My parents used to talk about rationing during the war with great apprehension. Clearly the nutters in and supporting Cancun are clueless as to how such a scheme would be viewed by the public. My inbox has lit up today from all around the world over this issue. Short of Climategate itself, I haven’t quite seen any other similar reaction.
Excerpts from the Telegraph: Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in developed world
Global warming is now such a serious threat to mankind that climate change experts are calling for Second World War-style rationing in rich countries to bring down carbon emissions.
…
In a series of papers published by the Royal Society, physicists and chemists from some of world’s most respected scientific institutions, including Oxford University and the Met Office, agreed that current plans to tackle global warming are not enough.
…
In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.
…
Prof Anderson admitted it “would not be easy” to persuade people to reduce their consumption of goods
He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s.
This could mean a limit on electricity so people are forced to turn the heating down, turn off the lights and replace old electrical goods like huge fridges with more efficient models. Food that has travelled from abroad may be limited and goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.
“The Second World War and the concept of rationing is something we need to seriously consider if we are to address the scale of the problem we face,” he said.
Full story here: Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in developed world
==============================================================
Does anyone really want to see a ration stamp like this?
For anyone that wishes to get the Royal Society’s papers referenced in the article, they are available for a limited time download here:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934.toc#content-block
Rationing defn “Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one’s allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.”
The trouble is that the resources being ‘rationed’ are not scarce and their supply is quite capable of adjusting to meet demand – this will not work, it has the same problem as Carbon trading – i.e. everybody needs to sign up for it to work, and those who don’t get all the lovely cake – literally.
Back to square one I think.. but it will be fun to watch them try to sell this.
Cap and trade will not happen, more and more people are skeptical of man made warming, Liberal Democrats have lost their stranglehold on the US government and warmists are becoming desperate. An old friend, WWII fighter pilot and boss of mine used to explain to me how when someone’s favorite idea had been proven indisputably wrong and they continue to argue when even they know the cause is lost, the noises made are a death gargle. These utterings by “scientists” prior to Cancun are the death gargles of the man-made warming theory.
The alarming thing in the Times article is
They are claiming an rate of +0.8C per decade, while the recent trend is +0.1C or less. This is not junk science, it is schizophrenia.
_Jim says:
November 29, 2010 at 5:51 pm
“I say: Go for it! It’s how old Joe Kennedy (daddy to John F. and Ted) started his fortune which continues through to this day via the Kennedy Family Trust Fund …”
Yes, the genius of these Cancun folks could bring the return of bootleg “corn licker” throughout the USA. Are they aware that all of us will be barefoot, wearing overalls, smoking a pipe, and carrying shotguns?
SwampWoman says:
November 29, 2010 at 5:42 pm
A, uh, Cancun climate change summit? Why not a Minnesota climate change summit? Why not a Scotland climate change summit?
Hey!
We could accommodate them Right Here in Sunny Lake Simcoe Ontario Canada — The Briars is an excellent resort — right on the Lake at Jackson’s Point. Today it warmed up to about +5C (it was down to -12C a couple of days ago) — tomorrow it will be really warm — +8C and raining and Wednesday too…
The wind off the lake could chill a Martini — but for here it’s warm. Soon it will be back to the seasonal average which hovers around +3C — with -5C nights — but you can still wear a bikini — if you can hack it. They can take tours a few minutes north of here and see lots of nice cold global warming — all white and fluffy! They can even see the local brown bears and black bears (unfortunately no Polar bears) which do so love a tasty, corpulent, soft, tender climate scientist as an appetizer before lunch.
A refreshing swim in the lake should improve their attitudes immensely.
Maybe a rise in CO2 increases dementia.
As evidenced by “Professor” Anderson…who has unequivocally LOST his marbles.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
One good thing these bozos have done is inspire many to dedicate their lives to defeating and obliterating Statism. Now that the lights are shining on it, its ugliness is becoming more apparent daily.
yet… they fly everywhere to those conferences to find better ways to create a Social Revolt.
Fun Quiz
I got 8/10 [#1 & #9 wrong]
[This is at least 10% on topic, as you will see☺]
has anyone posted this?
27 Nov: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: There are black days ahead for the carbon industry
It might seem mildly entertaining that the media’s warmist groupies, led by the BBC, have been so eager to report the latest claims of James Hansen and Phil Jones – of Climategate fame – that 2010 is the hottest year in history, while inches of “global warming” cover Britain with its most extensive November snowfall in 17 years, heralding what promises to be our fourth unusually cold winter in a row. The explanation for the recent renewed spate of warmist scare stories lies, of course, in the fact that several thousand politicians, officials and lobbyists from all over the world are today arriving in the Mexican holiday resort of Cancun, where they hope to salvage a binding UN treaty from the wreckage of last December’s fiasco in Copenhagen.
None of the lobbying has been more telling than a statement issued by 259 investment organisations, controlling “collective assets totalling over $15 trillion” – including major banks, insurance companies and pension funds. These are the bodies calling most stridently for “government action on climate change”, because they are the ones who hope to make vast sums of money out of it. They are desperate for a treaty of the type they failed to get at Copenhagen – even more so since the collapse of the US cap and trade bill – because they see their chance of turning global warming into the most lucrative fruit machine in history dwindling by the month.
Top of their wish list is “a rapid time-frame” for implementing the UN’s REDD scheme, which would enable them to make hundreds of billions of dollars by selling the CO2 locked up in the world’s tropical rainforests as “carbon offsets”, thus allowing firms from the developed world to continue emitting CO2. Under this scheme, for instance, environmental bodies including the WWF hope to share in the $60 billion which they estimate as the “carbon value” of the Brazilian rainforest….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8165189/There-are-black-days-ahead-for-the-carbon-industry.html
We seem to be well into the age of Scientific Ouroboros — the worm that continually eats its own tail. The scientific community is increasingly engaging in pronouncements that end up biting themselves in the ass. If they’re not making ridiculous statements that are contradicted two paragraphs later (such as claiming something is “unprecedented,” and then saying that the last time it happened was X number of years ago) then they’re doing things like demanding rationing while taking private jets to five star hotels in tropical resorts.
And this kind of internal contradiction isn’t just happening in climatology — that’s just the most extravagantly-funded one. I used to hero-worship scientists. Now I don’t trust a thing they say.
This is a joke, right?
Naw, I know…
But, really, the AGW enthusiasts are becoming more and more hilarious. Are these people SO out of touch that they think the public will allow themselves to “lower their standard of living” to support a completely unproven, undemonstrated “problem?”
WHAT???
Steve Fitzpatrick says:
November 29, 2010 at 6:33 pm
“I read all the Royal Society abstracts, and skimmed most of the articles. Outside of the article on sea level change (which is at least reasonable), they are total rubbish…”
If you mean this paper, I’m not sure why it doesn’t go into the rubbish bin too…
Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4°C world’ in the twenty-first century
Robert J. Nicholls et al.
Just look at it… just more convenient speculation based on the ridiculous premise of a 4 C rise by 2100… timed to stampede lemmings for Cancun. And even then, it is so loaded with qualifiers that it is nothing more than conveniently alarming mush.
“The range of future climate-induced sea-level rise remains highly uncertain with continued concern that large increases in the twenty-first century cannot be ruled out. The biggest source of uncertainty is the response of the large ice sheets of Greenland and west Antarctica. Based on our analysis, a pragmatic estimate of sea-level rise by 2100, for a temperature rise of 4°C or more over the same time frame, is between 0.5 m and 2 m—the probability of rises at the high end is judged to be very low, but of unquantifiable probability. However, if realized… [blah, blah, blah, send me money]”
The Royal Society is now as big a joke as the British royal family. But I’m sure Prince “The Tampon” Charles thinks it is just ducky.
The analogy is wrong. I am old enough to have used WWII rations. They were introduced because there was a shortage of the goods. When you have only a certain amount of fuel to power a country’s cars, you have to work out a way distribute it fairly and with efficiency. That’s why there was rationing.
That is nothing like rationing fuel because of an ill-understood quasi-scientific hypothesis about a change of climate.
[But gasoline rationing in WWII was created to deliberately restrict driving – not because gasoline was in short supply, but because the rubber for new tires was in short supply when the Japanese conquered the Malaysia/Indonesia rubber plantations. If fewer miles were being driven because gas was rationed, then fewer tires would wear out. Robt]
@ur momisugly Enginear says:
November 29, 2010 at 6:21 pm
I’ll second that. Just to give those who may not know the scale of personal arms in parts of the USA: I live in a small farming community in the South, about 2500 souls. Everyone I know has at least 4 or 5 firearms of various descriptions – handguns, shotguns, rifles. From that sample I’d estimate that there are upwards of 10,000 firearms, with appropriate ammo, within a 4 mile radius of my house . Crime is non-existent, btw.
Its very hard to soldier on for the great cause, when you keep blowing your own feet off and your team keeps shelling you. I second Death Gargle as the sound these self styled experts are making.
In the slang of my youth, what are they on and where do I get some? This kind of nonsense is not science and has not basis in science.
I am OK with rationing gasoline in the event the USA defaults on it’s debt obligations and the rest of the world cuts us off from them which is a mathematical certainty that is going to happen in the near future. I will be good with a ration of 15 gallons of gas per week per household. I’m only using about half that right now and can sell half my ration stamps at that rate.
There is a difference between income and wealth. Most people in the developed world exist on the former which comes or came from work. So if we don’t work, earn, and buy things — to whom do the other folks sell to?
Professor Kevin Anderson, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.
To grow, poor nations need cheap energy and strong markets. Kevin Anderson must have gotten his professorship out of a Cracker Jack box*.
——————————-
*”A Prize in Every Box” http://www.crackerjack.com/history.php
Everyone might enjoy today’s entry from James Delingpole’s blog at the Telegraph in the UK. His title is “‘Now Mass Suicide Is the Only Option’ Say Cancun Scientists.”
And how the hell is the developing world going to develop….if we reduce our consumption
maybe they can get rich selling rocks to each other.
on different note
Al Gored ,
I say the article is reasonable because it points out the very large uncertainties in sea level rise, and suggests a likely range of rise that overlaps the range many non-climate scientists would consider credible…. no claims of Florida, New York City, and London going under water. That is, not so much to get alarmed about.
The rest of the papers are just unhinged raging…. no surprise there. Like I said, these look like the last gasps of the true devotees.
The mask comes off. Behind this eco ‘science’ of AGW
Who is the crazy conspiracy nuts now??
Again i wonder what else conspiracy theorist are right about..
… is a thorough-going hatred of the West — pure Leftist ideology, nothing to do with saving the planet at all.
(Apologies for bifurcated post – don’t know what happened there)