At last the phoney war is over, the election will be called tomorrow, and now the main parties will have to reveal their true strategies for winning power. Policies will be set in stone, or at least written up in party manifestos and justified or discredited in the face of questions and criticism.
This thread is for discussion of any matters in the forthcoming campaign that specifically apply to ‘climate, the countryside and landscapes’. My feeling at the moment is that the main parties, with the possible exception of the Lib Dems, will avoid the subject of AGW like the plague. In fact it would surprise me if even the Greens make a big issue of it other than to make the preposterous claim that moving to a low carbon economy will be a panacea for the present fiscal meltdown.
I hope that I am wrong about this, as it is high time for this whole subject to be dragged into the open and take its rightful place at the centre of the public debated on who will lead the country into the coming decade. The electorate should have an opportunity to make their feelings known to those who will form the next government, whoever that may be.
So if you spot anything that seems relevant among the torrent of electoral verbiage that is about to descend on us, please put a comment and a link here, not on the NS thread where it will quickly become lost and forgotten. What the politicians – and others who can influence their policies – have to say over the next few weeks is likely to be the best guide we can find to how the recent convulsions in the climate debate are feeding through into changed attitudes to AGW among policy-makers.
If major controversies, or apparent changes in political thinking that are relevant to the subjects that Harmless Sky covers emerge during the campaign, then I will open other threads as and when appropriate. If you feel that a new thread covering a particular aspect of the campaign is needed, then please let me know.
_________________________________________________
Related thread: Election fever
h/t Brute for link to image
Robin and Peter too – sorry, didn’t mean to leave you out!
In this excellent article, Benny Peiser looks ahead to the political pressures caused by climate politics that will face whichever party, or parities, come to power after the general election. Over the last few years I have found his predictions to be remarkably astute and accurate.
Bearing in mind that during last night’s prime ministerial debate less time was spent on climate change than any other topic, and that no one had anything to say beyond the usual platitudes, it would seem reasonable to suppose that options are being kept open by both main parties, if not the Liberals.
Alex #50
Thanks!
My observations, from afar, are that Climate change doesn’t rate as an election issue in the UK for the simple reason that there is no real disagreement between the leading candidates. The Tory party, at least for this election, seems to controlled by its sensible wing and the “nutters” in Tory party ranks, to borrow Nick Clegg’s phrase, have been temporarily gagged.
It would be a different story if the UK Tory party were in the hands of the the hard-core Thatcherites. Maybe next time we’ll see someone Daniel Hannan playing a prominent role. Climate change, then, would be an election issue.
Peter,
I’ve noticed that you are keenly interested in political conditions of countries other than your own and comment at great length about them.
Are you certain that you live in the correct locale?
Brute,
Yes that’s the thing about GHG emissions and climate change. What happens in all countries is equally important. Your own country and “countries other than your own”.
It wouldn’t have done your last President any harm to have taken more of an interest in the world in general. He may not have made a fool of himself by mistaking confusing Austria and Australia.
Peter, you are correct when you write that there is no real disagreement re climate change between the leading candidates; very generally speaking, one reason why this election is now such a close-run race is because there really isn’t much to choose between the three main parties, and not just on the subject of climate change.
On the subject of Clegg’s reference to “nutters”, which apparently did not go down well with the studio audience, this I think is a symptom he shares with others of the political class, such as the Miliband brothers. By not acknowledging the wide spectrum of nuanced opinion that exists on the subject of climate change (including those who occupy the “lukewarm” middle ground) and in effect classing all who doubt the CAGW orthodoxy as “deniers” and “nutters” akin to anti-Semites and homophobes, he is unwittingly alienating himself from a vast section of the voting public. This is only my speculation, but I’m wondering how many people in the audience were thinking: “Well, I’m not so sure of all this catastrophic climate change stuff, myself. Is Nick calling me a nutter?”
Take your example of Daniel Hannan. Here are his views on climate change, in his own words:
“I think the world is warming (I especially dislike the phase “climate change denial”: no one, as far as I’m aware, is positing climate stasis). And it may well be that human activity is playing some part in the process, although probably not to the degree claimed by some climate change professionals.
I also tend to agree with Nigel Lawson that adaptation would be more effective and cheaper than a programme of greenhouse gas reductions which, even according to its proponents, would slow global warming by only around 0.2 degrees. In other words, it ought to be possible to accept the case for global warming – and, indeed, for an anthropogenic component therein – while still believing that the Rio-Kyoto-Copenhagen agenda represents a misallocation of resources.”
Now whether or not you like Mr Hannan, agree with his politics or agree with his views of climate change, would you agree that these are not exactly the ramblings of a “nutter”?
PeterM
US Presidents may be powerful, but they are just human beings. I do not recall specifically when and where former US President Bush allegedly confused Austria and Australia. Can you cite the reference?
The current US President also made a major boo-boo when (as “Commander in Chief”) he congratulated a US Navy corpsman (medic) for his heroism and repeatedly used the word “corpse-man”.
Ouch!
Max
Do these sound like the words of a “nutter”?
What do you think, Peter?
Max
Or when the current US President commented that people that live in Austria speak “Austrian”……..maybe Peter has confused this President with the last.
Apparently none of Obama’s 12 teleprompters (their existence was cited a week ago at the UK’s Evening Standard, and noted yesterday at NewsBusters and BizzyBlog) were able to guide Obama’s dialect-challenged utterance in time.
Amazingly, Tom Raum of the Associated Press in effect made the same mistake (HT to an e-mailer) when he cited the above Obama quote and failed to note that there isn’t an Austrian language. Raum and who knows how many editors surely had several hours to get it right, and didn’t.
For the record, Austria’s languages, according to Wikipedia, are “German, locally also Slovene, Croatian and Hungarian.”
This is either an example of the lengths to which the press will go to cover for their dear President ‘Prompter, or an example of how ignorant the press covering Barack Obama really is. Or a bit of both.
Does anyone think that the establishment media would have let this slide if George Bush had been the one who made this mistake?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/04/06/if-obama-believes-austrian-language-so-will-ap
Haven’t found an online transcript yet for debate No.2 but there is a handy summary of the debate (where it touched upon climate matters) here on a website called BusinessGreen.
Last week I got the BNP’s election leaflet through my door. Climate change is actually among the items on the front, among other issues such as the war in Afghanistan (BNP want to bring British troops home) and immigration (BNP want to put a stop to it.) They say: “Raise the weekly pension to £150. The £18 billion Lab-Lib-Con give China and India to ‘adapt’ to non-existent Climate Change should go to our pensioners.”
Now I’m sure all of us, in our different ways, would take issue with the “non-existent climate change” part; like Nick Clegg’s “people who deny climate change exists” comment, it is an indication of just how polarised and simplistic the wider climate debate has become. However, I’m sure I’m not the only one here who would generally agree with them that transferring billions from our economy, for the specific purpose of preparing other countries against a hypothetical global catastrophe as nebulous as CAGW, is not a good thing.
Now I just need the LibDem and UKIP leaflets, to have collected the whole set…
Brute
I live pretty close to Austria. They do speak German, of course, which your President should have known, especially when visiting there, but it sounds a bit different than the official “high German” spoken in the north of Germany.
I seriously doubt that President Obama would have caught this nuance, however.
[His foreign-language skills are definitely behind those of his predecessor, who could, at least, speak some Spanish.]
The German-speaking Swiss have carried it one step further than the Austrians with their Swiss-German dialect.
The Dutch carried it even further – they called their version a separate language!
Max
Max,
You quoted some statements by James Hansen. Aren’t you indulging in your usual circular logic again?
Just, for the sake of argument, the mainstream view of science happens to be correct – and I know that probably a difficult concept for you guys to grasp, but if you could at least try to entertain the possibility for a short time: Would you still claim these were unjustified?
PeterM
To your question (63), hysterical claims of imminent doomsday (unless we REPENT NOW!) are NEVER correct. They NEVER have been correct, although we have heard them over and over again.
The “hit rate” on these claims is 0%, by definition, because “doomsday” has never really come, despite the dire predictions.
Doomsday cults are usually based on some perceived “human guilt” or “transgression”. Many are religious or pseudo-religious in nature.
Hansen is a “prophet of doom”. He does not represent the “mainstream view of science” (whatever that happens to be today).
He is what I would call a “nutter”.
Gore is different. He is making a fat buck on AGW, in his self-chosen evangelical role as “savior of the planet”. He is definitely not a “nutter”, just a shrewd opportunist and politician.
Pachauri is a follower and small time opportunist, but also not a “nutter”.
Jones, Mann et al. are “scientists” who betrayed their scientific objectivity for a cause, but they are also not what I would call “nutters”.
Then there are the computer “gurus”, who have no notion or real interest in our planet’s climate, but just crank out scary “scenarios” and “storylines”. These guys may be a bit weird, but they are not “nutters”.
Then there are hundreds of scientists, some of which support or do not support the premise that AGW is a serious potential problem. None of these really have the exclusive right to claim that they represent “the mainstream view of science”. There is no such thing, Peter. It changes daily. But these guys are also not “nutters”.
But the “doomsday” prediction is wrong by definition, Peter – it always has been. And those that preach it are “nutters”.
Do you see this differently, Peter? Please try to be specific, if you can.
Max
Thanks Alex for the information on the campaign – very useful for us ex-prats – and for so valiantly trying to keep the thread on-topic.
It’s truly a mystery as to why the political leaders treat us sceptics as “flat-earthers” or “nutters”, given that opinion polls suggest that we are in the majority. The one area where politicians are never at a loss is in keeping an eye on opinion polls.
My guess is that focus groups are telling them that insulting the tiny number of informed sceptics wins them votes among the much larger number of semi-informed warmists. In the focus group, as in the pub discussion, it’s not science or climategate or Pachauri’s business interests which count, but complex questions of social psychology which are difficult to analyse. Three cold winters and a suspicion of tax-happy politicians have turned the percentages in our favour. But doing easy things to save the planet and feel better about it is still a vote winner. We global warming obsessives easily lose sight of the fact that most people don’t distinguish between CO2 and any other “pollutant”. Having the likes of Jeremy Clarkson on our side for all the wrong reasons must also put a lot of people off, and having Nick Griffin even more so.
Thanks Geoff! The UKIP election leaflet finally arrived today, and I was somewhat surprised to find they do not mention climate change on it anywhere. There’s “Say NO to mass immigration”, “Say YES to referendums on all major issues” and “Say NO to wasting £45 million a day in Brussels”, though.
However, it could conceivably be that in order to get some votes from the “semi-informed warmists” (of which there are still quite a few) UKIP are choosing (in their election literature, at least) to fight mainly on other issues.
All the parties are not taking about Climate change because it is a tax and a cost. If they do they may be asked where the 140 billion is going to come from up to 2020. That figure is remarkably similar to the sum that needs to be saved over this time period. Maybe they have worked this out?
If anyone thinks we are going to be spending any significant money on Climate change they are deluded. I can not stress enough our financial situation is far worse that is being let on. Not irrecoverable, but in that position if we wish to save the NHS and education we have to ditch that which is not necessary to our staying alive. If any of the parties put in their manifesto that we are all going to take a reduction in our standard of living to save the planet, whilst everyone else ignores it they will not get a single vote.
I still believe if the Tories get in they will let it all wilt whist playing lip service, as will Labour, although we will get taxed to high heaven so they can continue there wasteful spending programs.
If there is a hung parliament and a deal has to be done with the Liberals we will be in for another election in short order. If it Lib Lab (the only one that the liberal rank and file will allow) tax on fuel will go up to save the planet. Our nuclear program will be further delayed and the next government will be forced by circumstance to ignore Europe if we are to have any power at all.
And if resources are scarce someone will be bound to work out that installing 10 GW of wind power and getting only 2 GW back, and intermittently at that is not a good ways of spend our taxes. And better still if the generators looking for all of this subsidy to build these things are asked to guarantee delivery its game over
AGW and all that went with it is dead. All we have to do is wait a bit longer for the financial crisis to sweep away the last vestiges of stupidity so we can replace it with some clear thinking.
To answer the question that this post poses, yes climate change matters, as it will determine who will lead our country for the next ten years. But that ten years may start next year, and I doubt it will be any of the three incumbents that we see on parade today. None of them have shown any vision, they are followers and copiers.
Watching British TV coverage of a British election for the first time in 25 years, I realise that the climate change obsession with mathematical models has invaded every corner of the media. The BBC and Sky News have pooled their resources to give us one big consensus opinion poll with 17,000 respondents; and 90 minutes later, they still haven’t announced the results, but simply the projections of number of seats derived from the results. When Hislop of Private Eye queried this on the BBC a couple of minutes ago, the interviewer told him the raw results “didn’t matter”. This is a disgrace to political reporting, and a fascinating parallel to the disdain for “raw data” with which we are so familiar.
Looks like the conservatives have won? (from what’s being reported early here in the US). Is that what the reports are there?
In 2000 and 2004 the state run media here in the United States just could not bring themselves to admit that the conservatives won until it was blatantly obvious. I suspect the BBC (state run media) suffers from much the same denialist mentality.
Geoff and Brute
At 12.45 AM only 4 seats have been counted so far (all in Labour territory) so the results remain based on an exit opinion poll only. I guess it will be another 5 hours or so before we have a defintive confirmation of what has happened
Tonyb
TonyB
When I said that the BBC (and Sky) hadn’t announced the results, I meant the results of their huge exit poll, which should give an accurate prediction of the percentage voting for each party. What both channels gave out as “the results of the poll” were computer-model projections of the numbers of seats, based on the results of the poll. They repeated over and over these projections as if they were survey results, when they weren’t. This is precisely the same ignorant and dangerous confusion of data with interpretation which you have so usefully revealed in your studies of historic temperature constructions.
Brute
Murdoch’s Sky News was as guilty as the BBC of this confusion. If the centre left media like the Guardian have a bias, it’s against the emergence of interesting minor parties. Their treatment of Ron Paul in the Republican primaries was as disgraceful as their treatment of the important far left in the Portuguese election.
I haven’t seen a proper analysis, but it seems that of the votes lost by Labour, just half have gone to the Conservatives, the rest being shared between Greens, UKIP and the BNP. This may mean that climate change has had an effect on the election after all.
Well, it’s the morning after, and things are still about as clear as mud re who will actually be the next government.
Caroline Lucas has won Brighton Pavilion, so maybe you’re right, Geoff, and climate change might still be a factor; although much of that win might also be accounted for by people voting for someone appearing new and fresh. The Greens do appear to have gone all out for that seat (David Dimbleby on TV last night: “That’s the effect of lovebombing Brighton Pavilion”.) Also Zac Goldsmith has won Richmond Park.
The big picture is about as confusing as it can get, at the moment. Two quotes:
Paddy Ashdown: “The British people have spoken, but it’s not really clear yet what they’ve said”.
Someone on a different blog: “The people get the government they deserve. Unfortunately, I get the government they deserve too.”
It is an interesting situation here which the politicians-who obviously haven’t learned a thing -are spinning madly.
The bald facts are that Labour has lost more seats than in any election since 1931, the Tories have gained the most since that date whilst the LIb dems-contrary to all polls went backwards.
Several things of note and rather contradictory, is that the Greens got their first ever MP -in Brighton a distinctly bohemian place equating to some parts of San Francisco. No doubt their candidate was helped by the fact that she was charismatic and pragmatic and someone of whom I personally approve of in many ways. However the rest of her party did notably badly and I think were behind the major parties in all other seats, and in many were behind UKIP and BNP.
In theory Gordon Brown can try to form a govt with the Liberal Democrats but the leader of that party has previiously said he wouldn’t work with Gordon and that the largest party-the Conservatives in this case-should be allowed to form a govt.
It makes no difference to the climate change policies of any of them, although that subject was notably a complete non issue with the electorate.
Tonyb
Thanks Alex and TonyB for helping us ex-prats to understand what’s going on – something the media are not particularly good at. If anyone comes across overall counts of the scores for Greens, UKIP and the BNP, it would be interesting to see if I am right in thinking that Cameron was robbed of a resounding victory by the fact that he got only half the anti-Labour swing, having to share it with minor parties.
The victories of Lucas, and particularly of the Green Tory Goldsmith, will keep Climate Change on the political agenda. The glaring contradiction between Cameron’s green convictions and the scepticism of tha average Tory may make Climate Change a crucial feature in the almost inevitable fall of whatever coalition government emerges.
TonyN has pointed out that parties may ignore the climate change issue, but they can’t ignore energy policy. Any attempt to rationalise policies on the former will fall foul of European law, handing big propaganda gifts to UKIP and/or the Greens. Its a commonplace of political history that governments fall on issues which later seem trivial.
Geoff
I shouldn’t read too much into either of these results-the greens in Brighton fought on primarily local issues and have a big ‘natural’ following which is replicated in very few places elsewhere in the UK.
As regards Richmond this centred round three things-sky high parking charges especially to visit a favourite local park, the possible closure of a local hospital, and the fact that the tories campaigned hard against the third runway for Heathrow very agressively-the airport is something that blights Richmond very badly and reduces the value of peoples homes.
http://www.zacgoldsmith.com/default.asp?contentID=86.
As I say the ‘greens’ elsewhere did very badly and climate change action is anyway enshrined in Law in the climate change act and is on the political agenda of the Politicians, if not the people -unless it personally impacts on their lives.
Tonyb