Guest essay by John Ridgway
My father, when he was alive, used to be a wire rope salesman. In that capacity he would tour the coalmines of the North of England, trying to sell the cables by which colliers would be lowered into their abyss. One day during the early 1980s, when prime minister Margaret Thatcher was at her zenith, he returned from work to reveal a startling fact:
“I can predict which coalmine is the next to be closed down,” he proclaimed. We all sat back and listened obediently.
Apparently, the National Coal Board had a substantial stock of roof joists that had been purchased to shore up any new excavations. Clearly, in view of the ongoing programme of pit closures, these were soon to become entirely redundant. However, what to do with them in the meantime? The solution was as inspired as it was devious: The entire national stock was to be stored at just one of the collieries. With such a huge overhead of redundant assets to account for, the chosen mine was bound to appear financially unviable when assessed. Accordingly, the coalmine would be summarily closed down and the joists would be moved on to the next hapless pit held firmly within Thatcher’s governmental crosshairs. My father’s peripatetic job enabled him to discern a pattern of behaviour that would have escaped the attention of those whose only clue of impending doom was the unexpected delivery of lorry-loads of shiny new joists. When visiting a pit, all my father needed to observe was the re-appearance of that increasingly familiar pile of beams; then he knew which mine was next for the axe. Thus was Thatcher able to scourge the North of England, like some latter-day William the Conqueror, administering death by spreadsheet.
Nowadays, the erstwhile coalmining communities, bereft of their economic lifeblood, stand as models of the UK’s creaking welfare system. The colliers, once proud and strong men, scuttle about on mobility scooters, sustained by oxygen bottles to mitigate the worst effects of their occupational emphysema. Rusting iron statues adorn many of these villages. They depict the men in their pomp, wielding statuesque picks and shovels; a well-intended homage to the communities’ heritage. It’s just a shame such respect was not forthcoming when it was most needed. I don’t like going home any more.
Whether or not one sees such a sad decline as an inevitable consequence of the depletion of finite resources, the collateral damage resulting from a political war between a government and over-powerful unions, or even the price to be paid to save our children from the risk of global warming, is not the point. The reason I recount this story is that it demonstrates just how easily integrity can be discarded when it gets in the way of a ‘noble’ cause. The roof-joist trick wears the same bouquet of duplicity that I sometimes detect within the advocacy of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW). If only out of loyalty to my scientific upbringing, I would dearly love to accept without question the CAGW arguments on offer. But every time I get the magnifying glass out, I find something creeping amongst the detail that I don’t like the look of. As a result I am left devoted only to my doubts.
We’re All Doing It
Climatology is the motherboard for many causes, each of which may be tainted by short-circuited morality. So let us not kid ourselves, it isn’t just the Water Melons who push the boundaries. Yes, there is the cherry pie baking, the HARKing, the ‘hiding of the decline’ and . . . well, basically everything that Al Gore has ever said on the subject. But on the other hand, it is not uncommon to find opponents of the CAGW hypothesis playing games with the data. We are all desperate to have our instinctive judgement validated, and whenever it happens, you’ve got to admit it, it doesn’t half feel good. Who amongst us can say, hand on heart, that the release of dopamine experienced when the brain rewards us for getting something right1 hasn’t turned us into confirmation junkies? And, as with all drug addiction, there is that temptation to go to any extreme to secure the next fix. That is why it is so important to be constantly on one’s guard. I say I am devoted to doubt, but wouldn’t a true devotee be prepared to doubt such dubiety?
So I have to ask myself, is it the climate science consensus that lacks integrity, or is my scepticism merely a smokescreen for a lack of integrity on my own part? That is certainly what Team CAGW would say: I just don’t want to believe. I’m wantonly ignorant because it doesn’t suit my purposes to support the actions required to deal with the problem (I know most of my Big Oil sponsors certainly feel that way). Or maybe I just hanker for a return to the good old days, perhaps with a miraculously revitalised coal industry. I just can’t accept that the world has changed, and so I’m in denial. That’s it! I’m just a no-good, no-clue climate change denier.
Inevitably, there will be those for whom at least some of the above applies. Which is just fine and dandy, because that gives those on one side of the debate (at least) all the straw men they require to feed their own bias. That’s the best thing about confirmation bias; it endorses the assumption that all your opponents come from the same degenerate stock. When we promote our position, we do so against the weakest version of our opponents’ argument and then unfairly attribute this weak reasoning to all our adversaries. This habit of placing all opponents into the same psychological camp is an obvious error to make and, therefore, should be easy to avoid. But, unfortunately, this is not the case. As a CAGW supporter, you can even get a degree in such stereotyping – it’s called ecopsychology.
I Talk to the Trees, But They Don’t Listen to Me
The basic idea behind ecopsychology is that mankind’s modern disconnect with nature is a prime source of the ecological disrespect that you see exemplified by your typical CAGW sceptic. Furthermore, the malaise has resulted in such a profound loss of psychological integrity that CAGW scepticism is tantamount to a psychiatric condition; not only are we disconnected from nature, but by failing to accept the self-evident truth of CAGW we are also patently disconnected from reality. We should all hang our heads in delusional shame.
In truth, ecopsychology is a pretty heady cocktail of cod psychology and environmentalism that begs outright dismissal. But how many of us have a degree in ecopsychology from Naropa University, the Viridis Graduate Institute, Prescott College Arizona, or any of the other equally world famous seats of learning that offer such a qualification? Have you even engaged in the ‘Ferocious Integrity GreenWave Process’ yet? I’m guessing not. So perhaps we should withhold our hasty judgement, and work just a little harder for our next dopamine fix. For my part, I didn’t want to casually dismiss the ecopsychology phenomenon without having first looked into it in some depth. So I spent more time than I should have, scouring the internet for a deeper understanding of what it is all about.
I’d like to say that I’ve now fathomed the ecopsychology movement, but the further I descended the rabbit hole, the curiouser and curiouser it all got for me.2 The only thing that I could discern with any surety is that you don’t need to understand even the basics of environmental science to have gained your master’s degree – though it does help to have hugged the odd tree or two. So, actually, I quite resent the idea that such people can pontificate upon my lack of mental integrity when they have invested so little of themselves in ensuring the integrity of their own beliefs.
Shall we leave it there? There is another popular denunciation of scepticism that I’d like to address.
Uncertainty for Hire
Naomi Oreskes has done more than most to explore the motivation of those who would oppose the consensus view on climate change. In her book, ‘Merchants of Doubt’, she posits that such opposition closely parallels previous attempts to discredit inconvenient science. Amongst her examples are the historical challenges against the idea that smoking causes cancer, that acid rain is destroying our forests, and that CFCs are depleting the ozone layer. In each case, as she explains, organisations with vested interests employed scientists to apply a veneer of respectability to tendentious uncertainty.
I don’t doubt that she has a point, but it isn’t one that has any bearing on my own outlook. As far as I am concerned, all she succeeds in doing is to reinforce the view that scientists do not operate in a social or political vacuum and so one has to be circumspect in accepting what any of them have to say, whether or not they are on the fringe. It is important that she highlights the problem, but her argument is oversold when she opines that folk such as myself have been beguiled into trusting bogus science and that is why we are unprepared to sign up to Club Ninety Seven. The truth is that I had a road to Damascus experience3 in which I was forced to abandon my naïve view of scientists. I came to realise that modern day science is much messier and more prone to abuse than it was in the days of Newton, Maxwell and Einstein. It is this disenchantment that robs me of my unconditional faith in the majority.
So I hate to burst the Oreskes bubble, but the seeds of my scepticism were not sown by the likes of Seitz and Singer; my scepticism was nurtured by the output of the likes of Michael Mann, Rosanne D’arrigo, Phil Jones and whoever it is who is writing the IPCC’s executive summaries. Unlike Naomi Oreskes, I do not accept that climate science’s integrity was broken as a result of political interference from the right wing, or the left for that matter. It had already been broken once the majority of climate scientists started to adopt unfalsifiable speculation as their primary role.4 The political intriguing is only possible because climatology lacks the scientific rigour to withstand it. Unconcerned with any of this, Oreskes seems to think that a scientific consensus is sufficient proof of integrity but, unfortunately, integrity is like Humpty Dumpty; once it is broken, not all the king’s horses and all king’s men can put it back together again. Playing the consensus card just doesn’t help.
By having such faith in scientific consensus,5 Oreskes sees a greater significance in the political backing of the minority view than she does for the majority. As far as the minority is concerned, she presumes that it requires its political backing because it has no scientific validity by which it can stand on its own two feet. In contrast, the majority position is self-validating, and the fact that it has political support in bucket loads is quite immaterial. In her world view everything is rather simple: Scientific consensus engenders political admiration – it’s all very innocent. Fringe views only survive because of political skulduggery – it’s all very shady. Am I alone in finding such an analysis naïve?
As I see it, the Oreskes argument is ultimately disingenuous. As with so many denouncements of scepticism, it confidently inveighs against a presupposed loss of integrity whilst failing to acknowledge that the integrity upon which such confidence is founded is far from secure. However, Naomi Oreskes is not alone in failing to recognise the prejudicial nature of her noble quest.
In the Integrity of Certitude We Trust
There are many ways to lose integrity. In some cases the individuals concerned are quite aware of the moral and ethical ramifications of what they say or do. Those who were ferrying joists from pit to pit back in the 1980s knew what they were up to, but they did it just the same because they believed in the righteousness of their cause. Likewise, scientists who may be tempted to tune their climate models purely to fit the existing record will do so because they wish to be part of a group who they believe are shining a light on the truth, even though they must realise such tuning is not a legitimate practice. That said, loss of integrity does not necessarily entail deliberate deception. It may result simply through the abandonment of an open mind.
If you look on YouTube you can find a number of presentations on the theme of ‘How to talk to a climate change denier’.6 Such advice, you will find, is offered in earnest tones, reminiscent of those used in Sunday School. There is no way that such individuals would see themselves as lacking integrity. Indeed, the sincerity is suffocating. However, as you peruse the advice on offer, you will search in vain for that most valuable of all: Try listening carefully to your so-called denier to discern whether there is any truth or wisdom behind what they are saying. The reason why this advice cannot be found is because it makes no sense to want to understand someone’s point of view when all that is really wanted or expected is compliance. This, I believe, is a serious mistake, as it is only by challenging one’s own views that one can safeguard their integrity. I hesitate to say it, since it is such a cliché, but this sort of approach is pure religion. As with all the attacks on climate science scepticism, there is more than a hint of the ‘he who hath no faith’ admonishment about it.
Last night I had a nightmare. I dreamt there was a knock on the door, and when I answered, standing before me was a family attired in smart suits, clutching leather satchels. The head of the family stepped forward and, thrusting a leaflet into my hand, said, “Did you know that Al Gore loves you?”
I woke up in a cold sweat. I had foreseen the death of integrity.7
Notes:
1 There are several good books available that provide an accessible account of the brain chemistry accompanying our decision-making. For example, I can recommend, ‘The Decisive Moment’, by John Lehrer, ISBN 978 1 84767 313 8. In the United Sates the same book was published under the title, ‘How We Decide’. I think the main point to take away from reading such material is that cognitive biases are universal. One cannot use them to explain climate change ‘denial’ unless you are also willing to explain how they cause blind faith in the scientific consensus. The reality is that psychological explanations are two a penny.
2 I gave up after reading, ‘We helped each other realize that our love for or attraction to Nature that we were exploring was our 54 natural senses organically registering Albert Einstein’s Higgs Boson Unified Attraction Field attracting all things into consciously belonging in the Universe’s time and space of the moment’. I think it’s fair to say that ecopsychologists are not the CAGW theory’s finest ambassadors.
3 Actually, it happened about thirty years ago on my journey back from work. Someone was being interviewed on my car radio about a new and relatively little-known hypothesis. The interviewee was concerned that by restricting research funding exclusively to this new idea, the government was at risk of eventually undermining the integrity and credibility of the scientific discipline concerned. This was my introduction to the economic, political and sociological reality of science. It was also my introduction to an interesting new hypothesis called Anthropogenic Global Warming.
4 And then, of course, came Climategate.
5 I believe it was Professor Oreskes who started the whole ‘my army is bigger than your army’ series of papers with: Oreskes, N. (2004), “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.”, Science, 306: 1686. PMID 15576594, doi:10.1126/science.1103618.
6 A particularly revealing one is offered by George Marshall of Climate Outreach. But be warned, it requires investing twenty minutes of your life and you will never get it back.
7 This essay is dedicated to the memory of my father, John Simpson Ridgway. RIP dad.
The same people who say ‘we must save the earth for our children’ have pushed so much debt on their children without concern. The economics of debt are pretty cut and dried while the economics of global warming are squishy at best. Slimey is perhaps a better description.
Naomy Oreskes is awfully ignorant in statistics and does not know this sad fact. She wrote a popular article where her argument on validity of consensus was based on formula from probability theory describing outcomes of a series of independent trials with the same probability of individual outcomes, like multiple tossing of a coin. It is completely irrelevant to consensus since opinions of individual scientists are not random and are not independent. Such elementary blunder makes it impossible to take her seriously on anything.
She is entirely a political animal and knows exactly which errors to use to get the results she wants.
Integrity? Hahahahahaha! Surely you jest.
I like “The Nightmare”.
Climate witnesses. “Have you heard the BAD news? Man is destroying the planet….” . Trouble is, IMHO, they are nowhere near as polite as the JWs and often resort to foul language and threats. It’s a religion with hate and anger just bubbling below the surface. I lance the pus whenever possible. Can be messy especially in mixed company or at posh dinner parties.
Warmist psychologizing (=demonizing) of their opponents doesn’t explain green apostates like Lovelock (Delingpole interviews Lovelock):
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/09/james-lovelock-on-voting-brexit-wicked-renewables-and-why-he-changed-his-mind-on-climate-change/
Speaking of Oreskes … Nowadays, Canada’s (very generously) taxpayer funded broadcaster, CBC, rarely lets a program air without paying due obeisance and/or obsequious homage to the purported perils of climate change. In fact, one might say that the CBC has morphed into Canada’s climate propaganda central.
Furthermore, far too frequently for my taste, they often feature proselytizers of doom and gloom such as Hayhoe, Gore and others of the oh-so-green-dreaming ilk. So I cannot say that I was particularly surprised to read that on Thurs. Sept. 14, what used to be an eminently worthwhile daily program hour called Ideas will be featuring:
And to pave the way for Oreskes’ oratory, a few months ago, this same program featured Australia’s Clive Hamilton. An excerpt from the intro:
So much for “integrity”, eh?!
This article is dedicated to his father.
Curiously, note 3 refers to a radio interview that I think may have been with mine.
A great story except for the fact that by that time hydraulic pit props were in use and the embarrasing fact that the previous Labour administration of Harold Wilson closed twice as many pits as Margaret Thatcher’s government. Margaret Thatcher rescued UK from being the ‘sick man of Europe’. You had to live through it to know how dreadful it was before she arrived to save us from destruction.
http://peoplescharter.org/pit-closures-were-a-labour-policy-wilson-shut-twice-as-many-as-thatcher/
With all due respect, tuning models is a perfectly legitimate practice. The issue, IHMO, is more subtle. When you create a model using parameterizations, as climate models do, you are not doing something based on first principles. Therefore, you are in an area called heuristics. Heuristics are used all the time to build models – such as linear programming. Heuristic models cannot be validated based on first principles. They are usually validated based on results. Tuning is one of the methods used to produce better results. What is important is that the models produce useful results. It doesn’t matter that the results aren’t correct. The important thing is that they produce results that are better than not using them. However, IIRC, heuristics can be proven to always be sub-optimal and, therefore, wrong. What is not supportable, IMHO, is claiming that the models are based on first principles, when, in reality, they are heuristic and use approximations and unrealistic parameters, such as atmospheres with hyperviscosity, to produce what appear to be reasonable results and then claiming that they are modeling reality. They are, indeed, creating their own, alternative reality, which can be useful for certain applications and is not, in and of itself, necessarily illegitimate.
Sorry, the entire premise of this article is just wrong:
“I came to realise that modern day science is much messier and more prone to abuse than it was in the days of Newton, Maxwell and Einstein.”
Integrity and abuse are not modern issues. If you look at history, there are charlatans, abusers, and people who are just wrong in every generation.
Look at some of the experiments done during Hitler’s Germany. The stories of quack doctor’s or scientists claiming they solved cold fusion or found the missing link or know the secret of eternal youth. How many failed theories in every generation or time period?
The difference between now and the past is more a function of quantity than quality. There is much more information, but is the percentage of correct versus wrong information/beliefs any different than in the past? I really do not know.
The idiots have stopped all normal independent analysis which is based on facts.
It is Goffus Fascism, enthusiastic, forced chaos where we fight about everything and never solve any problems.
There is no AGW problem to solve.
The developed countries’ GDPs are now growing at 2 to 3 percent per year, yet we are still spending as if our GDPs were growing at 4 to 5 percent per year. We have not even discussed this problem.
We do not hence have any money to spend on green scams that do not work.
Roy Spencer – Cost Vs CO2 Reduction Paradox, Run out of money problem. No solution to a problem that does not exit.
If the energy to construct the green scams and the reduction in electric grid efficiency is taken into account, the maximum that solar and wind can reduction CO2 emission is less than 20%, regardless as to how much is spent. (need batteries to reduce more, however the if the energy to construct the batteries is taken into account there is almost no reduction in CO2).
A wonderful essay John and very well done. Thank-you.
Astonishing to learn about pit props being the arbiters of coal mine closures. I joined the NCB at 19 on 1st January 1962. After 2 years of night school & a year of day release studying marketing, I came to realise there was no future for me there as all that I was learning would not ever be applied by my employer. Consequently, I gave a month’s notice on 1st May 1965. The exit interview questions put to me, only revealed the antediluvian mindset that permeated the hallowed halls of Hobart House. My answers fell upon deaf ears. Coal is king & don’t you forget it, seemed to be the consensus. Does that sound familiar?
My former wife’s family were Geordies who lived in Craghead, in the land of the Prince Bishops. They are all dead now. Her step father was a coal miner. He went down Craghead pit aged 13 in 1943 & came up when it closed in 1969. The only work thereafter for many of his mates & for him, was mending roads. After a severe heart attack, he could not walk into a stiff County Durham breeze & he died before he reached 70. Earlier today, I found four videos about Craghead colliery in the 1960s. Watching the miners & their families face the pit closure was deeply personal to me. Those people had integrity. Their stoicism in the face of such hardships is something today’s dysgenic snowflakes can & will never understand & they remain diminished by their failures.
Craghead pit: Parts 1 & 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPYK2Os7Fho
Craghead village: Parts 1 & 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AkKOrYx8xY
The coal mine story and indeed the whole article seem to be missing a point or conclusion and are internally inconsistent. Who in the story is lacking integrity? Is the author suggesting that Thatcher and her government did not know which coal mines to shut and after each pit closure really started from scratch looking to find the least productive and then shut that one. In which case why was the National Coal Mining Board trying to shut down coal mines and get rid of their jobs. But then it is stated that the board moved the joists to “next hapless pit held firmly within Thatcher’s governmental crosshairs” which suggests that the coal board knew which pit was going to be closed and so there was no lack of integrity.
Next the authors appears to blame the closure of the coal mines for the diseases suffered by the workers, e.g. “The colliers, once proud and strong men, scuttle about on mobility scooters, sustained by oxygen bottles to mitigate the worst effects of their occupational emphysema”. If anything this would point to the closure of the coal mines as being a good thing. Coal mining in Britain was an ecological disaster – for example see the last scene of Get Carter which shows a real coal mine dumping slag directly into the North Sea. In addition mining ruined the health of coal miners which is still one of the most dangerous occupations around. Although in fact the only thing worse than being a coal miner was being an unemployed ex-coal miner. The problem was not that the mines were closed it was that Thatcher did not care what happened to the miners after they lost jobs.
Then the rest of the essay appears to be rambling from topic to topic without making any conclusions or points. His conclusion then appears to suggest that
the coal board was playing both Thatcher and the miners for fools by secretly deciding which coal mines to close and that if only they had more integrity and fewer roofs joists Britain would still be a proud nation of miners. Which is complete nonsense.
An excellent summary, I come from a family of colliers, potters and engineers from Staffordshire. Plenty of pride but plenty of drinking and fighting too. Getting out of the pit to work in a pot bank or foundry was the ambition which tells you how bad working down the pit was. My father got into grammar school and then university and we didn’t look back.
http://www.thepotteries.org/potworks_wk/133.htm
One correction here. “Coal slag” is a byproduct of the combustion of coal, not the mining of coal (other than a relatively small amount resulting from the generation of power for the equipment). I think you mean “spoil” – the material that is not coal, but has to be removed to access the desired product. Of course, it is not a good idea to dump spoil directly into a body of water when you can’t be certain of exactly what all is in it.
Coal slag is actually a rather useful material for sandblasting, because it is an alumina-silicate glass produced by the intense heat of a coal boiler from the small amounts of “not coal” that is still in the fuel supply. Compared to slag from smelting, it has very little metal contamination – and, being black, it is very easy to tell whether you have cleaned up every bit of it after the blasting (or, if you are using a vacuum collection system, when the dang thing has sprung a leak).
Writing Observer September 11, 2017 at 3:17 pm
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One correction here. “Coal slag” is a byproduct of the combustion of coal, not the mining of coal (other than a relatively small amount resulting from the generation of power for the equipment). I think you mean “spoil” – the material that is not coal, but has to be removed to access the desired product.
‘Slag heaps’ certainly did refer to what are now apparently referred to as spoil heaps, it was certainly the term used in the mining districts by the locals. Also mines were closed down because there were no longer sufficient reserves left, the idea that you can continue mining a resource for over a century from small deep mines and not run out is rather odd. Up to the early 60s the UK was a coal based country, every house was supplied with coal gas, in ten years it switched over to natural gas from the N sea, that had a great impact on the industry but the likes of Arthur Scargill refused to acknowledge that.
That’s funny. I understood it perfectly well.
Most of the items on that list are confirmation bias at play. Some effects of such things as acid rain, CFCs, etc. are observable – but are a minor player in the “crisis” at hand. (As is CO2 in climate change.) A few of these, alas, are outright fraudulent (such as the “consensus”).
In fact, the only completely well-founded assertion in the list is “smoking causes lung cancer” – which, if properly stated, is “smoking enormously increases the likelihood of developing lung cancer.” The latter is well-established, the earlier statement is a simplification for alarmist purposes. The majority of smokers will still not develop lung cancer (partially, of course, due to the fact that a large number succumb to emphysema before they get the chance).
However, even there, I have little truck with “interventions” to reduce smoking – there are many, many other environmental contributors to the development of lung cancer, and those are outside of the simple control of the individual, unlike choosing to smoke or not smoke. Remediation efforts, government or otherwise, should be focused on those factors. Other than ensuring that fraud is not perpetrated on the consumer, which has already been accomplished, the busybodies have no business.
I would like to see an honest study of the “second-hand smoke” issue; there is an area where both sides have created biased studies. It is quite reasonable to believe that there is some causation there – but how significant? Somewhere between “no effect” and “same as a two pack a day smoker” – but where?
Writing Observer September 11, 2017 at 2:53 pm
In fact, the only completely well-founded assertion in the list is “smoking causes lung cancer” – which, if properly stated, is “smoking enormously increases the likelihood of developing lung cancer.” The latter is well-established, the earlier statement is a simplification for alarmist purposes. The majority of smokers will still not develop lung cancer (partially, of course, due to the fact that a large number succumb to emphysema before they get the chance).
However, even there, I have little truck with “interventions” to reduce smoking – there are many, many other environmental contributors to the development of lung cancer, and those are outside of the simple control of the individual, unlike choosing to smoke or not smoke. Remediation efforts, government or otherwise, should be focused on those factors. Other than ensuring that fraud is not perpetrated on the consumer, which has already been accomplished, the busybodies have no business.
There may be ‘many other’ contributors to lung cancer but over 80% of cases are associated with smoking so that is the best place to start! Maggie Thatcher had the right idea, increase the tax on cigarettes every year, when told that if the tax went up to high then the revenues would go down she said ‘good!’.
The extremely strong correlation between risk and number smoked leaves little doubt of the cause:
Lung cancer death risk is around 5 times higher in smokers of 1-4 cigarettes per day, around 12 times higher in smokers of 8-12 cigarettes per day; at least 24 times higher in smokers of 25+ cigarettes per day; and 39 times higher in smokers of 42+ cigarettes per day, all compared with never-smokers (UK stats).
Smokers are about 6 times more likely to develop emphysema than non-smokers. About the same number die each year from lung cancer and COPD.
So? The only reason to intervene on this is that YOU think that YOU have the DUTY to control other people for “their own good.”
Now, Maggie might have had a justification for cigarette taxes – she couldn’t possibly get rid of the NHS, so the (non-smoking) taxpayers did have an interest in eliminating a bad health habit.
However – much as I admire Maggie’s memory, she was a hypocrite! I don’t know whether there was a corresponding increase in taxes on Scotch, for instance – but I’m QUITE sure I would have heard about the start of the Second English Civil War when she tripled the price of beer!
Here’s a quote from Howe’s budget statement:
“First, the duties on alcoholic drinks and tobacco. From midnight tonight I propose to increase the duties on drinks by amounts which, including VAT, represent about 4p on the price of a typical pint of beer, 12p on a bottle of table wine, 25p on a bottle of sherry, and 60p on a bottle of spirits.
On tobacco, I propose from midnight on Friday to increase the duty by an amount which, including VAT, will represent 14p on a typical packet of 20 cigarettes.
There will be consequential increases for other alcoholic drinks and tobacco products but a little less for pipe tobacco, which is used particularly by pensioners. I estimate that the increase on alcoholic drinks will yield £500 million in 1981–82 and £515 million in a full year. The increases on tobacco will raise almost exactly the same.”
WO,
Wine and beer are food as well as drugs. Even distilled spirits provide empty calories, and might have some beneficial effects in moderation.
Tobacco OTOH has little to no redeeming value.
For those adamant that ‘smoking causes cancer’ http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/editorials/vol-1/e1-4.htm
Well done article. However, the point is still that 7% of the lung cancer cases can be avoided – by individual decision (which should be made on real information). So government should not be involved in this area.
Many other things are not under the easy control of the individual – high radon levels in houses built on granite without adequate ventilation – heavy dust from construction sites – insulation misused – transportation emissions. There are proper areas for intervention by society through government (although one must watch that the intervention is not a bandage over the real problem that might ameliorate the immediate issue but cause more damage elsewhere – an all too common result of government regulation).
Secular returns, political and social leverage, and some protection rackets, too.
From the post:
Interesting that here in the US most of Hillary’s votes came from urban, rather than rural areas.
Most rural people are surrounded by the reality of nature and their livelihood depends on understanding it.
Most urban people are surrounded by concrete and don’t realize that it is the rural people that put food on the shelves of their local supermarket.
Talk about a “disconnect”!
Mod, bad. delete this one and keep the next.
(I’d misspelled the first “blockquote”.)
[Done. .mod]
Global Warming as it first appeared in New Zealand back in the 1990s did not seem that scary until the Kyoto Accord .Our politicians rushed to sign up as they thought that with our abundance of hydro electric power that our carbon footprint was low and it would not cost the country anything in carbon credits. Unfortunately activists at Kyoto pushed for farmed livestock to be included in the treaty because they maintained that the methane emitted from the ruminating was a danger and a green house gas and this had to be taken into account . When I examined this claim [ as I have farmed all my life ] I came to the conclusion that methane from livestock can not make any difference to the temperature of the planet .CO2 is vital to all plant growth and animals eat plants and belch methane as they ruminate .I found that the half life of methane in the atmosphere is 8.4 years and that methane is broken down into CO2 and water vapor in the upper atmosphere .The CO2 is then absorbed by vegetation .and the cycle starts again .The methane level is increasing but it cannot be from farmed livestock . I have a brother who is a scientist and he believes in global warming because he says that CO2 has been proven in laboratories to warm the air but I disagree with him and I believe that the effect of raised levels of CO2 is much exaggerated in the real world . I have challenged him to prove that methane from livestock can be proven to warm the world and he cannot and I challenge anyone else to prove this theory .I mean prove it not just say someone said this or that ,Finally in conclusion I have become a skeptic and the more I hear how scientists hear in New Zealand and overseas are changing facts and temperatures of earlier years the more I am convinced that the whole climate change story is a scam.I
Here in Western Canada I cannot for the life of me tell the difference between today’s weather and that of the mid 1970’s. Almost 60 years of “Catastrophic Warming” and sweet F.A. to show for it. It would be a joke if not for the billions being borrowed from future growth and thrown down a hole! The West is approaching a fiscal wall at breakneck speed and still pedal to the metal.
Still they tell us they have the answers and still we believe and elect the damn liars!
Gwan,
In regards the question of whether or not methane from livestock causes global warming, my question would be what sort of evidence would you accept?
Clearly we cannot create a second earth with identical conditions apart from non-farting cows, so there is no way of creating a control. You state that you believe that CO2 has been proven in the lab to be a greenhouse gas and presumably you would accept that methane can be proven to be a greenhouse gas in the lab as well. So would you accept the evidence that in the lab methane acts as a green house gas and we know that livestock produce methane and so therefore livestock contribute to global warming?
There can never be a direct measure of the global warming (or lack of it) due to a single cause since there is only one atmosphere and at any one time there are multiple things happening (volcanic eruptions, CO2 emissions, methane emissions, aerosol emissions, land use changes etc etc). Attribution can only be done using computer models which again I guess you don’t believe in.
It’s Gwan’s brother who believes in CAGW. Read his last sentence again Germinio. Gwan wrote: ” I have become a skeptic and the more I hear how scientists hear in New Zealand and overseas are changing facts and temperatures of earlier years the more I am convinced that the whole climate change story is a scam.”
How did we get into today’s climate science quagmire or, as Trump would say, swamp? The simple answer is the mass media have simply ignored scientific results that do not fit their preferred narrative. The death of integrity, the distinction between good and bad or right and wrong behavior, is a philosophical answer. But integrity is in the eye of the beholder. I suspect both the climate alarmists and the climate deniers would lay claim to the high ground.
We need to name the perpetrators of the death of integrity. The use of debate and reason that worked so well for our forebears to advance civilization has been abandoned by the New Left. Instead, they now embrace the philosophy of Saul Alinsky, radical community organizer whose disciples include Obama and Clinton. Alinsky preached, “The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost: of means, only whether they will work.” That is, the ends justify the means, the holy mantra of the New Left. Right and wrong and debate and reason have no place in Alinsky’s vision. The death of integrity can be laid at the feet of the Alinskyites and their fellow travelers, the bulk of the mass media.
Cherry picking goes on all the time, it is just that it usually goes unnoticed as the results don’t have wide economic implications. Like the correlation of the Christiansen Trough in infrared to feldspar in the plagioclase series. Nash made such a nice graph and it fits so well to his 7 data points. For all the earth, the poor man had only budget to study 7 rocks? Or maybe the correlation trend falls apart? Well, with more data, it does. Remote sensing of planetary rocks for plagioclase use this trend. It probably produces all sorts of spurious and irrelevant garbage. No one can check Nash by plotting, I dunno, 10 rocks? No one but me apparently. It is not the trivialty by which the data is manipulated, it is the triviality by which it is disproven that is so amazing.
As God is my witness I thought you made ecopyschology up for the post.
Uranus is one of the weather gods. Shu is the Egyptian god of the atmosphere. I forget the names for the Maya/Aztec gods and of course, there are many other primitive tribal names.
I’m thinking of sacrificing a goat cheese, a cheap Sicilian red, and some good crusty bread to the Gods of Weather before the next Atlantic hurricane pops up. Maybe I should ask them to send a massive storm to the West Coast. A little rain on LaLa Land would do the lefties a world of good.
People with integrity are called sucker these days. I’ve even heard them called “deplorables”.
I came across this posting way too late. No one will read this but, in the interest of accuracy, maybe I should point out that John Ridgeway’s story about the “joists” is generally accurate but misses a couple of interesting points.
First, they weren’t joists. They were colliery arches. Joists are like beams (an H section). Normal arches were curved joists, three sections were bolted together to make the arch that supported the roof of an underground roadway.
These particular arches were unusual because they were not preformed curved joists (“H”s) but “T” sections. A fancy new design to save steel. Someone very senior indeed in the National Coal Board had been to a big International Coal Mining trade fair and had ordered a bulk purchase of these wretched things. A huge order.
These were to be delivered to the mines in the Barnsley Area. (Not sure if they went elsewhere as well) and at that time Barnsley Area was doing a Major Project (second only to the Selby Project). Lots of new development. Lots of new tunnels. Lots of arches needed.
No-one had told the Managers of the mines to expect these things. One Manager took one look at them, pointed out that he hadn’t ordered them, could find no evidence that the fancy “T” sections were approved for underground use (they weren’t. A time consuming but essential testing programme to demonstate they were fit for purpose.) My friend the Manager turned the lorries around and sent them away. (He got demoted for that!)
At another nearby mine, they built a section of roadway underground, which promptly collapsed. By a miracle, no-one was badly injured. But Her Majesty’s Inspector of Mines got involved and banned them for use underground. There would no doubt have been a big stink kicked up. But the guy who had ordered them was VERY senior!
Another Manager at another nearby mine had a better solution. He had a massive hole dug in the mine’s spoil heap. As the lorries full of brand new but useless arches came in, they were taken straight up the spoil heap and burried. Sensible, I suppose. He probably intended digging them up and selling them for scrap when the ‘heat was off’, but by then, the Manager was gone and the pit was closed, after the 1984-5 strike.
Anyway, the other pits had mountains of these useless arches. At one mine (OK, let’s name names, it was the ‘new’ Kinsley Drift Mine), I was a Chartered Engineer trying to finish the new mine surface, I had to pay Contractors well over a hundred thousand pounds to shift them, build the new stockyard and shift them back again. Madness. It was years later, after numerous ridiculous schemes to ‘use’ them for something, and after the strike, that they were sold off as scrap.
Maybe this was a Machevellian scheme to close mines, as John suggests. I am tempted by that scenario. But it seems more likely that the Very Senior guy who ordered them got a free fishing rod at the trade fair and the rest of it was sheer incompetence.
Unbelievable? Couldn’t agree more and I thought so at the time. Doesn’t detract from John’s piece but perhaps right to lift the lid after all these years.
Lots more could be said about other comments. Don’t forget that the Selby Project, envied by Coal Mining Engineers around the world, may have been way more expensive than it should have been (and designed with rose-tinted spectacles – like Major Projects always are), but exceeded design output and produced good coal safely at a third of the cost of German mines at the time. It was closed down seven years after privatisation, partly because of management incompetence, partly because it was clear that the market had been rigged against coal by the Labour Party government. Eager to betray their traditional supporters. Thanks, Ed Miliband!
I worked in the UK electronics industry from the early 1970s. for all the big names Ferranti, Plessey, GEC (not the American company), ICL and some lesser known ones as well*. All now long gone. It seems to me that mismanagement at the highest levels has escaped blame in the decline in UK manufacturing. It has become a Unions/Thatcher argument. Many years ago I saw an interview with the last Stephen (Alexander Stephen I think) to manage the Clyde Shipyard owned by his family. His final comment was “Perhaps I wasn’t very good at managing a shipyard” he probably wasn’t and wasn’t alone.
* One of the reasons for the variety was factory closures and redundancy.
I also worked at Plessey and partially agree with your views but feel you have ignored the fact that both Ferranti and GEC were victims of being sold worthless companies by the Americans. Had any non U.S. company tried frauds like the ones perpetrated on Ferranti and GEC on a U.S. one, the directors would have been extradited and faced very lengthy prison sentences. The US companies concerned were never punished at all to the shame of their legal profession and government.
The take over of Plessey by GEC in spite of a near zero expertise by GEC in electronics was surprising until one realised that several senior ministers who gave the deal the green light subsequently got senior positions in the merged company in spite of them also having zero background in any aspect of the industry.
The last straw was the huge 3G licence burden that Brown extorted from the telecomms industry That at a stroke ended so many design contracts to pay this tax by another name. This took us from word leaders to tail end charlie in less than two years in this fast moving industry and to add insult to injury there was a commons enquiry into the lack of 3G coverage in the UK compared to other far eastern countries.
Thank you so much, Martin, for this fascinating insight. I have wondered for years just how reliable my father’s anecdote was. After reading your post I am inclined to agree that incompetence and mismanagement were playing a major role. At the end of the day, my father was engaging in a conspiracy theory and it is often difficult to separate conspiracy from cockup. The only thing that can be said for sure is that those props would have been a significant liability to the pits that ‘owned’ them. I find it very plausible that they would have featured in an assessment of financial viability and I feel I have to respect my father’s claim that he had discerned a pattern of behaviour. The exact nature of the failure of integrity, however, is difficult to fathom, but your post goes a long way towards throwing a light on the things that were going on at the time. I would also like to thank you for clarifying the nature of the ‘joists’. The incorrect use of terminology is entirely my fault. I am sure my father would have got it right at the time. As you clearly appreciate, this does not detract from the message I was trying to convey.
Also, on quite a different subject, I would like to point out to those who are critical of my political position regarding the Thatcher era, that I did not actually reveal it, since I feel to have done so would detract from the article’s purpose. By simply pointing out that her government actively pursued a policy of mine closures, and by expressing sympathy for the current state of affairs in the mining villages, I was not tacitly sympathising with the NUM’s position. As someone who was brought up living in the Barnsley coalfield area, and who then married a coalminer’s daughter, I would like to think that I have a better insight on the subject than someone who once watched Get Carter. Nevertheless, I shall keep my views to myself.
Arthur Scargill declared war on the community and not just the government so Thatcher opposed him. Once that war was won at a huge cost to Yorkshire mining, Thatcher wanted to reward the Nottinghamshire miners who shortened the battle considerably by supporting her but the green lobby led I seem to remember by Goldsmith blocked that and continued the battle against the very people who had supported her.
Maggie was stabbed in the back for trying to honour her debt to the non striking miners. You need contacts in all three camps to get any insight at all into the issue. It was dirty fighting on two of the three sides and only the Nottinghamshire miners came out with integrity intact if not with their jobs.
Thanks, John.
I think it likely that, were you and I (and your dad, in spirit) able to have a chat over a pint (and with others with actual experience and memories of 1984-5, rather than those whose opinions were formed from the media propaganda at the time!), we would have little disagreement.
I have to say that I had considerable respect for the miners, both in 1984 and always afterwards. Respect for their leaders? Absolutely not. And precious little for the way HMG ‘won’ the battle. Although I recognise that it was essential that the battle against the communist leadership HAD to be won.
Whether that justified the frankly illegal tactics HMG used at times is a moot point. Whether it was essential to have as much “collatoral damage” both to the mining communities and subsequently to the Country’s coal industry, seems highly unlikely.
Conspiracy. Yes. There is no doubt whatever, that many aspects of HMG’s planning for the strike amounted to a conspiracy. Not just obvious moves like re-commissioning shuttered oil power stations and building coal stocks to record levels. But there were a raft of otherwise hard-to-understand things going on. Imposed bonus schemes richly benefitted the Barnsley miners, as did the decision to invest 1.5 Billion in Barnsley, when all the best coal had long since been extracted. Why? Perhaps to keep Barnsley happy until, with coal stocks at capacity, they announced the Closure of Cortonwood (long overdue for closure, make no mistake!).
And Scargill fell for it AND refused a ballot which he almost certainly would have won.
No prizes for guessing who had to meet the Bill for it all. The miners and Great Britain plc.