Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Some Greens seem to be waking up to the fact that the climate cause is sinking, and are attempting to shift attention back to more traditional environmental issues.
According to the Independent;
The world is in danger of taking its eye off the ball on environmental issues such as air pollution and soil erosion following a landmark deal to tackle global warming in Paris last month, the head of Friends of the Earth warns.
“Climate change poses a big threat to humanity that the Paris Agreement will go a long way to curbing, despite some major flaws,” said chief executive Craig Bennett.
“However, so much effort has gone into the agreement there is a risk that other hugely important issues are being neglected,” said Mr Bennett.
“Air pollution is killing 50,000 people a year in Britain and our nature has been badly degraded. We wonder why we get flooding in Cumbria – well soil erosion didn’t help; the water poured straight off the uplands. And we’re still seeing appalling levels of deforestation around the world,” he added.
Why do I think Craig Bennett’s statements represent a demotion of the climate issue?
Craig Bennett sounds like he thinks the Paris agreement solved the climate issue, and that he is simply talking about other important issues which have to be addressed. But the Friends of the Earth website tells a different story.
Paris climate deal is a sham
PARIS, FRANCE, December 12, 2015 – The climate deal to be agreed today is a sham, according to Friends of the Earth International.
“Rich countries have moved the goal posts so far that we are left with a sham of a deal in Paris. Through piecemeal pledges and bullying tactics, rich countries have pushed through a very bad deal,” said Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth International climate justice and energy coordinator.
A detailed policy analysis of the Paris Agreement will be available at http://www.foei.org/what-we-do/paris
“Despite the hype, the Paris agreement will fail to deliver. Politicians say it is a fair and ambitious deal – yet it is the complete opposite. People are being deceived,” said Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International climate justice and energy coordinator.
“Vulnerable and affected people deserve better than this failed agreement; they are the ones who feel the worst impacts of our politicians’ failure to take tough enough action,’” she added.
Read more: http://www.foei.org/press/archive-by-subject/climate-justice-energy-press/paris-climate-deal-sham
It would obviously be preferable for leading greens to confess they made a mistake about the “importance” of climate change. Nevertheless I see this as a positive development. As the recent Gold King Mine Disaster shows, there are real environmental issues which should be receiving more attention.
Perhaps if the EPA were less obsessed with addressing the climate non-issue, someone in management might have had the time, to properly supervise the EPA staff who thought it would be a good idea to uncap a flooded, heavily polluted mine.
I don’t see them letting go of ‘climate change’ any time soon. It’s an issue with the potential to give them the power and the means to do what they dearly wish to do: exert nearly absolute control over behavior of the masses. What better way to conserve resources for later use by important and more deserving people such as themselves?
The alarmists most important supporter, Obama, has declared the agreement an historic, ground-breaking, legacy-delivering success. Obama et al have said that the agreement, if adhered to, will lead to the CO2 and temperature solution. They can’t complain too much without criticizing him and, indirectly, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton who supports the President. By hitching their cart to his horse, and proclaiming him the near-Messiah (“On my watch, the oceans will recede, and the planet begin to heal.”), they are obliged to stay silent on the direction and speed he chose. And especially in a system where you are With Us or Against Us, Democrat-supporter or Republican-supporter. If they ain’t for Obama and what he does, they are agin him and his actions AND for the other guys, the devils themselves.
The Greens are in a no-win position now that Obama et al gave them, and applauded themselves for, the COP21 agreement. What is left for them to do is bureaucratic: hold the “world” to its INDCs. But it is too soon to ask what they are doing (nothing). Scrutiny will only be reasonable in 6 months to a year. Maybe more. And then the complaint is about what the bureaucrats are doing, not what the “leaders” say they want them to do. And there are a zillion bureaucrats.
The climate CO2 “problem” has dissolved into a plague of locusts with each farmer promising to kill enough to make a difference. The Greens can’t say the world community, or even the United States isn’t doing enough. They have to go after specific coal plants or coal-power using States or Nations, and object. CO2 is no longer the “group’s” responsibility. Greenpeace now has 192 cats to herd, and each cat has a dozen kittens.
Unless the Obama-Clinton force can use Executive Privilege, and places like the EU simply bow before their Green masters, the grinding pace and special treatment demanded by the bureaucrats is going to dumb down what comes out of the COP21 agreement. Even the $3B US promised by Obama won’t do it. Look at the $100B/year (starting) Green Fund. Only the developed countries “have” to contribute, and they will never do more than some factor of their GDP, even with consideration of their historic contribution to atmospheric CO2. This means that the US, with the largest developed nation economy, will have to cough up (IMHO) something like $65B …. PER YEAR AND INCREASING! Let’s say I’m 3X wrong – only $22B/year.
That just will not happen.
The Greens asked for a global agreement. Obama, Merckel and Hollande gave them one. Everyone cheered and said, if followed, it would work. But if it doesn’t happen, the Greens can’t say the “group” failed. Only individuals. As I noted, there are now 192 cats with kittens in the game.
That sound you hear is Orestes, Klein, Erhlich, FOE et al going, “Oops.”
There’s a 95% consensus now among environmental economists. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jan/04/consensus-of-economists-cut-carbon-pollution#comment-66125239
Imagine all the actual good that could have come from all these wasted dollars.
So how much was the fine for the EPA pollution disaster?
HAHAHAHAHA (:
mebbe: ” too tight accountability” Back during the “Cold War” there was a question that was very important to US researchers which was: Just exactly how is the Soviet main battle tank put together for the modern battlefield as there would be a requirement to take out many of them in the European theater of operations. This made getting our hands on one to run the relevant diagnostics something to do, particularly one that was manufactured inside the Soviet Union since those built in satellite states were known to not have “all the goodies”. The story went that the last time we had access to one was during the Israeli/Egyptian war as a result of Israel’s stunning success and that one had grease completely packed in it’s control console which struck the engineers as an odd innovation. Could it be that there was some sort of defense against EMP or over heating circuits or what? Quite a conundrum. Well it was later found out that this was not a standard example of tank outfitting that resulted from “too tight accountability”. The maintenance procedures on these tanks included greasing for which the tank was fitted with little bright red grease nipples. Apparently the training procedure was to hand the lowest ranking guy on the maintenance crew a grease gun and tell him to grease every red nipple and if he missed one there would be hell to pay.
Turns out that on the tank that got examined there must have been a lost anchor down for the dash for which a quick thinking maintenance chief didn’t have any replacement but, by golly, those little red nipples where threaded the same. So…..
Jon,
Another question is “was anyone at the EPA disciplined in any way over the disaster?”
You clearly have the same accountability problem with your civil servants as we have in the UK. What will it take to change their culture and performance? Voltaire probably had the best idea by way of man-motivation (and woman motivation!): the Admiral Byng procedure: “il est une bonne idea de temps en temps de the run admiral, pour encourager les autres!
Hi Cassandra,
Apologies for being a fusspot, but the quotation, from Voltaire in his novel Candide, reads:
“Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.”
Admiral John Byng was executed by firing squad for “failing to do his utmost” to defend Minorca from capture by the French in 1758. In fact, much of the blame for this defeat was due to the conduct of his superiors.
His epitaph reads:
To the perpetual Disgrace
of PUBLICK JUSTICE
The Honble. JOHN BYNG Esqr
Admiral of the Blue
Fell a MARTYR to
POLITICAL PERSECUTION
March 14th in the year 1757 when
BRAVERY and LOYALTY
were Insufficient Securities
For the
Life and Honour
of a
NAVAL OFFICER.
His family seeks his pardon to this day.
I read a short story many years ago. All politicians wore an unremovable vest with a small explosive charge built into it. Any citizen, by dialing a phone number could cause the vest to explode, killing the politician. The kicker was that the citizen who dialed the number would have to replace the politician who was killed, and would get his own, unremovable explosive vest.
An important phrase in Voltaire’s pronouncement on the situation is “de temps en temps”.
When accountability is too tightly maintained, the risk of crippling, oppressive adherence to rules increases, with a concomitant transfer of authority from millions of bureaucrats to hundreds of politicians.
It doesn’t matter what the problem is. The solution is always the same; raise taxes, ban fossil fuels, and form a socialist one-world government.
Yes, it is all a massive fraud to tax thin air we exhale.
And even if no one ‘believes’ in this scam except a tiny minority, it will roll onwards effortlessly because our rulers love this idea. Very much. They will silently tax us.
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
H. L. Mencken
When you’ve spent so long polishing a turd it’s hard to admit that the brown stuff on your fingers is not boot polish.
The Green blob has invested too much in children, who will happily parrot ‘climate change’, to let it all go now. They still hope for a return on that investment. Why do you think the polis want to drop the voting age in UK to 16? [silent scream]
And I thought we ought to demand it be raised to 28.
At least to 25, at which time brain development is said (by neurologists) generally to be complete.
The climate just refused to get with the plan…..
From anger to bargaining?
God forbid the “kiddies” get the vote in the UK, but that’s what the political left want to do, because they know that they have always appealed to the “revolutionary” traits in the young! Also they know that the “young” are too stupid, naive, & gullible to work out that such thoughts are mostly transistory!
The “green” groups are playing politics and that means …
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken
“Also they know that the “young” are too stupid, naive, & gullible to work out that such thoughts are mostly transistory!”
————–
Yes and the astute Green promoters have not been directing their recruiting efforts at the NPN types, knowing that they are too busy with general rowdiness and clowning around trying to impress the more emotional and perhaps, gullible PNPs who have joined the Green ranks in large numbers. The Greens figure it’s like ladies night… bring in the NPNs and the PNPs will follow and bring the money.
boy did I get that last part bass ackwards
“boy did I get that last part bass ackwards”
Good analysis. N material has a surplus of electrons, P has a deficiency (“holes” are the carrier), if I remember right. So having a lot of surplus and a little deficiency sandwiched in the middle (NPN) is the better thing to be. So bring in the PNP’s and the NPN’s will follow and bring the money.
PIMF
(no sense trying to sort through engineer vs technician conventions)
As it turns out, I have always been an “environmentalist” or a “conservationist” but I left WWF and the Sierra Club plus a couple more than 30 years ago when the collectivists took over and started marketing scare stories to get funding and attention.
I would love to see those concerned about the environment go back to fighting real pollution and animal abuse rather than an endless stream of bogus “pending catastrophes”. From DDT, to the “Ozone hole” to “CO2 will fry us” there has been darn little science, reason, or common sense in the conservation movement. And there has been almost zero honesty of any kind.
I figure that when the CO2 delusion plays out (mother nature usually wins these things) there will be some other “big scare” online and ready to use.
~ Mark
I find myself in general agreement, and the retort to most sales pitches for panic seems to be some combination of “Its not that simple” and “Define that attractive term”.
As an example of sales pitches verging on fraud, consider the fund raising of the Humane Society of the United States. They give the (false) impression that they fund pet shelters, when perhaps a twentieth is put towards that purpose.
On the other point, the Sierra Club et al defines CO2 as “pollution”, and conflates the effect of SO2, NOx, particulates, and CO2 in decrying “pollution” (note coverage of urban China).
If you do not pay careful attention, it tends to come across as reasonable. The damn problem is to get past a deceptive sales pitch.
a deceptive sales pitch.
============
“give us your money or you will burn in hell”
It worked so well for the church it was only inevitable others would copy.
It’s not just the environmentalists. There was a survey a number of years back in which parents were asked if at any time in the previous year, one of their children had gone to bed hungry. The survey did not ask why, it could have been as punishment, or perhaps the child refused to eat what was served for dinner. The survey also did not ask how many times the child had gone to bed hungry. Going to bed once in a year was sufficient for a yes response. About 20% of parents responded yes.
On a regular basis I hear one activist make the claim that 1 in 5 kids goes to bed hungry every night. Based on this one survey.
I know of no church that declares that your salvation is dependant on your tithing.
It would be nice if the atheists around here could, for once, be accurate in their denigrations of the church.
MarkW “It would be nice if the atheists around here could, for once, be accurate in their denigrations of the church.”
I am willing to extend to them the courtesy of accepting their experience shaped their anti-beliefs. It only takes one priest, preacher or bishop to tell someone their salvation depends on payment for that person to legitimately believe it represents the official position of that church. Now then when a person resists being corrected that’s a different story but here on the internet, my words are not correction because I am just words on your screen. I can point to authoritative sources but if a church cannot control its priests and preachers (and most cannot, imo) then there’s not much to argue about.
Mark: My Engineering Geology professor told his students to remember one thing that they forget at their(the students) peril: “Mother Nature ALWAYS wins”
I’d like to see asteroid impact as the next big scare.Might actually get an effective space program out of that. Shouldn’t be too difficult to influence them.
I saw a nice cartoon: “ASTEROIDS – Nature’s way of asking ‘How’s that space program going?'”
Eric
They’ve been doing this for years now. Here in the UK, the only outlet of any note still banging the drum is the BBC. No one is really listening anymore though. The politicians usually follow public opinion rather than lead it. So it is only a matter of time til they ditch it completely. Furthermore, the EU has started to soften its stance on certain “environmental” issues such as GM crops so traditional areas of conflict are moving aside.
This is an interesting analysis of the FoE position and it might represent a trend of sorts. However, there has been other news of late suggesting further consolidation under the climate umbrella. Again, as first begun in Toronto ’88 and then confirmed at Rio ’92, climate replaces the first global environmentalism umbrella originating out of Stockholm ’72, and then through the Brundtland Report – that is, climate change is what ‘sustainable development’ was.
Graham Lloyd in the Australian recently ran a story under the heading ‘Fight spreads to a wider environment’ along these lines.
If the headline suggests some retreat from climate (as Eric sees hints of by FoE above) then it deceives. The story opens:
“With the ink not yet dry on the Paris climate change agreement, the foundations are being laid for a significant campaign to transform the nation’s environmental thinking. Rooted in the declaration of support for global action in Paris, the new battleground stretches well beyond wildfire opposition to individual projects.”
Dunno what his sources are beyond the Wilderness society, but here is some more of the (paywall) article:
It makes sense for global environmental groups to remain with a unifying global mission, and in that respect climate remains without peer on the global stage.
The Australian story is here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/climate-change-fight-spreads-to-a-wider-environment/story-e6frg6z6-1227694792307?sv=38052cdd7b345b07c5dabf8fb6a5a10f
“Air pollution is killing 50,000 people a year in Britain … ”
As Willis Eschenbach would ask, “Where are the bodies?”
For perspective:
In World War II, “Civilian deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity” in the United Kingdom including British Colonies totaled 67,200. There were 383,700 military deaths from all causes.
Total, not per year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
78,200 deaths were estimated to be attributable to smoking in England in 2015.
http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB17526/stat-smok-eng-2015-rep.pdf
Simple. When you go and look at the actual studies they’re quoting, you typically find that the study has estimated that x,000 people died a week or two earlier than they otherwise would due to air pollution.
So: a) it’s usually another computer model and b) these are very sick people who’d have died soon anyway. Same old same old claptrap.
The calculation guarantees you can attribute the same deaths to multiple causes. It is very convenient for advocasy purposes, and it is also sufficiently theoretical to avoid easy rebutting.
China’s Health Miracle – World Life Expectancy
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/china-health-miracle
Life expectancy in Beijing and Shanghai has reached 80 years
VS
78.74 years in the US,
hmm , maybe food is key to a longer life span,
It’s those Chinese cigarettes
CO2 was NEVER a problem, but the hysteria over it has completely overshadowed attempts to improve real pollution issues. For instance, the VW scandal would not have happened if overall levels of tailpipe emissions were taken into account. Rig the ECU to keep CO2 as low as possible (because vehicle taxation is heavily geared towards this one metric) and, low and behold, NOx goes through the roof… For years European cars have suffered a “Flat Spot” around 56mph (80kmhr) in top gear because that was one of the testing parameters, and fuel/air ratios were deliberately tweaked to optimise this reading. The result – drivers often chose a lower gear to avoid it, resulting in higher fuel consumption. If politicians would just ignore the bloody greens and work WITH industry, instead of constantly imposing one sided regulations and standards, we would see far greater benefits.
Another example (here in the UK) is that of waste disposal. Ever more stringent rules about what can be collected by council contractors, or taken to local recycling depots, has resulted in an explosion of “Fly Tipping” by dubious “cash and no questions asked” operators. Then, as if that isn’t bad enough, the unfortunate landowners who find hazardous materials dumped on their land have to pay for its proper disposal.
It’s the “Law of Unintended Consequences” which the greens never take into account. Encourage innovation, and provide decent services, at sensible prices, and people will make use of them. Try and regulate things out of existence and just the opposite occurs…
No one takes the Law of Unintended Consequences into account. Not greens, not any politician, and not even business managers.
They have an idea and they’ll be damned if reality gets in the way of it. Then, when the inevitable back swing from their implementation happens, they are either off to another environmental catastrophe/political talking point/job talking up their successes while ignoring their failures (oh, all that bad stuff happened after I left. They obviously couldn’t properly handle my genius idea).
You are probably correct about greens and politicians, but biz folks are the only ones constrained by customers to get things right, and as soon as possible….
“Law of Unintended Consequences”
=======================
Newton’s third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Everyone assumes that this doesn’t apply to their actions.
“Dave Ward
January 4, 2016 at 3:52 am
…has resulted in an explosion of “Fly Tipping” by dubious…”
Fly tipping has always been a problem in the UK and in fact some “jobs worth” type at a municipal waste disposal center always used to challenge anyone disposing of waste. I even had someone tell me my vehicle was registered in Basingstoke when I was dumping waste, from my parents place, in Waterlooville (Hampshire).
I used to drive byways, RUPP’s and other unclasified roads in the UK with my Landrover and part of that inolved cleaning rubbish from the lanes. I never saw ramblers, horse riders and cyclists cleaning up the lanes. It’s sad to hear the situation is worse now than it was in the 90’s.
Dave,
Are you sure?
As I understand, the EU doesn’t have standards for vehicle CO2 emissions.
The EPA brought in standards for 2012 thru 2016 that work out to 35.5 mpg for light vehicles.
My impression of VW’s motivation has been the appeal of fuel efficiency to the car buyer.
It was NOx that was reduced in the test mode, not CO2. In cheat mode, NOx went up and CO2 went down because they weren’t squandering fuel in the lean NOx trap.
the Hammonds in Oregon are in the front line against the “environmentalists. As Dr Steel has shown here many times, so many studies re habitat are false or fake.
this is but one piece in the Hammonds puzzle.
Quote
(a4) By the 1990’s the Hammonds were one of the very few ranchers that still owned private property adjacent to the refuge. Susie Hammond in an effort to make sense of what was going on began compiling fact about the refuge. In a hidden public record she found a study that was done by the FWS in 1975. The study showed that the “no use” policies of the FWS on the refuge were causing the wildlife to leave the refuge and move to private property. The study showed that the private property adjacent to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge produced 4 times more ducks and geese than the refuge did. It also showed that the migrating birds were 13 times more likely to land on private property than on the refuge. When Susie brought this to the attention of the FWS and refuge personnel, her and her family became the subjects of a long train of abuses and corruptions.
Unquote
This is just a small part of the global abuses taking place in the name of Climate change and Environmentalism.
Air pollution is killing 50,000 people a year in Britain ? I wonder how they manipulated the numbers to get that?
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/oct/28/mortality-statistics-causes-death-england-wales-2010
Not even the worst smogs did that. I think they manipulate the very fake ld50 method of detrmining deaths from hazards.
Say 15 ppm h2s kills 100% , they claim 7.5 ppm kills 50 percent. Headbangers but they get away with it. Nobody has challenged it.
It just pisses me off when these greenie toads start pretending that THEY are speaking for the interests of “vulnerable” people, while they forget or completely ignore that under their stupid policies, poor people have an even harder time paying for electricity (if they’re lucky enough to have a reliable supplier), fuel for cooking, heating, and driving, and the food they eat, which has to be grown, fertilized, pest controlled and transported.
Not only that, but their own stupid anti-carbon policies actually creates some of the same environmental damage they are whingeing about. Hypocrites.
Some good news in the Backyard of MP green party Elizabeth May http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/donkin-mine-jobs-fair-1.3386535
+1 from rural India
As Rubio said in a recent speech – EPA, the employment prevention agency.
Unlike Trump, Rubio has staying power. If Trump gets nominated, the Republicans are doomed. Again.
If Trump doesn’t get nominated, the Republicans are doomed again. None of the Trump supporters I know would vote for any other Republican candidate.
But losing is what the Republicans want. A Hillary win would give them another eight years in control of Congress to stuff their noses in the pork trough. A Trump win, and Republican voters would expect them to actually do something right-wing.
Well, I thought Scott Walker had the nomination wrapped up so what do I know.
I am unhappy with the situation in this country. I am starting to ask myself — if the current Republican candidates had been around 250 years ago which ones would have been Founding Fathers and which ones would have sided with King George.
Ted Cruz — Founding Father and my favorite now because he says what
he intends to do and means it
Rubio — Benedict Arnold
Bush — King George
Carson — Would deplore the violence and sit it out
Christie — King George
Paul — Nathan Hale, give the man his due
Fioirina — Founding Father
Huckabee — Principled Founding Father
Trump — George Washington if he realizes that when elected he could
be first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen
by doing what he says and not compromising with the left. Socialists
have never been, can never be a “loyal opposition”.
As for Hillary — would be negotiating a marriage with King George demanding the Thirteen Colonies as her bride price.
Eugene WR Gallun
Trump would be negotiating to replace King George as the new king.
Setting aside the dubious claim about deaths caused by pollution a number of things are clear to me
1) Rain has always flowed downhill from the uplands.
2) Most of the uplands in Cumbria form part of the Lake District National Pak the adminstrators of which have become obsessed with ‘cutting carbon’. Given that most farms are dominated by grazing which has declined lately soil erosion is mostly local scale caused by walkers and hikers.
3) The Lake District National Park report on forestry makes it clear that woodland cover has remained pretty constant at around 12% of the total area. Much of the area is quite unsuitable for large scale forest growth. The only noteworthy initiative has been a suggestion from the National Park authorities is that local land owners fell the trees they do have to supply biofuels. Note that in conservation areas landowners are required to get a permit to fell any tree with a trunk that is more than 3″ diameter. Similarly removal of Hedgerows requires a permit which must be applied for at least 6 weeks in advance. Penalties for infringment of these rules are severe.
4) Cumbria has always been prone to flooding. There are historical records of major flooding going back to 1700 with Carlisle having suffered major floods in 1963, 1968, 1979, 1980, 1984, and 2005. The main change recently is that the agency in charge now has an overarching aim of protecting the natural environment rather than preventing the flooding of urban areas.
Note even the Guadian picked up on this following the 2009 Cockermouth floods.
Yet for all the progress in preparing for flood emergencies, not enough has been done to protect vulnerable places such as Cockermouth in the first place. River channels are not deep enough, river banks not high enough, bridges not well enough designed and drains inadequate.There are Cockermouths waiting to happen elsewhere. We have to be proactive as well as reactive.
It is useful that Mr Benn’s flood and water management bill is already on the Commons agenda. The lessons of the Cumbrian floods should be incorporated and the bill passed as a priority, before the election. But better rules and co-ordination, though important, will not protect future Cockermouths. For that we need engineering and building programmes and real investment in flood defences that can better protect lives and livelihoods in the first place.
Nothing has changed.
Keith – But better rules and co-ordination, though important, will not protect future Cockermouths. For that we need engineering and building programmes and real investment in flood defences that can better protect lives and livelihoods in the first place.
Best get permission from your ‘EU Green Brussels bureaucrat’ betters before trying to fix your problems. Remember they are in control, not you.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3380694/Britain-s-flooding-crisis-worse-EU-Green-Brussels-bureaucrats-banned-river-dredging-allows-water-drain-faster-say-farmers.html
The Dutch manage to build adequate flood defences despite Brussels. The 2000 Water Directive contains aims not mandatory levels, In fact more than 50% of EU waterways do not meet these aims and many EU countries have it quite clear they intend to ignore it. This directive is simply used as a ‘get out of jail free card’ by British politicians. There is NOTHING in this directive that prevents Cumbria County Council from upgrading town drainage !
This is just marketing from Big Green and Big Charity, they have to both trumpet their “achievements”, but also maintain the sense of alarm, to maintain their income. FOE is just a business, with virtually no impact on the Earth.
I agree. An appeal for funds based climate change might be met by the reply ‘wasn’t that all sorted out in Paris?’. Best to milk the suckers on other issues. Millions of dollars in green charity salaries depend on it.
Mother Nature laughs in the face of the liberals and their magic Fairy Dust !!
Okay, the North Korean crazy ant strategy only goes so far. We have established that.
I think the mistake that has been made is the lack of realism in accepting that climate change is the norm and that adaptation rather than control is currently preferable. I don’t think humans have any clue how to control climate in a benign manner, which makes it prey to psychopathic egos in the 21st century.
I’m all in favour of adaptation strategies/building in resilience to societal infrastructure in the face of extreme weather events, which are a manifestation of climate change over time, what I object to is people thinking they know how climate will evolve when their track records are pretty pitiful.
Most of the blame can be ascribed to the hysterical mainstream media, populated as it is with attention-seeking city dwellers who wouldn’t know what the difference between 5C being wet through due to horizontal rain, -5C being caked in frozen snow due to blizzard conditions and -35C wind-chill due to 60mph gales high up on a mountain at 55N in winter. Anyone who’s lived in an Alpine village through a winter laughs at hysterical London journalists calling a 10cm snowfall ‘extreme weather’. Anyone who’s spent New Year in rural NW Scotland laughs at 6ft of snowdrifts on English hills being called ‘unheard of’, having seen 20ft drifts in corries on regular occasions.
‘Climate Change’ became a means to a journalistic living for a small number of deeply manipulative wordsmiths.
The tragedy was that equally delusional politicians who consider ‘experience’ to be a student debating society followed by being a glorified secretary to an MP for a few years took such wordsmiths seriously and couldn’t see through scientists after million pound grants as charlatans.
Climate’s changed since 1800 all right and jolly good thing too for most human beings. It may well go back to that sort of temperature some time in the future, at which point southern Spain and North Africa might no longer be deserts. After all, with all the oil under the Saharan sand, there must have been a time when it was either an equatorial forest or a forest more akin to those of France and Northern Italy now. So part of ‘resilience plans’ for the human race may be populations moving closer to the equator as such regions become more fertile and more agreeable temperatures.
I told UK politicians a decade ago to focus on three aspects to sustainability:
1. Sustainable construction – most notably the focus on energy-neutral high quality housing.
2. Sustainable transportation – notably modes of transport not reliant on oil.
3. Sustainable energy – again, the technologies needed for cheap available power in a post-oil world.
I still think that’s the most cost-effective things to focus on: creating a great place for humans to live in; continuing to allow humans to move around this earth of ours; and continuing to allow human endeavour to be underpinned by energy inputs.
Shame that so many billions were diverted to carbon dioxide agendas. if they hadn’t been, how much further would we have been down the real environmental issues??
Thanks, Eric Worrall.
I agree, “greens” will reload and move on to other matters, to destroy the civilization that permitted their rise. Defended by the Constitution and voting rights, civilization will defend itself from the barbarians at the gates.
As a child in the St. Louis area around 1960, I experienced the peak of local air pollution. I since have witnessed the elimination of very nearly all the smog that used to choke us. Much of the smoke in our neighborhood was from coal furnaces still being used in homes.
The local steel mills, lead smelter, paper mill and glass works were refitted with pollution controls and made a big change through the seventies, but as regulation became absurdly strict in successive decades, they were closed down.
Only the steel mill has reopened, after being bought by a group of employees and investors. Our economy locally depends mostly on what used to be the world’s largest refinery complex.
As locals are complaining about the odors and water table contamination, there are hints that in another decade or two that will shut down too, just as our coal fired power station is being retired next summer.
In reality, the deindustrialization of the US was started by the EPA half a century ago.
Ectually, re Admiral Byng, Prof N A M Rodger makes a good case that he deserved it and his execution resulted in a change of climate in political patronage and indeed an ‘encouragement’.
Much Cumbrian flooding due to failure to dredge because of European Directive to preserve natural habitats.
This group seems to think that 13% of all deaths in Britain are entirely due to air pollution. That must be why the death rate is so low in places with pristine air like the Congo.
That’s less than the number of deaths that NHS failed to report on. (i.e. clerical death count)
The environmentalists have returned to defend the disruption and carnage of flora and fauna by low-density energy producers, including the solar farms and windmill gauntlets, and obfuscate environmental and social waste caused by shifting “green” production at recovery and reclamation to developing nations?
The BBC is slightly confused regarding the relationship between pollution and CO2/global warming:
“If world leaders arriving in Paris for the COP21 climate talks needed a visual representation of why they were meeting and what was at stake, the smog cloud blanketing Beijing in China could not have happened at a more opportune time.”
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-35091202
BBC = Cretins
They know that the marginal benefit of extremist rhetoric is now negative. In addition, the power elite have ordered a quiet period leading up to the election. The natives are already riled and pounding the table at this point becomes a self directed negative election factor.
Perhaps some of the Greens have glimpsed the on-coming little ice-Age and know that they need to get out of its way. Having the Greens talk about real environmental matters for a change would be refreshing.
After fixing the global climate via the Paris Conference, they have to move on to the next impending catastrophe to remain relevant (i.e. bring in cash)
Friends of the Earth quote from post:
“Rich countries have moved the goal posts so far that we are left with a sham of a deal in Paris.”
These people seem to have a hard time understanding the events that unfold in front of their own eyes. Wasn’t it the poorer nations trying to use cheap energy to lift themselves out of poverty that killed Paris?
Paris actually was an immense breakthrough on this issue, because the usual emissions hype was nonbinding and can be ignored, while there was also an agreement about regenerative agriculture to put carbon back into the soil. This finally is a truly “green” solution that makes both economic and REAL environmental good sense.
I frequently say I hate environmentalists because they’re HELL on the environment, and I find that I usually get agreement. Fighting against the very basis of all Life on land (CO2) is my idea of horror, not virtue. But who does not care about REAL issues such as air and water pollution, soil erosion, etc.? They have finally come up with something where WE CAN WORK WITH THEM.
If you research Permaculture, http://www.originalsonicbloom.com and regenerative agriculture, you will find a subject about which no lies need be told, and which will improve both the quantity and quality of our food.
As we work on these things, those very, very WRONG murderers become a blessing and more and more right. Then they will have the strength to drop the temperature screaming. You all know how much damage they have done to science, the economy, the poor, and so on. It is truly important that we take advantage of this chance to reframe the whole thing.
You can start with that delightful website and the books “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” by Michael Pollan and Schwartz’s “Cows Save the Planet.”
I would imagine they are starting to see their donations dry up as more and more people start to feel played as fools. There are legitimate environmental concerns out there, but all they do is focus on the CO2 money grap. People are simply waking up, and as they do, the credibility of these groups tank.
“Air pollution is killing 50,000 people a year in Britain and our nature has been badly degraded.”
What does Craig Bennett of Friends of the Earth mean by that last part? Are the normally good-natured chaps of Britain becoming more disagreeable and unfriendly?
The FOE are more ignorant certainly.
I grew up in a northern industrial town in the 50’s and 60’s. I remember well the extent of real air pollution when every household burned coal on an open fire. During the frequent smog’s you could barely see across the street and the grey/green colour of it is still a vivid memory. The river Tees was so foul you could smell it before you could see it and if anyone fell in they would be rushed to hospital to have their stomach pumped before being put on a course of broad spectrum antibiotics.
Life expectancy for a man in those days was 67 and most older people in Middlesbrough had chest and lung complaints brought on by a combination of smoking and air pollution. Today life expectancy is 79 and people are on balance far healthier. Clean air has meant that its now practical to sand blast buildings and we have got used to the idea that they are not naturally black. The river is transformed, fish have returned and there are now parks and boating facilities.
This must be some strange new definition of ‘degraded’
Keith they also smoked 2 packs a day or more. That’s the main reason.
When they thought the plague was caught by breathing , they used to smoke out their houses as a defence. Was cigarette smoking a way (they thought) to protect yourself on the go ?
How many people that smoke get the flu ?