This is a continuation of a remarkable thread that has now received 10,000 comments running to well over a million words. Unfortunately its size has become a problem and this is the reason for the move.
The history of the New Statesman thread goes back to December 2007 when Dr David Whitehouse wrote a very influential article for that publication posing the question Has Global Warming Stopped? Later, Mark Lynas, the magazine’s environment correspondent, wrote a furious reply, Has Global Warming Really Stopped?
By the time the New Statesman closed the blogs associated with these articles they had received just over 3000 comments, many from people who had become regular contributors to a wide-ranging discussion of the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, its implications for public policy and the economy. At that stage I provided a new home for the discussion at Harmless Sky.
Comments are now closed on the old thread. If you want to refer to comments there then it is easy to do so by left-clicking on the comment number, selecting ‘Copy Link Location’ and then setting up a link in the normal way.
Here’s to the next 10,000 comments.
Useful links:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
The original Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs thread is here with 10,000 comments.
tempterrain
What tonyb wrote made sense to me, as well.
It is refreshing to see some of the scientists being honest, even if it goes against the IPCC (or “mainstream”) party line.
I predict that there will be more of this, now that skeptics are turning up the heat post-Climategate.
The emperor’s clothes?
Max
peter geany
So the airlines of the developed world will simply increase their fares to cover this bit of IMF-sponsored robbery and smart passengers will start looking at China Airlines or others that do not pay the tax.
Smart shipping lines will purchase their fuel oil outside the developed world, as the article suggests.
Getting rid of the ruling class starts by firing your MP (or letting him know he will be fired if he supports such rubbish).
Max
peter geany
4324
Having lived and worked in China, I can only agree with the words of the engineer with whom you talked about Chinese reliability and quality.
It took Japan 35 years with a lot of US help to become reliable quality suppliers. In the process their per capita GDP increased dramatically and salaries/wages there are as high as in the west.
This may take 50 years in China, which is starting at an even lower level today than 1950s Japan.
The wind turbine craze will be a fiasco in the UK, with or without lousy quality turbines.
Why UK taxpayers are allowing their money to be squandered for such silliness is beyond me.
Maybe you have a clue why this is happening, but I can’t figure it out.
(Sounds to me like the Brits need a “Tea Party”).
Max
‘scuse me for typo.in 4326
Should be “TonyN” (not “TonyB”)
Re the proposed global carbon tax on aviation fuel (Peter Geany #4325), for UK air travellers this would be in addition to Air Passenger Duty (APD) and price rises due to the airlines entering the EU ETS in 2012 – a triple whammy. Here’s a relevant article in Travel Weekly from April this year:
Alex This is all part of the bone heads in the EU having decided that air travel within Europe will be banned by 2050 and all intra European travel will be by high speed rail. Long car journeys will also be baned.
The HS2 in the UK is part of the EU plan and has nothing to do with any actual need in the UK.
More and more people are realising that the EU is turning into the Soviet Union. As we see all these policies play out we see why so much has been invested by the political classes in AGW. Slowly the scientists are realising that they have been hoodwinked, and only those at the core of the scam who’s reputations rest entirely on AGW are holding out.
Max you ask “Why UK taxpayers are allowing their money to be squandered for such silliness is beyond me” Well let me say strong representations are being made, and many Tory MPs are being buried under a mountain of correspondence. I have Told my MP (Tory) that he will not be getting my support whilst Cameron is in charge and whilst they are in Coalition with the Lib Dims. I write to him at least every 2 weeks outlining my disgust at the waste, at the incoherent economic policies and the fact that we are ceding powers to the unelected EU at an even greater rate than under Labour. And all the time they use AGW to add additional taxes to an already over taxed electorate.
Amongst the UK public AGW is dead, a non issue. But the moves by the Tories to short circuit the planning process is nothing short of scandalous. The political classes are more and more desperate to try and get there way. If only we could understand why they do this.
This was a jaw dropping moment for the BBC. A true classic
Peter Geany
Oborne’s diatribe against the Europhiles to which you link at #4320 can be adapted without changing a comma to apply to CAGW belief. It’s about arrogant leaders believing their role is to tell their electors what to think. It’s perhaps more dangerous even than belief in CAGW itself, because it implies a loss of belief in democracy, and is found everywhere on the political spectrum in Europe from Merkel to Danny “the Red” Cohn Bendit.
I disagree about the EU being communist though. One of the most sinister aspects of the EU is that they have actually rendered illegal the kind of socialism implicit in the Labour Party’s old Clause Four. I don’t expect many here to support nationalised industries, but to anounce retrospectively that the National Coal Board or British Railways were illegal organisations – on a par with ETA or the IRA – is the kind of affront to democracy which renders the EU itself an anti-democratic body.
Max,
The point, simply put, is that the scientists you, and TonyN, are praising for pointing out that the Greenland cartographers got it wrong, are a very same scientists who are saying AGW is a serious problem.
So you’re saying scientists only have credibility when they are saying something you like but not when they don’t?
I suppose that sounds about right.
Peter Geany ,
“This is why we need a revolution to get rid of the rulling classes.”
” …but not our leaders which is proof they are not humans and therefore we could do things to them without fear of retribution.”
Whatever next? Gangs of enraged right-wingers engaging in Bader – Meinhof style revolutionary tactics?
Does MI5 keep an eye on blogs like this? I might have to have a word with them.
Hi geoff. Those were my thoughts about the piece as well. OK Communist was the wrong word, but it sort of implies high ideals, that are never quite delivered because it ignores many basic human behavioural needs by imposing its creed upon the many to the benefit of the few. I hate the terms left and right because the MSM use them in completely the wrong way and ignore the true meaning and use the terms as one is good and the other bad, which is not how reality is.
But when you centralise everything and then impose those decisions on the population you get apathetic responses and poor productivity. This is why governments without a single exception in all history cannot successfully run enterprises. What governments “were” good at was in regulations, that sort to ensure monopolies didn’t extinguish competition and protected the general population from the predatory instincts of man. Improving health and safety and a cleaner environment have been positives of past regulation that have benefited all. Today though regulation is at the very core of what has gone wrong, being used to impose political beliefs rather than technical necessities.
We have got past the point of power corrupts and reached the point of absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don’t excuse any stupid behaviour by some investment banks but one of the best and easiest commentaries to understand about how this whole failure is down to our arrogant politicians is this one by EM Smith. Many of you will know him as a climate sceptic, but I follow his pieces about seismic activity and his commentary during the Fukushima crisis was one of the best and attracted some very sane and expert commentary.
I think we are now moving into the end game. Just how it will play out is anyone’s guess. I listened to the BBC news tonight and their commentary on the financial crisis bore no relationship to what I have been reading today. This is exactly how they have reported CAGW all these years, cherry picking the bits that fit with their idea of what they want us to hear.
Peter Geany
Perhaps its always been the same, but most of the current generation of politicians of whatever colour just don’t seem very clever and have little strategic vision. Those (few) that do have something about them are often arrogant, dogmatic and driven by idealogy which clouds their judgement.
The number that have all the virtues we as voters might seek AND have commonsense seems to be reducing with every generation. Whether that is genuinely so, or whether our expectations have risen its difficult to know.
Perhaps the world is becoming so complex that few individuals are able to grasp how to deal with it, perhaps they are driven by power and money rather than public duty, perhaps they are out of touch with ordinary people as an increasing percentage of them go straight from University to politics without a real job intervening.
The EU has undoubtedly changed things-I feel like I have no part whatsoever in the decisions they take which increasingly impact on my life.
Temperterrain is more a student of politics than I am and might be able to confirm if we are looking back to a golden age of competent principled politicans that never really existed.
tonyb
Peter M ref your #4335
Even you I think would agree we live in a democracy and that means those we elect have been temporarily passed permission to govern us and that they should implement the will of the people, not set off on some grand personal crusade. An example of the latter is being discussed at Bishop Hill
I have in the past pulled you up about your use of the term right wingers, a typical tactic of those whose views are from the hard left and anti democratic. Left and right refer to the level of central control and I have mentioned to you before that both Stalin and Hitler were of the left. I am for the rule of law and democratic accountability, both of which we have precious little available to us now in the UK. I am anti extreme left and extreme right in equal measures.
As an example of what I mean, Tony Benn a politician you perhaps know of was staunchly democratic, always prepared to accept his fate at the polls. He was staunchly anti the EU as it was in his view anti-democratic and not accountable. So I could see there was much to admire in his basic principles. I often found I agreed with what he stood for. However that does not mean I agreed with him when it came to policy responses and how to achieve our common aims.
He thought many things were too important for the market or private enterprise , whereas I thought that bureaucracy and incompetence were greater problems when government attempted to run enterprises. They should regulate in an intelligent manner and put in place sanctions for those that fail buy breaking those regulation. So given that you now have an inkling of how I think, can we have some intelligent comment rather than the rather crass comment above.
tonyb and tempterrain
Let me add my bit, from yet another vantage point (non-EU Europe).
The beauty of Swiss democracy (and also its weakness) lies in its total decentralization. It was conceived as a “bottoms up” representative democracy, with communities getting the largest portion of the tax income, Cantons coming second and the federal government coming a distant third. Since money = power, this means that historically the local governments have had greater power than the centralized ones.
This balance of power is gradually changing. Federal regulations are increasing; so far federal taxes have been kept down, but there are already “equalization” schemes, whereby “rich” cantons have to share with “poorer” ones. These are encouraged by the socialist and green parties, tacitly approved by the centrists and vehemently opposed by the parties that could be classified as “libertarian” or “conservative”.
In post-Fukushima panic, the federal government has just decided to opt out of nuclear power (currently ~40% of total) by 2029. What will happen between now and 2029 is anyone’s guess, but the green party is launching a federal referendum in the hopes that post-Fukushima panic among the voters can swing a public vote in favor of the opt-out, possibly even accelerating it. This plot may backfire, as the greens do not have a viable alternate to propose.
It is “PC” to be “green”. As a result, no political party can afford to be “anti-green”. A small “CO2 tax” has already been passed by the parliament, but this issue has not yet come up for referendum.
The socialists and greens favor Swiss entry into the EU, the centrists are wishy-washy and the conservatives/libertarians are staunchly opposed. The Swiss voters are generally opposed.
Polls taken in neighboring regions of (EU-member) nations show that a majority of the people there would actually favor joining Switzerland, where thy feel they would be better off and have more to say about how their countries are run than in the centrally controlled EU. The current Euro fiasco is strengthening an anti-EU sentiment in these regions.
So I see the discussion here more as a debate on what is preferable: local autonomy or centralized control, with socialists/greens favoring more central control and conservatives/libertarians favoring more local autonomy.
You in the UK have a different history than Switzerland (as do the USA), but I think the same debate is now raging in all three locations.
It is not (as tempterrain wrote) a question of
but more of a debate on whether the voter still has something to say about how things are run or whether he/she should abdicate all decisions to a “wiser” political elite, which may or may not respond directly to his/her wishes.
In the USA it appears that the “Tea Party” movement epitomizes this desire for less centralization (or expansion of the federal government). In Switzerland the strongest political party is now the conservative “people’s party”, which shares similar values. How this manifests itself in the UK (or Australia) I do not know, but I suspect that similar forces are in play there as well (but certainly not “gangs of enraged right-wingers”, as you have put it, tempterrain).
Max
Max
You say:
..
I find it troubling that there is no libertarian up-welling in the UK, similar to the Tea Party movement or the Swiss People’s Party, but not because I have any particular sympathy with either. I’m disturbed because in our strange little island we seem to have become detached from the political process just at a time when there is the greatest need for participation.
Mathew d’Ancona had an excellent take on this problem some time ago – sadly now pay walled – when he suggested that politicians’ concern over the outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference, and their failure to appreciate the extent of public revulsion over the MP’s expenses scandal, indicated that we are developing a political class, just like those in France and Germany, which are detached from, and incapable of seeing events in the same way as, the electorates that they purport to represent. And with this tendency, so our expectations of our politicians will fall; a perilous state of affairs in a democracy.
The concept of a political class is a very un-British thing, and the concept of ‘grass roots’ political pressure seems to have become alien to us. This applies equally to political activism from the other end of the spectrum. Even the Trots, the anti globalisation crowd, and the climate campers, seem to have gone quiet and faded, which is equally unhealthy I think.
Decisions are presently being taken on a regular basis that will affect our lives for years and even decades to come, yet our attitude seems to be ‘leave it all to the politicians’, although opinion polls suggest that we have scant respect for either their conduct or their judgement.
TonyN that is a good summing up of the UK attitude. What is slowly starting to change this attitude is our worsening economic situation and in particular the excessive cost we are paying for energy. This is where the detachment of the politicians is most obvious.
One of the things that is strange at present is the conduct of the Tories. Many Tory supporters still believe that inaction over many of the measures that should have been taken is down to the fact the they are in a coalition. I am no longer of this opinion and believe that Cameron’s Tories are a complete shower and worse than useless. Rather than get into power with a modern agenda they have pursued a tired old centralist agenda that was already being challenged and made to look inadequate before they came to power. That they are in a coalition with the Lib Dims is just are just a cover for doing what they want to do anyway.
The closer we get to an election the more unpopular Cameron’s brand of conservatism will become. The Lib Dims are a strange mixture of old liberals and centralist new labour types. They actually have no real idea what they stand for, and in the area I thought they would make a difference, personal freedom, they have done nothing.
We can’t unfortunately fix any of this now until the economic Armageddon arrives. That day is at hand and then some of our politicians just may grow a backbone help us decentralise government. If not I fear severe civil unrest that will have no right and wrong side, but rather spit the nation.
Max,
Mrs. Brute and I are Tea Party “members”………There is no “organization”, there is no “headquarters”, there is no official “party”, there are no “official” candidates. (The quotation marks were not directed at your comments).
Just a collection of like minded people who feel that government, on all levels, has gotten way out of control. Overbearing, tyrannical dictates, one size fits all style government doesn’t work.
The US Constitution was carefully constructed to limit, severely, the power of the federal government.
Unfortunately, the founding document of our constitutional republic has been gutted, mercilessly, over the last 100 years.
Reversing the scope and control of the federal government will not be easy………..and will most likely take 100 years to correct.
We will return the power to the people, sooner or later………..hopefully without violence like which was witnessed last summer in London.
However, we are under no illusion that the parasites will give up their “free treats” willingly. The wool has been pulled over the eyes of the populous for a long time and now, people are beginning to wake up.
Anecdotally, I happened to spend the afternoon with my brother in law (not the commie) and his family.
We discussed his desire to purchase a hybrid vehicle as an economical solution to his lengthy commute.
My advice (as an engineer and auto enthusiast) was that he should if he felt compelled to do so.
He went out of his way to inform me that he was no “greenie”…….that his motive was purely economical. I explained that even a plug in car was not “green” as the power used to propel the vehicle was produced by “evil” CO2 emitting coal fired power plants.
He interrupted me…………explaining that I should have referred to the evil, global warming causing gas better known as CO………..Carbon Monoxide.
CO he explained, is what Al Gore and company are referring to………which is causing the ice caps to melt, kill polar bears, causes mass exodus from low lying tidal areas………..Carbon Monoxide he explained, is what all the greenhouse gas, global warming fuss is about
.
Now, my brother in law is not a stupid man. He is not some leftist, eco-nut, radical. He is non-political, conservative financially, a family man, college educated, steady job, tea totaler………..(you get the picture).
I led him to a close by computer and showed him links to climate progress and other alarmist sites to provide background and to show him that yes indeed, Alarmists were claiming that CO2 is a pollutant and harmful to the planet and must be eradicated at any cost.
He exclaimed……….”but Carbon Dioxide is plant food”! “We all exhale Carbon Dioxide!“ “Carbon Dioxide is soda pop gas”! “Life would not exist on the planet without Carbon Dioxide”!
The propaganda that has poisoned this society will also take some time to correct also.
In his defense, he has a family to raise and protect and not much time to keep up with the issues.
There are hundreds of thousands just like him……
One aspect of centralized government that Mr. Martin fails to grasp is:
Abdicating power (from the people to government) is a double edge sword……..the political leadership could change in one election cycle.
The sweeping power that Mr. Martin so readily embraces and feels should be bestowed upon the political classes (that agree with his worldview) are retained during sucessive administrations who may not be to Mr. Martin’s liking…………..by then it will be too late.
Be careful what you wish for Pete.
Brute,
You say you are a “tea party member” Why does that not surprise me?
But anyway here is some empirical evidence on CO2 to show your poorly educated relative. Who as you say is just one of hundreds of thousands to express an opinion on AGW when he clearly knows SFA about it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPRd5GT0v0I
Finally I do suspect that those Americans who are most enthusiatic about the US constitution are also the least informed about it.
Maybe you’d like to test out my theory on your friends and ask them their opinion, and if they’ve ever heard that it includes the phrase “to promote the general Welfare” ?
So mightn’t that be interpreted to mean the provision of health care to the populace?
Peter Geany @ 4332
So you reckon that BBC interview with the trader was jaw dropping?
Try this:
Here in Oz, there is a Sydney journalist, Andrew Bolt, whom has been famously active against CAGW. (and variously described as controversial by the establishment BTW). He also does other stuff of public interest, and right now he is big news following a court ruling of, wait for it; his racial discrimination against “white aborigines”.
It has been described by some commentators, even a few that I commonly disagree with, that this is a sad day for free speech!
See this page 1 short introduction article in the Melbourne Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/no-thunder-from-bolt-as-court-finds-breach-20110928-1kxg5.html
At the same time, on page 7, there was an article on highly acclaimed aboriginal art, which included this photo of two such artists. See this to discover why we have, (more so in the past), commonly called aborigines ‘Blacks’, and why also some place or road names etc are similarly labelled:
http://images.theage.com.au/2011/09/29/2656378/art-papunya1-420×0.jpg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTW, there was a brief panel discussion here on the same BBC video, wherein everyone thought it was a prank, and there was reference to the man later saying that he enjoys such notoriety.
Bob_FJ,
The complaint centred on Andrew Bolt’s problem with race. In his, and some other Australians’ opinion, if an Aboriginal person isn’t black enough then they shouldn’t be termed Aboriginal. Of course, this is just a nonsense as you could have biological siblings who would fall on different sides of whatever shade of colour was chosen as a qualifying limit. So the only sensible approach is to accept a person’s wishes on classification especially if the wider Aboriginal community accept them as such.
There is a similar situation in North America. If you weren’t told that this guy was a Native American would it even occur to you that he may be?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JohnBHarrington.jpg
But if he says he is, and his tribe say he is, shouldn’t that be good enough?
BobFJ and tempterrain
Depends.
Until recently each member of the “Osage” tribe (in Oklahoma) with at least 1/16th Osage “blood” could qualify for a piece of the net revenues from oil recovered below the land of the Osage reservation (which was once a lot of money).
The monthly payment was based on “percentage Osage blood” and the tribe decided who did and who did not qualify. [Of course, there was no cheating, bribing, etc.]
Is this Aussie making a claim for some sort of taxpayer-funded handout?
Or is he simply making a statement?
Max
PS Take that dude out of his space suit and stick some feathers and war paint on him and then let’s see…
Pete,
Your lack of English language comprehension is astonishing.
Please review the definition of the words “promote” and “provide”.
You’ll notice that the word “provide” is used in reference to common defense (military activities) just before the word “promote” is used regarding general welfare.
Promote means encourage, not pay for.
Using your line of reasoning, the general welfare clause could be interpreted as compelling the government to pay for a repairman to fix my leaky roof or my new shoes as well as paying for my medical bills.
So you’re saying that the only government spending which is constitutional relates to “common defence”?
And all the other stuff: welfare payments to the unemployed, payments to farmers, education of children, support for the non-military part of space program, support of government scientific agencies, such government spending as there is on medical care, building of interstate highways, bridges etc is all unconstitutional and should be ended?