Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Poor greens – despite Greta’s tears, the delegates barely pretended they cared.
After failure in New York, we must reshape the politics of climate change
Published on 24/09/2019, 4:40pmComment: Climate denial is no longer the problem, it is inaction of politicians who know what is at stake. They must feel pressure from all sides
By Nick Mabey
The UNSG Climate Action Summit in New York finally took the temperature on the global politics of climate action.Spoiler alert – it wasn’t hot enough.
The summit also triggered the diplomatic starting gun for the next set of critical climate decisions coming in 2020 at COP26 in Glasgow. With so much climate pollution in the atmosphere, without a big increase in action at Glasgow it will be practically impossible to keep climate change within safe limits.
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People are fired up for action from those with power and authority. Unfortunately, the lukewarm outcomes from the UN Climate Action Summit give little faith that the mercury is rising in the halls of power.
Despite the UN secretary general going far beyond the usual diplomatic niceties – only allowing leaders announcing real commitments a platform – the response from major polluters was virtually non-existent. If solutions are cheaper, public opinion is mobilised and impacts much clearer, why is political action not following?
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In most countries more people want climate action than not. Anti-climate action forces are societally weak but focused; pro-climate action forces are potentially powerful but poorly organised. The problem is not how to raise awareness, but how to align these forces to make an impact on the thousands of decisions needed to reshape our economies and societies.
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Read more: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/09/24/failure-new-york-must-remake-politics-climate-change/
If people really are fired up for change, why isn’t the green party running the country? Why aren’t green politicians running every country?
The reason of course is because ordinary people have other priorities. Some of them might demand a bit of lip service on climate action, but they are completely uninterested in climate action which costs money, like paying carbon taxes.
But if you are a green you can’t accept this simple, self evident fact. If you are a green;
- You believe claims that renewable energy is cheaper than coal, but massive government intervention is required because a conspiracy of fossil fuel tycoons is stopping the world from embracing the cheaper option.
- You believe the people demand climate action, but politicians those same people elect and repeatedly elect are failing to prioritise the climate action demanded by the people who voted for them.
- You believe walking to work or taking the bus is an important symbolic act, despite owning or renting a house full of energy guzzling plastic appliances. And of course you still (mostly) own a car. And flying to holiday destinations or climate events is OK.
- You believe the world is going to end in 12 years (11 years? or is it all a joke? hard to keep track), but you still work your every day job, live your normal life, and have an occasional crying fit about how awful it all is.
- You believe that if your friends mess up enough people’s lives by stopping traffic on busy work days, you will build an irresistible momentum for a green revolution.
Imagine some poor historian a hundred years from now, who will have never met a climate activist in person, trying to piece together a complete picture of our times from articles like the one I quoted.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/09/a-climate-modeller-spills-the-beans/
Perhaps the best response would be for the US to advise the UN to relocate their HQ to somewhere other than New York USA.
Here’s one to add to that list of “if you’re green, you believe…” thoughts
№ 6: Even though you have tirelessly worked against private car ownership, politicked your neighbors to at least buy Priuses and Volts, and bicycle to work, and eschew vacations … the money by which you live your praiseworthy life comes from industry, commerce, food logistics, health care, government and the whole host of necessary-but-parasitic also-ran businesses … all of which have heated (or air conditioned) offices, ample lighting, labor stretching machines, abundant computers, endless support services, telecom, hot’n’cold water, etc.
ALL OF WHICH consume more energy, dear green advocate, way more energy than whatever you think you are saving personally. 99% of you aren’t growing sufficient food in your back yard or collective to actually sustainably feed your family the whole year.
The almond milk comes not from your yard. The tofu, not from your soybeans. The bread, from wheat you don’t grow. The bandaids, nostrums, elixirs, essential oils, organic hemp totes … not from your hand. They’re comported in big ugly trucks, after being cutely packaged to elicit pleasant thoughts of flowers, fall leaves, kittens and clean blue air.
The distribution network IS HOW you get your stuff, dear greenie. Your clothing, the same. Your soaps, the same. The water you drink, wash, covet … the same.
And that’s the interesting point.
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We have a bunch of “young and idealistic” post-kids (young adults, college age) around our neighborhood, and friends with ours. They come to dinner, inevitably burgers, pizza, macaroni salad, garlic bread, tankards of beer, mixed drinks, the like. They’re proud to be using stainless steel tubes instead of throw-away straws, and metal cups instead of plastic.
Yet, inevitably, they also leave them behind for me to find the next day, put in the dishwasher, and pile in a box-of-recoverables that no one has yet retrieved one single item from. It seems to be a throw-away culture, still, but with MUCH more expensive throw-aways.
Who’s paying for all this while they endlessly lecture me and The Dearest Wife about our sinful lifestyles and ways? Oh… as usual, their parents. And their phony-baloney jobs saving wildfowl and mangy dogs, or picketing the campus. Wait, those don’t pay… so its still on Bleeding Heart Mom and Grumpy Dad. Wonder why he’s grumpy.
Still … the lecturing is the same, repeatedly. So, although it has broken up many-an-otherwise-blissful-party, I always rebut the claptrap with the same line… “Since China and India are entirely responsible for 62% of all the CO₂ emissions, planet-wide … and since the US and Europe have actually reduced their CO₂ output by over 7% in the last 12 years, while C + I has increased theirs by over 180%, … what concrete thing is to be done about THEM?”
With an inevitability that defies providence, the same lame blame is aimed right back at US! We’re at fault you see, for having been the № 1 and № 2 emitter (US & EU) for the last 100 years… and thus we and we alone need to remediate for all that, before the poor Developing World needs to embrace change. We shît in the bed, don’t you know, but it is ours to clean up. End of story, now go away, Old Man. Greta Thunburg — if you’re not cleaning up the world you besmirched, then WE will blame you and hold you accountable to the end of time.
Always the same.
Including the ending.
The dismissal.
The casting of Where We Are as the Fault Of The Older Generations, and thus convicted guilty-as-charged, dismissed unless penance is extracted.
HARD penance.
Like giving up all accumulated wealth to power a Socialism for the Next Generation that will with new vigor, attack the problem head on, changing everything, and if necessary, just salting away the elderly as guilty-so-Die-already. Penal colonies for the Elderly. Never did anything for US anyway, except produce pollution.
Sometimes, depending on the degree of drink I’ve consumed, feeling game, I’ll engage further: I take absolutely every trope and hold it hostage to reality. Kind of along the lines of that fabulous Monte Python skit, “What have the Romans ever done for US???”. Parody tho’ it is, the Romans Skit is brilliantly accurate in framing the exact mendacity of the Young-and-Determined generation in simply not thinking at all about where all the trappings of civilization come from.
Thing is, when I follow this line, somehow, I’m also held in askance for merely questioning the obviousness of their lacy position. The air fairly blows right thru the gossamer fabric of their dialectic. But in the end, I’m not-subtly dismissed, the youngsters walk away, toking their blown glass bongs in the corner, furtively looking my way, sniggering, smugly sure that they and they alone are holding the keys to the New Way, old Fûques be dâhmned.
I keep thinking … who’s going to keep the lights on, how are the millions of us going to get food, where will the food be grown and harvested. How will the MRI and CAT machines run without the technology that generation-upon-generation of Old Fûques created, crafted, and keep silently humming along? One wonders.
One wonders.
Just saying,
GoatGuy ✓
“With an inevitability that defies providence, the same lame blame is aimed right back at US! We’re at fault you see, for having been the № 1 and № 2 emitter (US & EU) for the last 100 years… and thus we and we alone need to remediate for all that, before the poor Developing World needs to embrace change.”
Your riposte to that should be this: The electorates of developed nations won’t stand for the wealth transfer being demanded once it begins to bite, and will elect politicians who promise relief, as happened in Australia, Ontario, Alberta, and elsewhere. And not only is there no justification for wealth transfer, there is none for domestic hair-shirtism either, since it will only futily delay Doomsday until 2105, while impoverishing us. Why bother? Why not spent our money on adaptation and research instead, as urged by Lomberg?
There will be no history written. We’ll all be dead.
The wolf is clothed in a simple dress worn by an abused 16 y o girl with a mental problem.
To me that says all I need to know about the wolf.
Cancun was a failure. Copenhagen was a failure. Katowice was a failure. Paris is a failure. What’s to be worried about?
And they admit this was a failure.
This one was in NYC. Broadway is in NYC. When a show on Broadway bombs, they don’t keep reopening “The Show” in another city.
Of course they considered the New York conference a failure – they couldn’t believe Glasgow was chosen as the next venue – “Not enough 5 star hotels – and we may have to SHARE our private limos!!” Apparently 97% of delegates wanted somewhere with the chance of some skiing
Politicians are already feeling the pressure from both sides. On one side is a noisy, violent minority who want to destroy all industry, on the other side is the large silent majority who do not want to pay even $1 for all that green nonsense and the hope of better weather. The Politicians know instinctively which side their bread is buttered on and pay only lip service to the noisy, violent minority.
I guess it’s back to the paid marketing consultant sessions on new tactics for the UN gold hunt in your bank accounts and retirement plans.
This after the North-South divide and Third World country designations and associated wealth re-distributions did not work out.
Remember to keep tabs on all the untapped wealth out there just in case the trillion $ price estimate for the new slogan needs an update.
If they were really concerned about the burning of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions, they would hold all their future meetings on the Internet but they are not doing that. It would seem that hundreds of billions of dollars spent on wind and solar have not had a noticeable effect on today’s climate. If they were really concerned about reducing CO2 emissions related to the burning of fossil fuels then they would be pushing nuclear power that does not require that we shaft the world’s economy and end the idea of liberty and freedom for all.
The reality is that, based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. So as we have been observing, reducing CO2 emissions will have no effect on climate. But even if we could, some how stop the Earth’s climate from changing, extreme weather events and sea level rise would continue because they are part of the current climate. There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them.
The Climate Conference wasn’t a failure– those attending were!
The pols are not doing anything because they’ve pushed the envelope as far as possible and there’s nowhere else to go. They’ve squeezed and squeezed the lemon and there just ain’t no more juice. The deplorable herd is finally wising up. No more soup for you! An army of scolding Gretas won’t make any difference.
We’re on to you.
Winter weather is starting early in Montana. Good for the ski runs, and the buckle in the jet stream will push a little more warm autumn weather my way, toward the Lower Lakes. Fine by me. If it doesn’t rain and reflood the rivers, I can get some good shots with my camera. I know the geese won’t start migrating until cold weather drives them to it.
This mass hysteria that politicians have been trying to build is starting to have two effects: one effect is that some people are unable to stop proselytizing, even if they don’t follow whatever rules they’re supposed to follow themselves (e.g., the food, clothing, use of electricity, etc.) and won’t shut up until or unless there is a glacier forming in their front yards, and maybe not even then; and the second effect is that the rest of us, who live in the real world take in that nonsense, watch the hypocrisy, and wonder how long it will be until reality smacks these dimwits in the head.
I don’t want to see late spring snows cutting into the planting/growing/harvesting seasons at all, but if I have to stock grains to make bread, I can do so. If I have a choice between my electric slow cookers (two of them) and my gas-fired oven, I’ll take both. If having enough food on hand means getting a second, and possibly freezer, I’ll do that.
But I won’t feed or shelter the beggarly idiots showing up who don’t understand that climate cycles also mean a return to colder climate, shortages of everything, prolonged cold, early snows and late spring snow (I have photos) , and that with the Sun in a solar minimum we may have frozen eggs instead of usable stuff from the hens.
When the local power grid failed at the end of November last year (I keep track of these things) because sleet, globs of ice and snow, and strong winds weighed down the power lines and shut off the grid for over 388,000 people in my area, I was extremely happy that my little house is insulated against the cold enough to keep the temperature from dropping to a dangerously low level. I have never been more happy to see the power company’s crew truck go past my house. But this is one time that I truly wished for a fireplace or a cast-iron woodburning stove.
My little house isn’t suited for it, unfortunately. And I”m smart enough to realize that if it happened once, it can and will happen again. Doesn’t mean I can’t solve this problem. But I sure as hell won’t offer space to any ecohippies that show up looking for shelter. (Rant over.)
‘In most countries more people want climate action than not’ but then when you ask them to pay for it their enthusiasm wanes rapidly. Funny that.
Just to align interests delegates who wish to virtue signal at conferences must be made to row to them .
And the next conference needs to be in Antarctica the continent that gets no love . – 40 F will do that .
I would like to see Al Gore do the opening address wearing a thimble .