Well the Telegraph article on rationing our modern lifestyle to reduce CO2 has made some waves since I covered it yesterday, fortunately it has not affected the attendees at Cancun. See the video below.
Well the Telegraph article on rationing our modern lifestyle to reduce CO2 has made some waves since I covered it yesterday, fortunately it has not affected the attendees at Cancun. See the video below.
Cassandra King says:
November 30, 2010 at 9:54 pm
“The people you see believe they have a Godlike purpose, a holy mission to save the planet and you really cannot get a more important task. Save the world and make a very good living, look at me I am so very important they seem to portray so very clearly.”
Bingo. Made the same point myself in WUWT commentary some time ago.
I wonder though whether we aren’t in the same business of saving the world only in our case it’s saving the world from other savers of the world. While many of us don’t depend on this to make a living some of us do. Controversies like this spawn cottage industries for both sides such as the lecture circuit where speakers both pro and con have money making opportunities, both sides write books and sell them, both sides attract eyeballs and solicit paid advertising, and etc. The same thing goes on in the creation vs. evolution wars and most of the paid participants know full well that their bottom lines improve in direct relation to the heat of the battle in the public eye.
Epigenes says:
December 1, 2010 at 1:49 am
“I cannot believe that Paul Crutzen, the Nobel winner for chemistry, is “advocating” injecting large quantities of SO2 into our upper atmosphere. These are the thoughts of a madman, not a Nobel prize winner.”
Those are the thoughts of an engineer. Not mad at all. If we were burning our fossil fuels as God intended the emissions would be laden with enough SO2 to negate any warming from CO2.
But nooooooooo. In a clear demonstration of the unintended consequences of enviromentalist whacko knee-jerk reactions the acid-rain and global cooling scares made SO2 into a pollutant which had to be scrubbed from auto exhaust pipes and industrial smokestacks. Instead of trying to limit CO2 emission (an economic and political impossibility) we should instead lift the restriction on SO2 emission which would restore the balance between the cooling nature of aerosols and the warming nature of greenhouse gases. I’m not sure if there was any substance at all in the acid-rain scare but even if there was the detrimental effects were localized around the largest industrial emitters and urban population centers. Restricting those might still be a good idea but elsewhere I say** cry havoc and loose the cooling particles of war.
**I’d say that only if I thought global warming was a bad thing but since I know that a warmer earth is a greener earth and that the earth is currently in an ice age with a vastly diminished biosphere as a result I would never advocate doing anything other than wanting more warming until such time as the earth is once again green from pole to pole with lush green plants and lots more animals farther up the food chain. Ice and snow pretty much translates to loss of life.
artwest says:
December 1, 2010 at 6:10 am
“Throughout history there has been a character type I think of as the “pursed lipped brigade”. They are never fulfilled unless they are inflicting austerity or puritanism on the world. They cannot behold anyone having fun, flamboyant or life-affirming without thinking it vulgar and wanting to ban it. This character type never goes away, it’s just that circumstances provide them with more or less opportunities to inflict their psychopathy on others.”
C.S Lewis got it right:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
C. S. Lewis
Robuk – that’s an editorial, ie an opinion.
I quoted directly from the Greenpeace website where it states that they SUPPORT the use of DDT.
Horses mouth and all that
Actually, that video gave me the impression of what I would consider a pretty lame party, Cancun mega-resort wise. I’m wondering if attendance and funds are down this year for the CAGW conference. Now, that would be (good) news….
Let’s not misunderstand them, they just wanna “optimize” world markets, world labor, and…, with them , their scarce profits.
There is a funny observation: Do you know what did worry the most women, before being “liberated”?, well, they worried about what marmalade they were going to prepare “today”….
So they sold them “women liberation”, now, both, husband and women work for a living, however, adding both salaries, it does not reach what the husband alone provided in the past…
An the same with all the rest…. 🙂
Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
http://www.chrishuhne.org.uk/latest
latest!!!!!!!! checking through the British media Cancun is not being jamed down our throats in the way that Copenhagen was.
“Most of our 350 team has arrived in Cancun, where the weather is warm, the Gulf of Mexico is turquoise in color, and where we’re all brushing up on our Spanish language skills”
http://www.350.org/en/about/blogs/fired-ready-go
Party time
Some comedy gold from the UK’s Daily Politics show today. Andrew Neil interviewing John Prescott about his role at Cancun. Things start to take a turn for the worse from about 5:20 onwards. Eventually Prescott hurls blasphemies and says that we must cut carbon emissions if we wish to keep enjoying our body weights.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11888012
First, there is no connection between the Royal Society Phil. Trans. publication and the Cancun summit. Second, the Telegraph article only quotes one paper from the R.S. journal by Kevin Anderson. So the headline, “Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in developed world,” is amusingly misleading.
Beyond this the quotes from the Telegraph are not in the paper Anderson wrote. I do not know where they came from. Did the reporter interview Anderson? It is not clear from the Telegraph article. I could not find anything about rationing in Anderson’s article. He does say:
“Only if Annex 1 nations reduce emissions immediately [35] at rates far beyond those typically countenanced and only then if non-Annex 1 emissions peak between 2020 and 2025 before reducing at unprecedented rates, do global emissions peak by 2020. Consequently, the 2010 global peak central to many integrated assessment model scenarios as well as the 2015–2016 date enshrined in the CCC, Stern and ADAM analyses, do not reflect any orthodox ‘feasibility’. By contrast, the logic of such studies suggests (extremely) dangerous climate change can only be avoided if economic growth is exchanged, at least temporarily, for a period of planned austerity within Annex 1 nations [36] and a rapid transition away from fossil-fuelled development within non-Annex 1 nations. ”
But he is not advocating stopping economic growth. He is discussing possible trade-offs. And, he is only speaking for himself and his co-author.
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934.toc
The Telegraph article also quotes “Dr Myles Allen.” But he did not contribute to the R.S. special issue. Why is he being quoted at all?
But this is how myths are made. We jump from a statement that one scientist may or may not have made to a tabloid journalist to assuming the agenda of an internal conference, he may or may not be attending, includes WWII style rationing for the developed world. Does that sound like skeptical thinking?
REPLY: No connection of R.S. to COP16? Yeah, sure. That’s why the R.S. made these available Monday, the opening day of COP16 as opposed to last week, or last month, or a month from now. People last year tried to argue that the gushing release of dozens of science papers right before Copenhagen had nothing to do with it either. They failed too.
You live in a fantasy world Mikey.
– Anthony
I reckon that video should be played on a continuous loop – on a giant screen outside the Department of Energy and Climate Change…
“Most of our 350 team has arrived in Cancun, where the weather is warm, the Gulf of Mexico is turquoise in color, and where we’re all brushing up on our Spanish language skills”
I thought the Gulf was destroyed this summer. It’s still there? Missed that story.
Could be a scene from the former USSR; party apparatchiks living it up as they discuss how “the people” (the other people that is) will be forced to make further sacrifices in the interests of the Great and Glorious Revolution, or something or other.
Thank you Andrew for that privileged glimpse into the Brave New World of Animal Farm these people are planning for us.
Their plans are obviously for a centrally planned world economy and we’ve seen where experiments on these lines have lead in the 20th Century. The Soviet Union, China, NK, etc. with millions of deaths and much misery.
@Doug in Seattle
“The US administration has already indicated they will implement an agreement with or without the niceties of congressional approval.”
I would dearly love a reference to evidence of the above – please tell me you have one!
The party in Cancun reminds of the bunker party scene in the move “Downfall”. Party like you have no hope.
This party looks like a last blast. The CO2 in all that booze might up the Mauna Loa meter a goodly amount. Hey, this is going to be worse than Copenhagen so we might as well get blasted.
The worst winter in Britain for 100 years and our AGW nutters are whooping it up in Cancun – nice work if you can get it!
Russia looks forward to global warming
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/for-russia-global-warming-benefits-outweigh-negatives/425466.html
The beach party was a disgusting display of decadence. Not surprising, though, when you think about the disgusting decadence of our leadership. However, there are too many people in the world. Any species, if placed in an environment that allows for ample breeding and plenty of offspring, will outgrow that environment. How are we going to reduce the population to a level where all have the opportunity to live a reasonable life?
Jean Brooks;
False. Start here: http://overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth#FAQ1
Then try this:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/clathrate-to-production/
There is no excess population-to-resources ratio. It’s just fine, and improving.
Cancun will sink into the brink and drown the controllers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8165784/Cancun-climate-change-summit-deaths-from-floods-and-drought-double.html?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4cf3dae67e64a613,0