By Hayden Smith, Metro, 17 June 2010
High levels of scepticism and indifference among Britons continue to dog efforts to get the country to go greener, a Europe-wide study has concluded.
We continue to lag behind other major nations in our attitude to and appetite for tackling climate change. Less than a third of Britons believe the issue is ‘serious and urgent’ and requires ‘radical steps’.
A similar number of people doubt whether climate change is happening at all, according to the study.
This scepticism has contributed to the 2.1 tonnes of CO2 generated per house each year from electricity use – the highest of all ten countries examined by researchers at Imperial College London.
A little more than half of Britons are ‘quite’ or ‘very concerned’ about climate change. In contrast in Spain, which topped the poll, three-quarters said they were at least quite concerned. [Climate Change Minister] Greg Barker said he was encouraged by nine in ten Britons saying they would make changes if given financial support.
‘I think the British are inherently quite sceptical about theoretical politics and science and maybe a little more cautious than some countries in Europe,’ he said.
‘But I am convinced British people want to do something about it.’
Prof Nigel Brandon of ICL said the study, commissioned by EDF Energy for Green Britain Day, said: ‘It all helps to build a more complete picture of how habits follow attitudes when it comes to the environment.’
Britain came sixth in the poll of 5,700 people across Europe.
Perhaps this demonstrates the lamentable fact that the electorate are better informed and have more sense than the government. I thought the government was supposed to represent the electorate, not brainwash them.
“[Climate Change Minister] Greg Barker said he was encouraged by nine in ten Britons saying they would make changes if given financial support.”
So the one person in ten that is not willing to make changes will be paying for the 9 that are willing, and Greg Barker is encouraged by this? Why?
You know you’re getting really old when the MPs look even younger than the Police!
That single photo of a completely snow-covered UK did more for scepticism than any written arguments
‘Climate Change Minister’ a post created by King Cnut (*) himself.
(*) = not an anagram
No, we`re not big on dogma,our history shows it to be dangerous in the extreme.
Hence only three or four percent church attendance,and an almost instinctive resistance to the strident tones of hempen-clad crustafarian soap-dodgers preaching `the new truth`.
The beautiful irony is that the `activists` and pressure groups are really turning the public off,and long may they continue.Nothing turns people off a `cause` quicker than being berated by a dangerously uninformed teenager with a planet to save.The BBC springs to mind.
What on Earth have these British pols been putting in their KoolAid? All but a handful are barmey in the crumpet.
This Gregory Parker?
Barker also developed strong links to the Russian oil companies, being Head of Communications at the Anglo Siberian Oil Company from 1998-2000 and also worked in Russia for the Sibneft Oil Group, owned by Roman Abramovich.
Barker, in his capacity as Shadow Environment Secretary, accompanied Cameron on his trip to the Arctic Circle in April 2006 for a fact-finding mission on global warming.
Barker was implicated in the 2009 MPs’ expenses scandal for his purchase and sale of London flats
Barker married Celeste Harrison, an heiress to the Charles Wells brewery fortune, in 1992. Following a diary report in The Observer,[6] Barker confirmed he and his wife had separated and on 26 October 2006. British tabloid the Daily Mirror revealed that he had left his wife and children for another man, William Banks-Blaney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Barker
perhaps whagt the Spaniards are “quite concerned” about is john kerry’s anomaly:
17 June: UK Register: Andrew Orlowski: Sunny Spain suspends solar subsidy scam
18bn Euro flushed down the bano
Dead broke Spain can’t afford to prop up renewables anymore. The Spanish government is cutting the numbers of hours in a day it’s prepared to pay for “clean” energy….
“We feel cheated”, Tomas Diaz of the Spanish Photovoltaic Industry Association told Bloomberg. But it’s undoubtedly taxpayers who have been cheated the most…
Spain paid 11 times more for “green” energy than it did for fossil fuels. The public makes up the difference. The renewables bandwagon is like a hopeless football team that finishes bottom of the league each year – but claims it’s too special ever to be relegated…
Spanish economist Professor Gabriel Calzada, at the University of Madrid estimated that each green job had cost the country $774,000.
Worse, a “green” job costs 2.2 jobs that might otherwise have been created – a figure Calzada derived by dividing the average subsidy per worker by the average productivity per worker…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/17/spain_sustainability_scam/
The Bilderberg Group is concerned about global cooling?
The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 – 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations.
http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/meeting2010.html
The UK coalition adminstration based around social democrat(contintal style)politics is fully signed up to and very keen on enacting crippling and highy damaging ‘green/eco’ policies regardless of public opinion and the state of the science involved.
This government has even acknowledged that UK cuts to carbon dioxide emissions will not lower the earths temperature or even do anything to cut rising CO2 levels.
The sole aim of the cuts in industrial output and jobs is to take on the role of “moral leadership” in the “fight against dangerous climate change”. Yes you read correctly, the sole aim of spending countless billions of pounds and destroying the UK economy and sabotaging the UK energy matrix is so the UK government can bask in the warm glow of leading the world by example, taking a moral leadership in the hope that once the UK destroyed itself the world will be so impressed and awed by this national suicide that the world will follow and drink the kool aid next.
The UK political class seem to be in the grip of some kind of mental illness, existing in a fantasy world and believing they are destined to save the world, a Napoleon/God complex if ever there was one.
Poll question:
* If the government gives you money, will you take it?
Oh, yeah. Threaten Britons with warmer winters and drier springs and tell them that’s a bad thing. Did they take the poll in a bumbershoot factory?
Ahhhh the UK, the formerly GREAT Britain, alarmist central on the AGW issue and yet their populace wont buy it.
Keep ringing those alarm bells, soon the whole lot will be deaf.
From the land that gave us the Ministry of Silly Walks, what do you expect when you have a Minister for Climate Change? You might as well have a Minister for Bears that Sh*t in the Woods.
We continue to lag behind other major nations in our attitude to and appetite for tackling climate change.
They know this is not true. How many countries have actually engaged properly in a meaningful reduction policy? One that has actually achieved a deliberate reduction in CO2? None. A very few have trading schemes that do basically nothing but shuffle the blame, but that’s it. Big talk, no action.
However you will never sell the alarmist line with “Hey, no-one else is doing it, so we should be first!”
hardly the voice of the “left” – Ambinder says capntax is “essential”….repeat “essential”….
16 June: The Atlantic: Marc Ambinder: Carbon Pricing as the Public Option Redux?
If the goal now is to get a bill that begins to wean the nation off of its addiction to oil, a carbon pricing scheme isn’t needed. If the goal is to try to fix the problem of global warming, it is essential…
There clearly aren’t enough Senate votes for cap-and-trade. Even senators who’ve promised not to filibuster a cap-and-trade bill, like Sherrod Brown, are not seen as certain ayes when it comes to the requisite 60 votes to cut off debate. (Privately, the White House believes there are about 52 yes votes at the moment.)
From the perspective of the White House, had Obama explicitly called for carbon pricing in his speech, he might have moved the debate in a way that would hurt the chances of getting any bill at all. They insist that he will put the full weight of his presidency behind cap-and-trade in conference. They insist that cap-and-trade is not analogous to the public option in the health care debate. (The White House came to view the public option less as a lodestone than as a nice piece of shiny quartz that would have been extremely difficult to implement well and wasn’t essential to the edifice itself). Cap-and-trade is essential.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/carbon-pricing-as-the-public-option-redux/58257/
Frankly I am skeptical this powder-head even has a normal IQ, much less an education in the area he professes such expertise.
Note the wording: “we continue to lag behind ….” No, the Brits are in front in seeing through the sham! Pity their football team isn’t as advanced.
…”Less than a third of Britons believe the issue is ‘serious and urgent’ and requires ‘radical steps’. A similar number of people doubt whether climate change is happening at all, according to the study.”…
The recent winters in England have left a collective wisdom in the people that will only increase the fraction that are skeptical as those winters continue with more snow. Although weather isn’t climate, the fraction of AGW doubters probably negatively correlates with wintertime temperatures.
If Cameron had said he was sure that Carbon Dioxide was not a poison or pollutant and that Conservative policy was not to waste money on Stupid Green Renewable projects then there would not be the coalition government in the UK that we have at present.
“This scepticism has contributed to the 2.1 tonnes of CO2 generated per house each year from electricity use – the highest of all ten countries examined by researchers at Imperial College London.”
I wonder what else contributed. Perhaps it’s one of the more northerly countries with a maritime climate? Older housing stock with less roof insulation?
No link to the poll questions or list of countries?
With our historical and cultural heritage we have a better idea than most of the limitations of politicians and ‘experts’ of all varieties.
The confluence of a quietening solar surface, rising stratospheric ozone levels, warming stratosphere, equatorward shifting jets. cooling mid latitudes and a cessation of the global upward temperature trend really does suggest something important especially since every component is now going in the opposite direction to what we saw when the sun was more active.
Furthermore it all went into reverse at the same time, in the late 90’s.
Coincidence ? I think not.
Inconvenient for CO2 theories of climate change? Certainly.
Where are the official attempts at an explanation for the utter collapse of their expectations for over 10 years now ?
Secretary of State is loony Huhne from the LibDems.
Greg Barker supports the Secretary of State on:
* Climate change
* International climate change
* Climate Science
* Energy efficiency
* The Green Deal
* Public sector energy efficiency including greening DECC
* Carbon reduction commitment
* Climate Change Agreements
* Fuel poverty
* Social tariffs
* Warm Front
* Promoting interests of energy consumers
* Green Economy, green jobs and skills
* Green Investment Bank
* Green ISAs
* Decentralised energy and small scale renewables (inc cooperative/local ownership and business rates)
* Energy innovation, including marine energy (wave and tidal)
* Heat
* Environment Council
* National Carbon Markets & EU ETS
* CERT and CESP
That list says it all really. No wonder most Brits are sceptical and don’t trust politicians.
There are some very sceptical realists in the UK and I count myself as one, I was lucky, I had a reasonable education and was taught by people who were very able and wanted to teach and most objectively impart knowledge.
I suppose (my generation) we were always going to be realists, it is most amusing however to see and hear of children, that are now becoming acutely tired of the manic inculcation of the BS and government propaganda of CAGW.
The eco-fascists in government, the socialist teachers of hate filled misanthropy and the peddlers of doom, the so called ‘scientific consensus’ – a myth, along with the government funded computer modellers of the Met Office and CRU, despite all their best efforts (and thank the LORD for their incompetency!) are strangulating their own misguided attempts at fomenting mass hysteria and inducing panic over the AGW storm.
It is the motives of the politicians we should concern ourselves with, the case for the government expenditure of vast amounts of money in a vainglorious cause (ie, combating a non existent threat)………….. which will achieve precisely a ZERO effect, is lunacy in any body’s currency.
I salute my fellow Britons cynicism, to doubt is to be scientific in outlook and method.
Funny thing about this survey and one poll done a couple of weeks ago, is that they don’t give out the raw data. I went to the EDF website to get some more info and it just says email them for a copy of the report (so I did!)
What I want to see is with regard to this quote:
… I would like to see which countries were surveyed. Because it may not be “climate scepticism” which leads to Britain’s greater power usage but factors like economic activity and heating demands which vary from European country to country.
I don’t know about you, but I only use (roughly) as much electricity as I need despite my climate scepticism. My skeptical “attitude” doesn’t make me use or waste more electricity. I’m not rich like Al Gore with a power guzzling mansion. I just happen to be addicted to hot showers and cooked meals.
Mooloo says: June 17, 2010 at 9:40 pm,
Mooloo, I notice the same thing in the New Zealand press telling New Zealanders how behind the rest of the world they are going to be if they don’t start action on climate change. It’s two weeks away before New Zealand start the world’s first comprehensive, all sector Emissions Trading Scheme. I’ve even read in mainstream NZ papers (online) that NZ will have their goods rejected by other nations as punishment for not pulling their weight on climate.
Not for nothing did Shakespeare describe us as;
..this sceptic isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Here is one more ‘graphic’ reason why the British are sceptic about the global warming:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GWDa.htm
Brittons should be proud. This is not about lag, this is leading the pack and could also be seen as an IQ test. Low percentage could be translated as high IQ in common. (Wich cant be said about politicians).
2.1 tonnes of CO2 per household. Could this be because one third of Europe has very cold and long winters and therefore has taken, for reasons not connected to global warming, but to expense, to building houses that keep in the hear. Scandinavia, Northern Germany etc. Aroiund a half don’t need any heating for most of the year and don’t use air conditioning in their homes. The Brits, Irish, Northern France, Southern Germany, the Netherlands and Benelux sit in the same region of Europe with roughly similar climates where it gets neither too hot in the summer nor too cold for long periods in the winter. Then there is the poverty gap between Northern Europe and Southern Europe, which means the Brits, with their rainy weather, will almost all have tumble driers that are in use throughout the year. I don’t know whether the report weighted these and many other factors affecting energy usage, but I wouldn’t mind betting it didn’t.
Just in case anyone anywhere is in any doubt:-
In the UK the lunatics are definitely running the asylum.
The pantomime-horse government we have is riddled with AGW true believers, only one Cabinet member has any scientific qualification or experience and all are very rich toffs. (23 out of 29 are millionaires. Already.) Several including both Cameron & Clegg have direct financial family interests in Big Wind and other greenie scams.
I don’t care a fig if Greg Barker wants to take a gay lover. If that’s what floats his boat, then fine. But to do so when he is married to a woman does suggest a certain ‘adaptability’ in his moral standards.
They have managed something which even I, cynic that I am, didn’t expect. They make the previous bunch of a**holes look slightly less incompetent and moronic than they actually were.
When are the majority of the population going to get sufficiently hacked off that they reach for the pitchforks and burning torches?
“hempen-clad crustafarian soap-dodgers” Bravo!
I have some very good friends who could accurately be described thus. I shall take great delight in doing so to their faces. BTW, These “hippy” friends of mine also have great doubts about the scientific accuracy of the IPCC projections and alarm.
They want to save the planet as much as the next man, but also want to clean up and prevent REAL polution. CO2 is NOT a real pollutant, but it is great fertiliser for their cannabis plants!
method.
Paul Clark says:
June 17, 2010 at 11:33 pm
“What I want to see is with regard to this quote:
“This scepticism has contributed to the 2.1 tonnes of CO2 generated per house each year from electricity use – the highest of all ten countries examined by researchers at Imperial College London.”
… I would like to see which countries were surveyed. Because it may not be “climate scepticism” which leads to Britain’s greater power usage but factors like economic activity and heating demands which vary from European country to country.”
Hope you’ll report back on this. Could be very interesting indeed. Could be due to the source, e.g. coal-fired versus nuclear. And it could be due to heating demands. But, given how sneaky these arguments are, who says they are even European countries? The other nine countries could be anywhere. Borneo, Maldives, Somalia?
In any case, I am 99.9% certain that it is not due to “climate scepticism.” That’s just toooo convenient and, of course, too ridiculous.
Paul Clark says:
June 17, 2010 at 11:33 pm
I’ve even read in mainstream NZ papers (online) that NZ will have their goods rejected by other nations as punishment for not pulling their weight on climate.
Would such an action be legal with no international climate agreement in force?
Maybe we should start a campaign to support those countries not falling for the climate scam by preferentially buying their goods.
“Poll question:
* If the government gives you money, will you take it?”
HELL NO!
If I do not need the money, I will not claim it. I will not be a burden on the tax payer and I am damn proud that I am self sufficient. I was eligible for working family tax credit in the UK, (until my daughter turned 18), but have never claimed it as I believe that benefits should only go to those who need them to survive. My wife and I earn enough to pay our way without benefits, so I refuse to claim them. I wish more people were like me and then my taxes might be a bit lower!
The more publicity is given to this madness, the more sensible people in the UK are starting to realise and to spread the word that the idea of catastrophic man-made global warming is being promoted as a means of taxation and social control.
I would urge everyone to tell their friends and relatives and local politicians as well as posting on skeptic websites. We will prevail, but far too much damage has already been done.
“I think the British are inherently quite sceptical”
Please continue that way, we need more Newtons, Maxwells, Huttons, Darwins, …. and less gullible-politico-scientists
On a recent visit to the UK we noticed a TV advert for EDF which lauded the ‘fact’ that that some 40% of electricity sold by them in the UK was ‘Carbon free’.
Here is breakdown (2008 tho’) of their power production. 82.9% Nuclear,9,3% Renewables including (7.3 Hydro, 3.1% Coal, 3.0% Gas, 1.4% Oil, 0.3% Others) One of the reasons we moved to France is obvious – 90% is not Carbon based (-skeptic yawn-) its Hot and Wet.
I recall that in the 1950’s the proposed opening of a cross-channel electricty link, to the Kent coast was agreed. When completed in 1961 it was was virtually opposite one of the first large nuclear power stations built in France, at Calais. A vested interest? You had better believe it!
Incidently – Layman’s SunSpot count(transition sc23-sc24) now over 850 spotless days.
“There are some very sceptical realists in the UK and I count myself as one, I was lucky, I had a reasonable education and was taught by people who were very able and wanted to teach and most objectively impart knowledge.”
Ditto. Although I hated physics at school and took great joy in winding-up my squeeky voiced physics teacher to the point of a virtual nervous breakdown, he (somehow) managed to impart the importance of the scientific method, scepticism and an open enquiring mind.
He put great importance on falsification and that a hypothesis MUST be able to be falsifiable. If the hypothesis is A+B=C, then if you measure A+B and it = F, then that disproves the hypothesis. You do not say, Oh well, that proves the hypothesis as well and change the hypothesis to be A+B=C or F or maybe Z and perhaps K and then claim that this is what it always was, it’s just that we need more money to research this further and make better models….
This is why I am so furious about alarmists claiming every bit of “extreme” weather as proof of CAGW. If it is cold, or warm or hot or wet or dry it is because of CAGW. It is not a falsifiable hypothesis. There has always been extreme weather. There will always be cases of extreme weather.
That would be an example of what I was saying in my last comment:
“a hypothesis MUST be able to be falsifiable. If the hypothesis is A+B=C, then if you measure A+B and it = F, then that disproves the hypothesis. You do not say, Oh well, that proves the hypothesis as well and change the hypothesis to be A+B=C or F or maybe Z and perhaps K and then claim that this is what it always was, it’s just that we need more money to research this further and make better models….”
They are re-coding and re-running their models to make them retrofit the data and the hypothesis so that they can claim that they were right all along.
This is an example of non-science, AKA dogma.
Britons are inherently sceptical, but quite a few Norman-Saxons seem to believe Margaret Thatcher was the first climate realist.
Lol.
It’s like watching a dance:
– Thatcher reinforced the CO2-pollution = Man-made Global Warming story, as a means of beating the miners union.
– The Lefty Eco-Greenies latch on to it as a tenet for their new religion.
-Clever industrialists realised that AGW was a godsend for Nuclear, and also funded the climatesciencebubble.
– Bankers saw a way of making huge fortunes from Enron-style Carbon Offset trading, (see Papal Indulgences), But they needed a legally-binding set of agreements; hence Copenhagen.
– The Democrats rode the thing (see Gore) for the eco-votes.
– Sadly, the greed was too much even for the scientists, who were caught cooking the evidence and the whole scam is revealed. Copenhagen collapses.
– Obama has a major problem as his party courtesy of the greenvangelist scam, are about to be wiped out at the mid-terms
– Enter shale gas technology! Soon the US will become an energy exporter. Watch oil demand shrink, and the geopolitics of the last century fall away. No need for those military adventures in oil regions. Importantly, no need for expensive/risky deep-drilling. The US merely needs to buy the oil it needs on a falling market.
– Obama sees the Oil-spill as a godsend. It becomes an ass-kicking contest, with BP having no leg to stand on, (though its actually Transocean’s fault).
Obama gets to talk righteously about pollution, and so sidelines AGW, bad-mouths Big Oil, which is in decline anyway. Nukies are shafted. Shale gas is less polluting when everybody looks into it, so he keeps the greenies onside. Even right-wing Isolationists like the idea of energy self-sufficiency. Bonus is that BP as a Brit operation can be made to pay; “them Brits got us into Iraq on a WMD lie so screw them”.
– Israel? Who needs strategic allies in the Gulf region when Oil is not strategic anymore. We don’t need to secure supplies. Everybody has massive shale-gas deposits, even India and China, so nobody has a strategic interest in the Gulf or Saudi, even for power-plays. And if Israelis wake up and act like a proper secular state rather than as a religious enclave, they could have a one-state solution tomorrow by adding Gaza and the West bank. Then, see peace and prosperity break out, even with Iran.
-Falling world energy prices? See the US economy grow! Win-Win and win the midterms, and even a second term. Obama is on a winner. And Cameron knows it. Bye-bye BP.
Check out the shale-gas thing (and the next technology along which is the coal-gas thing). It really is a game-changer.
In the meantime, we have the pathetic spectacle of British ministers bleating about how almost nobody believes them anymore when they talk about “tackling climate change”.
Quote by Ken Hall
I have some very good friends who could accurately be described thus. I shall take great delight in doing so to their faces. BTW, These “hippy” friends of mine also have great doubts about the scientific accuracy of the IPCC projections and alarm.
They want to save the planet as much as the next man, but also want to clean up and prevent REAL polution. CO2 is NOT a real pollutant, but it is great fertiliser for their cannabis plants!
Response
Well said ken, I am in the famed Glastonbury festival for the next 10 days and many many people I meet there from alternate/left wing/Trad Hippy and Green backgrounds are thoroughly fed up with being force fed dodge science and dubious facts to support a Capitalist society that having made a fortune trashing the environment, now want to make another fortune on the back of imaginary ecologcal issues. They may be wide eyed alternate society fans, but they can spot a scam just as easily as anyone else.
A report commissioned by EDF? How much does EDF benefit from taxpayer subsidy of its various alternative energy ventures?
Prof. Nigel Brandon says ‘It all helps to build a more complete picture of how habits follow attitudes when it comes to the environment’ – you mean it all helps to pay for my job in Imperial College. Thank you gullible taxpayer?
I also read somewhere that Nick Clegg’s wife owns windfarms, which I found rather depressing. All he has to do is be a good boy and believe in Global Warming and Saving the Planet and this gravy flowing into the Clegg housekeeping account will continue. In the meantime the rest of us are wondering how long our housekeeping will be able to pay for increasingly expensive EDF energy and EDF subsidies and Prof Nigel Brandon’s salary to support EDF in its quest for more taxpayer subsidies -all to save the Planet you understand. And on top of all that this is June, and it was so cold last night that we could really have done with an hour’s central heating.
“Would such an action be legal with no international climate agreement in force?”
New Zealand is a small country with a long tradition of free trade policies, and that has often been pushed around by bigger countries with a protectionist agenda on trade matters. Most big countries don’t care about the legal issues surrounding world trade. To get their way they have a long history of making up all sorts of excuses, for example by setting excessively stringent production standards on goods they import from NZ. So of course NZ politicians are running scared they will be knocked back economically if they aren’t seen to toe the line of the climate change activists that are in power, especially in the EU and US.
There are a lot of angry voters in NZ opposed to the local version of a carbon trading scheme, and who are being told by our politicians to shut up in case our economy is damaged if we are seen to be climate “skeptics” as a country.
When you are small the totalitarians and bullies of this world are not hard to spot.
Now CO2 causes ice ages in prehistory, according to the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10342318.stm
I suppose it’s one way for them to both admit that the earth is cooling not warming, but still blame CO2.
Ludicrous.
“High levels of scepticism and indifference among Britons continue to dog efforts to get the country to go greener, a Europe-wide study has concluded.”
Too much conflation of UNRELATED things:
1) “scepticism” is not the same thing as ‘non-alarmism’.
More importantly:
2) Climate alarmism is absolutely **NOT** synonymous with “green”!!!!!! (This one is unforgivably infuriating.)
Paul Vaughan, Ecologist and Parks & Natural Forests Advocate
We continue to lag behind other major nations in our attitude to and appetite for tackling climate change.
And those Nations would be who? China? USA? Australia?
In contrast in Spain
Well, since Spain is saying that……….I mean after all, Spain……..
As a physical scientist but not a climate scientist I found the climate at Real Climate repugnant, unscientific and comprised of closed minds intent on destroying dangerous questions rather than acknowledging uncertainties. I believe I am far from alone in this impression and that Real Climate has been tremendously counter-productive to its objectives.
The UK Govt doesn’t understand it’s own people any more than most other Western Govt.’s understand thiers.
The reason: They are too darned busy playing Global Govt. games than they are taking care of the business they were elected to do.
Going Green is a lifestyle choice, not a mandate come down from heaven, at the individual level.
Britons aren’t any more interested in paying a tax on a debatable problem than Americans are.
Besides all that, the very fact that a majority of industry has been outsourced to a place that is not interested in the subject means that any tax collected goes nowhere near the alleged problem.
It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it walks like a duck.
By George, it is a lame duck.
‘But I am convinced British people want to do something about it.’
Remember that football game where that defensive player picked up a fumble and started running with the ball toward the other teams goal?
“This scepticism has contributed to the 2.1 tonnes of CO2 generated per house each year from electricity use – the highest of all ten countries examined by researchers at Imperial College London.”
I would like to know what evidence they base this claim on.
I only know one person who believes in this CAGW nonsense. It is rather curious, then, that whenever I visit them the central heating is turned up so high that it is physically uncomfortable for me.
Perhaps people might take them a little more seriously if they practised what they preached….
Chris
How right he was, and he wasn’t even British, Abraham Lincoln.
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Why impose vague concerns on your population, with which justification? Once bitten twice shy, if you are caught on a ly, or several lies as is the IPCC, don’t count on the public to forget. There is no convincing evidence that human activity is het main driver of the increase in average temperatures during the last century, the climate system is still poorly understood and unpredictable, we cannot estimate any consequences of any AGW – positive or negative- and it is unlikely that we could do a lot about it, should we want to.
Commenting that Britsh are sceptical about “theoretical politics” is a laugh, how funny can you get? That they are sceptical about science is pure propaganda; which science, good science or bad “science”?
“I’ve even read in mainstream NZ papers (online) that NZ will have their goods rejected by other nations as punishment for not pulling their weight on climate.
Would such an action be legal with no international climate agreement in force?”
…No, it would be illegal and any country, or group of countries, trying to bully another in this way would be liable for massive penalties under the WTO. That’s why the EU is proposing a “carbon import tax” on goods from countries like China and India if they don’t comply with a world-wide Ponzi-style carbon trading regime. In other words, EU citizens will get hit several times with the same carbon taxes; first for their own activities and then having to pay the exporting countries’ carbon taxes as well.
“We continue to lag behind other major nations in our attitude to and appetite for tackling climate change.”
Oh really? I’m sure one snowy day in November 2008 our politicians passed our Climate Change Act and committed us to legally binding reductions of 80% GHG’s to take us back to the ’90s level. It was a good xmas that year for renewables, not so good for other businesses facing increasing costs via ‘climate change levy’ to help pay for our Carbon Trust superquango.
We are currently undergoing a bit of a spending review given our previous government maxed out our credit. There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth about £6bn in cuts. Our shiney new government has even asked the public where the cuts should be made. Our Climate Change Act will cost us £14-16bn a year, yet for some reason wasn’t included as an option to cut. Instead, our new mental… I mean environmental minister, and Barker’s boss, Chris Huhne was in Europe wanting to cost us more. At the same time, Mrs Clegg, wife of our Deputy PM was accepting an exec director’s job with a Spanish renewables company.
So whilst the British public may be sceptical, our dear leaders are just as gullible or venal as our last lot.
It’s so refreshing and reassuring to read that other Brits are as bemused as I as to the political climate on climate. The words ‘charlatans and simpletons’ seem to cover the supporters of AGW, but the question is, “which is which?”
The EDF adverts make me sick. For an energy company to be chastising sceptics suggests they are being paid way too much to be going ‘green’, and I find it offensive to be ripped off by them, and them using part of that money to advertise regularly on national television chastising those that don’t think being ripped off is a good idea.
Frankly going green should be rephrased going red, as reducing plant food won’t make the world green, but command and control economies a la cap and trade will be reminiscent of communism. Begging government beaurocrats for permission for more production for next year, while they huddle around deciding production quotas for every industry.
Geronimo wrote (and I paraphrase) “the Brits all use tumble dryers…”
We have lived in or near london for the thick end of a decade and have very rarely used a tumble dryer, similar to most locals we have come to know here. English houses are generally heated by means of wall-mounted hot water radiators driven by gas-fired boiler systems. In Winter, although it is officially frowned upon, most householders use commercially-made wire racks clipped to the top of radiators to drape and dry clothes in front of said radiators. Looks a bit messy, but very effective. In the good weather, outdoor clothes lines are generally used to dry washing. South-East England has significantly less rainfall than Spain or Portugal and we find the climate very mild, dry and gentle compared with where we lived in sub-tropical New Zealand where 25cm of rain is ‘a good shower’ – here it is a deluge of epic proportions! To listen to most English people discussing their weather, one would get the impression that they live somewhere near Moscow!
As I wrote in a reply to an an earlier post, there is frequently insuficient wind here in outer London to fly a child’s kite and one can often walk to the pub and back in the rain without needing rainwear, and still remain dry. The South-East is currently close to having hosepipe/garden sprinkler bans imposed and Thames Water, the local supplier of fresh water, has just completed an enormous desalination plant in London ready to suck water from the tidal River Thames and pipe it to their nearby and rapidly emptying reservoirs.
A demarkation line for weather seems to run coast to coast across the Midlands – to the North of this line, the weather is frequently very wet and cool, while below the line the climate tends be more akin to the Mediterranian regions.
Despite the alarmist utterances of mainstream politicians, I have met very few Brits who see CAGW as anything but alarmism based on science that cannot be falsified.
I, too, would like to see a full copy of the survey the minister quotes and to see his sources for his irrational claim of being supported by a majority of voters.
Are politicians elected to represent the population?
Or is the population suppose to follow the elected?
So far most of my voting has been “Who will screw me the least”.
Well, the UK coalition government had their chance. The honeymoon is over. It’s now abundantly clear, that at least with the “big” issues, we’re just in for more of the same as with the last lot.
Huhne’s influence within the cabinet really disturbs me. I think in particular, the decision to cancel the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters (which was to fund a new programme to build exportable parts for the manufacture of new nuclear power stations) bodes very ill indeed.
Is it a coincidence that the French electricity company, EDF, has a virtual monopoly of all the sites currently licensed for possible new nuclear power stations? The French know that windmills will never generate enough power, hence France’s reliance on nuclear and, to a lesser extent, tidal.
“Britain came sixth in the poll of 5,700 people across Europe.”
What is the point of such a statement ?
It actually seems to makes Britain appear rather better than one suspects was intended.
“geronimo says:
Then there is the poverty gap between Northern Europe and Southern Europe, which means the Brits, with their rainy weather, will almost all have tumble driers that are in use throughout the year.”
I do believe you have never paid a UK power bill in your life. Yes, the “Brits” do use their driers, but let me assure you, the cost of power, even in 1995 (The last time I paid a UK power bill), was so high that, we just dealt with the situation with airing cupboards around hot water tanks and indoor clothes lines. And as some posties has pointed out, we hung clothes over the radiators of the gas fired central heating system.
Can you imagine if over the next 20 years we have entered a strong cooling trend and the UK still has a Climate Change Minister? The post would become the butt of jokes in the local pubs and private dinners. Scepticism is getting stronger while signs point to cooling, you’ll have to laugh! :o)
” Less than a third of Britons believe the issue is ‘serious and urgent’ and requires ‘radical steps’.”
Then Why is their newly elected government not representing that view ?
“Britain came sixth in the poll of 5,700 people across Europe.”
Is that statistically significant in a population of ~ 500 million in the EU alone ?
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-QA-09-031/EN/KS-QA-09-031-EN.PDF
@Joe Spencer: “Then Why is their newly elected government not representing that view ?”
I completely agree. The stated policy is, for the most part, frankly terrifying:
http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/energy-and-climate-change/
The only bright spot is the amount of sceptical voices represented in the comments to the above.
One in ten Britons would not make changes even if offered a bribe (financial support)!
I like that Britons.
Don’t do it for the money, do it or don’t do it according to how you view the principles and the science involved.
Mooloo says:
June 17, 2010 at 9:40 pm
They know this is not true. How many countries have actually engaged properly in a meaningful reduction policy? One that has actually achieved a deliberate reduction in CO2? None.
—
Nail on the head!!! We have been at this nonsense for such a long time with very little achieved in co2 reduction globally. The only time you might see a reduction in co2 is when the recession has an impact. Now we are being rushed in a “10 years”[again] deadline to save the planet. What a complete waste of time and even IF they acheived the reductions they wanted I be my hat it won’t mean a thing to global mean temps. AGW is hysteria gone ape!!!
Something to keep in mind when these sort of statistics are presented is the functional illiteracy rate among the respondents. The phrase “illiteracy” applies to more than a simple inability to read or write. There is also “functional illiteracy”, defined as ignorance of the fundamentals of a particular area, or minimizing an expected standard of competence regarding some skill or body of information. Functional illiteracy indicates that a large segment of society has been taught how not to rely on reading as a primary source of information. This goes to comprehension and hence the ability to make an informed decision.
When the subject being asked about is as complex as climate, I have no doubt that the “functional illiteracy ” rate is quite high.
I suspect that the polls are likely skewed to a significant degree as a result of this.
“Darkinbad the Brightdayler says:
June 18, 2010 at 5:45 am
One in ten Britons would not make changes even if offered a bribe (financial support)!
I like that Britons.
Don’t do it for the money, do it or don’t do it according to how you view the principles and the science involved.”
What principals? What science? So far there are no principals behind the science, beyond making a lot of money, and there is no science behind the theory (Of CAGW). Manipulate temperature data, lose original data records, “adjust” data? Where is the principal in that?
EDF Energy financed and commissioned the report. So once again “Big Energy” funds the research that suggests – or rather conforms to their pre-conceived notion – that behavioural changes as individuals are required to reduce the amount of energy we consume from them (EDF)… Their proposed method for forcing the reduction in energy comsumption is simply energy price increases that are marketed and justified as “saving the planet”.
It beggars belief that people still cannot see that the biggerst promoters, advocates, lobbyists and endorsees of “climate change policy” are the very energy companies who are painted by the warmists as the “fossil fuel” industry.
Red Hot Lies by Christopher Horner is an excellent expose of the green industrial machine masquerading as evil fossil fuelists…
You know, commoners use to have common sense and see reality. Global Warming is over since 1998 and, politically, died on November 19th 2009, its funeral was held at the city of Copenhagen last december. This is a reality check. Whomsoever do not see this is making the ridicule.
…….or commiting treason on purpose, because all green policies are devastating.
“It actually seems to makes Britain appear rather better than one suspects was intended.”
It was intended.
So, the UK boys manufacture a hockey stick with a chopped blade, delete documents re AR4, cannot locate missing temperature data and break the spirit of the law and the Britons are skeptical because they are ‘inherently skeptical’???
There is a natural limit to what you can take credit for.
With the honorable exceptions, Britain has been in the forefront in climate alarmism and moralism from day one.
Well you reap what you sow.
First they claim to be climatologists, and above it all.
Then give weather predictions – snow a thing of the past – like common weathermen.
Exaggerate, lie, and make up things – glaciers.
Get caught saying things like “no significant warming”, after claiming unprecedented warming.
Not one prediction comes true, They really are a joke.
and then claim that they are misunderstood LOL
They really are the weakest link………….
Again the word hypothesis is being used in connection with proof (see Ken Hall). At least get your terminology right. Only theories can be proved or disproved. A hypothesis by its very nature cannot be tested. It is an explanation that seems to work and is logical. The classic is Avagadro’s hypothesis – google it. Darwin’s theory of evolution is not a theory but a hypothesis – there is no way to test it.
‘But I am convinced British people want to do something about it.’
A few weeks ago, we performed an electoral moronectomy. And while it is good to be rid of the Brown thing, the replacements are no better. Our political ‘elite’ is absolutely no practical use to man nor beast. Yet they still want to be considered the elite, and still want to preserve their wealth and power at existing levels. This is why we have to be convinced of
sustainabilitysubsistence as a future life style.The trouble is, we can’t even use the old method of shooting a few to encourage the others; they spend large amounts of our money on their security.
Cloud-cuckoo land! Aristophanes joins Orwell as our future.
good of him to be convinced on my behalf that I want to do something about a problem that doesn’t exist.
I don’t usually post ad hominems, but that British politician sure looks like a sissy.
“[Climate Change Minister] Greg Barker said he was encouraged by nine in ten Britons saying they would make changes if given financial support.”
Has an enterprising conservative just realised another way to make a buck, for which he cann’t even be blamed.
It was the previous administration that oversaw the market distortion of offering UNeconomic feed in tarrifs to consumers. The new partners in the UK’s Condemocratic coalition don’t think these were uneconomic enough, saying:-
, and even George Monbiot thinks the whole idea is just a grand scam , pointing out
A world-wide survey would probably show through hockey stick statistics that almost all countries are well behind the rest of the world.
“I think the British are inherently quite sceptical about theoretical politics and science and maybe a little more cautious than some countries in Europe…”
No s**t Sherlock! Now how about investigating WHY this is instead of pouring more taxpayers millions into trying to convince us otherwise.
What Britons, and which UK?…Do you mean that obscure EU colony governed from Brussels?
stevengoddard says:
June 17, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Poll question:
* If the government gives you money, will you take it?
_____________________________________________________________________
HECK NO!
Government money always comes with hidden strings and intrusion into your life.
For example during the drought a few years ago, the state of North Carolina made loads of hay available at cost plus transportation. To BUY this hay you had to get a USDA Premises ID that put a permanent Encumbrance on your deed. A premises does not have the Constitutional rights attached to it that property does.
So I called the hay man I used to buy from in New Hampshire, got together with some friends, brought in a truckload of New Hampshire hay and we split it. I also introduced him to my feed dealer. He has been a good customer of my northern hay man ever since.
‘beware of Greeks bearing gifts’ That Trojan horse can be a real killer
Paul Clark says:
June 17, 2010 at 11:33 pm
“What I want to see is with regard to this quote:
“This scepticism has contributed to the 2.1 tonnes of CO2 generated per house each year from electricity use – the highest of all ten countries examined by researchers at Imperial College London.”
… I would like to see which countries were surveyed. Because it may not be “climate scepticism” which leads to Britain’s greater power usage but factors like economic activity and heating demands ….”
_______________________________________________________________________
Al Gored says:
June 18, 2010 at 12:26 am
Hope you’ll report back on this. Could be very interesting indeed….
In any case, I am 99.9% certain that it is not due to “climate scepticism.” That’s just toooo convenient and, of course, too ridiculous.
________________________________________________________________
According to another Brit the home electric costs are about 5,000 pounds/yr or $7400/yr I don’t know about you but to me that is a very healthy chunk of change. Thanks to the increase in cost over the last couple of years, I have already cut my energy usage to the bone. About the only thing else I can do is hitch an equine to a cart to make the trip to go grocery shopping. Wouldn’t the shopkeepers and the town just love that….. especially when they step in it.
@kate
‘Thatcher reinforced the CO2-pollution = Man-made Global Warming story, as a means of beating the miners union’
Greta idea…just such a pity that history lends no credence to it. The NUM was completely beaten and to all practical purposes ‘dead’ in 1985. Mrs Thatcher made her intervention in 1988.
Whatever her motive, it wasn’t as a means to beat a foe that had effectively disappeared three years previously.
“[Climate Change Minister] Greg Barker said he was encouraged by nine in ten Britons saying they would make changes if given financial support.”
What use is a government grant for committing suicide?
Gareth Phillips says:
June 18, 2010 at 1:15 am
Well said ken, I am in the famed Glastonbury festival for the next 10 days and many many people I meet there from alternate/left wing/Trad Hippy and Green backgrounds are thoroughly fed up with being force fed dodge science and dubious facts to support a Capitalist society that having made a fortune trashing the environment, now want to make another fortune on the back of imaginary ecologcal issues. They may be wide eyed alternate society fans, but they can spot a scam just as easily as anyone else.
_________________________________________________________________________
Gareth, please do me a favor and spread the word about the difference between Corporatism (what we have now) and Capitalism. The Corporatists are intentionally giving capitalism a bad rep because they want a “socialism” (read neo-feudalism) with them in complete control.
“The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power” –Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Dictator of Italy
True capitalism is actually us little guys taking our hard earned wealth, our labor and reinvesting it to produce more wealth that is usable products and services. The classic example is a farmer saving some wheat to plant in the spring instead of eating or selling it.
No one ever notices the small businesses but they are what is really important to a countries economy:
Statistics for US small business
* Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
* Employ half of all private sector employees.
* Pay more than 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
* Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
* Create more than 50 percent of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
* Supplied more than 23 percent of the total value of federal prime contracts in FY 2005.
* Produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms. These patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.
* Are employers of 41 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers).
* Are 53 percent home-based and 3 percent franchises.
* Made up 97 percent of all identified exporters and produced 28.6 percent of the known export value in FY 2004.
Easy….! I got it!. If you, dear young lad, want to impose to your already suffering people all the green policies they don’t believe in, just make UNESCO declare, that oscure EU island province, a humanity nature’s santuary, then it will be a crime not to follow green policies.
“A little more than half of Britons are ‘quite’ or ‘very concerned’ about climate change.”
Hopefully we can make that >90% a.s.a.p., about cooling and not warming of course.
“Minister of Climate Change.”
So its not “The Department of Silly Talks”, then?
“If the government gives you money, will you take it?”
Hell, yes. I regard it as payback for the “windmill tax” which inflates my ‘leccy bill.
Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse…
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/06/economic-sabotage.html
And politicians and their lackeys wonder why we despise them so much.
[snip]
[snip]
SORRY for the word dumb A** now I feel bad.
I have a conscience unlike Gore
Just like old Labour before it, the new Condem government has to do as its told. We need to rid ourselves of the ruling elite before sensible policies can by adopted – in the mean time the shamocracies of the western political system will continue to stumble on.
The new religion of ‘Science’ is proving difficult to sell to the public, despite the miracles of technology we’ve seen over the last few decades. Good to see Britannia is just as sceptical about this as they are about the old religions.
Al Gored says: June 18, 2010 at 12:26 am,
UPDATE:
OK, Ms McGettigan got back to me and sent me two docs. One seems to be just a repeat of the press release, while the other says “FULL REPORT”, but seems to be a post-processed thing as well. Haven’t gone through it yet. Make of it what you will here:
LEAF Factor Press ReleaseFINAL
The LEAF Factor 2010 – FINAL FULL REPORT
The countries they list are:
Sweden
Italy
Netherlands
Turkey
Switzerland
France
UK
Germany
Spain
Russia
In answer to my above question: some of those countries are comparable to the UK I guess.
“A little more than half of Britons are ‘quite’ or ‘very concerned’ about climate change.”
Don’t ya just love the way they combine two different results, to give the illusion of a majority.
Hmmm… Where did they learn that trick, I wonder.
Translation —> “The brainwashing will continue until morale improves.”
So some Brits, where the Univ. of East Anglia has brainwashed quite a few of them, are not altogether convinced that the Earth is not yet doomed to be roasted to a cinder by AGW. However, here’s a problem, as copied from the story:
A little more than half of Britons are ‘quite’ or ‘very concerned’ about climate change … [Climate Change Minister] Greg Barker said he was encouraged by nine in ten Britons saying they would make changes if given financial support.
The problem is that nine of ten Brits would make changes IF SOMEBODY ELSE WOULD PAY FOR THEM! Don’t we have the same problem here, but with some elaborate subterfuge?
Here in Moorestown, NJ, where I live, we are getting uglification even in our historic neighborhoods, where many solar panels being mounted on our utility poles, as if they were not sufficiently ugly already. Newer neighborhoods, which were built with all utilities being buried are exempt from this uglification because there are no utility poles to be further uglified.
Why is my neighborhood being uglified? Because there is Federal money being given to PSEG, our power utility that is funding the uglification. Also, PSEG has been given a rate increase to help pay for this atrocity. Guess who will pay the extra taxes to fund the Federal Government’s “grant”? Guess who will pay for the Utility’s rate increases to cover the installation and maintenance of this uglification?
Are we all sheep being told not to worry — that somebody else will pay for this “green” improvement? Guess who it will eventually be?
Anyone who’s been on this planet for 25 years or more and has more than two brain cells is VERY sceptical of all politicians, regardless of the national origin of said politicians. The UK Climate Minister has another problem, he’s not even old enough to shave and has no idea what he’s talking about when speaking in an official capacity for the British people.
The “technical” solution to “THE GREAT CO2 PROBLEM” is electrical generation via solar cells at the user’s location. The genius that invents the solar shingle that is simple, affordable, and appealing will become richer than Bill Gates by a factor of ten.
It would also help if politications were rotated every 5 years and the old ones ground up and buried in a landfill.
I’M PROUD OF YOU LABOR!. Keep standing up. The lives and health of all the American people and the World are in serious jeopardy.
Further, unemployment healthcare benefits are critically needed. But they should be provided through the Medicare program at cost, less the 65% government premium subsidy provided now to private for profit health insurance.
Congress should stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on private for profit health insurance subsidies. Subsidies that cost the taxpayer 10x as much or more than Medicare does. Private for profit health insurance plans cost more. But provide dangerous and poorer quality patient care.
It’s over. Tell congress to get the healthcare Merchants of death and injury out of the American peoples lives for good. 2010 is about THE PUBLIC OPTION!
And that CORRUPT! UNDEMOCRATIC! filibuster must GO! NOW!
Alan Grayson Honors The Dead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV9TRoYMtjs&feature=player_embedded
Alan Grayson on Healthcare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPpQ2MNaSDo&feature=player_embedded
Ron Sparks HealthCareReform http://youtu.be/kqlBFRJh4Cw
John Garamendi – The Public Option http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyBTEke68aQ&feature=player_embedded
I want to commend all of you for working so hard and being so strong at helping the whitehouse and congress begin to address our U.S. and Global healthcare crisis. You have been AWESOME! my fellow Americans and peoples of the World. America and the World is better and safer for it. My greatest pride is the knowledge that I am one of you. And that you really get it. You really understand the importance of it all.
There are some potentially very good things in the healthcare legislation. Especially with the reconciliation fix’s. The Democrats, Bernie Sanders and the Whitehouse did a GREAT! job of fighting to produce the best healthcare legislation that they could. They have earned all our strong support. And we should give it to them.
But it was your relentless pressure and hard work that made the difference. Whatever good comes from this healthcare legislation, America and the peoples of the World will have each of you to thank. You were smart, creative, courageous and relentless. You fought together for the best legislation possible. And when you had to, you fought alone. No matter who stumbled and fell you continued to push and forge ahead. Fighting for the lives and health of the American people and the World. YOU SHOULD BE PROUD OF YOUR-SELVES 🙂
It may come to pass that future generations will look back on us and say that we were ALL Americas Greatest Generations. And that healthcare reform was our finest hour. You should be proud of our leaders President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and the many other Democratic and independent fighters for the people in congress. They proved them-self worthy of the leadership of a GREAT! PEOPLE.
But we are not done yet. This was just the beginning of healthcare reform, not the end. WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, ARE NOT! divided on healthcare legislation. The vast majority of you have been consistently crystal clear that this legislation does not go far enough. You want a strong Government-run Public Option CHOICE!! available to everyone on day one. And you want it NOW!
YOU MUST NOT ALLOW AN INDIVIDUAL MANDATE TO STAND WITHOUT A STRONG GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION CHOICE! AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE.
WE THE PEOPLE have been crystal clear that we want an end to dependence on for-profit healthcare and the for-profit proxies called private for non-profit healthcare. The American people want the CHOICE! of a strong Government-run Public Option to replace their need or dependence on healthcare providers whose primary motivation is profit. Rather than providing the highest quality, easiest accessible and most affordable medically necessary healthcare possible. This is what the rest of the developed World has. And the American people want it too. They want healthcare ASSURANCE! Not, for-profit health insurance. And they want it NOW!
Now is the time to continue the push for a strong Government-run Public Option CHOICE! available to everyone that wants it on day one. Rationally it’s clear what we have to do to get this done. SUPPORT THE DEMOCRATS that supported you with a Public Option choice, and REMOVE as many republicans as you can. Not one republican in congress was willing to step across the isle to support a strong Government-run Public Option CHOICE!! available to everyone on day one. NOT ONE! Let no candidate prevail this November that does not support a Strong Government-run Public Option.
47,000 AMERICANS die each year from lack of healthcare. 120,000 die from treatable illness that don’t die in other developed countries. Hundreds of thousands of you are dieing from medical accidents in a rush to profit. And Millions of you are injured. Millions more are driven into bankruptcy. All for the privilege of paying two to three times as much as any other people in the developed world for healthcare. HOGWASH!
Additionally, tens of thousands of you and your children were killed and millions sickened and injured from a terror attack with H1N1 (swine flu). Released on the American people and the World by the for-profit healthcare industry. All in an attempt to panic and frighten you into accepting the oxymoronic criminal enterprise of private for-profit healthcare (The most costly, deadly, dangerous, and disgraceful product sold in America). H1N1 is still sickening people and killing them. Especially children, the young and the middle aged. And there will be a third wave. These are the terrorist you need to worry about the most. Even the so-called international terrorist would not do something so INSANE! But greed driven medical profiteers would and did.
Apparently as far as republicans in GOVERNMENT are concerned, YOU! my fellow Americans – CAN JUST DROP DEAD! Including their own family members. Fools!… Hundreds of thousands of you, and possibly millions of you will die from the long-term effects of your infection and poisoning with H1N1.
So my fellow Human Beings. Rest-up, Take good care of the basics (Balanced nutrition, hydration, exercise, rest and POSITIVE emotional supports). Then wade back into the FIGHT! for a strong Government-run Public Option CHOICE! available to everyone on day one. Drug re-importation, Abolishment or strong restrictions on patents for biologic and prescription drugs. And government controlled and negotiated drug and medical cost. You must take back control of your healthcare system from the Medical Industrial Complex. You MUST do it NOW! This is a matter of National and Global security. There can be NO MORE EXCUSES.
God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings. I’m glad to know of you. And proud to be one of you.
See you on the battle field.
Sincerely
jacksmith – WorkingClass 🙂