I’m delighted to see that Tony Blair has thrown his weight firmly behind Rajendra Pachauri, and his willing little helpers, as they struggle to finalise the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report in Stockholm.
This is just what people need to help them make up their mind to trust the IPCC.
Tony, it’s great to see you blogging again.
Mr. Blair’s speech is on YouTube here, and I’ve done a transcript of it here. The speech does seem all a bit “2009”. He talks about galvanising political leadership “to act in the way that it should” and “there is this huge, palpable sense amongst the public that things have to be done”.
There’s an article in the Guardian from 2011 which lists some of the largest public demonstrations in the UK from 1958 to 2011. Climate is mentioned only once, among the 18 examples – the March for Jobs, Justice & Climate took place in March 2009, in which 35,000 took part (and this was just as much about the economy as it was about climate change). That was dwarfed by the Stop the War Coalition’s march in February 2003, which involved up to 2,000,000 and is said to have been the largest political demonstration Britain has ever seen.
Of course, STWC didn’t make a blind bit of difference to government policy, which proceeded on its course, regardless. Which I think shows that the Blair regime, like others before and since, was somewhat selective about the issues it chose to be galvanised by.
With friends like that, who need enemies..?
I do hope there’s a special circle of Hell reserved for Blair, Campbell, Huhne, Gummer, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al – anyone in power, really, who favours expediency over truth. (I was going to say I hope it’s going to be big enough, but overcrowding is probably a bonus.)
I also echo Alex’s welcome back, Tony. This blog is a refreshing drop of sanity in a maddening world.
Alex and James
Many thanks to you both!
I’m reminded of a climate March in London that was trailed on the net with increasing desperation as it became clear that it wasn’t going to come any where near rivalling the Countryside March, which was the benchmark for such events at the time. I’m not sure whether it was the one Alex mentions.
The day after, it was reported that ‘x’ tens-of-thousands had taken part, but the graphics looked wrong. Instead of crane shots of boulevards and squares fille to bursting point, there were just some over-the-shoulder shots of speakers with some people standing in front of them. So on the Monday morning I phoned the Met. Police press office and asked it the tens-of-thousands figure I’d seen was right. The PR person had obviously been asked that question once to often, because she just said “Five thousand” and slammed the phone down.
Is that a picture of Blair taking a selfie in front of an oil fire (or some freshly bombed target)? Scary – he does remind me of The Joker in Batman when he smiles…
Merry Christmas Tony and good to see you back. I’m so busy at work these days I don’t get enough time to put enough energy into Climate change; its a busted flush anyway. More important that we deal with the completely broken politics that we now have.
Hopefully we can look forward to some more thoughtful observations from you in the future.
Many thanks Peter and good to hear from you. I’m afraid that I’ve been neglecting the blog, but soon I hope that there will be some news that may even revive your interest in climate change.