INDIA ATTACKS WESTERN CLIMATE ALARMISM
Financial Times, 24 July 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c2896b88-77bd-11de-9713-00144feabdc0.html
By James Lamont in New Delhi, Joshua Chaffin in Are and Fiona Harvey in London
Himalayas a key area of contention.
Excerpts:
A split between rich and poor nations in the run-up to climate-change talks widened on Thursday.
India rejected key scientific findings on global warming, while the European Union called for more action by developing states on greenhouse gas emissions.
Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, accused the developed world of needlessly raising alarm over melting Himalayan glaciers.
He dismissed scientists’ predictions that Himalayan glaciers might disappear within 40 years as a result of global warming.
“We have to get out of the preconceived notion, which is based on western media, and invest our scientific research and other capacities to study Himalayan atmosphere,” he said.
“Science has its limitation. You cannot substitute the knowledge that has been gained by the people living in cold deserts through everyday experience.”
Mr Ramesh was also clear that India would not take on targets to cut its emissions, even though developed countries are asking only for curbs in the growth of emissions, rather than absolute cuts.
…
India has taken the hardest line in the negotiations so far. Along with China, India refused at the meeting of the Group of Eight industrialised nations this month to sign up to a target of cutting global emissions by half by 2050. The countries were holding out to gain concessions from the west on financing.
The claims from Mr Ramesh that Western science was wrong on the question of melting Himalayan glaciers appeared to reinforce Delhi’s recalcitrant stance.
Mr Ramesh this week challenged Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, over her appeal to India to embrace a low-carbon future and not repeat the mistakes of the developed world in seeking fast industrialisation.
…
Mr Ramesh said the rate of retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas varied from a “couple of centimetres a year to a couple of metres”, but that this was a natural process that had taken place occurred over the centuries. Some were, in fact, growing, he said.
The glaciers – estimated by India’s space agency to number about 15,000 – had also been affected by debris and the large number of tourists, he said.
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Beware first world ex-rich countries, your green madness will force us, third world “poor” (and working hard) countries stop buying your debt.
Hi Anne, I don’t know if English is your mother tongue, but here is a lime test for FACTS. FACTS are things you can prove they happened or that are happening. So, there is not room for future tenses and conditionals when you are talking about facts.
Everything you quoted has a future tense or future conditional, …would be dire… …it is likely to become… …could become seasonal rivers… A late, or a poor, monsoon would be … (India never had a late monsoon before?)
This is not the language of facts, that is the language of scaremongers.
What India must learn though is to continously strive to achieve a sustainable growth and protect and respect its natural resources – Himalayan glaciers included.
Indian monsoon and water shortages, Himalayan glaciers and the economy are all related. In India -the MOEF, environmental consultants, academicians, other environmental groups are well aware of the environmental challenges the country is facing. A proactive stance and true commitment to environmental issues by Indian Government will go a long way towards India’s future.
I wonder if they’ll be smart enough to use Copenhagen to call the whole thing off with maximum tears and stamped feet at India and China? Or will they soldier on through Scandinavian blizzards as wind turbines shatter in the cold telling us that seasonally adjusted it is the third warmest Dec. on record?
This site provides Monsoon data and indicates that thus far the rain fall is down 18% against the average, not as much as the alarmists might be implying e.g. absence of a Monsoon. Of course 18% could still be critical and the site makes mention of extreme drought conditions resulting from variable Monsoon events. There are graphs for previous years and just eyeballing some of the recent graphs indicates that this slow start is not unknown.
Watching TV reports during the Total Eclipse locals were complaining that Monsoon clouds were obscuring the view. 🙂
http://www.tropmet.res.in/~kolli/mol/
Didn’t the West already know well in advance that China, India and Russia would not go along with the West’s agenda?
The bitterness of rejection is a strong drink.
Mr Ramesh said …..The glaciers – estimated by India’s space agency to number about 15,000 – had also been affected by debris and the large number of tourists, like you he said .
I am just guessing Mr.Ramesh inner thoughts..:-)
India would sign up to the warmist agenda soon enough if the Western developed countries paid them enough.
The bogus science that allows warmists to decare CO2 a dangerous pollutant prevents the full development of coal fired power generation in developing African countries. This keeps them poor and forcing many Africans to become economic migrants into Europe.
Let us hope that the developing world is strong enough to stand up and carry on developing, regardless of ‘our’ desire to tax ourselves back into the dark ages.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series
of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
– H.L. Mencken
If India and China don’t play along, anthropogenic CO2 is sure to keep rising. This kills any chance that Gore and his minions will escape a true test of their theories. Instead of us only having a few years to save the planet, they only have a few years until we know the truth. The sun will set on all this bulloney the way it set on the Y2K bulloney.
“The greatest hoax in the history of science and the largest scam in the history of man.”
“debris and tourists”, sounds familiar. My bet is they have far more impact on the glaciers than AGW.
Anne:
A glacier is the equivalent of a dam. The run-off and seasonal problem can be readily managed with strategically located man-made dams. This is a readily managed problem.
“Indians say no to climate alarmism.”
“Kemo Sabe, [snip . . . ]
[I don’t think we should be moseying around these here parts — we might violate sacred ground. ~ Evan]
Glad to see recognition of ‘common knowledge’ based on centuries of life in an area seen as equally reasonable. Whether he’s right in this case is open, but it’s an important acknowledgement.
Now if we would just get on with getting our energy supply suitably heterogeneous by 2020 then the world would be a happier place……..
From the posting:
“India rejected key scientific findings on global warming, . . . ”
The above wording is unfortunate.
This can be interpreted as meaning that although the scientific findings are correct, India has rejected them.
The proper notion is that the AGW theory has been shown to be false and India recognizes this.
Maybe if we outsource our GISS tech support to India they can fix the problems.
Here’s a fun and interesting exercise: Go to Thomas http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c111query.html , and search on the word “climate” . It will return 234 hits on House and Senate Bills in the 111th Congress dealing with various aspects of climate change, including some with large expenditures of public money and taxes, etc. to fund those fun things. Enjoy.
The GWrs. end has been predicted by the Mayan culture to happen on December 21st. 2012. LOL
We’ll wait and see.
You must not forget what Mahatma Gandhi said before the House of Lords in Britain. He said something like: “At the time when you were eating among youselves there were already universities in India”
So they must have several thousand years of records of the himalayas glaciers.
Those old cultures have the following procedure when facing such childish arguments/theories:
1st.They smile at you.
2nd.They bow before you.
3rd. As soon as you turn your back….here comes the
4th.: They fart at you
I love the way Mr Ramesh verbally dumped La Clinton on her warmist behind. Not before time. More power (sic) to him!
Here is another interesting article on the refusal of China, Russia, India, Brazil, etc., to reduce their pollution: click. Plenty of interesting links in it, too.
China’s emissions are already 30% higher than U.S. emissions, and will double over the next seven years [and continue rising], while U.S. emissions stay about the same. And China holds upwards of a trillion dollars in U.S. debt. For China to claim that they are too poor to mitigate their emissions is not credible. What they are really demanding is the right to continue selling their manufactured products to the U.S., while American workers are hobbled by the higher costs resulting from our own pollution control.
And Russia will not reduce their emissions either. Furthermore, the UN has been shoveling money in the form of carbon credits into Russia’s pockets; it began by buying Russia’s putative support for Kyoto with massive amounts of free carbon credits, and has continued ever since.
And India has stated categorically that it will not reduce or slow its emissions, much less even slow their rate of increase — in addition, India has demanded $billions to be paid to them by U.S. taxpayers, as compensation for our head start toward an industrial society! This is hypocrisy from a country that has been around for a lot longer than the U.S. It is not the fault of U.S. taxpayers that India squandered that massive head start.
If one dollar is paid to India for this extortion, every other country named here will line up for their share, too.
My question is this: Who do U.S. legislators and the President represent?? American taxpayers? Or these foreign governments, who claim that they have a stake in collecting U.S. tax receipts? I’ve asked my Representative and Senators this question, and received no answer. I’d threaten to not vote for them, but they never had my vote to begin with.
And who do we find supporting Mr Ramesh in his statements?
A certain Rajendra Pachauri (Indian Railway economist). I suspect it is the same Rajendra Pachauri we are all familiar with.
—-
A well travelled friend of mine who has been to India many times over the last 40 years, most recently this year, is amazed and glad to see the material progress they are achieving.
With these Eastern countries’ development, instead of starting a trade war, we should hoping that they still need our markets for their goods, because once they become self-sufficient, the West, and certainly Europe are going down the pan under the current plans.