The Independent: “2020 is our Last Chance to Tackle Climate Change”

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

Emily Beament

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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Brian R
December 30, 2019 6:09 pm

What’s the chance they give up if things don’t go their way in 2020?

Sweet Old Bob
Reply to  Brian R
December 30, 2019 6:13 pm

Zero .

Bryan A
Reply to  Sweet Old Bob
December 30, 2019 10:04 pm

This is their last chance to convince us this year

Nigel in California
Reply to  Bryan A
December 30, 2019 10:20 pm

+1

tonyb
Editor
Reply to  Nigel in California
December 31, 2019 4:13 am

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

Gerry, England
Reply to  Nigel in California
January 2, 2020 6:13 am

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.

Greg
Reply to  Bryan A
December 31, 2019 2:52 am

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. 😉

Patrick Healy
Reply to  Greg
December 31, 2019 9:48 am

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.

Adam
Reply to  Greg
December 31, 2019 9:51 am

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.

MarkW
Reply to  Brian R
December 30, 2019 6:27 pm

They’ll just issue another last chance warning next year.

n.n
Reply to  Brian R
December 30, 2019 6:32 pm

One in several trillion, annually. Effectively zero chance.

LdB
Reply to  Brian R
December 30, 2019 11:01 pm

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.

DocBud
December 30, 2019 6:15 pm

Tony Juniper was head of Friends of the Earth.

Phillip Bratby
Reply to  DocBud
December 30, 2019 10:54 pm

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.

Newminster
Reply to  Phillip Bratby
December 31, 2019 1:48 am

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.

DaveS
Reply to  Newminster
December 31, 2019 3:10 am

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.

MarkW
Reply to  DaveS
December 31, 2019 7:50 am

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.

Robert of Ottawa
Reply to  Phillip Bratby
December 31, 2019 1:59 am

They think this is easy populsim and do-goodism with no downside electorally.

December 30, 2019 6:17 pm

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.

Scissor
Reply to  nicholas tesdorf
December 30, 2019 7:54 pm

It reminds me of all those fireworks stores in Tennessee off I-75. Joker Joe’s was one I remember most.

LdB
Reply to  nicholas tesdorf
December 30, 2019 11:02 pm

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.

Garland Lowe
December 30, 2019 6:21 pm

2021 will be the next last chance, which will be a year before the 2022 last chance and on it will go.

Andy Espersen
Reply to  Garland Lowe
December 30, 2019 6:35 pm

Remember the fable about the boy who shouted “Wolf”?

Chris Wright
Reply to  Andy Espersen
December 31, 2019 2:48 am

Yes, it’s obvious what’s happening: the little boy is shouting wolf louder and louder because he thinks he’s being ignored.
Chris

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Chris Wright
December 31, 2019 6:30 am

He *is* being ignored. That’s why he is getting so strident. The only people who pay attention are politicians and reporters.

commieBob
December 30, 2019 6:24 pm

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?

Reply to  commieBob
December 30, 2019 6:36 pm

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.)

Scissor
Reply to  Writing Observer
December 30, 2019 7:55 pm

Green electrons smell a little sweeter, like ozone, sickening sweet.

Marc L.
Reply to  Writing Observer
December 30, 2019 9:00 pm

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…

Robert of Ottawa
Reply to  Marc L.
December 31, 2019 2:01 am

The old rich people founations have been taken over by greens and leftists.

DaveS
Reply to  Robert of Ottawa
December 31, 2019 3:35 am

Not forgetting that there are plenty of opportunities to get richer from green blobbery, as Jeremy Grantham once referred to.

Marc L.
Reply to  Robert of Ottawa
December 31, 2019 6:24 am

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…

Tom Malcolm
Reply to  Writing Observer
December 31, 2019 2:41 am

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.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  Tom Malcolm
December 31, 2019 3:52 am

Of course not. DRAX wood pellet CO2 emissions have EU approval. I am sure they have their own ISOxxxxxx designation.

Reply to  Patrick MJD
December 31, 2019 6:20 am

What they need is their own chemical designation. CO2-GA. Government approved.

MarkW
Reply to  Patrick MJD
December 31, 2019 7:51 am

That’s natural CO2. Everyone knows that only man made CO2 is harmful.

Reply to  commieBob
December 30, 2019 6:51 pm

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).

Stevek
December 30, 2019 6:26 pm

Great ! So when nothing happens in 2020 they are going to keep quiet ? One can only hope.

Herbert
December 30, 2019 6:27 pm

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!

H.R.
Reply to  Herbert
December 31, 2019 3:28 am

Hmmm. It seems 2018 was our Last Chance to see protesters in polar bear suits. I have mixed emotions about that.

n.n
December 30, 2019 6:31 pm

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.

Paul
December 30, 2019 6:38 pm

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.

markl
December 30, 2019 6:50 pm

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.

rah
December 30, 2019 6:57 pm

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.

Scissor
Reply to  rah
December 30, 2019 8:00 pm

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.

rah
Reply to  Scissor
December 30, 2019 9:22 pm

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.

Robert of Ottawa
Reply to  rah
December 31, 2019 2:06 am

And how do they taste?

rah
Reply to  Robert of Ottawa
December 31, 2019 4:45 am

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.

December 30, 2019 7:04 pm

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…

Chris Hanley
December 30, 2019 7:08 pm

‘… 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).

December 30, 2019 7:11 pm

This time it’s different. Before, they were just practicing. This time they REALLY mean it!

Sideshow
December 30, 2019 7:12 pm

Hundreds of people evacuated.

rbabcock
December 30, 2019 7:12 pm

When are we going to get a “It’s too late” article?

layor nala
December 30, 2019 7:30 pm

The infographic at https://www.iberdrola.com/environment/climate-change-endangered-species puts a different causative slant on species extinction.

Christopher Simpson
December 30, 2019 7:35 pm

Oh, is it rerun season again?

Bryan A
Reply to  Christopher Simpson
December 30, 2019 10:09 pm

Just contact Professor Roy Hinkley and bring a crate of coconuts, he should be able to build a solution to the Climate problem

Chris Hanley
December 30, 2019 7:38 pm

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

AndrewWA
December 30, 2019 8:00 pm

Beware of false prophets!
(or should that be profits?)

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  AndrewWA
December 30, 2019 9:01 pm

No.

The prophets are false, but the profits are real. Real, existential, and very, very large!

n.n
December 30, 2019 8:02 pm

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.

Richard
December 30, 2019 8:07 pm

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.

whiten
Reply to  Richard
December 31, 2019 8:09 am

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

BCBill
December 30, 2019 8:08 pm

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.

DaveS
Reply to  BCBill
December 31, 2019 3:30 am

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.

tonyb
Editor
Reply to  BCBill
December 31, 2019 4:23 am

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

Reply to  tonyb
January 1, 2020 3:40 am

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!

Geoff Sherrington
December 30, 2019 9:27 pm

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

Roger Knights
Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
December 31, 2019 9:38 am

“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.)

James Walter
December 30, 2019 9:45 pm

https://youtu.be/aGfgIQfpbWI
“One, more last chance”

Clarky of Oz
December 30, 2019 10:03 pm

Last chance to do what precisely?

Bryan A
Reply to  Clarky of Oz
December 30, 2019 10:11 pm

Last chance to Bite their lure in 2019

December 31, 2019 12:13 am

They built a housing estate on somewhere called ‘Fishlake’. And then it flooded. And they were surprised?

The staggering ignorance, and gall, of enviro liars is evident. From halting forest floor clearing, and controlled burns, to this.

sunderlandsteve
Reply to  Matthew Sykes
December 31, 2019 7:32 am

Actually the name fishlake deprives from the old English fisc-lacu meaning fish stream and its not a housing estate its a historic village.
The problem is that the river Don around this area is particularly prone to flooding and was regularly dredged as a result, however there has been no dredging in recent times, probably due to the eu regulations from around 2000 on allowing rivers to return to their natural state which has been interpreted by some governments as a ban on dredging. The floods a few years ago in Cumbria have also been attributed to this but of course it was climate change to blame in most sections of the media.

Patrick MJD
December 31, 2019 12:43 am

I thought the last chance to fight this problem was when CO2 was at 350ppm/v?

griff
December 31, 2019 12:43 am

Over 100 fires in NSW in Australia as I write: 68 uncontained… fires also in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia… the whole of Australia was over 40 C yesterday and this is only the start of summer…

This is clearly genuinely unprecedented…

are we still pretending this is NOT caused by climate change?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2019/dec/31/australia-fires-live-news-nsw-victoria-bushfires-latest-updates

“We’ve got fires burning from the Queensland border all the way down to the Victorian border, across the great dividing range,” says Fitzsimmons (of the NSW fire service)
There have been multiple challenges, he says, noting that today conditions didn’t allow for the flying of some aerial support craft.
“We are expecting a return to more hot dangerous and difficult conditions … and we can expect some fairly widespread severe fire danger ratings.”
He notes the dry landscape, the “moisture depleted” landscape, in a state which is “100% drought-affected”. There’s been a significant number of pyroconvective activity and the tragic consequences of that.
“We have seen now confirmed eight civilian fatalities, three firefighter fatalities, and we have grave concerns for another civilian down in the southeast of NSW,” he says.
“We have seen over 900 homes destroyed and over 3.6m hectares of country burnt so far this season. We have still months to go of summer. Absolutely, this is up to be one of the worst, if not the worst fire season we have experienced here in NSW.”

Reply to  griff
December 31, 2019 8:46 am

You going to ignore the part about the level of arson activities in Australia?

Patrick MJD
Reply to  griff
December 31, 2019 6:36 pm

“griff December 31, 2019 at 12:43 am

are we still pretending this is NOT caused by climate change?”

The uninformed Griff bleats again from The Guardian. Lets talk about NSW, the state I live in. About 87% of fires were started by arsonists this “season”. The largest fire was started by dry lightening, in a national park. Most other fires were started by flying embers. The national park hasn’t been cleared of fuel load in decades. Is this climate change?

Adam Gallon
December 31, 2019 12:47 am

Claim we in the UK are seeing the effects of climate change, then quote examples not linked to climate change.
The flooding around Fishlake, was due to the EA not maintaining the drainage system. https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/11/21/forget-climate-excuses-environment-agency-ignored-flood-warnings-for-years-the-times/
Species loss in the UK, has been due to habitat destruction.

Carl Friis-Hansen
Reply to  Adam Gallon
December 31, 2019 6:33 am

During my 10 year stay in Scotland I noticed that the roads in the hilly landscape had thick stone walls at one side of the road to protect traffic from falling down the hill side. very 10 yards or so, there was a big stone left out, in order to drain water from the road – great. However, these holes were often blocked by branches and dirt. So what happens during heavy rain – flooding due to climate change.

Newminster
Reply to  Adam Gallon
December 31, 2019 7:37 am

Not a little of which is in order to plant windmills and solar panels!

Carbon500
Reply to  Adam Gallon
December 31, 2019 8:27 am

It’s not difficult to find areas at risk of flooding from the River Don – here’s Fishlake in the northernmost part of the map:
https://riverlevels.uk/flood-warning-river-don-lower-catchment#.Xgt0NVX7TIU
For anyone who wants to see pictures of past flooding – for example the 1923 Fishlake flood, there’s some historical society footage for the village online.
I found all this in a matter of a couple of minutes or so – but the ‘Independent’ supports the climate change nonsense all the time, so no surprise here.

Phoenix44
December 31, 2019 1:26 am

As someone who lives in the UK I’m struggling to see these dire consequences? A day hotter than any other by a tenth of a degree? The usual rain? What exactly has happened here that has never happened before?

Just lies, as simple as that.

tonyb
Editor
Reply to  Phoenix44
December 31, 2019 4:35 am

Phoenix

As A historical climatologist specialising in the English climate over the last 2000 years I can confirm that what we are seeing today we have seen in the past.

What is different is the political agenda. As an example, during the last few days you will have heard of the ‘highest temperature ever, this late in the year’ Disregarding the fact it is just weather (a heat plume from the Sahara) the terminology is ‘the 28th December onwards’. The reason for that being the 27th December 1921 was warmer. Also the Warmest December day belongs to 1948.

Heard about the hottest Easter ever this year> They didn’t mention that the Easter Saturday following (not technically Easter) was some 3 degrees centigrade warmer, again in 1948.

Smoke and mirrors I am afraid. Speaking of mirrors, just google the ‘hottest day ever,’ this year in Cambridge Botanic gardens. Its not an official Met office location any more as it is severely compromised by the city growing round it. Even further compromised by the enormous building just erected next door stuffed full of solar panels!

tonyb

Carbon500
Reply to  tonyb
December 31, 2019 8:42 am

tonyb: thank you for your comments – I’m 71 years of age, and certainly I don’t see any difference in the English climate, having lived here for all of that time.
Phoenix44 might like the link below, which you probably know about – graphs of UK temperatures, rainfall and sunshine going back to 1910 from the Met Office.
Here’s the truth for all to see – so where’s the danger? However, the Met Office, despite having data such as this freely available, still has a website is plastered with all the climate change garbage:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series

Robert of Ottawa
December 31, 2019 1:57 am

Climate change and damage to nature are already having “dire consequences”,

Are they refering to Brexit?

December 31, 2019 1:58 am

If indeed its too late, unless we stop using fossille fuel, what about India, China, and the South East Asia countries .

Do we have to go to war , stop them polliting the world with their CO2.

And what about those nations who are digging up and selling coal to so many countries, such as Australia. Our politicians seem to think that as its burned in the Northern hewmesphere it does not count to our carbon footprint. .

Its now so silly that even allowing for the 15 to 25 year olds,, all emotion and idealist thinking how can they really still believe in CC ?

MJE VK5ELL

December 31, 2019 1:58 am

“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.”

With any luck there will be no more last chances and when this last chance has come and gone, the tipping point insanity will have come to an end.

https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/09/01/tipping-points/

old white guy
December 31, 2019 2:34 am

They are all nuts, I have nothing more scientific to add.

leitmotif
December 31, 2019 3:41 am

Is there any significance that this was also reported in the Morning Star yesterday?

“2020 is ‘last chance’ to save the planet

‘We need to change the way we live,’ environmental campaigners warn”

“Natural England chairman Tony Juniper and Environment Agency chairwoman Emma Howard Boyd say that recent flooding in Britain and devastating wildlife loss prove that the “dire consequences” of rising temperatures are already being felt.

Writing on the Green Alliance website, the pair stress that “2020 is our last chance to bring the world together to take decisive action on climate change.”

Global warming is intrinsically linked to wildlife and habitat loss, they explain, saying that restoration of the natural environment must be “at the heart of the response.” ”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/2020-is-last-chance-to-save-the-planet

fretslider
December 31, 2019 3:44 am

The record is stuck…

Sara
December 31, 2019 4:01 am

Last chance, huh? Well, then I’d better check the pantry again. I know I”m stocked up on popcorn but there may not be enough butter to keep it tasty, and soda pop is running low. Tea in plenty, leftover Christmas cookies, some really tasty prime rib patties – 4 to a pack at Wallyworld – and some mashed taters – yeah, I’m good to go. About time to change the furnace filters anyway.

On another note, since Lake Michi Gamu (Michigan) is about five miles from my house, I’ve been trying to figure out how long it will take to erode the ancient dunes (now full of housing) and start eroding the very ancient dune my house sits on. Best guess I could come up with is about 12,000 years, give or take a millennium or two. Should I wait for it?

David
December 31, 2019 4:35 am

The government still permits (via local authorities) the building of (bog-standard – i.e. sling it up on a concrete pad) houses on ‘flood plains’….

The clue’s in the description, FCS….

richard
December 31, 2019 6:19 am

Add that to the Arctic will be ice free in 2013,14,15,16,17 and 18 and this winter the ice has been increasing as always-

“The Arctic sea ice edge is very close to the 1981-2010 median”

astonerii
December 31, 2019 7:05 am

Sounds good. Only one more year of listening to these idiots. I am sure they will not change the date again, like they have every year over the last 40…

Tom Abbott
December 31, 2019 7:14 am

From the article: “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.”

If that’s the case, then it’s all over. Give it up! Switch to mitigation and forget about talking every nation on Earth into reducing it’s CO2 output because it’s not going to happen. You have set yourself an impossible task.

Drastic CO2 reduction is not going to happen in the shortterm and it’s not going to happen in the longterm. In the shortterm, CO2 will double and there’s nothing that can be done about it, and in the longterm it will be seen that a doubling of CO2 is harmless.

Roger Knights
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 31, 2019 9:45 am

“Switch to mitigation”

You meant Switch to adaptation.

Olen
December 31, 2019 8:14 am

The good news is it is a perpetual last chance.

Rhys Jaggar
December 31, 2019 8:26 am

Why on earth do you give any credence to the Independent, for pete’s sake?

There are almost no UK journalists either qualified to discuss climate science nor to demonstrate any from of leadership, evidentiary challenge.

All they can do is rabble rouse like seventh rate versions of Goebbels.

Just ignore them and move on.

December 31, 2019 8:46 am
Nancy
December 31, 2019 8:48 am

Another “last chance”? I guess this time I should panic … nah.

Michael F
December 31, 2019 2:22 pm

I’m just going to wait for the final, final warning and then I will be satisfied that there won’t be any more to come. Until then I will just get on with my life and after that, I will just get on with my life.

Lee
December 31, 2019 3:22 pm

When the climate changers start buying land on the high ground a couple of miles from the beach, THEN I’ll know they really believe the water is coming up. As for now looks like everyone is betting on the current beach staying just where it is.

Michael
December 31, 2019 3:55 pm

But climate change is affecting everywhere at least twice as much as everywhere else!!! At this rate we are already dead! Pay up now!

dennis vaughan
December 31, 2019 6:14 pm

I predict that in 2020 the earths climate will change as it has for the past 5 plus billion years including the 5 odd million years that humans have inhabited it.

Cynical Seamus
January 1, 2020 6:31 am

I don’t suppose that this is a reflex reaction because it is only one year to go before all of those good things promised in Agenda 21 should have been done? /sarc