bikes and not have cars, taking lorries off the road and using trains, speed control gantries, to scrapping diesels for electrics.

    Yesterday, as there was a report that a cloud of toxic air from Belgium and the Ruhr was blowing over and our vehicles were adding to it, I looked at the DEFRA current air quality figures from measurement stations across the UK. In London there were only a few central parts where the NO2 levels were above the 40mg safe limit for NO2 and particulate levels were described as moderate in the worst case. And these roadside spots were where there are few cars but lots of buses and taxis, often standing still. There were worse pollution levels in Middlesborough and Bristol. The air outside was not noticeably smoky and I went for a walk to retrieve the 20 year old car from the garage. It drove like a new car and still does about the same mpg as the new one.

  33. oldtimer
    March 20, 2015

    What I find odd among those that believe the CAGW hypothesis, all blamed on man made CO2, is that they think that wind farms and solar farms are the answer. Manifestly they are not, because they require 100% back up by fossil fuelled standby generating capacity to maintain the integrity of the national electricity grid.

    Beyond odd, and profoundly disturbing, is the apparent abandonment of the scientific method and the assumption that models, which are no better or worse than the assumptions fed into them, provide the answers.

    1. William Gruff
      March 21, 2015

      oldtimer:

      All life is about profit and loss, yet the most advanced brains in the history of all time and everything ever, and the BBC, and much much more, cannot understand what our most primitive ancestors knew instinctively: that a meal must offer more calories than were burned in obtaining it and a marketable surplus must offer many times more.

      That it seems so simple to the average man under the wheels of the privatised Clapham omnibus merely proves to those advanced minds how stupid we are and how much more advanced they.

      You can burst the tyres of the omnibus on which few of us are eligible for travel by voting for someone other than the Conlaberal candidate. Anyone will do, just as long as he isn’t a Conlaberal confidence trickster.

  34. Peter Stroud
    March 20, 2015

    It is really up to MPs with similar views to yourself, on this ridiculous CAGW scare story, to begin a concerted campaign to ensure the scientific sceptic’s views are heard. Exceptionally well qualified sceptics do exist, but their voices are being drowned out by the warmist lobby. Collaboration with the Global Waring Policy Foundation (GWPF) would be a sensible start. The opposition’s voice must be heard, especially in parliament. Sympathetic MPs need scientifically supported briefings to seriously oppose the mantras of the green lobby. I am a retired scientist, and although I am not qualified in climatology, I, like many others, find the official AGW hypothesis far from verified. The projections are based on models, that these fail to predict current global mean surface temperature. Furthermore, I fail to see how bigger computers can improve the projections.

  35. Roy Grainger
    March 20, 2015

    The entire purpose of Green energy policies is to force people to use less energy by making it more expensive, that is the purpose of carbon pricing. Odd then to hear Mr Miliband whining about “fuel poverty” and promising to force energy companies to reduce prices which will simply increase energy use. A further demonstration of the Alice in Wonderland world we inhabit is the Guardian’s current campaign to close down all coal mines everywhere (with no thought for the social consequence) despite years of branding Mrs Thatcher evil for (indirectly) closing a few of them in UK – shouldn’t they instead be praising her for her far-sighted and enlightened policy ?

  36. outsider
    March 20, 2015

    Dear Mr Redwood, Some years ago, having no expertise but an open mind, I devised a personal Left/Right neutral test to see if our politicians were really serious about CO2 induced climate change.
    The first test is that they should back a big expansion of nuclear power, which makes France’s carbon footprint so much smaller than Germany’s.
    Second, they should try to act against any further growth in transcontinental trade in bulky/heavy goods, since sea transport generated much more CO2 than aircraft.
    My third test, now obsolete, was that they should stop the switch to digital broadcasting which, taking TV and radio together, has roughly trebled electricity use.

    I never came across anyone who passed all three tests. I concluded that CO2-induced climate change, while probably real, was principally used as the latest, most powerful weapon by all those who viscerally hate big business and, particularly, the archetypal middle-class family living in a semi in the suburbs of our towns and cities, running a family car, doing a weekly shop at a supermarket and looking forward to a fortnight’s holiday in the sun.
    To their chagrin, the consumer society has survived but they have at least managed (with some powerful allies in the City) to destroy much of the UK’s industrial base and growth potential.
    Meanwhile, rain forests continue to be burnt, a double hit of generating CO2 and reducing its capture, and natural gas continues to be flared in large quantities in oilfields round the world.

  37. Shieldsman
    March 20, 2015

    Today we have another example of the stupidity of the ‘green blob’ which must include Cameron and Davey, Deben and all.
    CCGT plants are the most efficient of generators when operating on load. When being used as back-up they become inefficient and uneconomical.
    E.on has announced its Killingholme CCGT plant will no longer contribute to grid capacity.
    E.on, are also aiming to mothball the recently installed1400-megawatt Irsching gas-fired Siemens SGT5-8000H power generating facility for good. The reason? It’s losing money because Germany’s renewable energy feed-in act.
    The Irsching gas-fired power generators are unable to operate at a profit because the facility has to yield to wind and solar energy, which are mandated to be fed first into the grid by law. The result: the modern gas turbines are forced to operate intermittently when the sun and wind are AWOL, which means they are unable to cover their high operating costs. The dirtier coal power plants have lower operating costs, and so they are making a comeback. Result: the green energy revolution is leading to more CO2 emissions, and not less.

    1. fedupsouthener
      March 20, 2015

      All pretty pathetic really. We have the SNP moaning about the loss of Longannet coal fired power station and yet they want to be 100% renewable! You can’t have your cake and eat it. It stands to reason that these fossil fuelled power stations will have to close down due to not being able to operate properly and with a profit and you can bet our politicians will blame the big 6 when really it is government policy which is to blame. We were once the envy of the world on so many matters but sadly energy is now not one of them. Trust politicians to muck it up!!

      1. Max Dunbar
        March 20, 2015

        The only 100% renewable issue that interests the SNP is the wielding of power in Scotland – and England, as the contributors to this blog must now be aware of.
        People living in England who, a few months ago, were saying how relieved they were going to be at the departure of Scotland must be very disappointed indeed. The mistake was to see the SNP as a purely Scottish nationalist party, and a strange phenomenon peculiar only to Scotland. It is not. It is an extreme socialist party etc ed. They will never be satisfied and the people in England who thought that they could blithely wave goodbye and wish the Scots well on their chosen path to oblivion and ruin, seemed to be under the illusion that that would be the end of it – no more tiresome troublemakers with a huge chip on the shoulder. How wrong they were! The ball and chain of Scotland is not only being dragged along by England, it has swung around and barked their shins. So-called ‘independence’ will create more problems than it will solve, for all of us in Britain.

      2. William Gruff
        March 21, 2015

        fedupsouthener:

        You can’t have your cake and eat it.

        The Scotch believe they can and if you would only don your tartan tinted spectacles, and overcome your ‘Airnglesh egnurance’, you ‘wud’ see the reason in their warped logic.

        When England’s paying, our former compatriots in North Britain can have and eat as much cake as they desire, and then more, and more and more and more and so on and on and on and on, because their appetite for themselves and our money can never be sated..

    2. agricola
      March 20, 2015

      John,

      If what this gentleman says is correct, and I see no reason to doubt it, we the general public and our industry is being conned by the EU and your governments department of energy and being made to pay for it. All to support an unfounded green philosophy and the whole windmill circus that follows from it.

      Can I suggest that your manifesto recognises this scam and vows to put an end to it after May 2015. I await it’s publication.

  38. CdBrux
    March 20, 2015

    I find it amazing the contradiction many of these ‘greens’ cannot see: they make it more expensive to make things in the UK & Europe so they are instead imported from other parts of the world, burning fossil fuels to transport them here and which are made using energy sources in those other countries that are likely to be far more polluting than those here!

    But hey ho, less UK jobs, less UK pollution, but greater overall world pollution. Apparently to the environmentalists that (unintended? hmmm!) outcome of the policies is fine!

  39. bigneil
    March 20, 2015

    We could all get hot air balloons and have them powered from the promises of the PM.

  40. PaulDirac
    March 20, 2015

    We buy most of our cars and white goods from the EU, so the “dear professor (radio 4)” want us to double count the CO2, once in Germany (for the production) and once in here for buying them.
    May I point out that we do not produce either wind turbines or solar panels, which at less then 15% efficiency will never pay their cost and the carbon foot print, best thing therefore is to stop importing (and installing) them and save all this CO2 production.

    Since China, India and the USA refuse to take any heed of green targets, we should take on all their burden too, I think that the best way to do that is to stop breathing, not only will this stop us buying new cars (or driving), it also saves the environment from all the noxious CO2 we produce by living.

  41. REPay
    March 20, 2015

    The Green movement and the Green Party largely comprise a mixture of unreformed Trots and well-meaning people with too little to worry about. Green policies are the tools the old hard left uses to wage war on capitalism…hence the argument about not buying new efficient fridges. Unfortunately there are many useful idiots, including much of our media and many politicians, to do their work.

    Environmental standards are much higher than 40 years ago when we used, at my school, to sing hymns about ploughing the land and scattering our poison on the land. If the climate is changing then what we doin the UK has little impact, not to say that we shouldn’t recycle and turn off lights. (I don’t own a car but that does not make me a saint, just an urban dweller.)

    I strongly recommend all members of the Green movement who really want to help the planet do not reproduce. Apparently this is the most effective way for an evil western consumer to be environmentally friendly.

  42. Bazman
    March 20, 2015

    Climate change and pollution are real and just sending the industry abroad is not the answer. It’s like exporting the coal industry which is in effect what we have done. Avoiding higher costs that are mainly incurred by stringent safety. Anyone care to argue cheap coal from China, Russia and the Ukraine is by the use of more efficient high tech methods?
    In the case of CO2 we are all effected by these emission wherever we are in the world and as we have seen pollution also has no boundaries causing million of deaths worldwide.
    The EU’s methods may be questionable, but continuing to burn fossil fuels and pretending there can be no consequences is for the birds as China is finding out about in their race to the bottom.
    How about a levey funding the research of sustainable energy funded by the EU and other world countries like the atom bomb projects where? Deluded right wing religious thinking, denying science unless it confirms bigoted views has no place in the modern world as does exporting industrial deaths, which in the case of CO2 and other pollutants may well come back to bite us.

    1. Edward2
      March 22, 2015

      Saying climate change and pollution are real is as useful as saying water is wet and sugar is sweet.
      Being involved in engineering and manufacturing I can tell you that wicked right wing capitalist are spending billions on r and d trying to invent the clean energy methods you want.
      But at present there are few alternatives to fossil fuels whichbprovide over 80% of ghe worlds energy needs.
      Sun and wind might get to 30 or 40% from the current 10% but thats about it.

  43. petermartin2001
    March 20, 2015

    If CO2 emissions are the big problem that scientists say they are then we are all in huge trouble. Humanity is incapable of solving these ‘tragedy of the commons’ type of problem.

    When we only had one last breeding pair of dodos left it obviously didn’t make any general sense to eat them. But, it made sense to the person who did eat them. If he hadn’t someone else would. He’d have been hungry and someone else wouldn’t.

    Much of the argument about CO2 is along these lines. What’s the point of us doing anything when others aren’t? We’ll just end up poorer as a result.

    Is there a solution? I’d like to think so, but I’m not optimistic.

    1. A different Simon
      March 21, 2015

      “If CO2 emissions are the big problem that scientists say”

      Not all scientists say this .

      Some think it is wrong to down play the influence of water vapour and sun spot activity and point out that we could be entering a period of low sun spot activity which could lead to another small ice age .

      It’s hard to believe what the IPCC say when they have been caught corrupting historic temperature data .

      By letting politicians persuade them to compromise their integrity they have destroyed their usefulness .

      The wavelengths of infra red light which CO2 absorbs are only emitted by the surface of the earth at very low temperatures .

      The infra red of the wavelength which is absorbed by CO2 which is coming from the solar system is all absorbed by CO2 (and water vapour) before it reaches the surface of the earth so adding more CO2 can’t absorb any more of it .

  44. Jon
    March 20, 2015

    Yes Green policy, shut down a highly regulated and low carbon emitting coal fired power station and the manufacturing businesses it supported to have it done in China with no regulation, higher carbon emission and then to top it off, ship it half way round the world burning diesel.

    1. Jon
      March 20, 2015

      And wasn’t it the Greens that said diesel was better? How can anyone standing next to a diesel bus think that was better?

  45. Max Dunbar
    March 20, 2015

    How any British government of whatever persuasion can have the nerve to prate on about ‘green’ policies and energy conservation is beyond me. The utter humbug is breathtaking.

    Apart from their ignorance of conservation matters, none of these politicians have ever really cared about genuine ‘green issues’ as they are now labeled, and they never will. These trendy initiatives are seen as just that, initiatives, and for political gain only.

    The taboo subject of population control which is fundamental to any attempt to limit energy consumption and pollution is never mentioned, and avoided like the plague itself. The entire debate, for what it’s worth, has been hijacked by the Far-left for their own purposes just as ‘racism’ has been. Population expansion and attempts to limit energy use are, of course, mutually incompatible but this basic truth must never be mentioned, never mind conflated. So the madness continues.

  46. Dennis
    March 20, 2015

    Mr R says. “Personally I want the UK to have a stronger industrial base, not a smaller one, and want people to afford enough energy to have decent lives.”

    I have asked him several times what is the fundamental source of this energy and so far has not answered it which indicates that he and perhaps many of his friends he may of asked also do not know which makes any of their pronouncements on energy/economics totally valueless.

  47. William Gruff
    March 21, 2015

    Why do you not stand as an independent?

    Reply:My bread isn’t buttered on that side.

    Reply?

  48. petermartin2001
    March 21, 2015

    There’s no particular reason why a tax on CO2 emissions should cost jobs.

    There was some reference to Laffer on this blog recently. So, using his ideas we can say that if the tax on CO2 emissions was zero, we’d have no revenue. On the other hand if the tax was too high we’d have no revenue either. This would seriously impact the economy and certainly cost jobs.

    But at its optimum level tax revenue will be a maximum. CO2 levels will be lower but not so much lower to be an unaffordable cost to the economy.

    If taxes on CO2 emissions are higher, our income taxes can be lower. So the trick of lowering Co2 emissions at the same time as still having good living standards should be possible. It just needs some smarter thinking than we currently see.

    1. Hefner
      March 21, 2015

      Very sensible reference to the Laffer curve. It should be understood by any economy-literate person. Isn’t it the basis for lowering the higher tax rate from 50 to 45 percent ?

    2. libertarian
      March 22, 2015

      petermartin2001

      Blimey you want to tax breathing out…….jeeez now I’ve heard everything.

      ps Don’t tell Bazman about the breathing out tax, he’ll want the 1% to pay far more to breath out on the grounds that they work harder therefore breath more.

  49. Iain Moore
    March 21, 2015

    Mr Redwood , I would like to thank you for attempting to raise the other side of our housing crisis , that of the unlimited demand being created by mass immigration. It was noticeable that the points you raised went down like a lead balloon with the Channel 4 presenter, but nevertheless it didn’t pass unnoticed beyond the media metropolitan land who would do everything in their power to ignore the issues.

  50. Richard
    March 21, 2015

    The Climate Change Act will continue so long as the Con/Lab/Lib/Green parties form a majority in the HOC.

    The Conservatives like it because it brings further wealth and power to the corporates and the EU. Labour like it for electoral reasons as it increases poverty and hence the size of their core vote. The Liberals and the Greens like it for simply religious reasons.

    So unless sufficient voters vote stop voting Con/Lab/Lib/Green the Climate Change Act will only be repealed when the power shortages finally arrive and the rioting starts.

  51. Lindsay McDougall
    March 21, 2015

    I know that squeaky clean Germany, praised for all its wind farms, is now burning large amounts of dirty brown lignite coal from open cast mines. One of the reasons is the unreliability of wind power. How bad is it? Well, in some Augusts the net generation of power from wind farms has been negative; as I understand it, this has happened in both Germany and England.

    As I have said many times, if we want lower emissions from energy consumption we probably need the world’s population to stop increasing. Still, I’m impressed by how many of my neighbours have installed solar panels in their roofs.

    1. Hefner
      March 21, 2015

      Yeah right, were the blades on the wind turbines turning against the wind and generating negative power?

      1. APL
        March 22, 2015

        Hefner: “Yeah right,”

        Yeah right!

        During periods of low or no wind, power is drawn from the grid to keep the turbines moving – the point being the gears and mechanics must be kept lubricated or the lifespan of the mechanics can be significantly reduced.

  52. Vanessa
    March 25, 2015

    Why are politicians so far up their backsides as to not realise that CO2 is plant food, pure and simple, we would not have much food if it were not for CO2. And the more CO2 in the atmosphere the better harvests we have so we can feed the nearly 9 billion people on this planet. If we reduce CO2 (plant food) then we will not have enough food to feed us all.

    CO2 IS NOT A POLUTANT BUT A VERY VALUABLE GAS. It is measured in Parts Per Million so it is not very plentiful in our atmosphere. Millenium ago there was TEN TIMES more CO2 than there is now in the atmosphere. Nothing happened to the polar bears, or any other life form because of CO2.

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