The climate change scare is dying, but do our MPs notice?

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

A great blog post...have the 'lunatics' in the asylum been proven correct?

Source: Daily Telegraph

Nothing more poignantly reflects the collapse of the great global warming scare than the decision of the Chicago Carbon Exchange, the largest in the world, to stop trading in "carbon" – buying and selling the right of businesses to continue emitting CO2.

A few years back, when the climate scare was still at its height, and it seemed the world might agree the Copenhagen Treaty and the US Congress might pass a "cap and trade" bill, it was claimed that the Chicago Exchange would be at the centre of a global market worth $10 trillion a year, and that "carbon" would be among the most valuable commodities on earth, worth more per ton than most metals. Today, after the collapse of Copenhagen and the cap and trade bill, the carbon price, at five cents a ton, is as low as it can get without being worthless.

Here in Britain, as the first snows fall, heralding what may be our fourth cold winter in a row, it is time we addressed one of the most glaring political "disconnects" in our sadly misgoverned country.

Next Friday is the first anniversary of the leaking of the "Climategate" emails – the correspondence of a small group of scientists at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). By exposing their manipulation of data and suppression of dissent, these called their reputation as disinterested scientists seriously into question. But that was only the first in a series of events that, in the past year, saw the climate scare going off the rails.

Next month sees the anniversary of the Copenhagen conference – the largest ever held, with upwards of 100,000 people present – which collapsed in an acrimonious shambles, without the treaty that would have landed the world with the biggest bill in history. This was followed by all those scandals surrounding the IPCC itself, hitherto regarded as the supreme authority on global warming. It emerged that the most recent IPCC report was riddled with errors, and that many of its more alarming predictions were based, not on proper science, but on claims dreamed up by environmental activists.

Since then, despite a series of unconvincing attempts to clear the Climategate scientists, it has become clear that the 20-year-old climate scare is dying on its feet. The money draining away from the Chicago exchange speaks louder than all those inquiries – and the same point will be made obvious in a fortnight's time in Cancun, Mexico, as the UN attempts to salvage something from the wreckage at a conference that will draw scarcely a tenth of the numbers that met in Copenhagen.

But to all this deflation of the bubble our political class in Britain remains quite impervious. Our governments in London and Brussels charge on with completely unreal and damaging policies which increasingly look as much of a shambles as the warming scare which inspired them. Scarcely a single politician dares question the Climate Change Act, by far the most expensive law in history, which commits Britain, uniquely in the world, to reducing its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent in 40 years. By the Government's own estimates, this will cost up to £18 billion a year. Any hope that we could begin to meet such a target without closing down most of our economy is as fanciful as the idea that we can meet our EU commitment to generate 30 per cent of our electricity by 2020 from "renewable" sources, such as wind and solar.

It was recently reported that farmers are rushing to cash in on the ludicrous subsidies which could earn them £50,000 a year for covering 35 acres of their fields with solar panels bought from China. These yield, on average, only 8 per cent of their capacity. Last year, all the solar panels in Britain generated an average 2.3 megawatts, barely 1/500th of the output of a single medium-sized coal-fired power station. Yet our Government wants us to pour billions of pounds into this scheme, just when Spain, Germany and Australia have drastically reduced their own solar subsidies, because the billions they lavished on them turned out to be a total waste of money for virtually no return.

Our Government also wants us to pay £100 billion through our electricity bills for thousands more wind turbines over the next 10 years, with another £40 billion to hook them up to the grid. Yet it's predicted that by 2013, thanks to soaring costs and technical problems, orders for turbines will have fallen by 93 per cent.

The EU continues to set targets to power our transport with an increasing percentage of biofuels, when a new report from some of its own advisers finds that meeting its 2020 target will mean taking an area of farmland as large as Ireland out of food production, and that producing biofuels requires up to 167 per cent more energy from fossil fuels than they theoretically save.

None of this, of course, will do anything to save Britain from the looming crisis when the ageing nuclear and coal-fired power stations which supply 40 per cent of our current electricity needs are forced to close. The other night when it was very cold I checked to see how much of our electricity was, at that moment, coming from wind. The answer was 0.1 per cent, or a thousandth of all the power we were actually using to keep our homes lit and warm.

It appears that Chris Huhne, our Energy and Climate Change Secretary, is so obsessed with the half of his job relating to climate change that he can happily ignore the other half, to do with keeping the lights on. But Mr Huhne is far from alone. Not a single MP of any party has yet found the courage to mount a properly briefed challenge to all this lunacy. So what do we pay them for?

 

[OMB]

the whole carbon emission's thing has been an unproven environmental scam for years and we'll have to live with the fallout for years to come yet e.g. the nice new shiny carbon emission tax on cars. Serious research and researchers have shown that man made carbon emissions pale into insignificance compared to the natural carbon emission via the oceans, and that global warming may be more related to solar activity than anything else. However, even given the above I do believe that we should be focussing more on sustainable/renewable energies sources as well as a more sustainable approach to living. Our beautiful planet cannot continue to sustain us the way we are carrying on right now. Mr Smith in The Matrix was right when he said that the human species was a virus that spreads and destroys everything it comes into contact with as it does so.

 

[adrianx]

I have always felt that people should aim for lower and more efficient energy consumption, cleaner water and air.... Nothing wrong with that (unless people like charging their cell phones/laptops every 30 mins... like back in the good old days)

"Green" people are often labelled "communist" and I'm convinced that big corporations are fuelling that kind of FUD in the name of the holy "Free Market". Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

I have always felt that people should aim for lower and more efficient energy consumption, cleaner water and air.... Nothing wrong with that (unless people like charging their cell phones/laptops every 30 mins... like back in the good old days)

"Green" people are often labelled "communist" and I'm convinced that big corporations are fuelling that kind of FUD in the name of the holy "Free Market". Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I'm all for making the world a cleaner and more environmentally responsible place to live in. I think I speak for 99.9% of the world in this regard.

What I, and many others don't like, is government forcing unnecessary legislation down our throats which results in higher costs.

 

[adrianx]

I'm all for making the world a cleaner and more environmentally responsible place to live in. I think I speak for 99.9% of the world in this regard.

What I, and many others don't like, is government forcing unnecessary legislation down our throats which results in higher costs.

I agree with you on this whole carbon tax rip-off... just a money making racket. As for the 99.9%, I disagree. Most people (in the developed word) just don't give a sh*t. Greens are commies, even though the "greens" have very little to do with "carbon tax".

Edit: In the undeveloped world, I think you'll find that people care even less.... Just look at the pools of water around newly installed taps in townships.

 

[SmartKit]

A great blog post...have the 'lunatics' in the asylum been proven correct?

Source: Daily Telegraph

*waits for the defenders of the "faith"*

 

[SmartKit]

I do agree we pollute overly and unnecessarily... this is an issue. But while we're so focused on carbon emissions, we're missing the more dangerous and relevant issues affecting us today (as opposed to 100 years from now according to a theoretical model).

This global warming scare may turn out to be the costliest and most damaging diversion in history.

 

[adrianx]

I do agree we pollute overly and unnecessarily... this is an issue. But while we're so focused on carbon emissions, we're missing the more dangerous and relevant issues affecting us today (as opposed to 100 years from now according to a theoretical model).

This global warming scare may turn out to be the costliest and most damaging diversion in history.

I believe that focusing on "social sciences" is a waste of time and littered with propaganda. Let's get technology right, first.

E.g. People being able to "Twitter" right from Iran.

 

[BCO]

Funny how none of you deniers can yet present any kind of scientific evidence to refute what global warming proponents are saying. Calling it a religion is not a refutation.

 

[SmartKit]

Funny how none of you deniers can yet present any kind of scientific evidence to refute what global warming proponents are saying. Calling it a religion is not a refutation.

Funny how you believers can only produce evidence that has more holes than my Cheerios. This barely plausible scare-mongering is detracting from the real issues that need to be dealt with and effect us today. By pushing a theory that has no real evidence they are causing a situation where the real issues become more problematic, to the point that even if global warming were to pan out it would be irrelevant.

 

[D34M0n7]

Funny how none of you deniers can yet present any kind of scientific evidence to refute what global warming proponents are saying.

I can say the same thing, no one can provide anything concrete that would in any way prove global warming (actually you should use "global climate change").

In fact there is more evidence to the contrary.

As we find out more about the planet we begin to see that the CO2 which we emit does not really make much of a difference.

CO2 isn't even that bad, its methane that we should be looking at, if anything.

Remember Global Cooling? - I don't see no ice age. Wiki Link

 

[Alan]

A few years back, when the climate scare was still at its height, and it seemed the world might agree the Copenhagen Treaty and the US Congress might pass a "cap and trade" bill, it was claimed that the Chicago Exchange would be at the centre of a global market worth $10 trillion a year, and that "carbon" would be among the most valuable commodities on earth, worth more per ton than most metals. Today, after the collapse of Copenhagen and the cap and trade bill, the carbon price, at five cents a ton, is as low as it can get without being worthless.

Pity. Would have made some individuals very rich indeed.

 

[Alan]

"Green" people are often labelled "communist" and I'm convinced that big corporations are fuelling that kind of FUD in the name of the holy "Free Market". Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Perhaps but this doesn't help

Firebrand leaders Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Robert Mugabe turned up the heat at the UN climate talks, dumping the blame for global warming squarely at the feet of capitalism.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/17/2774069.htm

 

[D34M0n7]

Funny how you believers can only produce evidence that has more holes than my Cheerios. This barely plausible scare-mongering is detracting from the real issues that need to be dealt with and effect us today. By pushing a theory that has no real evidence they are causing a situation where the real issues become more problematic, to the point that even if global warming were to pan out it would be irrelevant.

I find that most people who support 'global warming' don't have a very good understanding of how weather and climate work. I'll even go as far as to say that they don't really understand anything about the planet.

For someone who does understand its quite sad to see people stick go global warming so much, really its very shaky and has always been.

 

[BCO]

Funny how you believers can only produce evidence that has more holes than my Cheerios. This barely plausible scare-mongering is detracting from the real issues that need to be dealt with and effect us today. By pushing a theory that has no real evidence they are causing a situation where the real issues become more problematic, to the point that even if global warming were to pan out it would be irrelevant.

Yeah, every major scientific body in the world has been gullible enough to fall for "evidence that has more holes than Cheerios". Oh wait, it's a global conspiracy, I see that now.

 

[BCO]

I find that most people who support 'global warming' don't have a very good understanding of how weather and climate work. I'll even go as far as to say that they don't really understand anything about the planet.

For someone who does understand its quite sad to see people stick go global warming so much, really its very shaky and has always been.

You're right. The American Geophysical Union, European Federation of Geologists, European Geosciences Union, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of Australia, Geological Society of London, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, American Meteorological Society, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Royal Meteorological Society, World Meteorological Organization etc etc really don't have a good idea of how weather and climate work.

 

[Alan]

Pity not even the faithful take their dire warnings that seriously.

 

[BCO]

Pity not even the faithful take their dire warnings that seriously.

You'll take any chance you can to snipe at personalities, won't you? The issue here is the science, not Al Gore etc (however annoying or hypocritical people like Gore may be).

 

[SmartKit]

Yeah, every major scientific body in the world has been gullible enough to fall for "evidence that has more holes than Cheerios". Oh wait, it's a global conspiracy, I see that now.

I by global you mean a few quacks, a celebrity or two (as long as it's the "in" thing to support, but with Haiti and Darfur, who has the time?) and one ex-VP. Well then, yes, it's global

I still like the part about the coldest winter in 30 years being clear evidence of a warming trend.

 

[BCO]

I by global you mean a few quacks, a celebrity or two (as long as it's the "in" thing to support, but with Haiti and Darfur, who has the time?) and one ex-VP. Well then, yes, it's global

I still like the part about the coldest winter in 30 years being clear evidence of a warming trend.

Wow dude, you're in some serious denial. Does this look like a "few quacks, a celebrity or two... and one ex-VP"?

This list of scientific bodies of national or international standing, that have issued formal statements of opinion, classifies those organisations according to whether they concur with the IPCC view, are non-committal, or dissent from it.
[edit]Statements by concurring organizations
[edit]Academies of Science
[edit]Joint science academies' statements
Since 2001, 32 national science academies have come together to issue joint declarations confirming anthropogenic global warming, and urging the nations of the world to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The signatories of these statements have been the national science academies:
of Australia,
of Belgium,
of Brazil,
of Cameroon,
Royal Society of Canada,
of the Caribbean,
of China,
Institut de France,
of Ghana,
Leopoldina of Germany,
of Indonesia,
of Ireland,
Accademia nazionale delle scienze of Italy,
of India,
of Japan,
of Kenya,
of Madagascar,
of Malaysia,
of Mexico,
of Nigeria,
Royal Society of New Zealand,
Russian Academy of Sciences,
of Senegal,
of South Africa,
of Sudan,
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,
of Tanzania,
of Turkey,
of Uganda,
The Royal Society of the United Kingdom,
of the United States,
of Zambia,
and of Zimbabwe.
2001-Following the publication of the IPCC Third Assessment Report, seventeen national science academies issued a joint statement, entitled "The Science of Climate Change", explicitly acknowledging the IPCC position as representing the scientific consensus on climate change science. The statement, printed in an editorial in the journal Science on May 18, 2001[12], was signed by the science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.[13]
2005-The national science academies of the G8 nations, plus Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action[14], and explicitly endorsed the IPCC consensus. The eleven signatories were the science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
2007-In preparation for the 33rd G8 summit, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued a declaration referencing the position of the 2005 joint science academies' statement, and acknowledging the confirmation of their previous conclusion by recent research. Following the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the declaration states, "It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken."[15] The thirteen signatories were the national science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
2008-In preparation for the 34th G8 summit, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued a declaration reiterating the position of the 2005 joint science academies’ statement, and reaffirming “that climate change is happening and that anthropogenic warming is influencing many physical and biological systems.” Among other actions, the declaration urges all nations to “(t)ake appropriate economic and policy measures to accelerate transition to a low carbon society and to encourage and effect changes in individual and national behaviour.”[16] The thirteen signatories were the same national science academies that issued the 2007 joint statement.
2009-In advance of the UNFCCC negotiations to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued a joint statement declaring, "Climate change and sustainable energy supply are crucial challenges for the future of humanity. It is essential that world leaders agree on the emission reductions needed to combat negative consequences of anthropogenic climate change". The statement references the IPCC's Fourth Assessment of 2007, and asserts that "climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated; global CO2 emissions since 2000 have been higher than even the highest predictions, Arctic sea ice has been melting at rates much faster than predicted, and the rise in the sea level has become more rapid."[17] The thirteen signatories were the same national science academies that issued the 2007 and 2008 joint statements.