Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Conversation, if climate activists made more effort to engage with ordinary people in deprived areas, they would reject well paid coal mining jobs.
Britain has its first new deep coal mine in decades – a result of pretending climate change isn’t political
March 22, 2019 5.18am AEDT
Rebecca Willis
Researcher in Environmental Policy and Politics, Lancaster University…
How can a country with such strong ambitions to reduce carbon emissions, approve a plan to increase them so significantly? My research, which is based on interviews with MPs and looks at how politicians understand and respond to climate change, suggests why such a contradictory situation could have arisen.
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Which takes us back to those local politicians in Cumbria who decided to approve the coal mine. Look at it from their point of view. Local authorities have no clear responsibilities or targets to reduce carbon (though it is a factor in planning law). Local politics, in an economically deprived area, is dominated by the need for good employment. Dangle 500 jobs, even high carbon jobs, in front of a local planning committee; make a claim that this is in line with climate commitments; add in the cultural norms that I described above, which make it difficult for politicians to make a political case for climate action; and it’s not surprising that the answer comes out as a yes.
Of course, the local councillors should take responsibility for the decision they have made. But responsibility lies elsewhere as well. National climate policy failed Cumbria in two ways. First, a decade of ambiguity and inconsistency – the price paid for lack of proper debate – means that there is no direct line of sight between carbon targets set at a national level, and individual decisions taken by local councils. And second, climate policy has been top-down and expert-led, with no attempt made to engage citizens or local areas in the need for, and benefits of, the transition to a zero-carbon society.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/britain-has-its-first-new-deep-coal-mine-in-decades-a-result-of-pretending-climate-change-isnt-political-114028
In my opinion Cumbria exposes the lie that climate activists plan to take care of fossil fuel workers whose livelihoods they intend to destroy. Nobody took care of coal miners in Britain; people living in deprived former British coal mining regions were left to rot.
Now British coal is starting to make a small comeback, only now do activists bother to notice the people they ignored for so long.
Update (EW): Fixed a typo (h/t Bloke down the pub)
… only now do activists bother to notice the people they ignored for so long …
The same may be said for the whole political class in the UK; in fact in the Western world. Think Brexit; Wall; Pipelines; Yellow Jackets
All of this angst because of a CLAIM that higher CO2 levels are a CRISIS with no scientific evidence to support such a claim.
Whenever I ask people for evidence CO2 is the cause of climate change they send me here usually;
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
And then I laugh!
100%.
Talking of hammers and anvils, steel. Anyone noticed the UK preparation for a bad Brexit – Operation Yellowhammer?
As a keen UK observer noted, definitely not named after the little bird,
rather to hammer any possible Yellow Vest activity.
Macron would be proud.
I have visited many ex coal mining communities in the north and it infuriates me that not only have the climate science frauds destroyed the mining jobs at the heart of the community but the community self respect as well. Mining and steam technology were the real cause of the end of slavery not some nebulous law passed by some self righteous politician. Instead of this being recognised and praised fossil fuel is treated as a criminal act based on computer models no decent modeller would rate above bottom end junk standard based on data of an even lower standard.
Gerry, a cursory glance at Wikipedia’s entry for EU Bilateral Trade Agreements and its footnotes demostrates that the EU has precisely 2 Free Trade Agreements in place (Mexico and S Korea).
It has in place 36 other bilateral agreements of various sorts. Most of them are limited in scope. Apart from the agreement with Japan which is the world’s largest bilateral trade deal, all the other agreements are with such giants of the world economy as Montenegro, Albania, the Bailiwick of Jersey, Andorra, Jordan et etc. And they’re not full FTAs either.
A number of other bilateral agreements are at various stages of negotiation or implementation. They are similar to the non-Japan agreements mentioned above in mgnitude and importance.
Nothing in any of the above agreements precludes a UK independent of Brussels entering into its own bilateral agreements with giant economies of the world like Georgia, Iceland, Burkino Fasso etc.
More importantly, Japan, China, USA, India, Australia, Canada, NZ, S Africa, Singapore, the Gulf States (you know the really large, wealthy economies in the world – most of which have very strong links to UK as former Dominions/Colonies/Protectorates and Commonwealth members anyway) will enter into bilateral agreements with UK (we’re only the 5th largest economy overall in the world, and the 5th largest manufacturing economy in the world), the moment UK is free to enter into its own bilateral trade agreements again ie when it leaves the EU.
I will not say more – this is off topic and I am not going to hijack this thread any more than it already has been. You’re just plain wrong in everything you’ve said.
CO2 ability to create heat is Logarithmic.. It is well known. Gets even funnier. Lots of posts re the coming Mini Ice Age. Glacers getting bigger again and more snow on the planet.
Also fact is IPCC computer guy Ben Santer must now be getting desperate. Climategate has not disappeared and at some stage he will face his accusers.
Hockey Stick type graphs are insulting.
Spot on. The truth will out.
US coal is finished my friends. Now it is only a matter of time for this obsolete fuel source to remain in the ground – permanently. This is a time for great rejoicing!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/25/coal-more-expensive-wind-solar-us-energy-study
Bring back the union power to set them straight.