UK Climate Emergency: “the climate denial movement has run its course”

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The UK parliament has caved in to Extinction Rebellion climate protests and declared a climate emergency.

After weeks of protests, UK becomes first country to declare ‘climate emergency’

THURSDAY 2 MAY 2019 6:59PM

The UK has become the first country in the world to declare a national climate emergency following protests and acts of civil disobedience from a grassroots environmental group that launched in October.

The Extinction Rebellion has changed the paradigm of climate protests, according to Leo Barasi, the author of Climate Majority, a book investigating how to shift public opinion about climate change. 

He’s also written a Master’s thesis on whether climate protests will ever convince lawmakers to act on climate change (his conclusion, they wouldn’t).

“I found that extreme weather sometimes influences public opinion, while UN climate conferences and IPCC reports often trigger media coverage and parliamentary debates,” Barasi wrote on his blog.

“But climate protests generally have little direct effect on any of these.”

For 10 days in April, tens of thousands of people committed acts of civil disobedience, including blocking traffic across the Thames, gluing themselves onto trains, graffiting the headquarters of oil giant Shell, and blockading the stock exchange.

And it apparently worked: The protests led to two separate parliamentary debates, and these were capped this week by the successful climate emergency motion.

How did the protests work where others have failed?

But showing the protests have worked doesn’t help explain why this happened now, in April 2019, after apparently failing every other time.
One theory is that the climate denial movement has run its course.

Richard Black, a former BBC environment correspondent and author of Denied: the Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism, told the Guardian the BBC appears to have stopped giving air time to climate deniers to ‘balance’ the debate.

Mainstream media is now taking the issue seriously, he said: “The facts have changed. And in the end, if you want to be credible you have to go with the facts.”

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/uk-becomes-first-country-in-world-to-declare-climate-emergency/11074582

The government funded BBC dominates UK broadcast media, so their decision in 2007 to exclude competing viewpoints may have had a significant impact on public opinion.

The following is a video of the speech which led to bipartisan UK parliament agreement there is a climate emergency (speech by Jeremy Corbyn, the brother of British climate skeptic Piers Corbyn ).

British MP Michael Gove responded by agreeing there is a climate emergency (an apparent change from his previous position when he was negotiating with climate protestors). According to Breitbart Gove said;

“I want to make it clear that on this side of the House we recognise that this situation IS an emergency, it IS a crisis, and it IS a threat that all of us have to meet.”

Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/05/01/goves-green-cant-is-a-betrayal-of-conservative-principles/

The UK does not have a constitutional right to free speech – in my opinion, any escalation of government sanctions against climate skeptics for the duration of the “climate emergency” could mean difficult times ahead for climate skeptics based in Britain.

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NZ Willy
May 3, 2019 4:36 am

Yep, happened here in NZ a few months ago, the media (stuff.co.nz) announced that “denier” comments would no longer be allowed on their on-line climate articles. Now they’ve gone all in with their “Quick! Save the Planet!” section which is full of alarmist BS. As this article points out, there is no constitutional freedom of speech here in NZ (same as UK). The elite here are perfectly happy to deny speech to their opponents, and most people here (very nice & trusting) don’t realise how one-sided the media is. But when the plug was pulled on the rights of commenters, many commenters made a final comment of “good-bye” — they knew what was happening. It’s a real worry.

mike haseler
Reply to  NZ Willy
May 4, 2019 12:07 am

Then just boycott them. They need you more than you need them, and the sooner you move to media outlets who do have open debate, the sooner those who deny it will go to the wall and the more profit for those who have open debate.

For example I saw this article when reading gab.com, but I don’t see many sceptics posting there even though it has NO restrictions on expression.

tom0mason
May 3, 2019 5:01 am

“the climate denial movement has run its course”

No one is denying climate, was is being denied is man’s overwhelming impact on it. To date there is NO evidence of man’s impact on climate being of major concern, nature is still in command of the process.
cAGW types deny that nature controls the weather and climate and that is a nonsense. So go on cAGW types prove that the climate is being governed by man, prove that nature has been emasculated by humans because I don’t see it.

The way I see climate is like a large orchestra playing …
The sun is the rhythm that dictates the beat of the climate, the oceans adds a bass coda to that basic rhythm and the rest of nature (including the atmosphere) puts short periods of ornamentations and variations around the basic theme and rhythm. All of humanity is just as a hair on the bow of the second viola, yes it has an effect but it’s drowned out by the other players in the climate orchestra. Nature (from galactic to molecular influences) is the conductor — the maestro — the one that decides how, when, and where whole ensemble will play in this never ending symphony.

Human effects on the climate — lost in the noise of natural variations.

WXcycles
May 3, 2019 5:10 am

The UK does not have a constitutional right to free speech – in my opinion, any escalation of government sanctions against climate skeptics for the duration of the “climate emergency” could mean difficult times ahead for climate skeptics based in Britain.

What’s a “climate skeptic”? Don’t you mean weather skeptic? What exactly are they skeptical of? Less cyclones? Less storms? Less tornadoes?

And what exactly is a “climate emergency”? Don’t they mean ‘weather emergency’? They’ve get better weather forecasts that ever before, but now its a ‘mergency’?

How?

Last I looked humans are the most adaptable species ever to evolve on the planet and pretty much nothing is going extinct in the other species. So maybe just buy an air conditioner or a fan and some lighter clothing and polyester bedding from China. Maybe a pith helmet and a safari suit if you feel really tropical and moist under the arm pit.

mikewaite
Reply to  WXcycles
May 3, 2019 7:02 am

-“Last I looked humans are the most adaptable species ever to evolve on the planet and pretty much nothing is going extinct in the other species.”-
Not just we present humans , but all hominids that have attained bipedalism . There is current speculation that the “hobbits” from Flores are small sized not just because of island dwarfism , but because they started off small , being descended not from H erectus (2m high) , but australopithecines, 2 M years earlier and ca 1 m smaller. So these nimble and clearly adaptable little fellows, with brain capacity of 200cc, can scale mountains, cross shark infested seas and experience desert heat and glacial cold in journeying from East Africa to SE Asia, but a Tory Cabinet minister, with a (theoretical) brain capacity of 1400cc cannot envisage a temperature difference in the centre of London of 1.5C without collapsing into hysterics.
With some people evolution seems to have taken a retrograde step.

mike haseler
Reply to  WXcycles
May 3, 2019 11:58 pm

We do have a constitutional guarantee of free speech – it’s called a jury. Politicians can huff and puff in parliament all they like, but as long as we have jury trials, ordinary people decide whether to convict – which is hughly unlikely under their daft rantings.

MartinA
May 3, 2019 5:45 am

BREAKING NEWS FROM THE UK

SLEIGH DAY BANK HOLS UK weather forecast: Snow sweeps in as UK set for coldest May Bank Holiday in 40 years
The Met Office warns temperatures will plummet to -6C in Scotland with snow and frost forecast over the weekend

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8990872/uk-weather-forecast-coldest-may-bank-holiday-met/

Hermit.Oldguy
Reply to  MartinA
May 9, 2019 7:45 pm

It’s “The Sun” – it’s bollocks. I read an article (not for this holiday) claiming a prediction of 100 mph winds and temperatures of -10 degC. Those two together is pretty much impossible here, but nevertheless, I was reading it at the time it was supposed to happen: it was wrong by 99 mph and 20 degC.

May 3, 2019 6:21 am

“The UK does not have a constitutional right to free speech – in my opinion, any escalation of government sanctions against climate skeptics for the duration of the “climate emergency” could mean difficult times ahead for climate skeptics based in Britain.”

Such repression as ” escalation of government sanctions against climate skeptics” establishes UK as a country willfully violating human rights.

ResourceGuy
May 3, 2019 6:35 am

The Day the Earth Stood Still……in the minds of a very few and some political pigeons.

ResourceGuy
May 3, 2019 6:38 am

Does Brexit flummox lead to more superfluous debates, resolutions, and assorted posturing to look busy and relevant? Just wondered.

Ivor Ward
May 3, 2019 6:39 am

I am very concerned about the climate emergency so I have just bought a 150bhp diesel RAV4 so that I can escape it more quickly when I see it coming, and carry more coal back to my house for the fire.
I have also had my middle finger stiffenned and fixed in an upward and outward facing position to ward off the converts to the Climate religion.

damp
May 3, 2019 6:50 am

What is a “national climate?” This can refer only to the political climate, methinks.

ResourceGuy
May 3, 2019 6:58 am

Is this the British version of the Clinton Win-the-Day Strategy from the big book of politics and borrowed from courtroom tactics of manipulating juries with biased expert witnesses and other maneuvers? Not sure from this distance.

ResourceGuy
May 3, 2019 7:04 am

Let me know when they close the airports so I can divert by travel plans to other international airports in the region.

ferd berple
Reply to  ResourceGuy
May 3, 2019 8:08 am

“our planet, the world from which we have come, was, so to speak, doomed.”

“Doomed?”

“Oh yes. So what everyone thought was, let’s pack the whole population into some giant spaceships and go and settle on another planet.”

Having told this much of his story, he settled back with a satisfied grunt.

“You mean a less doomed one?” prompted Arthur.

“What did you say dear fellow?”

“A less doomed planet. You were going to settle on.”

Robert W Turner
May 3, 2019 7:25 am

Wake me up when the revolution starts.

Maxcat
May 3, 2019 7:34 am

Dear God!…how far our once great and proud country has fallen. With a hopelessly penetrated ‘remainer’ Parliament/government not content with making a catastrophic mess of out of our exit from the EU, they jump on any and all ‘progressive’ bandwagons that trundle into town. A ‘Climate emergency’!?!…really!? Because a vocal minority of fruity, borderline psychotic, Marxist/ greenblob loons says there is!?! …Yeah right!…deflecting attention from Brexit/ local election/ gross incompetence and traitorous mismanagement more like.

michael hart
May 3, 2019 7:36 am

Since Thatcher made it fashionable in the 1980s, the major UK political parties have taken the line of outwardly agreeing with everything the greens say so that the issue becomes essentially apolitical.

That of course is how the government decided it would be a good idea if we all drove diesels, only to reverse the policy now that reality asserted itself. Fortunately I think they don’t believe what they say most of the time, but still need help to steer around the most stupid decisions. Thus they have sensibly approved the building of an extra runway at Heathrow airport, which infuriates the green hypocrites almost as much as a nuclear power station.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48118100

Neil Jones
May 3, 2019 8:00 am

Under the European Charter of Human Rights which is in force in the UK all human beings have a right to self-expression so shutting up Skeptics will end up in the EU Court of Human Rights.

Vuk
May 3, 2019 8:11 am

UK loosing fate in Brexit ?
With local elections 75% of results declared state of
political parties:
PARTY COUNCILLORS CHANGE +/-
Conservative(80% pro Brexit) 2474 -909
Labour (60% anti Brexit) 1583 -83
Liberal Democrat(100% anti Brexit) 995 +521
Green(100% anti Brexit) 167 +131
UKIP(100% pro Brexit) 22 -8

Vuk
Reply to  Vuk
May 3, 2019 10:22 am

Updated after more than 90% results in:
– 1222
– 81
+ 639
+ 180
– 137
respectively.
Brexit parties show huge losses while two anti Brexit are big winners, also two anti-B are also climate change zealots.

mike haseler
Reply to  Vuk
May 3, 2019 11:52 pm

Parties that reneged on their election promises to leave the EU both had losses. And even the anti-brexit biased corp had to admit brexit was the main thing in the election – as in GOING BACK ON THEIR CLEAR PROMISES.

Jon Scott
Reply to  Vuk
May 5, 2019 9:38 am

And of course that could not have ANYTHING to do with the fact that they feel they have been sold down the river by those cowards and nothing at all to do with how as much as you dream that they did not change their vote. A binding democratic vote was held two years ago. If you do not like democracy I can avail you of a list of toilets, excuse me countries where they embrace your view of democracy…but I double they will warm to you mentioning it!” Get over yourself!

Reply to  Vuk
May 3, 2019 7:51 pm

You missed out the independents and the spoiled ballots, and the fact that the Brexit Party only came into being after nominations for these polls had closed.

PeterGB
Reply to  It doesn't add up...
May 4, 2019 1:41 am

You have also omitted the fact that between 20% and 40% of the electorate (judging by the exceptionally low turnout figures) simply couldn’t be arsed to turn up because they knew there was nothing on the ballot paper they actually wanted to vote for.
Personally I wouldn’t be too worried if May cobbles together some BRINO with the bearded dwarf. We stay part in the EU and even the BBC won’t be able to disguise its disintegration and utter corruption from the British public. Along with a great many other people, I will hold my nose and vote for Farage’s lot once again, this time in the next GE. With any luck the Brexit Party (they seem to have some quality candidates – just move them from the Euros to the GE) will at least have a voice, if not hold a balance of power. Five years of Marxist extremism would see us back in the 70s. Perhaps that’s what our beloved millennials and generations x, y and whatever need to make them see sense.

Cephus0
May 3, 2019 8:17 am

The people of my country are now hostages to an extreme left wing antidemocratic totalitarian Globalist junta which has annexed all power unto itself. But nearly all them don’t even know it. I begin to despair. It becomes increasingly more difficult to find anyone who hasn’t fallen for the Globalist population control lies such as this ‘climate emergency’. For a time I thought people here were beginning to wake up – but they aren’t. Pretty soon now the Globalist establishment will bring objection to the climate orthodoxy under their ever-expanding umbrella of “hate speech” and imprison transgressors. What is happening here in the UK is truly horrific to watch and I for one of many am planning my exit and permanent voluntary exile posthaste.

Joel Snider
May 3, 2019 8:41 am

So – what ‘event’ has qualified this as an ’emergency’ – or is this just the indulgence of long-term paranoia?

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  Joel Snider
May 3, 2019 11:00 am

Trump’s election?

Harry Passfield
Reply to  Joel Snider
May 3, 2019 12:44 pm

Of course it’s an emergency!
Call 999 (OK, 911) and tell the police that someone has planted CO² on our atmosphere and is robbing us of all our cold!
That’s an emergency!
Except, it won’t involve blue lights – more like Green lites – AKA MPs.

William Astley
May 3, 2019 10:05 am

In the real world problems are solved first by ensuring there is a problem and then ensuring money spent solves the problem as opposed to wasting money.

Thinking, non-Zombie politicians understand the country has a limited amount of money to spend on stuff, so problems must be prioritized.

1) Almost every country is running a deficit with slow GDP growth, continual loss of jobs to China and Asia. The real problem is growing the economy so there will be tax revenue to pay for health care, schools, roads, bridges, and so on.
2) The Zombies have no solution to CAGW.
3) There is a solution to CAGW which is the rediscovered liquid fuel, no water, no fuel rod, atmospheric pressure, fission reactor design that is a cheap as coal, six times more fuel efficient, mass producible, with no catastrophic failure modes.
4) The Zombies do not know they have no solution to CAGW. The politicians are forcing us to spend money on variable, intermittent power supplies, to power a grid that requires dispatch-able non variable power, 24/7. Germany has reached the engineering limit of the wind and sun gathering scheme. German CO2 emissions are no longer dropping yet Germany continues to spend billions of dollars on more stuff that is labelled green.
5) There are a dozen observations and analysis results that disprove CAGW and AGW

ResourceGuy
May 3, 2019 10:44 am

I miss Monty Python but this is a reasonable remake for now.

Pity and pathetic come to mind.

Send him to the glue factory.

D Cage
May 3, 2019 12:25 pm

The answer is simple. The public at large despises climate science and climate scientist as much as they have always done. The UK now is a sub third world banana republic run by a corrupt and ignorant political class who hold a referendum and then ignore the result as it did not fit their agenda. Equally they listen to ignorant retard rioters and even stupider and more corrupt has been celebs rather than anyone intelligent enough to see
a failure list as long as your arm on the climate prediction probably to distract from their other failures.

You don’t know how lucky you lot are to have Trump.

Carbon500
Reply to  D Cage
May 3, 2019 2:50 pm

D Cage – don’t get too depressed, British business is doing very nicely. Have a look at the export figures in the link below- I wouldn’t say that the UK is a sub-third world banana republic, but like you I despair at the state of British national politics. Don’t get me started on the climate change nonsense and the idiotic declaration of a ‘planetary emergency’!
http://www.worldstopexports.com/united-kingdoms-top-exports/

Harry Passfield
May 3, 2019 12:35 pm

For those not familiar with the HoC and how seating is arranged, there are fewer seats than members, and MPs have to book their places, except on the front benches. That’s when up and coming members of the government and opposition vie for spaces near their leader.
However, the woman to the left – his right – of Corbyn is Dawn Butler, shadow minister for Women and Equality – but more like geriatric Corbyn’s nurse. She sits next to him at his EVERY appearance and her frequent explosions of support for her master are squirmingly embarrassing. But she also helps him by telling him when to stand and when to sit. (not a spelling mistake!)

William Astley
May 3, 2019 1:33 pm

No critical press coverage is dangerous as it logically leads/grows/spans corrupt parties, in addition to idiotic policies.

The Democrats had zero critical press analysis for almost 12 years, during the Obama administration it has a love affair, followed by another love affair.

This is a big deal. The Chinese have loads of money which they appear to have used to openly bribe, key individuals, in the Obama administration.

There is evidence that the Chinese government blandly and openly bribed Joe Biden and John Kerry, under the Obama administrating using massive billion dollar deals with their sons and the capital firm ‘Rosemount Capital’.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/as-biden-and-kerry-went-soft-on-china-sons-made-nuclear-military-business-deals-with-chinese-govt/

Ten days after the Bidens visited China, the Bank of China — which is embedded in a complex network involving state ministries, security forces, and the Communist Party, and which provides capital for China’s economic statecraft — created an investment fund with Rosemont Seneca called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). “In short, the Chinese government was literally funding a business that it co-owned along with the sons of two of America’s most powerful decision makers,” Schweizer explains.

Devon Archer, Chris Heinz’s roommate at Yale and star fundraiser for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential run, joined the American Princelings at Rosemont. Federal agents would later arrest Archer in May 2016 for defrauding a Native American tribe in an effort to enrich a branch of Rosemont Capital, Rosemont Seneca Bohai.

The American Princelings set up Rosemont Capital as an alternative investment fund of the Heinz Family Office, and attached several branches to it, including Rosemont Seneca Partners and Rosemont Realty.

In May 2015, Kerry visited China again, and insisted that “the two powers shouldn’t let the South China Sea issue get in the way of broader cooperation.” In August, Rosemont Realty announced that Gemini Investments, run from the COSCO headquarters, was buying a 75 percent stake in the company, including a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese.

The massive Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) teamed up with Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) to buy American “dual-use” part manufacturer Henniges in 2015. AVIC operates under direct control of the State Council and produces military technology “primarily designed to compete with the United States.”

The year before BHR teamed up with AVIC, the aviation company had stolen technologies related to the U.S. F-35 stealth fighter.

In September 2015, AVIC bought 51 percent of Henniges, while the Biden-and-Kerry-linked BHR purchased 49 percent. Henniges developed anti-vibration technologies for cars, but the technologies are considered “dual use” because they also have a military application.

The technology is on the restricted Commerce Control List, and the Henniges deal — like the notorious Uranium One deal in 2010 — would require the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Kerry’s State Department approved the deal in 2015.

In 2014, BHR became an “anchor investor” in China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC or CGN), a state-owned nuclear company that was previously wholly owned by the Chinese government. CGN was under FBI investigation at the time, and eventually charged with stealing U.S. nuclear secrets.

CCB
May 3, 2019 1:57 pm

It was one of the saddest days for me in my science & engineering career spanning 39 years to hear this news living in the UK; some fellow colleagues shared this view.

Coach Springer
May 3, 2019 3:39 pm

The kind of emergency where you flagellate your subjects without doing anything about the claimed cause of said emergency. If they want to do anything about atmospheric CO2 other than just punish their own people without effect, they should take back their colonies, impoverish them and attack China. And maybe Poland.

This development is not lost on power hungry Americans and their industrial cronies.