Guest post by Steven Goddard
Climate Activist Glues Himself to the Smiling Prime Minister at #10
Consider the conflicted UK, where the government is dominated by people who claim to be concerned above all else about CO2 emissions, and where the power industry warns that the country’s electricity and natural gas capacity may soon be inadequate to meet basic needs. Russia is currently threatening to cut off natural gas supplies to Europe. Climate vandals are welcomed to 10 Downing Street where they embarrass the Prime Minister, and formerly great newspapers like The Guardian demonize environmental activists for trying to protect the country’s scenic heritage from unsightly windmills. Dr. Hansen was recently welcomed as an expert witness for the defence of power plant damagers, and children block airport runways to stop vacationers from using airplanes – in the name of protecting of the climate.
The UK is currently in the grip of what the papers describe as a “Siberian Cold Front.” Solar insolation is close to zero this time of year at that latitude, so solar power is out of the question as a significant winter energy source. The light winds and freezing conditions make wind generated power minimally useful and unreliable. Coal, nuclear and natural gas are the only practical options to stay warm, yet the government appears too paralyzed by climate fears to move forward with the needed additions to the energy grid.
Britain is experiencing a seemingly irresolvable conflict in it’s collective belief system. Brits want to save the planet from global warming, and yet are faced with power shortages which may affect their livelihoods and ability to stay warm in a cold climate. The Church of England is wagering huge sums of cash on Al Gore’s understanding of the world. And as the New Year rings in with bitter cold, the Met Office warns of yet another hot year. The last “hot” day in London was July 27, 2006 when temperatures reached 30C (86F.) That was 889 days ago.
Can the great country which survived the Nazi Blitz overcome it’s own internal conflicts in 2009? I predict that England will pull herself together like she always has, but who will be the next Churchill to lead England out of it’s most clueless hour? Britain’s leadership hasn’t been this confused since Neville Chamberlain handed Czechoslovakia over to Hitler seventy years ago. Ironically, it may be current Czech President Vaclav Klaus who rescues Europe from themselves.
“Klaus wrote that it was futile to fight against phenomena like higher solar activity or the change of ocean currents”
Klaus assumed the EU Presidency today. Happy New Year to all.
The German press here is already portraying VACLAV KLAUS as l’enfant terrible
in Europe. Only Bush gets more negative press.
And after mr Klaus comes the Swedish prime minister mr Reinfeldt, who in every way is a most conventional AGW man. We Swedes can afford it as 50 % of our electric power is nuclear and 50 % water power. At present actually giving a surplus to export (to Denmark). In addition we can actually keep warm by using our forrests. 90 million cubic meter wood a year. An advantage of small population and large area. OK! The forest industry will collapse but in a situation of emergency it can of course go.
In northern Sweden land still rises with one meter a year as a message from the ice age. Harbours established 300 years ago are now inland. Hopefully this process will continue. Long live AGW!
Gösta Oscarsson
It’s all political the green fascist orwelian agenda is being pushed down our throat globally.
They will blame every natural disaster on the population too much co2 is responsible for every evil on this earth will they say.
But you know the funniest part of all this madness the masses will swallow this political nonsense and sacrifice their standard of living and much more than that…
Global warming is just another deception like the war on terrorists (freedom fighters) which is aimed at furthering the new world order.
The dumbest morons on this planet should know our planet warmed many times and colled many times in the history of it’s existence and these cycles happened without the burning of fossil fuel….
Ignorance ignorance ignorance and again ignorance
Michael S (02:53:43) and Tom T (23:01:49) regarding the Hansen letters to Obama and Holdren:
There is a good opportunity in a response to this letter because the response does not have to be 100% contrarian. Hansen has some good recommendations that can be emphasized and concurred with such as Nuclear and that a carbon tax is better than cap& trade.
I don’t necessarily agree with taxing carbon, but there MIGHT BE non-climate related reasons that could rationalize it related to National Security, and long term supply. For example (Just rambling now); tax unfriendly foreign oil to encourage domestic; apply tax revenue to: liquifying coal, developing nuclear, researchijng fission, small scale wind and solar, etc.
My gut still says that the Government should get out of the way and let an optimally regulated free market do its magic, but that is unrealistic politically….
Michael and Allan
Michael said
” I hereby issue you one carbon demerit. {boink!} You are ordered to throw another log on the fire! {yaayy!}”
If I do lots of good works can i get rid of the demerit or is it like points on our car licenses and if I get too many I’ll have my licence to pollute taken away and I’ll get…gulp…decarbonised for good?
C’mon admit it-you’re a realclimate mole otherwise that would mean the story is real, Hansen is real and the Americans are actually paying him to produce this stuff!
Allan
Great post. In the Uk situation I would remind our politicians that no part of Britain is more than 70 miles from the sea and the fact we are an island means we have lots of waves and lots of tides and as I sit and look at the ocean now I’m thinking what an awful lot of energy is going to waste.
TonyB
The UK’s current weather is quite interesting. We have a blocking high pressure area centred last week over Scandinavia and now the UK pushing the jet stream away and diverting our usual Atlantic low pressure systems and storms. This results in cold air being drawn to the UK across the European continent originally from Siberia. For those who can remember ( like me!) this was a common phenomenon in the 1960’s and was the cause of one of the UK’s coldest winters 1962/3 when there was snow on the ground from early January to March in the south of England. I used to live in Lancashire ( sort of the North of England) and I well remember ice on the inside of the bedroom windows for weeks on end (no central heating then). The are a few weather commentators drawing parallels with the 1960’s weather…. I hope not! especially as we have the possibility of gas supplies being in sort supply from Russia and Europe. So much for UK energy policy :o(
Hey! there seems to be someone else using my name perhaps I should change it
Poor old UK! Literally!
Don’t worry about energy folks, I am absolutely certain that our government has found the power fountain, the world’s only source of Dilithium Crystals, there’ll be no holding us back now! Reach for the stars in full blown Warp-drive. That’s why it doesn’t need an energy strategy for the future, it just needs to keep it’s Ostrich pose until it needs them.
However in the real world, we need that strategy badly, Mrs T had a good plan to swing the argument for nuclear power, after battling the oil sheiks & coal miners, she went for the AGW path but this just back-fired on her & we end up financing The Hadley Centre/Tyndall Centre to the tune of 100’s millions £££££ for them to keep finding evidence for man made climate change! Remember governments have NO money, it’s all taxpayers’ money!
Yet another nob of coal on the fire Mr Crachet! It’s too cold.
Hans Solo got Decarbonized – it made him blind, but then he fell in love. Oh, that was carbonite.
A new leader emerges.
“But it’s about explaining to people the importance of our work – global warming is bigger than business, it’s bigger even than politics.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7808276.stm
I look forward to follwing this story in 2009.
I’m giving her all’s she got captain! don’t fuse the dilithium crystals!
TonyB,
I remember the ritual from the 1960s quite well too. Wake up in a room close to freezing, dash to the small electric heater, turn it on, and dash back to bed and wait for 15 minutes before getting up to get dressed. Our windows in Berkshire always had ice on the inside this time of year.
Bush had so much difficulty because he is a poor speaker and does not think quickly on his feet. He also is very timid with the press, and takes too many punches. Klaus does not suffer from those problems, and I expect with the cold weather and poor economy will make his tenure at the bully pulpit resonate. The Met Office continues to insist that their prediction of a mild winter (Dec-Feb) will still come true, yet they now acknowledge that the cold weather will last through at least the first half of the winter.
Here is what they wrote about the winter a few months ago – The forecast of another mild winter across the UK has been welcomed by Help the Aged, who work with other agencies to support older people.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080925.html
and today they claim victory at protecting the infirmed with their expert forecasts- The cold weather is expected to persist over the weekend and into next week with widespread frost and temperatures plummeting to -9 C in some parts of the country. Forecasters from the Met Office are keeping a close eye on conditions for the big return to work with the risk of icy conditions in some areas as rain falls onto frozen surfaces on Monday. At these times Met Office health forecasting services are at their most useful, helping people suffering from long term conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) stay healthy and out of hospital. During winter months, people with various health conditions are at increased risk of becoming unwell. The level of risk is strongly influenced by weather conditions, virus activity in the community and other factors. So far this winter almost 18,000 people have registered for the Healthy Outlook scheme which is designed for COPD patients so that they can manage their condition more effectively.
Several health authorities are reporting additional strain on services as respiratory admissions climb to near-epidemic levels in many areas across the country. Met Office health forecasting has proved a great success for both patients and health authorities, helping reduce hospital admissions and bringing reassurance to patients who use the service.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090102.html
Time for Plan B, it seems.
Note to moderator – please delete my duplicate post at
Allan M R MacRae (05:21:14) :
Yup, we’re in trouble over here but maybe you shouldn’t feel too smug just yet. Your new energy/environment ‘czar’ Carol Browner is a member of Socialist International’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society. The picture just above Ms Browner’s on the SI website is our very own Hilary Benn who at least has the excuse that it’s genetic. Good luck!
Nothing FDR did had a significant effect on the Great Depression. When the US was attacked at Pearl Harbor, the Great Depression was in full swing.
The boom following WWII was due to people having been unable to buy any durable goods for 4 straight years, and in the longer run, a change from a cash economy to a credit economy. IN case no one noticed, we, by and large, have spent to the limits of our credit.
We are in a hole, and digging it deeper all the time. This CO2 nonsense will ultimately, and not all that long from now, lead us all into another World War. War is what happens when people get truly desperate, and with the failure of government to be sensible, when people can no longer keep themselves warm enough in winter only because of idiotic government actions, desperation will become extreme. Bad enough is the great economic depression we are already in, without artifically increasing costs of energy many times over.
Comparing Jan 1, 2008 with Jan 1, 2009 and with a La Nina looking solid for the early part of the year and potential coldening in the North Atlantic, I have a feeling that max ice extent in the Arctic will be greater this year.
Hey the other TonyB!
Pistols at dawn! Second thoughts, dawn is too cold at present. Pistols around 11am sometime in june? I havent seen you arouind before, although your post was good so it can only enhance my reputation!
TonyB
A reminder to those in the UK that there is a bit of light relief from the doom and gloom. The well known and politically correct (not) Jeremy Clarkson’s drive in a 4×4 to the north pole is repeated tonight (9pm) on BBC3 (how does he get away with it on BBC)?
Allan M R MacRae: Great letter! I would sign it in a heartbeat.
“Climate dyslexics” – har har!
Hitler did not get Czechoslovakia in 1938. He got the Sudetenland, a former part of Germany given to Czechoslovakia after WWI, and mostly inhabited by Germans who would just as soon have continued to be Czechoslovakians. Giving it to him was a gross mistake, but the politicians did what they do best: &%$## up situations.
Since I’m in fix-the-world mode this morning (no coffee yet), I’ll just mention (again): There are no apostrophes in possessive pronouns. There is no her’s, there is no hi’s, there is no it’s. “It’s” is always a contraction of “it is.”
Roger Carr (01:50:14) :
re: “perfectly good river water be sent into the ocean rather than diverted to human use,
Steady, Roger! We in Australia, invented that…
Ah, well. Guess we can share (the pain).”
So sad to see that others share California’s lunacy. It will get very interesting when people get really thirsty. Actually, in California, what is happening is that farmers are getting less water so cities can get more.
Then someone pointed out that farms (at least the crops on them) consume CO2, so curtailing farming exacerbates the CO2 “problem.” The answer was (as to a rather backward child) that farmers in wetter states would compensate by growing more there.
So, now Californians not only have their electric power generated in other states, but their food grown there, too. I guess the increased transportation costs and associated GHG emissions do not count.
(Power from Nevadas’ Hoover Dam, from Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant, also from Washington state’s hydroelectric dams, and now a new windfarm in Oregon).
Sheer lunacy.
“Photosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that converts light energy into chemical energy. Its initial substrates are carbon dioxide and water; the energy source is sunlight (electromagnetic radiation); and the end-products are oxygen and (energy-containing) carbohydrates, such as sucrose, glucose or starch”
So no CO2 no chlorophyll, no chlorophyll no GREEN
Reducing CO2 emissions is the same cime as burning forests in the amazon jungle.
Less CO2=Less forests
Errata: Reducing CO2 emissions is the same CRIME as burning forests in the amazon jungle.
Check the link for our new Climate Change Act which is now in force:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/ukpga_20080027_en_1
It is turgid reading but it is not too difficult to realise that most, if not all of what results from this Act is going to begin with the “recommendations” of the Committee on Climate Change. The Secretary of State must, by this Law, take the Committee’s recommendations into account. Read Schedule 1 of the Act which describes how the Committee is to be constituted. Note that the Committee can appoint (and pay) sub-committees.
Guess where the Warmists are going to target as the power-centre of this Act? The Committee and its inevitable plethora of (highly) paid sub-committees will be packed with alarmists and doom-sayers who are going to urge State control over anything which emits ‘toxic’ gases.
The stage is set for a Fart Tax in the near future!