Guest essay by Eric Worrall
All the harm Britain did to the world by creating the Industrial Revolution puts Britain under a special obligation to lead on climate change, according to British MP Michael Gove.
Michael Gove declares UK has a ‘moral responsibility’ to lead global Green Industrial Revolution
James S Murray @James_BG 11 February 2020
Cabinet Secretary sets out government’s priorities for COP26 Summit, but is reticent on whether he wants the job of Summit President
Michael Gove this morning declared that he was “very happy with the job I have”, while declining to be drawn on whether he wants the post of COP26 President in this week’s imminent Cabinet reshuffle.
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He also hinted that in the face of likely opposition from the US and Brazilian administrations the UK would look to work with cities and states to secure more ambitious climate pledges. And he highlighted the importance of China’s upcoming Biodiversity COP, which he argued represented “two halves of the same process” in conjunction with the Glasgow COP Summit and as such should provide a route to securing close co-operation with China and other major emerging economies.
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He added that “the reasons we think it is so important to demonstrate this leadership is not just because we are hosting COP, but also because we believe the UK has a moral responsibility to lead as the first country in the world to industrialise”.
“As we all know the Industrial Revolution relied – and still relies to a disproportionate extent – on the extraction and use of hydrocarbons,” Gove said. “And we have a moral responsibility on the first in, first out basis to ensure the country that pioneered the Industrial Revolution and played the biggest role in the change in our climate, [has] a responsibility to lead a Green Industrial Revolution.“
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Read more: https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4010465/michael-gove-declares-uk-moral-responsibility-lead-global-green-industrial-revolution
This isn’t the first time a British politician has casually talked up bypassing the US Federal Government, to undermine President Trump’s policies by striking deals with individual US cities and states. Its like some Britons still think they own the USA.
Updated (EW): “Its like Britain still thinks…” changed to “Its like some Britons still think…”. Sorry for any upset caused by my original poor wording, having lived in Britain I know there are plenty of sensible people including my friends in the skeptic movement who are just as horrified at the CAGW scam as I am.
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I”ve got news : the industrial revolution is now centered in China. And China is building conventional nuclear power and also rushing to commercialize molten salt small modular nuclear reactors. Canada is also pushing the development of molten salt reactors, and went there rather than remain in Britain because Canada was
far easier to work with and supportive than Britain
The industrial revolution lifted billions out of poverty and increased over all prosperity for the entire planet.
Britain has nothing to apologize for.
Thank you. The industrial revolution has been a gift to humanity. I do not like green-misanthropy and the thought that humans are not natural inhabitants of the planet. Prosperity has allowed us to live better and cleaner lives. I enjoy my life at the top of the food chain and the benefits of technology. Enjoy the inter-glacial while it lasts.
We could always send everybody the bill.
JF
I think we paid that bill in interest 1940 to 1945.
Looks like Mr. Bean and sounds about as smart.
Not like Orson Bean RIP who was a considerable renaissance man.
National governments are being sidestepped by international coalitions of city leaders:
https://www.c40.org
https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org
https://www.covenantofmayors.eu
https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/urban-agenda
https://www.uk100.org
National governments are being sidestepped by international coalitions of city leaders:
https://www.c40.org
https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org
https://www.covenantofmayors.eu
https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/urban-agenda
https://www.uk100.org
Mayor urges Government to allow Londoners to retain EU citizenship
18 February 2020
Sadiq heads to Brussels for top-level meetings with Guy Verhofstadt MEP, Michel Barnier and David Sassoli MEP
‘Associate Citizenship’ should be at heart of negotiations about the UK’s future relationship with EU, says Mayor
…
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/londoners-could-retain-eu-citizenship
Mayor wants Londoners and UK nationals to keep rights they had as EU citizens, if they wish
The reality is that, based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we have been experiencing is very small and 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 to support the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero.
There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them. If they really want to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels in a big way then the best approach would be replacing ageing fossil fuel plants with nuclear power plants. Going electric does not reduce the burning of fossil fuels if the power plants producing that electricity are burning fossil fuels. Wind and solar may be able to help but that energy is not available all of the time and is currently cost prohibitive especially to store it in any big way. In terms of green energy what we need are very high capacity electrical storage batteries that are small and light weight, dirt cheap to manufacture, and that last for decades, but we do not have that yet.
I agree with you William Haas.
Why do none of the climate emergency crowd never call for the rapid research and building of nuclear power plants ?
They do not seem capable of thinking for themselves that our modern civilization depends on cheap plentiful energy .
Restrict energy and these idiots like Gove will soon be tossed out when shortages and cost increases of most essentials start hurting the average family.
Gove should join the greens because that’s what the clowns beliefs align with .
Here in New Zealand we have greens in the government and they will ruin the country if they gain a bit more power .
Unfortunately we have MMP and once a party gets 5% or more of the votes they get members into parliament and the tail starts to wag the dog.
In the UK it looks like Gove the dog is wagging his tail.
Thank goodness all my great grand parents left the UK between 1850 and 1863 for NZ
Graham
Proud to be a farmer who has supplied lamb beef ,butter and cheese to feed the UK from New Zealand
MMP what a wonderful thing that is. Allows people like Nandor “Look dood I skateboard to work from a taxpayer funded luxury house on Oriental Pde” Tanczos. One hit wonders. What did he actually do?
This is on the same page as “white privilege” that’s becoming all the rage in the US. It’s part of the shaming binge the Left resorts to when they have nothing worthwhile to carry on about. We make North Korea’s draconian punishment of going back three generations look OK.
Ah, yes, I remember it well: Jew… or was it Tutsi, White privilege. Deja vu.
Would that “white privilege” be found among the (how many?) white ‘persons’ hoping to be the next Marxist U.S. president.?
“White Privilege” brings this to mind.
(I hope the link works.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_LeJfn_qW0&w=962&h=541%5D
Back when SNL was almost funny, still.
Oh what a great twit!
I think the UK can take several victory laps for introducing the industrial revolution. If there is any penance to be paid it is for the BBC, Guardian and any policies they have cobbled together with an intent of change the weather.
“I think the UK can take several victory laps for introducing the industrial revolution.”
I agree. It’s silly to think the Industrial Revolution per se is a negative. Where would we be without it?
Too stupid to know how stupid he is.
No, not stupid at all. IMO you always need to watch what the left hand is doing when dealing with Gove.
The country that led the world out of peasantry, that enabled billions of people to escape the drudgery of stoop labor, of trudging behind mules, and instead created art and literature and travel and liberty, now has a reciprocal obligation to renounce everything, and march the globe right back into peasantry, 40-year life expectancies, 30% infant mortality and other good stuff.
Everyone who wants to subsist by food he can grow with a digging stick; to hunt, gather and live in hollow logs like raccoons? Never stray more than twenty miles from their place of birth? Sign up here!
Tom, we need to start a student exchange program where climate zealots can trade places with young people in Third World nations for a few years. If the zealots like self-enforced poverty and hunger maybe it could be made permanent; I’ll bet few of the yout’s (My Cousin, Vinnie) from the Third World would mind terribly. They might even become productive members of society which is unlikely for the Greens!
I advocate being as efficient as practical. Being impractically efficient is stupid. Rather, it usually isn’t actually efficient. Improvements in technology pretty much always increase what you can do with a given amount of manpower, space, and energy. I more or less think the industrial revolution was a green revolution that went though a brown phase.
You have to have some wealth to care about the damage you do getting it. I’m not talking Bill Gates. Just, having a home, car, and the ordinary stuff most of us have. Little fear of things being stolen, less of going hungry. Once you have a stable life, you start trying to improve your environment. The smoggy skies that once overwhelmed the industrial cities of the past are all but a memory.
The problem with the “green revolution” is that almost every aspect seems suspiciously designed to make people poorer. And to an extent, even if people become poorer, they’ll still try to keep their environments up. Problem is, there is a threshold, and once you pass it, all this goes out the window. They’ll burn coal to heat their food or even trash. As for where they get their food, suddenly a lot of possibilities open. The current plague is due in part to poverty and food procurement leading to a species jump for the illness. So, let’s be as efficient as possible, but not get so slavishly fixated on “green” that we end up turning that color before we die.
Let’s follow the logic of Liberals.
Not just Industrial Revolution derived wealth, but 500 years of colonialism must be paid for all well
Here in the US, the “wokest” Democrats are calling for slavery reparations.
As such, Britain is now expected to hand over all her Royal Crown Jewels in the Tower of London to China please. Or just put it up for a Sotheby’s Auction and send the proceeds to the UN.
The GreenSlime billionaire’s will line up to buy the Queens Crown and the many Princess tiaras to give to their kids for their social soirees.
Well Britain? Fork it over. The UK’s “Woke” Libtards have spoken.
This is why I didn’t vote conservative in the recent election because they are wrong on climate change. We have to fight back against our politicians and media but what party is going to do that.
Same reason i didn’t vote conservative
I would fund any party that would fight back against climate alarmism but the Brexit party is not that party we were betrayed by the wealthy backers telling us to vote conservative and that will not change.
Farage once asked Lord Monckton to be his climate spokesman, so I don’t think he’s an alarmist. But Brexit was always a much higher priority for him, from inside the EU it doesn’t really matter what British politicians want. Outside the EU, you’ve got a chance to vote for something better.
As a physicist and a Brit proud of the industrial revolution, and everything else we gave the world (especially to its colonies) I apologise for this twerp. The only good thing he’s done was to be heavily involved in getting us out of the EU. He does not represent the majority of Brits, Conservatives or Brexiteers.
““All the harm Britain did to the world…”
UTTER BOLLOCKS,
the Industrial revolution was many magnitude more beneficial than harmful !!
I’m all for the efficiency of Diesel engines – I use and repair them. and where did the “D I E S E L ” come from ? and what powers the world – albeit the US took a long time to shift from gasoline, bigtime, in their work-horse engines?
This Kooshit about UK leading the world….. as Bad as our Sturgeon et al racing shadows to the bottom of the pit
From the name of the German who did the original research work on these engines Dr Diesel.
His original engines used soft cold dust as fuel, something that Germany had plenty of but had trouble with the ash in the engine so switched to gas oil. Gas oil is the name for a distillation fraction
that is produced by the distillation of Crude Oil. Th mucky version is used as Heating Oil, the cleaned up version has additives added and is sold as Diesel.
Indeed! – shall we say -from EUROPE ? -so not all UK led pollution. and I know what CO2 is – not a pollutant, etc
BUT, DB, could you please elucidate on the COAL injection. I did not know that ( about Rudy’s engine ) but am aware of milling coal to a fluid powder for blasting into Steam furnaces for Power generation.
Big engines in the US have always been diesel. Car engines didn’t start converting to diesel until the oil crisis of the 70’s.
Auto manufacturers tried to take regular gasoline engines and convert them to diesel. Needless to say, these engines didn’t work well or last long, and the resultant bad reputation for diesels delayed their eventual adoption into the automobile market for a number of years. When I was a kid, most gas stations had at least one pump for diesel and the diesel was always 10 cents or so cheaper than regular gas. (This was back when regular gas went for 30 to 40 cents a gallon in S. California.)
That’d be like paying reparations for starting the worldwide Abolition movement or apologizing for cultural destruction due to fighting slavery around the globe like the African Squadron! Oh, wait! Never mind!!
Unfortunately this little squirt is my constituency MP. His knowledge of Science and Technology is what one would expect form someone who holds a Degree in English(2-1) awarded by the University of Stirling
non-existant!!
There seems to be a good correlation between the more certain a person is that there is a serious problem with global warming and their ignorance of basic science.
Does he have to look so gormless. Like Mr Bean on a good day.
Britain does indeed own the USA. Both sides signing the declaration of independence were representatives of the same company -the East India Company. It therefore has no legal standing.
Also, following the war about taxation being paid to Britain, the taxation was set in stone and increased.
What color is your tin foil hat?
The East India Company!?!
And all this time I thought it was the Masons!
(Or maybe it was the Templars? Were the Templars behind the Masons and they were behind … some other group’s “behind”?)
” the country that pioneered the Industrial Revolution and played the biggest role in the change in our climate, [has] a responsibility to lead a Green Industrial Revolution.“
Mr Gove, you are wrong again. The industrial revolution which was started in Britain did not play a role in the changing of our climate for the worse, because our climate today is better than it has ever been. We are all living longer and enjoying a life that was never envisaged in recent history as a result of the Industrial Revolution, which, amongst other things, facilitated the medical research that eliminated the scourge of many horrific diseases to the benefit of the worlds population. If you have a reason to believe otherwise, then can I invite you to debate your views with one of the thousands of scientists across the world, who are far more qualified than you to pontificate on a subject for which so far you have no empirical evidence? Mr Gove, you have already brought the British car industry to its knees by your groundless decision to bring an end to the use of diesel oil and petrol in vehicles. You have also set out to damage further, our car industry by stating that petrol and diesel cars will be banned within 15 years. It seems as if you have a conscious desire to bring our nation’s economy to a massive decline for no apparent reason or the support of the majority of the people of this nation. One has to wonder what your motives are for wanting to do this.
Boris Johnson and his Tories won the last election by promising to “get Brexit done”. One of the major drags on the British economy was the regulations from the unelected Commission of the European Union, which hampered industrial development everywhere in the EU. Germany was once the dominant economy in the EU, but their recent tilt toward wind and solar energy (in a very cloudy country) and away from nuclear and fossil-fuel energy has weakened Germany’s economy and taken much of Europe down with it, with the exception of France, which has retained its nuclear power plants which provide about 3/4 of its electric power.
If the UK is now free of the shackles of the European Union, they can develop their economy using rules voted by the British Parliament, develop North Sea oil as much as they wish, and do not have to obey self-destructive EU regulations. The UK will need trading partners to continue its growth, so will Boris Johnson choose to reattach himself to the sinking EU ship, or try to ride the coattails of the booming economy of the USA which can provide its own fossil-fuel needs and even exports a little? For a pro-growth Tory like Boris Johnson, the answer should be obvious.
With the exception of China, most of the fastest-growing economies of the world are former British colonies: the USA, Canada, Australia, and India. The UK knows that the economic model they helped spread to their former colonies works well, and Boris Johnson will continue to follow it. If Michael Gove wants to give that up to worry about climate change, he might soon be unemployed.
Hey! It’s Howdy Doody time!