Guest Post by Barry Woods
TATA recently announced the loss of 1500 jobs in the steel industry in the UK, with the explanation that this was at least in part because of a price on carbon announced in the setting of Carbon Budgets which are a requirement of the 2008 Climate Change Act in the UK
Bryony Worthington founder of Sandbag (a carbon trading think-tank and campaign group), formerly a Friends of the Earth campaigner, and a 10:10 campaigner and board member (No Pressure video) twittered it was ‘revenge’ for Carbon Budgets part of the Climate Change Act.
So what? You might well ask, yet another green ‘climate change’ lobbyist with no concept of business or economics. But, the concept of Carbon Budgets were Bryony Worthington’s own idea.
The idea of national carbon budgets, now in law, was hers. Her earlier career was as an environmental campaigner, heading Friends of the Earth’s climate change campaign.
She studied English literature: “very useful,” she jokes.” – The Guardian
This simple tweet of Bryony’s perhaps encapsulates a worrying mindset of a complete lack understanding of the economics of business. Only in an environmental green lobbyist mind, fighting for a noble cause, does businesses have the luxury of playing games of revenge against environmental legislation and governments.
The fact that a lobbyist like Bryony Worthington had a major role in writing the UK Climate Change Act, indicates to many that ‘green climate change’ thinking, has taken a firm grip on the political/media establishment in the UK and throughout Europe, as the priority of governments over all other issues in their economies. Far from fighting the establishment as is their romantic self-image, greens, environmentalists are now an integrated part of the political and media establishment. No more so, than in Germany where green thinking will close ALL nuclear power stations in a few short years.
Perhaps it is not ‘revenge’ Baroness Worthington, perhaps it just the hard economics of the real world, where these new unilateral carbon taxes to be introduced in the UK (which go beyond even the EU carbon penalties), will make it even more uneconomic to produce here than the already CO2 obsessed EU. These jobs amongst others will be just the first of jobs and industries that will simply relocate abroad taking their CO2 emissions with them.
“The continuing weakness in market conditions is one of the main reasons why we are setting out on this difficult course of action. Another is the regulatory outlook.
EU carbon legislation threatens to impose huge additional costs on the steel industry. Besides, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about the level of further unilateral carbon cost rises that the UK government is planning,” – The Guardian
Bryony Worthington you might notice, is now Baroness Worthington, elevated to the House of Lords for her instrumental role in writing the UK Climate Change Act – 2008, where all of these taxes and economic consequences arise from.
“The House of Lords became a far greener and better place today with the appointment of the climate change policy expert and campaigner Bryony Worthington as a Labour peer.”
“…..I am very flattered and very excited,” she told me this morning. First on her agenda will be the energy market reform planned by the coalition government, “unfinished business” from the Climate Change Act which she was instrumental in writing, such as setting stronger carbon caps in the UK, and how to boost investment in green projects.” –The Guardian
To the activist/lobbyist, it is ‘saving the planet’ from climate change (man-made presumably) that is the highest, noblest political cause and the only reason that they can seem to contemplate that someone says they are wrong, is because ‘evil’ business just seeks to make a profit and does not care about anybody.
Whereas the simple explanation that the proposals may not even achieve what they aim to do (actually reduce GLOBAL CO2 emissions) just relocating jobs and industries and of course, the CO2 emissions abroad, when any unilateral green economic policy is made.
Heavy manufacturing companies are penalised by European laws forcing them to buy carbon permits costing about £15 per tonne of emissions.
While energy companies can pass on the additional costs to domestic bill payers, manufacturers have to compete internationally with places like Asia, which don’t have a carbon trading system.
Companies operating in the UK will be hit even harder when the UK sets a higher price for carbon permits than the European market price. – The Telegraph
There was (unsurprisingly) intensive industry lobbying (unelected) against the setting of the next Carbon Budget at the levels recommended by the Climate Change Committee, the Business Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer were at odds with their cabinet colleagues in a bitter cabinet discussion about risks to a fragile economy.
This was only resolved when the Prime Minister stepped in agreeing with the toughest recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.
“The deal was hammered out after tense arguments between ministers who had disagreed over whether the ambitious plans to switch to more green energy were affordable. The row had pitted the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, who strongly backed the plans, against the chancellor, George Osborne, and the business secretary, Vince Cable, who were concerned about the cost and potential impact on the economy.
However, after the intervention of David Cameron, Huhne is now expected to tell parliament that agreement has been struck to back the plans in full up to 2027.” – The Guardian
All the environmental lobby groups had also been campaigning hard and the carbon budgets only went ahead because the (equally unelected) environmental lobby groups threatened a Judicial Review.
“I understand that a key factor in the decision to go with the carbon budgets advisers recommendations was a threat by Greenpeace to take the government to judicial review if it gave way to business lobbying.” – BBC – Richard Black
Baroness Worthington was no doubt lobby hard for her Carbon Budgets and was twittering away in support and confirmed this whilst in the House of Lords (17th May)
But what does Baroness Worthington (with her English degree) know about the economic consequences of Carbon Budgets, Ed Miliband (now Labour party leader, former Minister for Energy and Climate Change) appointed to Bryony to the House of Lords, for her work on the Climate Change Act, allowing her to continue to lobby at the highest political level in the House of Lords.
“…Bryony Worthington’s appointment as a peer at such a young age was something of a surprise to her — even though she knows Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, well and played a key role helping him, as energy secretary, write the 2008 Climate Change Act….
“….I think Ed Miliband wanted to do something different and I was glad to accept [the working peerage] but it’s not something I was expecting,” she said. “Most things you really strive for in life but this just sort of landed on my plate and it’s great privilege.” – Telegraph
The green social/media/political network
A few climate connections to ponder upon:
Bryony Worthington is the founder of Sandbag and has Tony Juniper as Sandbag advisory board member, Tony Juniper also sits alongside Bryony at the 10:10 Campaign as the chair of the advisory board of the 10:10 Campaign. Tony Juniper like Bryony was at Friends of the Earth, as a long term Director of FOE and Vice Chair of Friends International, whilst at FOE Tony led the campaign for the introduction of the UK Climate Change Act, which Bryony according to Ed Miliband (then Energy and Climate Change Minister, now Labour party leader) was instrumental in writing.
Small wonder perhaps, that Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown, were speaking of ‘behind the times’, anti-science, flat-earthers, climate sceptics, climate change deniers and more worryingly (if possible) climate saboteurs in all their political rhetoric about ‘climate change’ (man-made) pre and post Copenhagen.
This insular green social network also extends into the media, where they will rarely (if ever) come across any sceptical voices amongst the like-minded people that they associate with, as they operate in the totally self reinforcing virtuous circle of a righteous elite political/media establishment.
As a media example of green cheerleading, Bryony Worthington ‘s 10:10 colleague and friend Franny Armstrong (founder 10:10, who also knows Ed well )was scooped by the Guardian, in the launch of the 10:10 ‘No Pressure‘ video campaign last October.
The scoop perhaps comes as no surprise when the Guardian’s very own Duncan Clark is also Bryony’s and Franny’s 10:10 Campaigns Strategy Director.
The fact that this video was produced at all, should be the only additional evidence required to demonstrate the existence of the closed mind green ‘climate change’ bubble surrounding the media and politicians in the UK, because so many people involved with the best media, environmental, political connections in the UK, failed to see the reactions (here, here, here, here, amongst hundreds of others, even other environmental groups)that this video would provoke which lost the 10:10 Campaign 3 out of 4 its major sponsors within hours.
What a small insular world, do these environmentalists and politicians ever have come have across anybody that is even mildly sceptical of man-made climate change in the small social network that they exist in.
Without Tony Juniper and Bryony Worthington and Ed Milliband, I have no personal doubt that the UK would ever have had a Climate Change Act.
Of course, it is not just the ‘old’ economy industries at risk like steel production (needed for wind farms?), but the new economies as well (even the green ones), with energy intensive data centres, or any big business with an electricity bill, they are also at risk of unilaterally higher bills in the UK and these will also simply relocate to a lower tax regime. Even universities, scientists jobs and scientific research is now threatened in the UK because of these consequences.
“Some facilities must find hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle green tax bills, putting jobs and research at risk.
The unexpected impact of the government’s carbon reduction commitment (CRC) scheme is so severe that scientists and research funders have lobbied ministers for an exemption to reduce the bills.
Among the worst hit is the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, a facility for research into almost limitless carbon-free energy.” – The Guardian
This is an inevitable consequence of a unilateral tax in a global economy, it pity that very few Members of Parliament MP or lobbyist seems to realise it. David Cameron, Chris Huhne and even Vince Cable and George Osborne mentioned above, were amongst the Climate Fools that voted for the 2008 Climate Change Act in the UK. Over 600 Mp’s voted for the Act, only 4 MP’s voted against the Act, only one MP Peter Lilley queried the costs at the time:
“Neither Parliament nor most of the media bothered to discuss the cost of one of the most immense projects ever adopted in this country” – Peter Lilley, MP – in 2008
Over the last 20 years there has gradually arisen a green minded political, lobbyist, media social and business establishment, wrapping themselves in a green protective bubble with the noble and no doubt sincere and honest intentions of ‘saving the planet’, (50 days to save the planet’ said Prime Minister Gordon Brown pre-Copenhagen) proponents of this noble cause, then reject all criticism as ‘denial’ or even ‘double deniers’ and denigrates criticism or concerns, as from those with suspect capitalistic motives, always failing to ask themselves, what if we are wrong?
This fact that ‘climate change’ and environmental thinking has such an unquestioned grip of the UK and European political establishment, causes great concern to me. As the political thinking (sic) in the EU, with the failings of Copenhagen and the abandonment of the Kyoto protocol, seems to be to leading the EU politicians and economies off a cliff of their own rhetoric. By way of attempting to lead the world by example, with ever tougher unilateral CO2 emission cuts and taxation.
Interesting times ahead.
Links – My original thoughts on the appointement of Baroness Worthington to the House of Lords
http://www.realclimategate.org/2010/11/climate-connections-an-alarmist-in-the-houses-of-parliament/
We should call her for what she is. She’s a misanthropist. And, she cares not about the economy nor the state of affairs of Britannia. But, this isn’t unique. Here in the states, we have our share of the same Malthusian types in our upper house, too. As is true in Canada and Australia. A type of anti-patriot which delights in the demise of the nations that bore them.
Some interesting links in this article: http://tiny.cc/i883r
I have some advice for the people of the United Kingdom.
Emigrate.
What she – and others- fail to realise in their celebrations is that globally, they haven’t changed a thing. Sure, the UK might close the plant and those people lose their jobs. But the steel will get made somewhere else. That somewhere else is likely to be India. And India has much higher emissions intensity – meaning this will just cause more co2 to enter the atmosphere.
Ultimately the only way to stop the emissions is to stop the steel getting made at all. But nobody is mad enough to try and ban steelmaking outright. So this shell game of shifting emissions out of one’s own backyard in order to prance about at UN conventions and declare your per-capita emissions is now lower seems to be the primary driver.
It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. All this churn, economic damage and political fighting – and for what? Even if you’re a paid up believer in big warming – these actions make no difference to the global picture whatsoever. The only thing that will cut co2 emissions is new technologies, widely deployed and developed and promoted by free capital markets. But the greens are hell-bent on stopping that from happening as well.
I guess the only bright side to all this is that when the full idiocy of these policies is revealed to a sober (and cold) public it will finally all go away. But communism as practiced by the Soviets took 70 years to die, and was fully supported by the useful idiots of the free countries up until the day of it’s demise – and even now, they just disassociate themselves with Stalin rather than the idea of communism. So I’m not hopeful of the green utopian, anti-human dream ever dying soon, because it’s so attractive for the self-hating underachiever to blame ‘the system’ for their unhappy lives. I guess these utopian visions and delusions of grandeur are just part of the modern world with state eductation, and it’s a bug in the system we will have to work around. Certainly while the majority of public educators are paid-up closet trotskyists sanity is unlikely to prevail. I just wish the green Utopians would just go and live in their self-sufficient communes and stop bothering the rest of us with their fantasies while we go about building a better, safer, more enjoyable world for our children.
“‘revenge’ for Carbon Budgets part of the Climate Change Act.” Revenge?? what a load, just read todays news, It should hit home what they’ve been doing very soon with the Uk’s public.
“£200 shock on your power bill: Biggest squeeze on families since 1920s as fuel …”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2000402/Pain-millions-customers-Scottish-Power-puts-gas-bills-19—electricity-10-too.html
“Families stunned as power bills soar to £1391”
http://www.scotsman.com/news/Families-stunned-as-power-bills.6781483.jp
“all 319 news articles”
http://news.google.co.uk/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ncl=duKXD5-Db979spM0rDM4mHk7JGTpM&topic=h
OTT maybe… Baroness (Mullah) Worthington and the rest of the Mujihagreens are determined to introduce a Green Caliphate across Europe and as much of the world as possible.. starting in the UK. Maybe the British troops in Helmand should be fighting on their own doorstep to stop religious zealots taking over…
The allegation that Tata is cutting jobs for “revenge” makes about as much sense as the Obama NLRB’s claim that Boeing wants to shift production from Washington to South Carolina to “retaliate” against unions.
The simple truth, in both cases, is that companies do what is best for their shareholders because that’s their job. If state or country A enacts senseless punitive taxes or regulations that cost companies money, they will seek to avoid the problem by moving operations to place B.
The fact of globalization, which prevents countries from closing their borders to trade and thus preventing their consumers from benefiting from this ability of companies to move, is not a problem, it’s a wonderful thing. But the public needs to be taught to understand its implication, which is: those who enact excessive taxes and regulations are responsible when our jobs move overseas and don’t come back. Hold them accountable!
“…perhaps it just the hard economics of the real world…”
To a liberal, there’s no such thing as ‘the real world.’
This could be good for the rest of the world. Perhaps they will learn from these mistakes.
Someone in the old world please enlighten me. I watch the British Top Gear all the time and the hosts all seem to be reasonable logical people that see carbon regulation for the stupidity it is. Why is it that the British people are letting this occur……….in particular, what is it that allows this to happen in the UK but the nutters cannot get traction in the US? What is so different between our systems of government?
Geoff Sherington “What happens when France starts to screw Germany on exported nuclear electricity prices? Tension?”
France, the new European Energy Superpower.
When the Rhine ices over and England and Spains’ wind powered money shredders are frozen solid too, France will rightfully reclaim her position at the centre of Europe. Who would have predicted that France, FRANCE!!!, would be a bastion of common sense in a Europe gone mad.
Vive la France.
(Churchill must be spinning in his grave, maybe he can be harnessed as renewable energy and he won’t be stopping anytime soon)
The entropy (extent of disorder) of the human race seems to be increasing, just as it does in physics. We suddenly have demonstrations and unrest all over the world. Even our own Congress can’t get together to solve the budget problems or much of anything else. I wonder if the appeal of the AGW crowd is that they can separate themselves emotionally from the turmoil and concentrate on one “do-good” project, unsound though it may be. Let’s face it; the great majority of the world’s population has no concept of science or how the business world actually operates, so they are easily led by the Pied Pipers promising a better world. I despair of how this situation can be fixed short of Armageddon.
Many policy makers are so enamored with their C taxation policy that they could be sinking with the Titanic and be in denial.
Mr Sykes has the right idea, but it only applies to those of us who still have a clear mind.
Excellent developments. The much higher CO2 output per ton of steel made in India is exactly what the world needs. My Motto: “2,100 ppm by 2100 or Bust!”
Those darn flora have eaten themselves into borderline starvation; time for we fauna to pick up our game!
Doug;
There’s enough “slack” in the US system for determined coalitions of common-sensical people to occasionally break through and jerk on the electoral choke-chains of the rabid political class. This is explicitly what the Tea Party has been successfully attempting to do. And they recognized that the way to do it was from the local nominating committee level on up: take over the local executives, put their own candidates in place within the party most like their own position, and PUSH.
They flipped the House, and have become the king-makers there. That blood in the water has energized them even more. The core shield they have against power corruption is that there is no central co-ordination. Just masses of people determined not to see their lives and country destroyed by ideologues.
The Baroness claims it’s ‘revenge’ for Carbon Budgets part of the Climate Change Act.
No, the idea is either a considered demonization of Marx’s “Big Industry” as a cynical tactic to further her own attempts to rule [“You know sometimes Satan, he comes as a man of Peace”, Bob Dylan] or else only her own psychological projection and paranoia, based upon her knowledge of how she would act were she Tata – that is, as an equally bigoted and unhinged Zealot. She might even imagine that Tata is specifically targeting her. Therefore she essentially ends up talking about and targeting herself, while the rest of “us” have to suffer the consequences, or perhaps relocate to Texas.
But, imo, it’s all the same when it comes to the matter of Evil: everyone should know by now that good intentions don’t count, as in, “The road to Hell is paved with….” Remaining within a “saving the World” comfort bubble instead, without making the effort to get outside when you know it’s there, is also the result of an “intention”.
Correct: it’s all socially constructed—and so they can construct socially anything they want. Wishes rule & beggars ride.
How Can We Get Out of This Mess?
It used to be that in the UK we could be proud of what our scientists and engineers had achieved over the last few hundred years. We had produced scientist and engineers such as Newton, Darwin, Brunel, Watt, Faraday – the list is endless. The list of technologies invented is also seemingly endless, from the steam engine to the jet engine, to radar, penicillin and the computer. Most importantly our scientists and engineers gave the world the industrial revolution. What the industrial revolution did was provide an unlimited supply of cheap energy. This freed the bulk of the population from the grinding poverty and dawn-to-dusk labour needed to provide sufficient food, clothing and fuel for cooking and heating to survive. Abundant energy with new technology meant that man power, horse power, wind power and water power were replaced by far more efficient engines using initially steam power produced from burning coal. This enabled huge improvements in productivity and freed the population from grinding poverty. It made possible clean water, ended food shortages and allowed huge improvements in health and life expectancy and gave us leisure time. In a word, copious cheap energy makes for a clean and prosperous society.
So why is it that those in power over us and making decisions about the future of our country are ignoring the lessons from the past? Why are they trying to limit our energy consumption by restricting its availability and driving up its cost? Do they really want to return the UK to the sort of country that existed before the industrial revolution? With the much larger population that we have today, millions will have to die if that is the case. The scientists and engineers who gave us copious cheap energy would be horrified to learn that the results of their efforts over 300 hundred years being discarded. Intense forms of energy are being ignored in favour of diffuse and intermittent sources of energy – and the technology of wind power is being imported from places like Denmark. The sheer incredulity of the situation beggars belief.
We are in the situation where, because of Government policies over the last 15 years or so, we are about to suffer from a shortage of electricity. And we are seeing the cost of energy rocketing. What the combination of a shortage of power at a higher cost means is that manufacturing will leave the country to where energy is reliable and cheap – downwards spiral
Looking back over time, one can imagine the horror of those scientists and engineers who brought us copious energy, who eliminated intermittent diffuse energy sources such as wind power. What would they think if they knew we had gone back to using wind power with technology imported form Denmark? The lessons from over 200 years discarded by technologically challenged politicians.
One can postulate that the situation arises as the result of a generation of technologically illiterate politicians. We have been led by a generation of politicians who have never worked in the real world but are just career politicians. In 14 years have had over a dozen energy ministers who have no scientific or engineering training. The last two (since energy policy has become subservient to climate change policy) have been even more divorced from reality than their predecessors. But why haven’t the politicians been getting sensible advice from their scientific advisers?
The answer to that question is that the advisers are not giving unbiased advice but are giving a false message. Scientific advice has come from the Ivory Towers and from serial bureaucrats, again people with no real-world experience. The establishment has become riven with a one-sided and biased coterie which has, unquestioningly insinuated its way into all walks of life. Why have politicians not sought out alternative information? Why has establishment accepted unquestioningly the political statement from the IPCC that “it is very likely that …..” when the IPCC produces no evidence to support this political opinion? It has produced no evidence linking global temperature to carbon dioxide concentration. It has ignored all evidence and theories to the contrary. Why does the current Coalition Government use the same advisers appointed by the previous government?
We are in the situation where all of the establishment (this includes civil servants, NGOs, the media etc) has been infected with the belief in the false science of the “greenhouse effect” theory. Why have dissentient voices been ignored; or worse why have dissentients been labelled “deniers”?
What does it mean if we continue government energy policy prescribed by The Climate Change Act 2008 and EU renewable energy targets? A return to the dark ages is inevitable.
In the UK we must:
1. Repeal the CCA
2. Drop all renewable energy targets
3. Remove all renewable energy subsidies
4. Stop all funding of man-made climate change activities – new researchers to look at natural climate change only
5. Stimulate cheap energy
6. Have long term energy research
See: http://repealtheact.co.uk/
Dr T G Watkins says:
June 7, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Quite right these people are not in any way evil just profoundly ignorant in any form of science or maths (sums).
Ahh yes Sums 🙂 – I vaguely remember doing them at school.
Some time ago we went into a shop to get some curtains cleaned as cleaning was 10% off that week. We had 3 curtains, so naturally the assistant gave us 30% off. I wish I had taken 10 curtains in now – maybe we could have had them done for free. With that level of understanding its no wonder we are in the pooh. (True story too).
Noted on my gas bill this quarter:
http://tinypic.com/r/2rer141/7
Note the 24% item.
Green thinking, or politicians using green to tax ?
or both !
brc says:
June 7, 2011 at 6:33 pm
It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. All this churn, economic damage and political fighting – and for what?
…….
The economic damage is being cause to the US, UK, UK, Australia.
Industry and money are flowing to India and a number of other developing nations.
It makes a lot of sense if your name is Rajendra Pachauri and you are employed ultimately by the likes of Tata.
That should have been: US, UK, Europe, Australia.
Excellent Post!
The UK has struggled for generations with nonsensical ideas imposed by the ruling elites and Baroness Worthington is merely the latest and most obvious of a long line of the barking mad who rule and have ruled with no idea of how the world actually works. Marxism has been overtaken as a threat to the Western world by the Green form of Socialism, which recognises no logic, no science and no authority except for an addiction to silly Malthusian predictions in its mad drive for Man to be returned to a primitive state, and in much smaller numbers. Make no mistake, this new elite, of which the mad Baroness is a leading member, hates humanity with a passion, evidenced by the vile and very telling video featuring the sweet young teacher exploding children who declined to be her enthusiastic followers.
Sometimes I entertain myself with the idea of taking one of Stalin’s speeches, replacing all instances of “proletariat” with “people of the Earth” and all instances of “trotskyists” with “climate change deniers” and see what happens. 🙂
Or even better, if I can get the resulting article published on some green site. 🙂
TATA is an Indian company so we have UK jobs being exported to the sub-continent. India will ignore all calls to reduce CO2 output.