By EDITH M. LEDERER (AP)
Excerpts below.
UNITED NATIONS — Just weeks before an international conference on climate change, the United Nations signaled it was scaling back expectations of reaching agreement on a new treaty to slow global warming.
Janos Pasztor, director of the secretary-general’s Climate Change Support Team, said Monday “it’s hard to say how far the conference will be able to go” because the U.S. Congress has not agreed on a climate bill, and industrialized nations have not agreed on targets to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions or funding to help developing countries limit their discharges.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made a new climate treaty his top priority, hosting a Sept. 22 summit on climate change to spur political support and traveling extensively to build political momentum for a global agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which only requires 37 industrialized nations to cut emissions.
Pasztor told a news conference “there is tremendous activity by governments in capitals and internationally to shape the outcome” of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in early December, which “is a good development” because political leadership is essential to make a deal.
But he indicated that Copenhagen most likely won’t produce a treaty, but instead will push governments as far as they can go on the content of an agreement.
read the entire story here
I wonder if the Mockton talks have riled the Copenhagen love in somewhat. I see The Australian newspaper has finally picked up on the New World Government concept in a blog (albeit from a very right-wing blogger – Janet Albrechtsen):
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/beware_the_uns_copenhagen_plot/
Seems like a ‘bully boy’ tactic to get the US to ‘join the program’
Forget the fact that it’s the Senate in the way, lobby your representatives to STOP this madness..
DaveE.
Drats, one-world government deferred again.
Summer time in the northern hemisphere it´s a better time, so it will be surely postpone….however by then, the number of “non progressive” governments are expected to increase as it is happening in europe.
In Japan only one mainstream newspaper did a top-page article on Saturday, 24 Oct about the uncertainty and possible collapse of Copenhagen. However, no follow-up until today, and no coverage whatsoever by other media. Strange but sort of hilarious……
It’s U.N.-dead, Jim.
No mention of the memorandum of understanding made last week between China and India which has agreed to go their own way. Basically agreeing to limiting their emissions based on a per head figure to less than developed countries. Because of their huge populations this is easy.
Then according to reports in the Guardian U.K. – China and India have called for rich countries to hand over 1% of their GDP.
Les Francis (18:49:32) :
…….called for rich countries to hand over 1% of their GDP.
Oh crazy. For my country the “1%” amounts to $50 billion!
Les Francis (18:49:32) :
“Then according to reports in the Guardian U.K. – China and India have called for rich countries to hand over 1% of their GDP.”
When you consider that China makes much of what the ‘rich’ countries buy and India has some of the richest businessmen in the world that idea souonds, er, a bit rich.
Will they hand it back in 20 years time when the wealth position is reversed?
More specifically on Copenhagen I read that this Jamboree is likely to involve 20,000 delegates.
20,000 delegates? In Denmark – not exactly the cheapest place in the world.
Exactly what are they all going to be doing and why do they have to be there?
Now that the UN sees no real prospect of a ‘deal’ will the plans be scaled back?
This is insanity on a larcenous scale. Even the most sheeplike follower would surely see basic folly of all this jollyiing and grandstanding.
Do not let your guard down on this, they are doing this as a distraction, to make us let up on our attack. Even if it is a watered down form of Global Government, it is still a form of Global Government. Then once in place they can ramp it up slowly, like the perverbial pot of water which eventually boils the frog.
Bulldust, it may be time to review your categorisation of people who speak out against world government.
To do so, as the columnist does, is not “right wing”. She is simply making a statement against forced totalitarianism. Now if she was in favour of dictatorship by unelected UN bureaucrats you may have a point…
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Okay, I would certainly say this is in the vein of ‘managing expectations’; don’t expect it to necessarily be a ‘bust’ … other posters seem to have the same/a similar interpretation.
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yes but will they form a new global non-elected government?
From Ban Ki-moon in the NYT
“A deal must include an equitable global governance structure.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/opinion/26iht-edban.html?_r=3
elmer (19:16:28) :
Do not let your guard down on this, they are doing this as a distraction, to make us let up on our attack.
Agree 100%. I’m not falling for this, either.
Ayrdale (19:18:52) :
I am left of centre in a global political sense. I only mentioned the point because Janet Albrechtsen (JA) is unashamedly right-wing and usually cops a lot of blog flak (blak?) for it. It would have been better had a more centrist person been putting forward the topic (like George Mega), but at least it is out in the mainstream now… and that is what matters most.
Ironically (as I pointed out in my first response to the blog) I am usually diametrically opposed to JA on most of her blogs, but this one time she finds me on her side. Thankfully she kept the use of adjectives to a minimum too – quite controlled by her standards.
I have never felt this was a right-wing & left-wing issue… it is a centrist government versus state autonomy issue… at least in the way the UN is trying to assert itself over individual nations. But then there are plenty of precedents for that kind of behaviour when one looks at the oft dubious roles played by bodies like the IMF.
Also, I have no problem with the UN developing a treaty to help the poorer nations of the world… just a major issue with them using the AGW mumbo-jumbo to sell it.
It’s dead. Of course, vigilance is constantly required, but it had to be done by this December, and Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have blown it. They got too caught up in this health care fiasco and they never got around to climate change, and now it’s too late. Why too late? Because poll numbers are down, the Republicans are looking to do well in the few races being held within the next week, and the Holiday (Festivus?) break is almost upon the Congress, and they don’t postpone their holidays for anyone or anything. There is no time left to get a cap and trade bill passed.
And next year is too late. Why say that? Because Spring kicks off next year’s election season, and anyone in a swing district is going to be terrified of passing a new restrictive and expensive bill in an election year. It cannot pass in 2010 – too risky for the incumbents.
And then after the election, the next Congress is going to be significantly more conservative than this one, and so the chances of that Congress passing anything are pretty much nil. And with nothing out of the US Congress, nothing will come of any international confabs. Just a lot of beer and wine drunk and a lot of schnitzel eaten.
And we haven’t even talked about the demoralizing (for the warmists) effect of the world continuing to cool, rather that heat up. This winter looks like it’s gonna be a doozy, and I’d lay odds on several very cold winters in a row.
The danger is past. Climate Audit must be livid.
Lol, I didn’t mean to implicate Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit. I meant to say Real Climate. I’ve read McIntyre enough that he’s wormed his way into my brane.
The Arctic sea ice can’t make up its mind how to go ahead?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Having gone down the “let’s reduce emissions” path in Kyoto and failed miserably it would be surprising to find the same approach at the fore of the Copenhagen circus. Of course the self-importance of those involved does not allow them to admit failure, but failure it has most certainly been. The same self-importance does not allow them to abandon emissions targets completely, so they will shout platitudes to provide historical consistency before turning their attention to (what I perceive to be) their main goal; namely the forced redistribution of wealth in the belief that this will provide a long-term solution to the discomforts of life in the third world.
In this respect the switch of terminology from “man-made global warming” to “climate change” is highly significant. Until recently the emphasis was on the naughty industrialised countries causing problems for the third world by releasing wicked Chicken-Licken gases which will drown all those living currently with too little water and dessicate those currently suffering with too much. Now the emphasis is being reversed.
The fact that the climate changes and might have adverse effects on some poorer countries is brought to the fore. We are told it’s a disaster waiting to happen, millions of babies will die, fluffy animals will be defluffed. And, here’s the clever bit, if the climate changes these nasty consequences will follow whether or not the west has had any causative influence at all. None of us wants babies to die or animals to lose their fluff, so we must act and act now. The need to act is overtaking the alleged cause of climatic changes as the primary consideration for supra-national do-gooders.
In the real world, by which I mean the world as it is rather than as so-called “progressives” think it is, there is only one way to increase the comfort of life and that is to follow the path that has given us comfort in the west. Industrialisation is the only certain cure to poverty and ill-health, it is not the cause. Indeed, even if the Apocalyptic Chicken-Licken theory is correct, industrialisation is the only way of providing increased resistance to the onslaught of wind, rain, fire, pestilence and plagues of frogs.
DaveE (18:11:14) :
Forget the fact that it’s the Senate in the way
The idea of scrapping the Constitution still will not fly with most Americans. It’s not the Senate in the way. It’s the American people.
I get the impression that Obama is changing his song on Copenhagen and other things because he is starting to campaign for 2012.
tokyoboy (20:10:10) :
The Arctic sea ice can’t make up its mind how to go ahead?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
There’s something funny about that plot. If you download the data, you can directly compare the numbers for 10/27/2007, 10/27/2008 & 10/27/2009 which are, respectively:
7,271,719
8,436,094 and
7,736,563
2009 is closer to 2007 than to 2008 but not by a lot. But the plot makes it look like 2009 is almost tied with 2007 and nowhere near 2008.
WUWT?
Global warming alarmism may be dead but there’s an awful lot of mess to clear up.
The ‘scientists’ who used the public’s respect for science to ‘twist’ data and push their agenda must be exposed by Science and some sort of deal made with the public to stop peer-reviewing cartels.
A massive public education is needed into the realities of power generation particularly in a cooling world.
Agriculture will be hit by shorter growing seasons and innovation will be required there, maybe using the warm, damp CO2 laden gases from coal power to boost agricultural production, maybe genetically engineering frost/cold resistance?
Clinton shafted the dollar and the euro has shafted European economies, so all this must be achieved against a backdrop of mountainous debt.
The flower-power intellectuals have been exposed for the children they are and we badly need economic realism in the corridors of power.
I get the impression that Obama likes power too much to cede any to the UN.He would be happy to use them to achieve his aims though.I hope I am totally wrong,but that’s my opinion of him.
elmer (19:16:28) :
Do not let your guard down on this,
Come on elmer, relax. It’s probably because the earth is cooling and public opinion is going against global warming that this is happening. Nature is kicking global warming’s butt. So, I’m going for a cheeseburger and a beer!
I’m feeling warm and fuzzy about this news!
——————————————
I love the smell of Copenhagen “scaling back expectations” in the morning. It smells like VICTORY!
Pretty simple,really: the governments of the two countries that represent approx 2.5 billion out of some 6 billion on this planet [ref: China and India] have told the world to go and suck eggs. End of story. The rest is bum fluff.
Gene Nemetz (20:25:55) : “I get the impression that Obama is changing his song on Copenhagen and other things because he is starting to campaign for 2012.”
The song may change, but the dance will still be the kazatsky. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Push the pedal to the metal. Make a copy of the Ban Ki-moon editorial. Send it to everyone you know, everyone in your email list. Tell them that global warming is a ploy to install the “world governance structure” as BK-m announced in the New York Times, and that the Democrats and the media are behind it almost 100%.
Perhaps some of the delay in this process….is due to some of the unsettling words from the opposition….such as from Dr. Abdussamatov in Russia:
Over the past decade, global temperature on the Earth has not increased; global warming has ceased, and already there are signs of the future deep temperature drop (Fig. 7, 11).
Meantime the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over these years has grown by more than 4%, and in 2006 many meteorologists predicted that 2007 would be the hottest of the last decade. This did not occur, although the global temperature of the Earth would have increased at least 0.1 degree if it depended on the concentration of carbon dioxide. It follows that warming had a natural origin, the contribution of CO2 to it was insignificant, anthropogenic increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide does not serve as an explanation for it, and in the foreseeable future CO2 will not be able to cause catastrophic warming. The so-called greenhouse effect will not avert the onset of the next deep temperature drop, the 19th in the last 7500 years, which without fail follows after natural warming.
The earth is no longer threatened by the catastrophic global warming forecast by some scientists; warming passed its peak in 1998-2005, while the value of the TSI by July – September of last year had already declined by 0.47 W/m2 (Fig. 1).
For several years until the beginning in 2013 of a steady temperature drop, in a phase of instability, temperature will oscillate around the maximum that has been reached, without further substantial rise. Changes in climatic conditions will occur unevenly, depending on latitude. A temperature decrease in the smallest degree would affect the equatorial regions and strongly influence the temperate climate zones. The changes will have very serious consequences, and it is necessary to begin preparations even now, since there is practically no time in reserve. The global temperature of the Earth has begun its decrease without limitations on the volume of greenhouse gas emissions by industrially developed countries; therefore the implementation of the Kyoto protocol aimed to rescue the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off at least 150 years.
150 years. Them are strong words.
And Russian policy (led by Russian scientists)…is being shaped by this…now.
Yet…in the West….we continue to listen to the lies of the UKMet and the worry that the oceans will boil….
Meanwhile….Mother Nature has the last laugh.
The question is: Will we as a species be prepared?
Well perhaps at least our Russian faction of the same…will be.
Listen to the voice of truth folks, wherever it may be found.
And right now it is coming from Moscow…
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I sure hope you’re right. It’s possible that the Senate could still bring a ‘climate’ bill to the floor, but it will take only a few ‘blue dog’ Democrats to keep it from passing.
But you can bet there’ll be some kind of ‘agreement in principle’ in Copenhagen, and the Alarmists will be back in force in the dark days of winter. I wouldn’t write Crap and Tax’s obituary yet—too many folks see a nice gravy train coming their way. If it fails (or even if it doesn’t) you can be sure the next delight they have in store for us will be a VAT, to pay for the vast expenses of the burgeoning Obamunist state. But my guess is that C&T will keep rearing its ugly head as long as the Democrats control the Congress—unless we can mount a counter-movement to ‘climate change’ alarmism.
What should that be? “Progress and Prosperity, Not Fear of the Future.”
/Mr Lynn
tokyoboy (20:10:10) : “The Arctic sea ice can’t make up its mind how to go ahead?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm”
The Arctic is pumping cold air down over the northern hemisphere in great quantities. Returning warm air is delaying the freeze-up. Any warmth heading poleward now will be rapidly lost to space during the upcoming Arctic night.
Remember that sea ice extent is geometrically bounded by the land around it. The red line should still pass through or near “the knot” at ~November 12th, as it always does.
In the US live literally millions who are currently under oath or in the past have sworn an oath of office which includes the line “I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic”. This oath is taken by every member of the military, members of the state and federal legislatures, law enforcement officers, judges, and the President. Do not underestimate the intent of most of these people to fulfill that oath.
About a year ago UK Prince Charles said that they had until December of 2009 to institute manditory carbon control over the world or their would come to an end.
I wonder what he ment by that? Does that mean that the dream of the one world government ruled by self elected elietists is over?
For the love of God, just tell the sheeple about the sleepy sun and the solar minimum. When are the TV talking heads tell the people what is going on with the cold weather and the low sun activity, even if it is believed there is no big connection with planetary climate and global cooling because of the low sun activity, the people should be told about the event.
I’m glad we are seeing more stories like this however;
Prominent Russian Scientist: ‘We should fear a deep temperature drop — not catastrophic global warming’
‘Warming had a natural origin…CO2 is ‘not guilty’
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3515/Prominent-Russian-Scientist-We-should-fear-a-deep-temperature-drop–not-catastrophic-global-warming
“jorgekafkazar (21:03:31) :
…..The red line should still pass through or near “the knot” at ~November 12th, as it always does.”
I will wait and see. Thanks.
Google must be losing the plot too… their carefully placed ad under this story on the main page leads to a company dealing with carbon offsets.
Bulldust (18:05:31) :
I wonder if the Mockton talks have riled the Copenhagen love in somewhat. I see The Australian newspaper has finally picked up on the New World Government concept in a blog (albeit from a very right-wing blogger – Janet Albrechtsen):
————————————————————
You do Janet a disservice Bull….. Because Australia is so far left, Janet Albrechten’s “very right wing” views are in essence, simply family values, pro Capitalism(the right to own and sell property and to profit from your own endeavour, for those who don’t know what Capitalism is) and a conservative view of maintaining Australian values and democratic freedoms…. Hardly extremism by any measure.
Frederick Michael (20:37:08) :
tokyoboy (20:10:10) :
The Arctic sea ice can’t make up its mind how to go ahead?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
There’s something funny about that plot. If you download the data, you can directly compare the numbers for 10/27/2007, 10/27/2008 & 10/27/2009 which are, respectively:
7,271,719
8,436,094 and
7,736,563
2009 is closer to 2007 than to 2008 but not by a lot. But the plot makes it look like 2009 is almost tied with 2007 and nowhere near 2008.
WUWT?
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
Seems to have it right.
Whew. For a while there I thought the lunatics were running the asylum.
Should we rejoice? The measures already in place, no more coal plants or Nuclear power in the west, but any amount in India and China, crippling legislation in every aspect of our production, is enough to destroy our already bankrupt economies and impoverish our citizens.
No what we have to fight for is to destroy the myth that is destroying our economies restore our industries, remove all manner of taxation linked with carbon dioxide and have common sense prevail again.
I love it how China is now the # 1 emitter of CO2, yet it is the US who is still the villain in the piece.
Shurley Knot (18:13:18) :
Drats, one-world government deferred again.
Surely Not deferred only. Disappearing fast on the horizon.
Mr Lynn (20:59:58) :
“I sure hope you’re right. It’s possible that the Senate could still bring a ‘climate’ bill to the floor, but it will take only a few ‘blue dog’ Democrats to keep it from passing.”
The Blue Dogs are a House caucus. In any case, it’s less ideological among Democrats as it is geographical and political. Geographically, Democratic senators from states where most electricity generated is from coal plants (especially places like the Midwest) or are coal-producing (such as West Virginia or Montana) are not going to be overly supportive of massive rate increases due to cap-and-trade. Likewise, Democratic senators from relatively conservative states know their constituents are dead-set against cap-and-trade even if they aren’t relying mostly on coal for power. And of course, we know just about every Republican is against Kerry-Boxer already.
So where does that leave us? Fortunately, far short of the 60 votes needed for this bill to get near becoming law. Of course, there are still hearings to be held (being held actually; first one was Tuesday), amendments and compromises to be offered. But even were a variant of Kerry-Boxer to become law, it would have to be reconciled with the horribly-crafted Waxman-Markey House bill. With health care and other issues looming, I just don’t see action this year as realistic in the Senate, much less the further Senate-House conference taking place and hammering out all the differences, and keeping it modified enough to get the votes in both chambers. You never know, but my prediction would be no floor action at all in the Senate this year.
They will try for a Senate midnight run, or a Saturday Night Special private session.
I think they are playing a game, they have come so far and will not let up easily. We are getting the ongoing propoganda in the old media and there still will be method to their supposed madness.
The Foreign Secretary accused the public yesterday of lacking a sense of urgency in the face of the potentially devastating consequences of climate change. David Miliband said that people had grown apathetic about the issue when they needed to be galvanized into action before the Copenhagen climate change summit in December.
–Hannah Devlin, The Times, 23 October 2009
Make me laugh!
AGW not over till the fat man sings.
Keep up with the attacks and pound in the stake of truth and save humanity from all evil doers. We have yet to bring it.
They are trying to make their critics lower the guard, be content and go away so that we don’t keep pointing out how hysterical their science journalism and press releases are during the build up to Copenhagen.
FatBigot:
“fluffy animals will be defluffed”
ROTFLMAO!
It is noteworthy that as the public vilification of the UK Parliamentary expenses scandal reached 500 decibels and that general knowledge of the full extent of European Parliament Gravy Train activities becomes widely known, that the Europeans in particular are looking for new gravy trains, namely global ones. The Third World is also looking for new gravy trains as greater scrutiny comes on UN and national government programmes.
None of this addresses the main problem.
What do these people actually DO that is worth the money they take?
Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband was on Channel 4 News last night, here in the UK, talking about Copenhagen.
Viewer: “If a consensus is not reached what will the next step be for the United Kingdom?”
Ed: “We will carry on doing the things we have promised to do. Cut our emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 but there’s no plan B here. And actually not having a plan B is quite important.”
So there we have it. No plan B. No contingencies, no alternative, no backup plan if the real world doesn’t play ball? Really?
Now colour me cynical if you like, but I think there is always a plan B somewhere. However, they won’t want to talk about it, and we won’t get to hear about it. For a while yet, anyway.
“20,000 delegates? In Denmark – not exactly the cheapest place in the world. Exactly what are they all going to be doing and why do they have to be there?”
Prudence would have urged avoiding meeting at a time and place where an embarrassing blizzard or freeze-up might occur. So why were they chosen?
Could it be that the election of a Democratic president was foreseen (an easy call) and the possibility of giving him/her a Nobel Prize to tempt him/her to the vicinity was considered a good enough bet to settle on that place and that time? The huge upside payoff would have been worth gambling on. Political schemers think this way (both left and right).
Now let’s hope a blizzard does occur.
wws (20:07:31) :
This is a good analysis of what might happen. But the alarmists have not finished with Copenhagen yet, and they’re determined to get something signed if only to save face. By the way, Kerry is in London getting on TV and in the papers spreading the alarmist message and trying to salvage some sort of deal, even though the only thing falling faster here than the temperature is the public’s interest in global warming.
I tend to think they are going to push ahead with it anyway but are simply playing coy about it all now that the truth is out about it.
Canadian minister has said they will still try for a political agreement to pave the way for the treaty later;
http://www.bcsea.org/learn/news/2009/10/22/ottawa-dashes-hope-for-climate-treaty-copenhagen
Monckton however is trying to get a agreement of repudiation so that signatory countries can pull out later. Was mentioned in an interview on our radio – link here;
http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=4998
Roger Knights (02:24:44) :
That certainly seems like a bit of a reach, but I’ll never qualify as a good conspiracy theorist. I could see simply that the Peace Prize committee was quite aware of the overlap of awards with Copenhagen and thought this would be a good way to force Obama to go. He was President before the deadline for nominations.
I was looking forward to the future steps in:
1) Obama goes to Copenhagen to pitch for Olympics in his home town.
2) The senate (and maybe house/senate committee) can’t agree on treaty terms that meet what Copenhagen so desperately desires.
3) Obama goes to pick up the Nobel Political Prize. (I’ve viewed that as completely separate from the science prizes, at least those go to people that have made significant accomplishments. I haven’t figured out the Literature Prize yet.)
4a) Obama, having no support for a climate treaty, doesn’t go back to Copenhagen and loses major “face” among the AGW community. Some of the press have a field day pointing out the “obvious” difference in priorities, i.e. Olympics vs the Deadly Tipping Point. Bloggers try to claim this is Obama’s Tipping Point.
4b) [Or] Obama, having no support for a climate treaty, goes to Copenhagen to assure the delegates that fighting AGW is one of his highest priorities and progress is being made. The global recession has bought some time and sets the stage for Great Advances in Clean Energy for the rest of the century. Some of the press have a field day wondering just how rosy his glasses are. Bloggers wonder how much CO2 he’s inhaling.
5) I look at my January heating bill and am thankful that natural gas prices are the lowest in several years.
One of the most shocking aspects of the Copenhagen saga for me has been the growing involvement of wildlife protection groups – such as WWF, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and a host of smaller organisations (for example, in the UK, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) who have appointed climate commisars and for which WWF acts as a spearhead.
They have all uncritically accepted the UN authority and the alarmist rhetoric (especially about ‘tipping points’ and are completely immune to rational discourse. What are they campaigning for? Two things – a forest treaty to protect virgin tracts of rainforest and taiga, and renewable energy developments. The former is entirely understandable, but the latter relates to the dogma that global warming will damage habitat and endanger wildlife.
Even if we accept the latter – which I do not, the spectacle of these groups engaging with the worlds diplomats, scientists and deal-makers is deeply distressing. They are simply played by cynical and corrupt interest groups who have far more experience than they can muster. Having added their weight to the global warming chorus and the need for ‘targets’ (with no analysis of when those targets would actually make a difference to the real climate), they have helped unleash immensely powerful forces from industrial and financial interests that feed off subsidy and stealth tax – and which have no regard to biodiversity, indigenous peoples and rural communities. In the name of carbon accounting, turbines, barrages, hydro and biofuel schemes invade wild places, destroy both landscape beauty, indigenous community and biodiversity. On the forest protection – a potential for Copenhagen to offer carbon credit for standing virgin forest and thus a payment system to keep it standing in places like Borneo, the Amazon and the Congo, they are about to be out-foxed by the biofuel lobby that wants plantation forestry to count acre-for-acre for the same credit. This will then actually help pay for the destruction of biodiverse rainforest – as if the current incentive from renewable targets was not enough.
Britain is set to build several very large biomass/woodchip power stations. They will then import 20 million tonnes of woodchip from overseas (Latvia, Brazil, Africa?) in huge container ships. It will cost the UK taxpayer because biomass burning is 3-5 times more expensive than fossil fuels. That money will go to big companies that will destroy rural subsistence communities and tribespeople as pressure is put on forest resources. The ‘safeguards’ are not in place – and the biofuel industry in corrupt regimes in South America, Africa and Indonesia where illegal logging and land-take are widespread, will do everything it can to circumvent legislation.
Back home, these very same groups are fighting against the very monster they unleashed – against turbines in the beautiful wilderness of the Hebrides and Scottish Highlands, central Wales and the wild marshes of eastern England; against barrages on the Severn, and arguing against new nuclear stations that would have been unthinkable without the climate story because of the irresolvable problem of waste and devestating consequences of a major accident.
My only conclusion – and I discuss it in my book ‘Chill’, is that these organisations have been subject to ‘corporate creep’ – where their boards of directors have been drawn more and more from managerial and professional sources that have little real feeling for what they are there to protect, they fall for ‘target’ driven goals that bear no relation to reality, and always defer to higher authority. They are also naive and easily outmanouevred when they switch leagues to the global level.
tokyoboy,
I have not checked whethr this is an influence but one thing that tends to crop up with daily plots of ice when the changes can be quite dramatic day by day (steep lines) is a ‘number of days’ issue rather than a date. Just remembering that 2008 was leap year for example.
That said the resolution on the graph is such that trying to make anything of it for small variations is unlikely to be decisive.
There are some odd things happening though. North America is cold, here in the UK is quite mild still and today the sun is out in force which makes a nice bright change.
——
More generally in relation to other comments there are some seriously fractured concepts around in world government thinking – or so it seems to me.
I have no particualr problem about attempting to improve the lot of the poorer peoples of the world and agree that the best chance would seem to be economic development – industrialisation if you will. Oddly that seems to be against the philosphies of the green concept of energy reduction. At least it is until such time as strong industrialisation provides the wherewithal to find ways of doing more with less energy, assuming that it can.
The greatest puzzle is that nobody seems to have commented much on the dissater that is, for example, Sudan. One example of many I would guess.
The Noth Eastern part of Africa suffered severe drought and famine several times in the last 3 decades and the world attempted to help out. The result seems to have been successful in that the population of the area has doubled – leading to more famine, more fighting and more political corruption than previously. None of that seems to be the sort of result that will ‘save the planet’ and the climate there is still pretty brittle.
So what exactly are we intended to make of that result and is it about tme that someone had the courage to take a different approach?
Here’s the problem; if you can quickly and greatly extend the survival rates in a desparately poor area you have doubled a very small ‘carbon footprint’ per person and the difference will be no big deal. It helps make the numbers for those living in poverty look greater of course, but I would be the last person to suggest that any of the NGOs see something useful in that.
Now the next stage to improve the lot of those people is to start to industialise – which will alsmost certainly lead to higher ‘consumption’ and, in the medium to long term, a larger population. This exacerbates both the local self sufficiency problem and the alleged global energy consumption problem. Politically, from a ‘western’ state and religious position, it also could be seen as feeding the threat against one’s security. Why would anyone choose do that without some really good guarantees that the action would be beneficial to all?
On the one hand one might argue that global government would likely address such issues. I suspect there is little enough evidence to support such a claim. People are naturally tribal not all embracing. To make any global governance work such individuality would have to be re-directed. And that seems to be against the interests of ‘diversity’ that people use as a reason for de-industrialising to a greater or lesser extent.
Perhaps the reason we see a growing scepticism in the undustrialised world (I doubt the rest of the world knows or cares other than those at the top of the pyramid with money making aspirations) is the messages just don’t fit together in any way that makes sense to people, whether they understand ‘the science’ or not.
The more politically inclined readers may be interested in what the UN Secretary General has been up to lately.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thebusinessofgiving/2010141457_on_saturday_they_tried_somethi.html
My most favorite quote was this one, “A great Seattle philosopher once said knowledge speaks but wisdom listens,” Ban said, quoting Jimi Hendrix.
Just thought this summed everything up! Is it true?
A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF REPRESENTATION WE HAVE IN CONGRESS, TRUE STORY:
A noted psychiatrist was a guest speaker at an academic function where Nancy Pelosi happened to appear. Ms Pelosi took the opportunity to schmooze the good doctor a bit and asked him a question with which he was most at ease.
‘Would you mind telling me, Doctor,’ she asked, ‘how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?’
‘Nothing is easier,’ he replied. ‘You ask a simple question which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track.’
‘What sort of question?’ asked Pelosi.
Well, you might ask, ‘Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one?”
Pelosi thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, ‘You wouldn’t happen to have another example would you? I must confess I don’t know much about history.’
We can only hope it still goes over the cliff, into the dustbin of history.
So, despite the “apologist tour” the world settles comfortably back into “blame the U.S. mode.” Some times it’s better to be right than popular.
Don S. (21:07:55) :
In the US live literally millions who are currently under oath or in the past have sworn an oath of office which includes the line “I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic”. This oath is taken by every member of the military, members of the state and federal legislatures, law enforcement officers, judges, and the President. Do not underestimate the intent of most of these people to fulfill that oath.
Don-Thank you for this post. It is somewhat OT, but the oath that Americans take is almost unique…few countries, now or in history, have had anything similar…and few, outside the US, are aware of this aspect of the US culture…it makes an enormous difference in our national caracter…and may well become very relevant in the near future….
cdl
I know ‘Blue Dogs’ are House members; I was speaking of their equally-uncomfortable colleagues in the Senate, from (as you say) energy-producing or otherwise conservative states. I don’t know how many might be up for re-election in 2010, but a vote for Crap and Tax might make them vulnerable.
With any luck you’ll be right, but there’re only a couple of months left in this year. I don’t think we can rest easy until at least the new Congress in 2011, assuming that Republicans regain some of the ground they lost in ’08, and assuming more Republicans don’t follow the tomfoolery of Lindsay Graham.
/Mr Lynn
Alan the Brit (05:43:35) :
Just thought this summed everything up! Is it true?
A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF REPRESENTATION WE HAVE IN CONGRESS, TRUE STORY:
She is pretty ditzy, but unfortunately, no.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/captaincook.asp
I thought Arnold and Maria were really green.
Nice SUV.
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=11051414&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/
The New World Order has a plan to implement a global border-less government. A global border-less government requires funding with a global border-less taxation system. Tax laws will need to change. This could pose insurmountable problems because national and international tax laws are already highly complex and would surely become even more so with the imposition of a global border-less form of government.
What is required is a totally new form of taxation. One which is not concerned with issues such as whether the taxpayer is domicile or non-domicle or whether they are migrant workers moving from one place to another and thus hard to track and even harder to tax.
What is needed in a globalized world such as the one the New World Order of the Rothschild/Rockerfella clans have planned, is a one size fits all kind of taxation system. A border-less tax which is in essence a tax on life itself. Enter the CARBON TAX.
This form of tax is a centuries old wet dream of the ruling elite and they are just moments away from realising such a dream. The Climate Change summit at Copenhagen this coming December is set to be the platform from which this tax on life will be imposed.
The pseudo environmentalists will be cheering loudly, suffering under the illusion that a carbon tax will protect the environment from that nasty CO2 pollution that we are pumping into the atmosphere year in year out. Totally oblivious to the real implications of a border-less taxation system.
Global government is a direct threat to National sovereignty which in turn is derived from individual sovereignty. Individual sovereignty simply means individual freedom, or human rights. Global government and global taxation is a direct threat to the freedom of all the peoples of the world.
The only way to beat the New World Order is to deny them their funding. If these Nazi fools have to dig into their own pockets to fund their plans for world government, it will be far less likely to succeed. This can only be achieved by exposing the “Man Made Global Warming scam”.
If you would like to know more about the AGW fraud and carbon tax, you can download this free .pdf book
[snip – self promotion ]
What China says or infers it will do is worlds apart from what China is actually doing, and what China is planning on doing.
China is opening a new coal fired power plant at the rate of 1 every 10 days, and will do so many times in their planned future.
China is busy buying all of the coal resources it can buy.
China is consulting with western petroleum engineers to develop technology to extract oil from “unconvential” petroleum deposits . . . such as oil in shale, which China has huge amounts of.
China has cornered the market on rare earth metals. China now owns or controls 95% of rare earth metal production.
The reason that the traditional Chinese costume has sleeves with really large diameter cuffs is so that really loud laughs can be contained when they are laughing up their sleeves at the incredible stupidity and gullability of western culture countries.
“”” Frederick Michael (20:37:08) :
tokyoboy (20:10:10) :
The Arctic sea ice can’t make up its mind how to go ahead?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
There’s something funny about that plot. If you download the data, you can directly compare the numbers for 10/27/2007, 10/27/2008 & 10/27/2009 which are, respectively:
7,271,719
8,436,094 and
7,736,563
2009 is closer to 2007 than to 2008 but not by a lot. But the plot makes it look like 2009 is almost tied with 2007 and nowhere near 2008.
WUWT? “””
Well if you look at the DMI polar region temperature plot, you can see a lot of temperature delaying retraces, that have caused a time delay in reaching the usual polar temperatures for this time of the year. And if you compare those dleays, with the JAXA ice curve, you will see that each of those delays, has caused a delay in the ice area growth, so the 2007 regrowth curve is slowly catching up to the 2009 curve.
That’s an interesting phenomenon; but if you look
at where the ice now is, you can see there is a wide range over the years in this time region; so both 2007 and 2009 are pretty much back in the normal range. If more of these temperature drop delays occur; and another one seems to be happening right now; it is possible that 2009 will eventually fall below 2007.
What really matters is what the summer low was, and in that case 2009 was considerably better than both 2007 and 2008.
I am intrigued by those stops and starts in the polar temperature drop; both as to what causes them, and how they link to the ice regrowth; but I guess we will know more when we finally get into January and February.
Peter Taylor (05:20:33) :
I share your concern. I was horrified to see two charities, Oxfam and Action Aid, campaigning against Climate Change in the run up to Copenhagen. I have long supported both charities with regular donations. My money was given for charitable purposes, not to be spent tilting at windmills.
I therefore withdrew my support and have transferred my regular giving to other charities which spend their funds properly. I also wrote to Oxfam and Action Aid to explain my actions.
Kind regards – and I enjoyed Chill.
S
Sounds a lot like some movies I saw when I was but a lad . . . the bad guy would produce a handgun and say, “Stick ’em up.” Now using the club of mythical AGW instead of a gun, but it is still armed robbery.
“An idea I can get behind – regulate methane first”
Typo? Change “can get” to “got from my?”