From Benny Peiser and The GWPF – [Conservative MEP] Miguel Arias Canete, Spain’s former agriculture and environment minister, was nominated as the European Union’s next commissioner for climate and energy, becoming the first single supervisor of those two policy areas. The new commission will take office as energy policy is moving up the EU agenda amid a crisis in Ukraine, the transit country for around half of Russian natural gas to Europe, and the unrest in Middle East. –Ewa Krukowska, Bloomberg 10 September 2014
Jean-Claude Juncker’s decision to group EU commissioners into teams serving under a vice-president has been welcomed by some interest groups, and derided by others. Rumours of the intention to combine the climate and energy portfolios have been sparking alarm among environmentalists for weeks. But the elimination of a dedicated environment portfolio came as a genuine shock to green groups. The ‘Green 10’ – an alliance of European environmental NGOs – sent a letter to Juncker saying that his restructuring decisions suggest a “de-facto shutdown of EU environmental policymaking”. –Dave Keating, European Voice, 11 September 2014
The Green10, the alliance of leading environmental NGOs at EU level, supported by over 20 million EU citizens and active in all 28 Member States, wrote today an open letter to President Jean-Claude Juncker to express grave concerns over the direction the EU seems to be taking with the announcement of his new team. The coalition highlights that the structure of the new Commission, the mission letters, and the choice of Commissioners all reveal a serious downgrading of environment and a roll back of EU commitments to sustainable development, resource efficiency, air quality, biodiversity protection and climate action. —WWF Europe, 11 September 2014
“The biggest change is the structural blocks put on any new legislative activity,” said Tony Long, director of campaign group WWF. “Every avenue is blocked because it all has to go through a vice-president and then a first vice-president.” Mark Fodor, executive director of campaign group Central and Eastern Europe Bankwatch, said the letter suggests that Juncker is back-tracking from previous commitments. “By missing out the crucial role of EU funding for addressing the climate challenge, the president-elect is showing complete disregard for the future of our planet,” he said. –Dave Keating, European Voice, 11 September 2014
Just two days after being appointed by Jean-Claude Junker, the EU’s new climate and energy commissioner is under pressure to drop his shares in two oil companies which members of European parliament say represent a conflict of interest. The MEPs say EU’s proposed new climate and energy commissioner, Miguel Arias Cañete, must dispose of any oil company shareholdings before they consider giving his nomination a green light at European parliament hearings later this month. One environment committee member, the German social-democrat Jo Leinen, told the Guardian there was “no guarantee” that Miguel Arias Cañete would be confirmed at European Parliament hearings, which have powers to send back proposed commissioner lists to Juncker. –Arthur Neslen, The Guardian, 12 September 2014
Skepticism of global warming may be more widespread than it is portrayed in the media, with nearly half of British lawmakers being labelled as climate “skeptics” and India’s prime minister casting doubt on claims of man-made global warming. A special report by PR Week shows that a vast majority of conservative members of UK Parliament are [doubtful] that mankind is the main driver behind global temperature rises. While a slight majority (51 percent) of members of parliament (MPs) say that global warming “is largely man made” and an established fact, nearly three quarters of conservative MPs disagree. –Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, 10 September 2014
Change, though glacial, is always welcome.
Pointman
Though not changes in glaciation, it would seem.
What is the colour of these New political gate guards?
Quote:
“The coalition highlights that the structure of the new Commission, the mission letters, and the choice of Commissioners all reveal a serious downgrading of environment and a roll back of EU commitments to sustainable development, resource efficiency, air quality, biodiversity protection and climate action. –WWF Europe, 11 September 2014”
Resource efficiency? Really?
These green groups are the ones pushing wind and solar energy which probably require hundreds of times more land area than nuclear and fossil fuel power plants. And they are the ones doing the lecturing about resource efficiency?
And biodiversity protection? Really?
With their wind and solar energy fantasies requiring so much more land area than fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, aren’t wind and solar farms more of a threat to the habitats of wildlife than fossil fuel and nuclear PPs?
These green hypocrites need to either shut the hell up or re-evaluate their positions on wind and solar energy. I need to count to ten before I explode. 10…9….8….
STOP counting. We need your comments ;^D
Let them explode, which they are doing on their own hype.
Oh no sanity is starting to spread. What will the greens do when full blown sanity goes pandemic?
think of something else to beat us about the head with. My guess is water followed by the dangerous depletion of O2 – don’t laugh, a few years back on the BBS’s there was a Maria something or other quoting how serious O2 depletion was because CO2 was replacing O2 by 0.0000000001% per century or something
Before there was any free oxygen, there was abundant CO2. Then plants got the knack, and used sunlight to combine it with water and release O2, which to this day is only present as a free gas because of their activity. They naturally ate down the CO2 supplies to the point of starving themselves, so GAIA developed humans to replenish the atmosphere.
Get cracking!
Another sign of cooling towards AGW.
A chance to thank you and the thousands of WUWT commenters who make make me laugh every day. Your comments are clever and delight me!
With more snow in North America than Siberia … and it’s still summer … good for the EU in reigning in those environmentalists.
Reining in. Think horses, not princesses.
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/_SgMStDRtHk/maxresdefault.jpg
It is Cañete, like in “el niño”.
Not quite sure what you’re asking… if the question is whether the third letter of the name is supposed to be an ñ, then the answer apparently is: yes, it is.
If you’re asking about the proper pronunciation, the name of the letter is pronounced ‘EN-yay’, and his name is pronounced ‘cahn-YAY-tay’.
I am beginning to think that some of Europe’s crazy environmentalist would celebrate if Russia cut off natural gas to Western Europe this winter. European’s would have to learn to live with a limited supply of fossil fuels, reduce their carbon footprint, and discover the joys of depending on unreliable, renewable (solar and wind) energy. (sarc)
Which would quickly come to include bringing old coal and nukes back online! (Germany has restored some of their coal power already.)
sarcasm? That is the literal truth (so long as it does not affect them.)
A substantial percent of enviros’ real purpose is to hurt and kill people and get away with it. We cannot heal that if we cannot face that. We really must SAY over and over again that murder is their purpose–or we give them strength.
Ignoring that ugliness or refusing to face it does no good for the nonhuman, non-agricultural biosphere. I tell people that I hate environmentalists because they’re hell on the environment.
Enviros fight the basis of life (carbon dioxide), and work to hurt the economy, pretending not to know that poor societies cannot afford to care for the Earth, and the air, water, and soil get cleaner when the people have the money for luxuries.
They ignore all the evidence that much warmer temperatures would increase biodiversity and work to freeze us to death.
— ladylifegrows
The 10-10 video made that abundantly clear. We need to remind people that several dozen Warmists who participated in that project have murder in their hearts.
Wasn’t it Greenpeace or was it another group that published a manifesto years back that included reducing the planets population to 500 million. The right 500 million I’m sure. I’ve often thought that limiting the production of power was nothing more than a ploy to limit the growth of or reduce human population.
“I’ve often thought that limiting the production of power was nothing more than a ploy to limit the growth of or reduce human population.” – Claudius
Which would be ironic considering that birth rates decrease as a country’s economy matures (e.g. as energy consumption per person increases).
Mike: ” birth rates decrease as a country’s economy matures (e.g. as energy consumption per person increases).” It seems the whole world is losing fertility: http://www.fpri.org/ww/0505.200407
“By missing out the crucial role of EU funding for addressing the climate challenge, the president-elect is showing complete disregard for ….”
Totally dishonest that way they try to spin the NON-elected president of the commissions as being “president-elect”.
NONE of these friggin “commissioners” , that make rules that european elected governments then have to enforce are elected, they are appointed.
You misunderstand. He’s the president they elected!
Gang Green in a tizzy. I’ve been asking how much BS can be endured by officialdom. Perhaps we are witnessing the ‘limits to growth’ of climate idiocy. There’s nothing like threats to supply of good old fossil fuel in the fall of the year to change minds.
And perhaps a pain in the wallet?
Guardian: “Miguel Arias Cañete, must dispose of any oil company shareholdings before they consider giving his nomination a green light at European parliament hearings later this month. ”
Funny, I don’t recall anyone demanding that head of the House of Commons select committee on science and technology, Tim Yeo, be required to renounce his involvement in “green” energy businesses before taking evidence on global warming.
Actually, I did – in the comments websites of national newspapers, no less.
Which had about as much effect as you would expect.
From what I can gather in my reading here in the states, the UK government has a revolving door of government officials/green entrepreneurs that just keep churning. This is becoming true in the United States as well, where involvement in the big business of fossil fuels or energy production is deemed an ethical blight, whereas involvement in big green/subsidized renewable energy/environmental advocacy is viewed a necessary job prerequisite to become a government regulator. When will people get back to the center, where either extreme is recognized as a potential bias?
“When will people get back to the center, where either extreme is recognized as a potential bias?”
Probably not until after the majority of people wake up to the fact that big government is doomed to collapse under it’s own weight, which will be sometime around two-three weeks after the inevitable collapse.
P.S.
I am in Pleasant Prairie (South East corner of Wisconsin), what what part of the state are you in?
Current temp where I am is 52. Average high is 72, average low is 55, record high is 90 and record low is 41.
Not to mention any memberships, ties or contracts with any Green NGO’s. All those shoes only fit one foot.
” and the choice of Commissioners all reveal a serious downgrading of environment and a roll back of EU commitments to sustainable development, resource efficiency, air quality, biodiversity protection and climate action.” –WWF Europe, 11 September 2014
Well if they have managed to damage the whole environmental agenda, even the bits that make sense like resource efficiency and clean air, with all their bullshit about CO2, they have really screwed up.
I’ve been saying for a couple years that this would happen. After all the lying cheating and exaggerated alarmist screaming, no one will listen next time there is a genuine problem to address.
+10
What you wrote is very true.
The conservation and environmental issues prevalent in the 60’s and 70’s were addressed by the late 80’s. The issue is that the conservation/environmental movement from that time left the up and coming generation with no reasonably valid issues to unite under. So one had to be fabricated to keep the “green movement” alive. It has become a sad state of affairs beginning in the mid to late 90’s. Science has lost credibility and value. True environmentalism has been decimated and is taking down conservation with it. I don’t think it should be called “Noble Cause Corruption”. It has become pure and simple corruption. These so-called greens are a blight on the earlier efforts of those who really cared. The bad part about it is that the promoters of their insanity will not likely face incarceration for their schemes.
his restructuring decisions suggest a “de-facto shutdown of EU environmental policymaking”.
I’ve heard worse suggestions.
So, 20 Million on the Green side. Doesn’t that leave about 300+ Million on the ‘unrepresented’ side?….
Spain jumped on the bandwagon hard and fast, got badly burned with loads of debt, no jobs, and economic crash. Not much energy either. Now they, IMHO, are perfectly placed to comment on what the results of the Green Machine policies have been.
Viva Espania!
I think it will be long, but enlightening, winter in the EU. Hopefully in the US central east coast as well….
According to Eurostat (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Population_and_population_change_statistics) the EU population was 505.7m on 1 January 2013 so the proportion is even smaller than you thought.
We all owe Harry Read Me a debt of gratitude for his whistle-blowing. Let’s also give some credit to the PM’s of Canada and Australia, who pioneered the resurgence of climate realism back into world politics and made it respectable again. Furthermore, we might consider a vote of thanks to Mr Putin, who has forced the politicians of the EU to think again over energy policy.
Alas, the Conservative PM of Canada could lose his place in the next election despite the fact he almost alone in the world managed to keep his country’s economy afloat through the world depression. Like the threatened Nile crocodile, a large proportion of Canadians have been trying to bite his leg off while he was doing it.
After the $400 billion LNG deal between Russia and China, Mr. Harper will probably have to review his exports… With a bit of luck, his Kiev friends will buy with the money we lend them… Canadians are quite unlucky: between a greeny puppet and a NATO one, the choice is meager.
Why of course. Haven’t you heard of crocodile tears?
One can only hope. Significant, though, that the commissioner is Spanish. He must realize what a wasteful scam green energy is.
Robert, the Spanish government is well aware that solar energy is fairly wasteful. However, here in Spain we do have a well developed wind system which can sell electricity to the French grid when there’s a surplus. Wind isn’t an economic winner, but it’s not a complete disaster like solar.
Cañete is first a politician, and he does have to leverage his post to help the country achieve its objectives in other areas (for example a weaker euro would come in handy). The Populares are aiming at improving the economy, and that’s about it. However, he won’t go at the environmental objectives with an ax. He will just make sure they don’t cause economic problems.
The Populares seem to think natural gas is a big plus, and have been passing rules to allow gas shale exploration. Unfortunately the economic crisis and the irrational deployment of solar has made it difficult to run the country’s energy system as efficiently as it could have been run. Natural gas and wind as they have been implemented in Texas are a very good option.
Thanks for the insight, Fernando. Here in Canada, Ontario’s provincial government is doing exactly the same
scammistake. Operators of solar and wind generators are paid extremely generously, multiple times the actual cost of electricity, are even paid not to produce when there is too much, as well as selling it at a loss. Also, new natural gas plants are being built to cater for the very unreliable wind and solar.And we already have plenty of nuclear, coal and hydroelectric power. So much that Canadians call electricity “hydro”.
Comment was made that windfarms in Australia are so highly subsidised they are making $28million per hundred turbines per annum. They do not provide enough electricity to keep the supply line to the grid full. So eesentially all Australian taxpayers and electricity consumers are paying for somethin useless to keep the green swoondoggle in clover.
I would not trust much of Cañete, in the Ministry that leaves us in Spain there is a specific department for climate change: $55 million into the trash in a country technically bankrupt. `Populares´ are conservatives but also pretty socialist and fearful of political correctness.
Love the KCCO reference. Not much else to add, except that EU nations are in that difficult spot of realizing they can no longer subsume their individual national interests to the unworkable bureaucratic self-interest of Brussels.
rip
Let”s recall that recently the same EU bureaucrats were accusing… Russia of all anti fracking agitation, forgetting conveniently that for years it was them (Hedegaard and co.) who toed the green vertuous line of oil and gas development bashing!
I fear that the reverse may be true.
The DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) in the UK does not put the energy needs of our country before the political needs of environmental NGOs.
That wasn’t meant to be a reply.
Sorry Mr Rude.
These threaded comments are still confusing me.
M Courtney – sadly very true. What’s more, the government (of whatever political colour) seem to put the most incompetent politicians in charge of it.
I give you Ed (Climate Change Act) Milliband, Chris (convicted criminal and proven liar) Huhne and Ed (fill in your own epithet here) Davey. Were I a follower of a theist religeon, I would be tempted to say “God help us”.
First sign was in May when the EESS was made public. It was mentioned in a blog post by Nick Butler i Financial Times in June
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/security_of_supply_en.htm
http://blogs.ft.com/nick-butler/2014/06/08/the-beginnings-of-a-common-european-energy-policy/
Peak Green was reached before peak oil.
10 Green NGOs lobby Juncker claiming 20m supporters across the EU. So what, there are more than 30m in the UK alone who consider ‘Climate Change’ to be a scam. Mind you as Juncker is one of the unelected EU elite who never have to answer to the common public or need to face any kind of electorate he won’t really care either way.
The EU have for too long been funding Green NGOs to lobby the EU and to have a dirty hand in policy making. Maybe, just maybe that is coming to an end as the lights are looking set to go out in the not too distant future; the UK is already preparing for brown outs and blackouts this coming winter as there is insufficient conventional (reliable) power generation any more.
Attention EU Shoppers: K-limate Mart has a ‘clean up’ on Aisle 1 …and Aisle 2 ….and 3….
‘Mark Fodor, executive director of campaign group Central and Eastern Europe Bankwatch, said the letter suggests that Juncker is back-tracking from previous commitments. “By missing out the crucial role of EU funding for addressing the climate challenge, the president-elect is showing complete disregard for the future of our planet,” he said.’
http://www.dramabutton.com/
Global warming “is largely man made”. No. Global warming is largely media made.
Nothing clarifies one’s perception of truth and reality quite so much as the suffering induced by one’s own folly. Spain brought itself to the brink of destruction by embracing the Green agenda.
It’s appropriate that Spain’s Miguel Arias Cañete should be brought to the EU Commission. He knows as well as anyone, the approaching debacle ordained by the EU’s dalliance with the Greens. Perhaps he can help reduce the worst of the energy horrors confronting the citizens of the EU, this coming dark Winter.
Finally, politicians and leaders are seeing they will be caught on the wrong side of CO2 Global warming debate as actual weather gets colder and colder while CO2 goes up and up. No further proof is necessary. Politicians who want a long future have to make changes now to start distancing themselves from a failed theory and the “We could be wrong, but just In case we are right, let’s take strong action NOW because it could be really bad”. Well, they WERE WRONG AND ARE WRONG, and the vast waste of national treasure is going to be pinned on somebody. Also, smart leaders will begin preparing their society for the REAL disaster that has already begun – deadly COLD that will be at least 20 years and met be. 50 years long.
SO, who is going to be blamed for bad and foolish leadership?
SO, Who will be praised for being wise and seeing sooner than others that CO2 caused Global Warming Theory failed so they can save their populations from freezing and starving while directing treasury away from CO2 Global Warming Failure?
Someone has to explain to these alarmed Green fellows that it’s all only temporary.
That is, until the measured temperatures, now going down,
catch up with the climate models, now going exponentially fast up.
That could take as little as a few decades, or as long as a few centuries.
Or maybe for ever, should a glaciation come first.
The Guardian makes a big deal over shares in oil companies. You would need over 1% ownership to have any real influence, I doubt any politician does.
Being a member of one the Green churches is far more corrupting, even subscribing to the Guardian should disqualify you from political office. Participating in IPCC is out of the question!
@Robert of Ottawa,
Can’t help responding to your comment about Canada: “we already have plenty of nuclear, coal and hydroelectric power. So much that Canadians call electricity “hydro”. When I first started having to pay household bills after moving to Ontario, I always thought that “hydro” meant the water bill, and would be perplexed upon opening the envelope and seeing an electricity bill inside. “Hydro” is an Ontario thing, thanks to Niagara Falls historically being the major source for the original power grid. In New Brunswick one pays “NB Power” bills and refers to “electric power”, not “hydro”.
Here it is called BC Hydro ( there seems to be a reason for that, I wonder why).
Short for the original term, Hydroelectric.
The proposed commissioner should surely have to sell any shares in any company which might represent a conflict of interest, or at the very least have his investment portfolio managed for him in a blind trust. He shouldn’t be holding green energy shares either.
The green armwaving is possibly premature. It could turn out that rather than reducing their power, it just go extended to energy policy by lumping environment and power together.
Politico’s everywhere have understood for sometime that CAGW is a monstrous lie that they can no longer peddle to their electorates.
Wriggling out of what is an untenable situation is what they do best.
Wriggle, wriggle, wriggle little worm.
Simply telling the truth and admitting you have been duped is waay to much to ask.
Yawn…
Brussels (Belgium) good for; beer, chocolates, tarts and chips with mayo.
I think you are all seriously overestimating a tiny victory. the green movement is as powerful as ever with politicians at the very top getting huge amounts of cash from wind farms and solar parks where top grade arable land is underneath the maintenance roads and the solar panels.