This gets the honor of “Climate Craziness of the Week”. Oh, that’s gonna leave a mark…
Josh writes in an email: her actual quote was:
“If we are to overcome the climate crisis we must move on to the equivalent of a war footing”
And she then likened the leadership this would require to Tony Blair’s in taking us to war in Iraq
But that’s too long for a satirical political cartoon, so Josh took the essence. Unfortunately I can’t seem to locate the online link as the Sunday Times link sends visitors to the paywall. It was in “features” and titled:
A very heated debate
Josh is working from the print edition in the UK, so I’ll take his word for it.
Here’s a letter Lucas penned in 2003 about the war in Iraq:
It is very telling. These quotes are pertinent:
They point not only to the imminent military war, which they recognise could have devastating consequences, but also to the ongoing economic war, which is being prosecuted by the US and Britain in particular, through the imposition of economic sanctions over a decade.
Um, in case you haven’t noticed lady, greens are waging economic war in the UK.
A recent broadsheet headline screamed: “Stop the war? Try telling that to the tyrannised people of Iraq.”
and …
An attack on the roads, bridges, ports or railways of Iraq would severely damage what is now an extremely well functioning food distribution system.
So will Lucas advocate stopping the tyrannizing of the British people by absurd green laws, protest takeovers of power plants by greens in the UK, Plane Stupid’s attacks on Heathrow airport, and threats of occasional electricity in the future?
Doubtful, in this case of greens -vs- the UK infrastructure, Lucas is the war leader.
Some deep self reflection is sorely needed by this confused woman.
I recall reading an article back in (2003? 2004?) about how an Iraqi military base had been nicely repurposed, and instead of WMD was actually storing “concentrated agricultural pesticides.” Umm…. what do they *think* nerve gas is (I remember this only because it cemented my opinions on the competence of journalists)?
Yes, the AGW research-industrial-financial complex – operating with the same fear-mongering tricks used by the military-industrial complex – does need the kind of leadership that Tony Bliar offered. Which probably explains why Bliar is now a highly paid ‘climate change consultant.’
And as John in NZ says (March 6, 2011 at 9:43 am) it is a very good analogy.
And ldd says (March 6, 2011 at 10:57 am) “If there were no WMD why were there UN sanctions against Saddam for that very reason? Gassing whole villages of Kurds doesn’t count?”
That was easy to prove. The UK and US governments no doubt had the reciepts for the gas they sold Saddam. But that wasn’t the WMD anyone was really worried about. It was the ‘mushroom’ cloud…
Anyhow, Y2K, WMDs, Swine Flu, AGW… and, almost forgot, putting the public deep in the hole to bail out the Bankster class was vital to prevent an economic catastrophe, just like the way handing over zillions of dollars to the AGW gang is vital to protect us from the climate catastrophes. All forms of very organized extortion.
John in NZ says:
March 6, 2011 at 9:43 am
Wasn’t the war in Iraq about trying to stop a problem that did not exist?
i.e. Sadam having weapons of mass destruction(WMD).
Actually they did at one time exist. Saddam used them against Iraqis in the south & north in the 90’s. Previously, he had used them against Iran during their 9 year war in the 1980’s. And they never lost the ability to reconstitute their programs.
Didn’t Geroge W. ask the CIA to provide “evidence” that Sadam had WMD and they made some up. Much like the IPCC provided “evidence” for CAGW.
No, they did not make it up. However, the intelligence agencies were in error* as far as Iraq having stockpiles of WMD. A lot of agencies were in error including the intelligence agencies of the US, UK, Australia, and Russia – all believed that WMD stockpiles existed in Iraq. Also, there was the not too small matter of Saddam himself boasting that he had stockpiles of WMD.
(*Evidence so far is that intelligence agencies were in error. There is the outside chance that the stockpiles were moved to Syria, but no hard evidence and no testimony to that effect.)
Hologram: “Lucas is… a moron and illiterate.”
Anthony: “This confused woman.”
Global Warmism is a strongly held belief system, planted by unscrupulous scientists and flourishing in the rich soil of apocalypticism. This politician, in common with many others, accepts the advice of UK Government Science Advisors (that’s rational); she advocates extreme action to combat the threat which, she is told, will destroy the planet (that is also rational). The real villains are the science advisors: defeat them and their half-baked conjectures and the politicians will change course.
D. J. Hawkins says:
March 6, 2011 at 11:31 am
Yes, I guess, mustard gas is such a nice weapon of destruction, that it doesn’t qualify as a WMD. The fact that Sadaam used it on masses of Kurds is lost upon many.
Note revised web reference as follows:
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/5961/The-Utter-Futility-of-Reducing-Carbon-Emissions
There is no implication. They definately had them, there is no debate. The UN has the reciepts, and the forensic auditors at the UN tracked every last part of that programme as most of it was destroyed in the early 1990s.
What was not accounted for came about because in 1991, Saddam had tried to hide some weapons, which the UN discovered. After this the UN decided it could not trust Saddam and so using what had been established as the manufacturing capability, a UN team of experts, estimated the theoretical maximum manufacturing capacity of Iraq’s various weapons programmes.
There was a sizable difference between what the Iraqis actually made, and the theoretical maximum possible output. This difference became known as the “unnacounted for stocks” of WMD.
Using this estimate they set about destroying everything that was known, (from extensive forensic accounting and auditing on a global scale), and succeeded in destroying everything. Even in 1998 the UN inspectors believed that they had destroyed everything, BUT they had this estimate of the total theoretical capability, which somehow ‘morphed’ over the following years from a theoretical capacity, to an actual amount to be found, and so could never sign off that the total stocks had been destroyed.
The fact that many of these weapons were only theoretical and had never ever actually existed, was conveniently “forgot”.
However, what the media completely ignored (as in Climate science) was the scientific fact that the weapons that they were looking for (the biological agents and chemicals) had a limited shelf life. Even in perfect conditions these chemicals and agents would have broken down and become inert due to the laws of physics and chemistry and biology.
Even IF the WMD had existed in 2003 (they didn’t) then they would have been inert and useless as WMD and therefore there was NO threat whatsoever from Iraqs WMD in 2003.
This was known, and the politicians and the mainstream media blatantly and repeatedly lied about Saddam and WMD in order to justify a crime against Peace.
The media were totally complicit. As they are in the lies they tell about “climate science”.
There is NO debate. Saddam posed no threat whatsoever to us in 2003. Science proved it!
As Dorothy Sayers would say, “Distinguo.”
One the one hand there is absolute illiteracy–not being able to read. On the other, there is functional illiteracy–the inability to read critically.
Looks like the EU isn’t marching forward to ‘war’ after all:
4 March 2011
EU backs away from 30% emissions target, leak shows
By Richard Black – Environment correspondent, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12647657
Doesn’t show up on the final copy but I’m guessing there must have been tears and probably snot on the original version of this when Black the AGW Hack had to write it.
Love the radical-action-based-on-shoddy-evidence being played out in this thread on the WMD and CAGW themes. Josh accurately identifies the similarities.
Peter H says:
March 6, 2011 at 10:37 am
“Lucas is a 1st class moron and illiterate”
I don’t support the GreenParty but I do say name calling and insults like the above do nothing of credit to this blog. Caroline Lucas is neither a moron or illiterate – that much is patently obvious.
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The war on climate change will consign millions to a life of poverty without the basics that we take for granted eg., electricity and indeed will lead to thousands if not millions of deaths through starvation (grain for oil programme etc,) and fuel poverty (the Uk already has the worst record in Europe for deaths amongst elderly due to fuel poverty and this will get worse as energy proces soar).
Peter if you are right that she is not a 1st class moron and/or illerate (and you are probably right on that) then she is knowingly and deliberately inflicting this missery on millions of people in the developing world and knowingly and deliberately consigning many to an early and avoidable death. This begs the question of whether she has a conscience and how she will be able to sleep at night.
“Didn’t Geroge W. ask the CIA to provide “evidence” that Sadam had WMD and they made some up. Much like the IPCC provided “evidence” for CAGW.”
No. George Tenet reported that Naji Sabri, Saddam’s foreign minister stated that Saddam no longer had WMD. Neither Bush nor the NSA believed the information because of the source and a great deal of conflicting information. Such as reports from the UN that Saddam would not allow inspections of WMD storage areas and that the so called decommissioning facility turned out to be a dairy products processing plant. Of course this was one of multiple reasons given for the war. Since Saddam never said he destroyed these weapons, and boasted to the end he had them, the whereabouts of the same are in question. No evidence has been found of either a decommissioning facility nor is there testimony of the same. And wikileaks provides detailed memos regarding a huge WMD program and details the unavailability of any evidence of their destruction.
Perhaps the war on Iraq and combating climate change are both alike in that they were/are based on incorrect information?
BTW: I don’t know about Britain, but there is no evidence the Bush administration lied or deliberately misled the citizens about WMD in Iraq. Can the same be said regarding climate change?
http://www.tallbloke.net/pics/comical-gore.JPG
[I’m afraid I will have to confiscate that for future use.☺ ~dbs]
Just like going to war? Well then,—— “Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is very apoplexy, lethargy: mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.” Coriolanus, 4. 5
@ur momisugly D. J. Hawkins, You have bought a lot of misinfirmation.
Saddam NEVER kicked out the inspectors in 1998. The US ordered the UN to remove them for their own protection just prior to Operation desert fox. Even Blair admitted this in an interview just prior to the invasion in 2003.
In 1998, those “unnacounted for” weapons that you are confident were really there, were NOT. In fact they had never ever existed.
In 1991, Saddam had tried to hide and disguise his WMD capability from the UN. Re-assigning a military base as an agricultural facility and keeping nerve agent as concentrated agricultral pesticides for example. After this deception, the UN had “estimated” the theoretical maximum capacity of the weapons factories and the chemical and biological labs. The actual found and destroyed weapons were subtracted from this theoretical maximum and the remaining theoretical total became the “unnacounted for” weapons which (unsurprisingly) could not be found.
They never existed.
Even if they had, VX has a shelf life which had expired by 1998. All the other agents and chemicals on those lists in 1998 also had shelf-lives. All had expired.
Saddam had NO useable WMD at all in 2003 and this was known to both the politicians and the media.
They all lied. In exactly the same way that they are all lying now about CAGW
Good one tallbloke! Bagdad Al.
Bit of an insult to Bagdad Bob…
“Caroline Lucas is neither a moron or illiterate – that much is patently obvious.”
She is demonstrably, with regards to climate change and the science associated with it, a moron and illiterate. She has been questioned about her climate change policies based on dubious science and she said she relied on science from scientists without questioning the veracity of the claims. So she bases her communist policies on stuff she has no understanding of. She has recently also been a vocal supporter of carbon rationing systems which would force citizens to be completely monitored by government. Her green and scientific credentials are nil, she’s a totalitarian playing a the part of a caring hippy.
“Except that, at one point S. Hussein used them on his own people (I believe it was the Kurds in N. Iraq.) That strongly implies that he actually had them.”
Of course we knew Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons: we sold them to him.
However, the UN spent years verifying that he’d destroyed any such weapons after the Gulf War and were saying quite clearly before Bush invaded Iraq that they didn’t exist; if Bush had actual evidence he could have told the UN inspectors where to go to find them. Instead we got Colin Powell’s comedy routine at the UN which was either a glaring display of incompetence or a collection of blatant lies.
Which, in the end, does make it sound rather like the War On Climate to me.
Precisely!
tallbloke says:
March 6, 2011 at 11:34 am
I’ve been doing huge digging in the garden today. Not trenches for Caroline Lucas’ war though. I’m going to be growing as much food as I can this year. I advise others with any garden space to do the same. Food prices are going to soar.
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Overwintering onions and shallots going well, first mangetout peas crawling up the frame, leeks and swede ready to harvest. Ground dug, spuds chitting, cherry tom seeds (all 3 sown), parsnips and beetroot sown, salad leaves in trough in cold frame! Brassicas and carrots next. All done by an anti-science, anti-green CO2 loving pariah, funny ain’t it.
All I need now is SUN and some pigging WARMTH! It is too damn cold in Derbyshire.
Have a good growing season, your logic is very, very sound.
PS, greens make good compost, work that which ever way you want.
More on the shrill Caroline Lucas using the war analogy to promte fear-driven group think. She is obviously literate enough to have read Orwell’s 1984 and understood how that trick works:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100072798/what-green-mp-caroline-lucas-should-know-about-liberal-fascism/
There seems to be a parallel with Libya – Gaddafi doesn’t allow free speech, just like the warmists, and the rest of us are resorting to the Internet and Facebook to plot how to overthrow the regime.
Please relax everybody. According to Gordon Brown it is too late anyway.
The train has left the station, so to speak.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Brown-Fifty-days–to.5747301.jp
Politics … from the best science blog in the world?
REPLY: Satire of recent news, per the masthead of subjects. And before you complain further about politics in the climate debate, please go visit RealClimate and Climate Progress and also lodge complaints there. – Anthony