Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Yet another last chance, this time from Britain’s version of the US EPA.
2020 is world’s last chance to tackle climate change and protect nature, heads of environmental bodies warn
Top officials say UK is already being hit by ‘dire consequences’ from climate change
The coming year is the “last chance” to bring the world together to tackle climate change to protect communities and nature, the heads of two key environmental bodies have warned.
Climate change and damage to nature are already having “dire consequences”, the leaders of the government agencies Natural England and the Environment Agency have said.
In an article, Natural England chair Tony Juniper and the Environment Agency’s Emma Howard Boyd have pointed to the recent flooding which saw hundreds of people evacuated from Fishlake, Doncaster, with some still out of their homes.
A report in October on the state of nature in the UK found two-fifths (41 per cent) of the country’s wildlife species had declined over the past 50 years and 13 per cent of the species tracked were threatened with extinction in England.
The warning comes after little progress at UN climate talks in Madrid and ahead of a series of international meetings in 2020, including on protecting nature in China in October and crucial climate talks in Glasgow in November.
…
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-2020-nature-environment-agency-natural-england-flooding-a9263566.html
Don’t greens ever get fed up with issuing “last chance” warnings? We’ve had “last chance” warnings in 2018, 2017, 2016, and plenty more in the past.
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What’s the chance they give up if things don’t go their way in 2020?
Zero .
This is their last chance to convince us this year
+1
Do bear in mind both these ‘heads’ are political appointees and as such have their own view of things that are unlikely to be always shared by those in the field.
tonyb
The irony is that the failure of the Environment Agency to do its job in managing the watercourses and ensuring they are kept clear that actually caused the flooding – or at least made it worse than it needed.
Climate alarmists are trying the old saleman 101 trick : create a sense of urgency to close the sale.
Sadly, they don’t realise that the more you repeat it the less anyone takes it seriously and the more obvious it becomes that you are making it all up.
Just like the cry wolf tactic: it works once, maybe twice, then you get ignored as a lair. But they are still under the impression that it’s a lack of “communication” and they just need to shout WOLF a little louder.
Their politics is so shallow they never get beyond shouting wolf and their sales tactics are so limited that they never get beyond “this is our last chance”.
What they don’t seem to realise is that THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO CRY WOLF !
Make the best of it. 😉
As Tonyb points out above, these two charlatans are government appointed.
The real tragedy is that ‘government’ is supposed to be conservative ie: the party of Blundering Boris.
ALL political parties in Britain are Marxist – just some more so.
The flooding in Fishlake, Doncaster is proof positive that…we’re all going to die! Fishlake, really? A lake flooded. Never happened before.
Here’s the template:
The __________ (flooding, fire, draught, storm, hurricane, tornado, heat wave, cold snap, …) in __________ (any place) means we must act NOW.
They’ll just issue another last chance warning next year.
One in several trillion, annually. Effectively zero chance.
What will happen at COP26 is already locked in as China, India and Brazil have now joined Australia, Russia, Japan, USA and the Saudis. They are all the major energy buyers and sellers outside Europe and if you don’t have them onboard you have no chance.
Tony Juniper was head of Friends of the Earth.
It is not obvious why a so-called Conservative Government appoints these left wing members of the Greenblob to such influential positions. The swamp is deep and wide and will take a lot of draining.
The same point was made somewhere else in the last day or so but I can’t offhand recall where.
Why are governments, supposedly of the Right, appointing known “lefties” to head up many, if not most, of the NGO/Quango community? It makes no political sense. Agreed that one should always be looking for the “best person for the job” but it would need an outstanding talent for someone on the political left to convince a centre-right Minister that they were the best person for the job.
I distinctly remember saying at the time that appointing Juniper to head up Natural England really was the equivalent of appointing Dracula to run a blood bank. Like all environmental activists his responsibility is first, last, and in between to the green “cause”. Nothing else matters.
The Tories are as bad as all the other parties when it comes to swallowing everthing the green blob claims (just think of Cameron, Letwin and Gove), so it isn’t surprising that left/right considerations don’t apply.
In much of Europe, the so called right wing doesn’t mind having government continue growing, they just want to slow the pace down a bit.
They think this is easy populsim and do-goodism with no downside electorally.
Don’t worry, there will be another ‘Last Chance’ coming along in 2021, 2022 and 2023 at the very least and quite probably a lot more years.
It reminds me of all those fireworks stores in Tennessee off I-75. Joker Joe’s was one I remember most.
The 2020 deadline is because it is set by the Paris agreement, they will have to do a kick it down the road with the original Paris agreement to move the target.
2021 will be the next last chance, which will be a year before the 2022 last chance and on it will go.
Remember the fable about the boy who shouted “Wolf”?
Yes, it’s obvious what’s happening: the little boy is shouting wolf louder and louder because he thinks he’s being ignored.
Chris
He *is* being ignored. That’s why he is getting so strident. The only people who pay attention are politicians and reporters.
The elephant in the room is that China and India aren’t going to cut back their emissions and, even if everyone else totally cuts back, it will make no difference. How many people do not realize that?
Socialist emissions are not the same as Capitalist emissions. Just like green electrons are not the same as coal or gas electrons. (You do, however, have to be an anointed Climate Saint like Greta to see the difference.)
Green electrons smell a little sweeter, like ozone, sickening sweet.
Are the Rockefellers socialist? Because they are some of the main backers of the CO2 CAGW scam, as is Goldman Sachs. The lefties are just the useful idots of the oligarchs here…
The old rich people founations have been taken over by greens and leftists.
Not forgetting that there are plenty of opportunities to get richer from green blobbery, as Jeremy Grantham once referred to.
You don’t think they were working together right from the start? People like Maurice Strong, UN honcho and right hand man of the Rockefellers set up leading environmental organizations like the IPCC.
Without this kind of backing the environmental movement would have remained on the margins. Trillions of dollars will be made annually by regulating and monetizing nearly all human activity related to CO2, the stakes are huge and far exceed the sensibilities of some activist greenies…
You joke about that but I had a green activist argue with me recently that the CO2 emitted by Drax power station burning wood now instead of coal isn’t the same CO2 as was emitted by coal.
Of course not. DRAX wood pellet CO2 emissions have EU approval. I am sure they have their own ISOxxxxxx designation.
What they need is their own chemical designation. CO2-GA. Government approved.
That’s natural CO2. Everyone knows that only man made CO2 is harmful.
I post that every time it is appropriate, on every site. The average person isn’t interested in the science, assuming they have the education to grasp it, but it’s pretty easy to show them that there is nothing effective we can do if China and India don’t join in, and they clearly are not going to. It removes any guilt for driving fossil-fueled cars, flying, eating meat, etc. It should be an easy sell.
The best part, though, is you are no longer arguing about the science. The warmongerers must explain why we should do anything when those countries aren’t.
So forget about taxes and destroying the economy. Let’s focus on mitigation when and where needed (which hopefully will be never and nowhere).
Great ! So when nothing happens in 2020 they are going to keep quiet ? One can only hope.
At the “ Last Chance” Conference in Bonn in 2001, I see Time Magazine notes the presence of “ activists in polar bear suits”.
When was the last sighting of an activist in a polar bear suit?
Three were seen in the “March for Climate” at Katowice in 2018 but they were expelled from the march for calling for nuclear to replace fossil fuels, apparently heresy among greens.
There is a photo online of the forlorn threesome in their white suits standing alone.
Such activists are obviously an endangered species.
Gone with the melting ice floes!
Hmmm. It seems 2018 was our Last Chance to see protesters in polar bear suits. I have mixed emotions about that.
Yes, 2020, with witches and warlocks still dancing in Democrat heads, will mark the beginning of anthropogenic climate change, where the hunters and judges seeking to cancel, will themselves be cancelled. People will be more green, less green, and not fear the Green blight and prophecy. As for the Earth, the Earth is fine, operating well within its normal evolutionary envelope, suitable for human, flora, and fauna life, too.
I live in Adelaide sth Australia where our state government is doing it’s bit to save the planet. As we speak s.a water is clear felling a few thousand pine trees to install a large solar panel farm at the happy valley reservoir. The trees were planted decades ago and no doubt was home to many hundreds of birds and other small animals but that doesn’t seem to matter. They have signs saying they are lowering their carbon footprint with the solar farm. Maybe they should’ve kept the Forrest and built the solar farm elsewhere. In order to save the environment we have to destroy the environment comes to mind.
This has become an ongoing joke. “Last chances” have come and gone about every 10 years and nothing has changed. Eventually, if not now, people remember the prognostications and tune them out. Time will kill AGW, not science. And yes we can/must wait that long because unless the current media representation of AGW changes nothing else will.
Was busy a good part of the day getting the vehicle and stuff ready to take off for a vacation in Florida. Brought dinner home and had an early dinner then sat down the recliner and went to sleep watching some program about underground spaces.
Woke to a World Wildlife Fund commercial featuring polar bears. The usual solemn, pleading, female voice telling me that the polar bears are in trouble and need our help and if I would just sent them $8.00 per month they would use the money to help save them. And, as a bonus, they’ll send me some propaganda featuring pictures of polar bear mommies with their cute cubs. It was a waking nightmare.
Oh how I would like to be spared that kind of crap and these endless annual tipping point warnings.
For that, do they send you any polar bear cuts? Don’t eat its liver though, it contains toxic levels of vitamin A. I suppose you could eat just a little if you were curious.
Not curious. Eaten some bear already. Lion, Giraffe, Alligator, Moose, mountain oysters, various snakes, and some other less than regular stuff like fried grasshoppers and grubs. Some of it during my travels and experiences as an SF soldier and because back in the day I had relatives and friends that hunted big game. But the Lion and Giraffe were consumed at a restaurant called “Adams Rib” in Zionsville, IN that was known for offering unusual exotic appetizers. Don’t ask where they got that kind of stuff from. Back then I didn’t know or even think about it. I just wanted to try it.
And how do they taste?
Been a long time but as I remember both the Giraffe and Lion were good. Neither tasted like chicken! I remember the lion was like a sweet roast beef. Like Gator a lot if prepared right but the several times I’ve had it it’s always chewy. Not a dish for a person without good dentition. The Moose came from of a roast taken from an animal my uncle took down in Alaska. Prepared in a Dutch oven, it was tender and very good. Mountain oysters (two varieties both procured from farms in Indiana. Bull testicles and Sheep testicles) both very good eating.
Fried grasshoppers and grubs, both survival food. Need I say more? Those that have not gone three days without food after a week or so under physical and mental stress might be surprised what they will gladly eat. Standards drop quickly.
Snakes? Several varieties of rattlers and when prepared properly, even over a camp fire I have enjoyed them all. Bony things of course. While an instructor at SOMED down at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX we would take each class of SF medic trainees out to camp Bolus to do a helicopter jump so they could maintain their Airborne proficiency and continue to draw jump pay. One cool winter day when we did this the guys checking out the DZ found a big Western rattler. After they skinned it out it’s skin stretched from wheel well to wheel well on a COCV which was the military version of a full sized Chevy Blazer. I took the meat to our trainees. I pointed out the three primary varieties of trees one would find there. Mesquite, Scrub oak, and pine. In that class like most there was one guy that was already SF qualified in a different MOS and so I figured it would be done right but told them to make sure not to put any pine in the cooking fire and watch out for scorpions while gathering the dead fall for the fire anyway. Came back a little later after having Jumpmastered several loads on the Huey. Could tell at the first nibble they had used pine in the fire. Spit out the bite in disgust, gave the SF qualified trainee a look, and walked away shaking my head.
Some of the people pushing this nonsense have admitted that the push to scare everyone about climate change (which isn’t have much of an effect) isn’t really about the climate, it’s about changing the entire economic order of the West. This is an attempt at sabotage, and unfortunately there are plenty of rubes. Global warming is an existential threat? I don’t know, I’ve lived in pretty much every climate zone in the US and everyone seems to be doing okay…
‘… Often when a group’s doomsday prophecies or predictions fail to come true, the group leader [ principal proponents] will simply set a new date for impending doom, or predict a different type of catastrophe on a different date … Niederhoffer and Kenner say: “When you have gone far out on a limb and so many people have followed you, and there is much ‘sunk cost,’ as economists would say, it is difficult to admit you have been wrong” …’ (Wiki – Doomsday cult).
This time it’s different. Before, they were just practicing. This time they REALLY mean it!
Hundreds of people evacuated.
When are we going to get a “It’s too late” article?
They tried that, but there is always a chance to take action, but they always leave a window of opportunity to do something.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/11/22/vice-climate-alert-the-collapse-of-civilization-may-have-already-begun/
The infographic at https://www.iberdrola.com/environment/climate-change-endangered-species puts a different causative slant on species extinction.
Oh, is it rerun season again?
Just contact Professor Roy Hinkley and bring a crate of coconuts, he should be able to build a solution to the Climate problem
For pity’s sake have those people, who hold responsible positions, lost their minds.
What is it about the past 50 years of climate variations in the UK they identify as unique?
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CET-Seasons.png
Beware of false prophets!
(or should that be profits?)
No.
The prophets are false, but the profits are real. Real, existential, and very, very large!
This time, the chaotic (“evolution”) processes will align, forcing a spectacular dysfunctional convergence, unlike anything ever dreamed since the dark matter hit the fan, and colorful clumps of cells progressed to rule the world, the universe, and everything in their own mind.
Can’t we just fast forward to 2011, which wil also be the last chance. Or better yet, to 2020, which also will be another last chance. Repetition, after all, is the key to learning.
A doctrine, repetition, disciplining without any further more learning offered in the process, in continuation,
it simply is real indoctrination… as real as it can come,
as forceful and vain as it propagates,
and as “rich”and gluttonous as it consumes…
in vain.
cheers
I Googled the UK Environment Agency and it seems to be some sort of emergency response body with no indication of fitness to make grand apocalyptic pronouncements. Natural England seems to be primarily tasked with managing walkways. Not scientific heavyweights- more akin to one of the many “Secretly Greenpeace Funded Organization With Sciency Name” which exist solely to generate pronouncements of doom for the MSM.
No, the Environment Agecy is the primary national agency for environment in England, it is not a UK agency (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own equivalents, which if anything are even more loopy). Confusingly it notionally reports direct to the UK government, because England, uniquely in the UK, doesn’t have its own devolved government, but currently it is essentially a branch of the EU’s Environment Agency in Brussels because the EU has control of environment policy – until we finally escape the EU, at which point the EA willhave to start thinking for itself once again.
BCBill
I have worked wit the EA. They are nothing like you have portrayed.
The people put in as Chairs are political appointees and will have little bearing on the fundamentals of the organisations concerned. The EA staff are VERY reluctant to attribute specific events to climate change-their political bosses are much more willing to do so
Which is why they got richly rewarded for failure (eg the Somerset levels flooding).
The girl heading the EU commission now was richly rewarded for failure, when she studiously failed to improve the total shambles of the current German army, actually making it worse.
A prerequisite of getting anywhere in that game and getting rich is failing massively at something.
Remember John Selwyn Gummer? Now “Lord Debden”.
When I was growing up we used to watch Noakes at Blue Peter, which was great until later on we found the sidekick Rolf had been doing bad stuff with kiddies.
Now we have the Royals doing the equivalent of “the blue peter badge”, but guess where the millions will come from?
YOU
No doubt as a suitable reward for failure!
They have no firm, agreed examples of climate harm, though they shout that “it” is harmful now. What is?
It is mainly discussed to be in the future. But, if you extend past trends towards the future, nothing harmful emerges.
There was recent talk of harm to Test Cricket which traditionally draws more than 50,000 people to the Melbourne Cricket ground on Boxing day. They said it will be too hot to play in future. Factually, the maximum temperatures on Boxing day since 1960 have decreased. Projecting the makes for a cooler future.
This is but one came out example of deceit.
Every claim a person might study usually has a similar outcome.
Why do they continue to tell porkies? Geoff S
“But, if you extend past trends towards the future, nothing harmful emerges.”
The alarmists claim that if emissions and temperature continue to rise, in 10 or 12 years there’ll be so much more water vapor in the air that it will set off a self-sustaining positive feedback loop of warmth feeding more water vapor feeding more warmth, etc. (But no tropical hotspot, so this is unlikely.)
https://youtu.be/aGfgIQfpbWI
“One, more last chance”