And here’s the stagecraft coming.
Here’s how the rest of it might go down.
By William M. Briggs Source: courtesy of Pajamas Media
First, some good news.
A lefty organization sent me an indignant press release stating that the Danish police have “aggressed on protesters outside the Bella Center.” By this, they mean that the agitants, who moments before were shouting “Push the police away!,” were physically held back from entering an already crowded room.
It is true that it is depressing to see the heretofore useful word aggression turned into another mouth-numbing verb. But it’s heartening to hear that a group of professional whiners were told “No.” True to form, when turned away the perpetually petulant started screaming “Rights! [1],” by which they mean, as they always do, “My desires, not yours.”
And can it be a coincidence that we now hear from Russia — the land where the Climategate emails were first posted — accusations that the Hadley Climate Research Unit fiddled Siberian temperature data [2]? The charge is that scientists only considered stations which showed warming, and tossed those which did not fit their preconceptions.
What makes this delicious is that the stations Hadley chose had large chunks of missing data, and the stations ignored had uninterrupted records. This makes sense: it’s easier to homogenize [3] data that isn’t there. The explanations to come will no doubt provide for some light comedy.
The best news of all are the rumors that “progress has been halting [4]” in Copenhagen. The word stalemate is showing up with increasing frequency in news reports.
Government ministers can’t agree on the best way to take money from their own citizens, give it to an opaque, above-the-law organization, and yet still control it; because, of course, with all that money comes power. Negotiators are skittish about how they can ensure that the money pledged will actually be paid into the pot, and if it does, who gets to dole out the funds. Everybody wants a piece of it, but nobody trusts anybody.
However, I believe this is only a spate of temporary sanity.
The forces of darkness will realize that some deal is better than no deal. Lord Monckton, on a guest appearance on the Glenn Beck program a month ago, had it right. He predicted the early stalemate, but said it would end at the last possible minute, after an all-hours marathon session:
From which the bureaucrats would emerge, their ties over their heads, where they will announce, “We’ve done it. We’ve come to an agreement.”
My money is on Viscount Monckton. The Russian revelations about data manipulation, like the rest of the Climategate story, will be resolutely ignored by negotiators. Some kind of real-money deal will emerge. There’s too much momentum and too much vanity on the line. The One himself will even appear on the icy slopes of Denmark. You simply cannot have so many celebrities and political will in one place, and expect them to concede defeat. It is just not in their nature.
But that’s an easy prediction. What about what comes after?
First, the greeny groups will smell blood in the water. They will use the Copenhagen deal, here in the U.S., to claim that cap and trade must be passed. They will say: “The world agrees something has to be done!” Weak-minded politicians — of which there is never a shortage — will find this argument convincing. Still, the best the greens will do this year will be a publicly stated “commitment” to “tackle the issue,” right after the new year, after the left secures its health care power grab. “You’re right, it’s devilishly important” will assuage some greenies, and will quiet them enough so that the Democrats can mount some sort of campaign counterattack in 2010.
Democrats know they’re going to lose a good chunk of seats by passing health care — they don’t want to start a riot by tacking on another tax so soon afterwards. They will wait to see if they lose their filibuster-proof majority. If so, they will be able to blame the failure of cap-and-trade legislation on “uncaring, denialist” Republicans.
Meanwhile, back at the UN, it will be broad smiles and CO2-emitting champagne toasts. “To humanity!” they will cry, but as they place their glasses on the salvers, not a few of them will twist their mustaches and think to themselves: “Money!”
Of which, it will be gradually revealed, some will have gone missing.
Shock! Horror! Who could possibly have known! It will, of course, have gone to brothers-in-law in various countries. Most organizations receiving our coerced largess will turn out to be “green consultancies,” of the kind that spend a ton of money (by hiring cousins and other familia) but produce nothing.
After a decade of global temperatures stubbornly refusing to play nice, and things turning out to be not nearly as bad as predicted, the Copenhagen-created program will not die.
No government created entity ever kicks off simply because it isn’t needed.
It will morph into an ossified, entrenched behemoth whose mission will, through time, quietly morph into “environmental justice.” Climate change, the original impetus, will have been long forgotten.
Place your bets now.
I go to some sceptic pro-science blogs most days and I have noticed that they have all come out with a pro-AGW piece recently, having never gone there before. Ranging from rant to cool anger really. No actual taking down of science like they usually do, just puff pieces.
The sceptics must be getting under their skin I reckon. They particularly don’t like having their own arguments thrown back at them, such as “all scientists agree” is the logical fallacy of arguing from authority. They know that, but they can’t help themselves when the scientists are on their side.
Then Randi of JREF came out with a piece sceptical of AGW and they went ballistic. One of the sceptical communities mentors going all loopy and non-warmist. Many couldn’t handle it. Too funny!
It’s impressive how many comments on those blogs are sceptical of AGW. Funny that – ask people to be sceptical of non-science and they become sceptical of “approved” science.
I think this whole Copenhagen and Climategate thing has got a lot of people reading.
Which is why this should not become a political discussion. Every time one of you rants about Obama being a Marxist you put off someone who would like to be sceptical but can’t stand to be around right-wingers.
Stick to the science. The economics even. But leave your political problems elsewhere.
@Nigel Brereton (00:42:24)”no matter how much we complain, the science no longer matters. It’s gone beyond facts and figures and evolved into a movement. Was it Tony Blair who recently said that it doesn’t matter if the science is right or wrong anymore.”
Apparently, this is called “post normal science” (Google it). Scary, scary; science is not about finding the truth but about how science can be dicked out with to fit political expedience.
It occurred to me last night that the reason the British Prime Minister claimed that “the future of humanity is at stake” this week is that, perhaps, he has gambled on carbon credit trading paying for all the quantitive easing and humungous national debt he authorised this year. Cabinet papers released in 30 or 50 years time will probably show how, in December 2009, he realised that he has lost the bet, and all the young UK climate-changers he misled are paying for this through taxation for the rest of their lives. We Brits are so stuffed.
Alan the Brit (02:26:01) :
Re: BBC experiment
The experiment performed by supposedly ‘a scientist’ was at best a joke, at worst a travesty of scientific experimentation. I’ll just make 2 points:
1. CO2 concentration in the air is about 350 parts per million. Jugging by amount of bubbles in CO2 generating bottle, it could have had (to be cautious) at least 10% or 100,000 per million concentration.
2. Temperature differentials, if I remember correctly, rose to some 3-4 degrees C. Equality in the heating lights wattage, distances, angles, volumes of water, etc, etc, was not shown, altogether a very unscientific approach.
p.s. congratulations to your daughter.
“It is true that it is depressing to see the heretofore useful word aggression turned into another mouth-numbing verb.”
Excellent point, sir, and I’m glad to see that somebody else is bothered about this trend to make nouns into verbs. eg. tasked. Give us back our nouns and let’s go back to using proper verbs.
It seems to be another aspect of the dumbing down of the language from the media/public relations/politicians.
On a weather-related topic, BBC weather presenters have taken to talking about rain ‘spilling’, as in “The rain will be spilling from the west.” Do weather presenters in the USA or other English-speaking countries talk in this silly way, as well?
The image comes to mind of somebody up in the sky carrying a bucket of water and not managing to keep all of ther water in the bucket.
True enough…. but I think you underestimate the growing rage and determination of the conservatives…..
I’m drowning in soaring adjectives myself – Obama strikes again.
In his bood Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger identified the mess that the 1919 Treaty of Versailles became as being down to world leaders doing the negotiating instead of leaving it to their ministers and diplomats, who had room to lose face on some issues in order to get what was needed in others passed. We appear to have learned nothing since then.
Here he goes blaming America and giving away more cash.
What the hell does reducing our own emissions have to do with giving other nations $100B?
This makes no sense. The science is phony and the supporters are all Hugo Chavez fans.
Listened to Lord Stern 2 hours ago on Radio4 and he was optimistic. A few funny moments: Monitoring – Governments would need access to the data and methodology that their peers would use to calculate their emissions(!) – Transparency was imperative for trust (YES REALLY,HE SAID THAT). Poor Nations wanted to know where the NEW MONEY was coming from.The front-runners were Air/Maritime tax, Special Drawing Rights and a Financial Transactions Tax.THE PRESSURE WOULD COME FROM VOTERS AND PEER (OTHER GOVERNMENTS) PRESSURE – GLOBAL CO-OPERATION,INTERNATIONALISM ( WORLD GOVERNMENT ?????)
There will be an agreement and it will be around the $100Bn dollar mark to be paid in 2020 to the despots and their families in the third world. And it will be as successful as Kyoto:
“Between 1997 and 2004 (the most recent year for which we have complete statistics), carbon dioxide emissions rose as follows:
Worldwide Emissions increased 18.0 %
Countries that ratified the protocol increased 21.1 %
Non-ratifiers of the protocol increased 10.0 %
U.S. (a non-ratifier) increased 6.6 %
75 % of Kyoto signers had more CO2 growth than the U.S.
U.S. emissions have risen only 0.2 % per year since 2000.
Randall Haven, “Kyoto Schmyoto”, American Thinker, December 11, 2007 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/12/kyoto_schmyoto.html”
And don’t pin too much hope on Climategate, the British establishment have form in putting seemingly impeccably qualified people in place to investigate something in public life who subsequently, and against all the evidence presented, find for the establishment. We shall see, but if Steve McIntyre isn’t called to give evidence to Sir Muir Russell’s enquiry, and even if he is, you can look for a clean bill of health being given the CRU at UEA. You see in the whole scheme of things he is unlikely to bring down the CRU on the basis of these e-mails. The only good outcome I can see is that there will be more transparency and the future adjustments of the data will be much harder for them to do under a cloak of secrecy.
My bet is he’ll see nothing wrong in the emails, will suggest a strengthening of the peer review process and make the release of information from the university independent of the holders of the data. Then we can move on please, nothing to see here.
I think that Obama just said that Oceania has just declared war on Eastasia.
the chinese leader – wen jiabao – has boycotted the heads of government (incl. obama) closed meeting (NY Times)
We need a Sir Humphrey Appleby-type of bureaucrat who can psychobabble everything away so the deal will be felt as a win for the alarmist yet in reality is what we in Sweden call a castle of air. Maybe you english speaking people have a saying like that, I’m not sure.
Can you say, oil for food? Wonderful! A new slush fund for Kofi’s successor to loot ten ways to Sunday!
BTW, don’t look now but Lindsay Graham, (RINO-SC) is beating the climate change drum and talking cap and trade.
Depressing though this is, politicians are always going to find a way to burn taxpayers money. Copenhagen will be a fudge and ultimately, just like all the other climate agreements nothing much will be delivered and we’ll have a repaet of this shambles every couple of years until the politicians and press realise that all is not what it seems. We must do what little we can to keep chipping away. The science will win in the end, it always does.
This was an easy call. All left leaning politicians will agree to more taxes. Even Arnold of Swartz thinks California can be saved be somehow controlling climate along with taxes. It’s like a real world Blazing Saddles.
I disagree a bit with the predictions. The green movement always does a full court press and would use no agreement as a reason to “lead the world” or such. There is a real chance, however, if the polls look like utter disaster, the Democrats will go into their own full court press as well. By that I mean raising a point of order in the Senate on the filibuster and then, by simple majority (either 51-49 or 50-50 with Biden breaking the tie) eliminating the filibuster. It can be applied on individual bills or the entire Senate. If Reid sees he’s going to go home to grow sand in Nevada then what has he to lose and, as always, it will be “historic”. They’ll sell it through the media as “up or down votes”, “modernizing the Senate”, etc., etc. It’s hard to see a downside to them if they go that route. It’s unlikely the GOP would regain control of the Senate in 2010. Even if they lost control of the House in 2010 they would have the Presidency and the Senate to “compromise” or “triangulate” for at least another two years. If they take the bloodbath in 2010 that some seem to think, then it would be better to make the move soon, even next week, then pass the bills and do full campaign mode until 2012.
Think immigration, think allowing illegals to become citizens just by registering to vote, think card check, think carbon tax, think about all the things the left has wet dreams about. If they happen to lose in 2012 it will still take years to unravel, if it can be done at all.
If I were in their place looking at the cards being dealt I would seriously game it out. I’d know it would be unlikely we’d ever have the chance again in my lifetime. We’ll know in a couple of months how committed they are.
I like the cheap AP propaganda of obviously poor people walking through the rising oceans.
A second thought. Was the fact that there was no heat exchange in sealed containers, as there would be in a real climate, rather than the primitive model in the experiment?
It’s all about wealth redistribution anyhow, but the west greeny left have realised that humans are, well, human, & some of us are greedy. Most magnanimous of the African’s to limit their wealth grab to just $100Bn/yr as opposed to their first demand of $400Bn/yr! If Mugabe is any example of who we are to dole out freebies then my hands are staying firmly planted in my pockets. The goings on in Copenhagen a reminiscent of Early 80s UK with violent strikers, whipped & stirred up largely by covert Marxists agitators, deplorable!
Because the BBC can say what it likes, truth or not. Mainly not!
It is beyond arrogant and sadly mainly Left Wing Green Hystericals.
I suggested Richard Black should find something suitable to do, other than
fail at journalism. Using his quote “I have run out of ideas”.
Rejected twice.
Greg (01:29:28) :
You won’t have to wait even 10 years for the reverse scare. This would make round #5 and 4 reversals.
I never bet on a rigged game. Thanks, but no thanks.
@ThousandsOfMilesAway
It is a repeat—the original was broadcast months ago.
The funny thing is that the presenter, a geologist (IIRC) previously did other programmes where he expressed the sort of typical geologist’s point of view about climate change being natural.
Anyway, it is again hilarious how hard it seems to be to produce a convincing programme showing climate change to be mostly man-made. Just watch him jump from one non-sequiteur to another. And use really big graphs. You know, really big, coz that makes them more real big like.
“What makes this delicious is that the stations Hadley chose had large chunks of missing data, and the stations ignored had uninterrupted records. This makes sense: it’s easier to homogenize [3] data that isn’t there. The explanations to come will no doubt provide for some light comedy.”
It makes the use of FILNET much easier. And then there is the question of how decades of data went missing.
A well written (methinks you have been thinking about this for a while), and rather depressing article, which is probably 95% right. As people have said, this was never really about the environment, but rather about getting a one world government, and redistribution of wealth, mostly to people who are wealthy already. And the draft agreement seems to confirm most of that.
This is going to result in a severe curtailment of funds for “climate research”. They’ve outlived their usefulness, and very few politicians will want to be seen to be associated with “tainted” people. That’s a pity because there has been some great insights into what is causing the climate to change largely by people who are “skeptical” of the mainstream opinion.
The UN will most likely collapse under the weight of its own corruption. Any body that can give a standing ovation to the likes of Chavez and Mugabe have their value system so seriously skewed that they cannot prevail in the long term.
I think Democracy itself is going to come under the spotlight. China (and the other BRIC countries to a lesser extent) are wiping their backsides with us competitively speaking. We’ve had one hand tied behind our back with the currency manipulation, now we’ll have two, with this transfer of wealth.
People are going to see that the two fastest growing countries in the last thirty years, China and Japan, were both one party states, to all intents and purposes. They’re going to look at the costs of Democracy, and wonder is it really worth it, would we not be better going over to that sort of system. Looks like they’re getting their wish that we live in interesting times.
The thing which Copenhagen really has to do, is to extend the life of Kyoto so that the emissions trading rip-off can continue.
I think they’ll manage that.
Not such a fantastic far reaching rip-off as they would have liked, but good money all the same.