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CRISIS OF DREAMS
Some interesting points from Observer enviro editor Robin McKie, amidst the usual denunciations of us denialists:
After decades of waiting, the green movement has found the cause of its dreams: a crisis that gives them carte blanche, they believe, to rule our lives. Hairshirts are being knitted and the self-righteous are gathering. The Observer’s travel desk already gets hate mail merely for highlighting interesting destinations that might seem to encourage carbon-producing air travel.
But it simply does not have to be that way. For a start, air travel accounts for only 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. So I refuse to feel guilty because I have a family holiday in Spain and then write about the threatened glories of the Great Barrier Reef.
Good call. Australia accounts for only 1.4 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, so the whole country needn’t feel guilty. McKie continues:
Climate change is a bigger, more pernicious problem and will require broader, more intense efforts to cut back on carbon emissions, which, in turn, offers more opportunities for campaigners and politicians to hijack a sound cause to gain control of people’s lives. ‘That is the striking thing about global warming,’ says Myles Allen, of Oxford’s climate dynamics group. ‘It is a Christmas tree on which each of us can hang virtually everything we want.’
Thus, everyone from EU commissioners and Ken Livingstone to parish councils and writers of green-ink letters now uses global warming as an excuse to tell us how to live. Some of this advice, and attempts at lifestyle control, is sound. Some is not. Either way, it is misplaced.
When even environmentalists are worried about environmentalism, how much should we sane people worry?
(Via LGF)
BUAWHAHAHAHAHA, Habib! You beat me to it.
McKie makes a good point, but it’s not because he questions the basic premise of global goreming:
We live in an era of conspiracies. Princess Diana was killed by Nazis; 9/11 was the work of the US government, while the manned lunar landings were hoaxes filmed in TV studios. To this list of internet-fuelled daftness, we can now add a new plot: that the world’s scientific community is not just wrong about global warming, but is collectively lying when it says industrial carbon dioxide emissions are heating up the planet.
Michael Crichton started the ball rolling with his novel State of Fear and the idea has bubbled along nicely in online chatrooms ever since. But now the idea is to get the full terrestrial TV treatment when Channel 4 screens Thursday’s The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary which says claims that carbon emissions are causing global warming are ‘lies’ and that attempts to debate the subject are being suppressed.
Given that the world’s climatologists have just published a careful, sober report showing global warming is real and worrying, the programme is an astonishing foray into the debate.
He treats the IPCC as a “careful, sober report”.....hardly a recommendation for him.
I think that McKie is more upset that that the socialists are pushing out the environmentalists, and are starting to run the show, instead of leaving it to “government and industry”, as “advised” by the environmentalists.
Which sounds an awful lot like “pot, kettle, black”.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 06 at 03:12 AM • permalinkO/T but I hadnt seen this detail about dreamboat mentioned before.
“During overseas research for my forthcoming book on Israel/Palestine, I spent time with Fisk in his home-town of Beirut (days before the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri).”
From his own mouth in an article here.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 03 06 at 03:38 AM • permalinkBrett_McS, you are right.
Cause must precede effect.
Correlation does not prove causation. However, the absence of correlation is conclusive proof of the absence of causation.
I noticed something interesting about this. A couple of years ago, it was common to find a graph of temperature against CO2 on pro-GW sites, but the word must have got around that that it was strong evidence of CO2 not causing temperature rises. All those graphs dissapeared and I can’t recall the last time I saw one.
BTW, I’ve been following this for a while. I railed against Kyoto at Samizdata more than 5 years ago and earned my first Instapundit link*.
*also my last Instapundit link.
The letter posted below I copied and pasted from Mark Steyn’s mail box so hope he won’t mind me posting it here.
From the pen of someone who knows what he is writing about>
Thursday, 01 March 2007
Letter of the week
THE SEA IS STAYING PUTI am a tax refugee from Edmonton, been one for 16 years. No plans to go back. Alas, not the reason for my letter. As the title suggests, it’s about sea level.
Was on a harbor launch with one the assistant hydrographers from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore yesterday. Now, for those readers who do not know what a hydrographer is its basically a surveyor for the sea, someone who maps the oceans, the makers of nautical charts and all that. Now, if there is anyone who should know about sea levels, its a hydrographer. So, the topic about global warming, climate change (or whatever the latest moniker is now) came up and after the laughter died down I asked a direct question, “Have any of the tide gauges around Singapore shown any measurable rise in sea level?”. Answer, “No”. How many years of data do they have? Roughly 60 years at various locations and the sea level is the same it was when the British were still running the port of Singapore 50 years ago. In fact, the hydrographer added that they had multiple queries from the Ministry of the Environment and the National Environment Agency because those bodies did NOT believe that sea level was not rising because that’s not what the UN says.
But then if you read anything from junkscience.com, this is not surprising. There is no port in the world that is reporting that sea level is rising. We did a project in Trinidad last year and there was some bally-hoo about rising sea levels at port Stanley. But the project we were doing had to do with defamation monitoring of the tectonic plates in Trinidad with the University of the West Indies. The geophysics prof in change of the project related how he had to spend hours explaining to cabinet ministers that sea level was was not rising but that that particular corner of Trinidad was sinking, being pushed under the South American Plate by natural tectonic forces. For an island that is only roughly 25 miles by 25 miles, Trinidad has 3 major fault lines, the north of the island is on the same plate as Tobago, the south is on 2 different plates all moving in different directions, makes things very interesting with respect to property boundary surveys which is of course what our project was related to.
The interesting thing about all of this is how reality has been conveniently shoved aside and replaced with all of the IPCC rubbish from the UN. I mean, lets use the Canadian government for example, they spend untold millions of dollars every year to run the Canadian Hydrographic Service. You’d think that at least ONE cabinet minister would have the common sense to call the boys up at the CHS and ask the very simple questions, “Is sea level rising or not?”. But they don’t. Mark, this fits in very nicely with your thesis about how all of our cultural elites are increasing out of touch with the main stream and with reality.
Checking sea level is so easy, just call the port authority of the nearest sea water port to you and ask. They’ve been monitoring tides for years and the answers will all be the same, “From our numbers, there is no indication that sea level is rising.”
The question begs, why does the IPCC ask? We all know why, because they don’t want to hear the answer.
John Edward Serink
Product Applications Engineer,
SingaporeSlightly off topic, but this article gives a fair idea as to how ridiculous Britain has become.
A shellfish has been returned to the sea off the coast of Anglesey after being posted “home” from Shropshire.
The mussel had been picked up by five-year-old Alastair Thornton from Church Stretton whilst on holiday.His mother contacted an Anglesey website asking for advice to save it.
Mike Roberts who works at the University of Wales, Bangor’s school of ocean sciences saw the message and offered to put it back if the mollusc was popped in the post.
“I happened to log-on as the message was being posted, and as I work in the school of ocean sciences in Menai Bridge I thought I could help as it was no hassle to throw it into the Straits on my way to work.
“Then I thought about the large mussel fishery in the Strait and decided to drop it off at Red Wharf Bay where it was found, as that’s on my way home from work anyway,” said Mr Roberts.
Lynda Thornton who had visited Anglesey for a half-term break, with son Alastair and husband Ben, said she felt awful when they got home and found the live mussel amongst the sea shells her son had collected.
“I just couldn’t plonk it in the bin to die, so I went on the internet and came across a community forum on Anglesey.
“Mike was so very helpful, it was just a very funny episode really.”
Mrs Thornton did not tell her son about the mussel drama at first in case her bid to get him home failed.
“It could have gone horribly wrong but happily it now has a happy ending.
“Alastair is now quite intrigued by it all.
“I’m glad too that Mike took it back to Red Wharf Bay. It would have been ironic if it was fished out from the Menai Strait after I tried to save it - hopefully now it will be safe.”
The shellfish had been well wrapped for its return to Anglesey in a plastic bag, padded with newspaper and popped into an A5 envelope.
It cost £1 postage to send under the new post office packaging size rules.
The fact that the Mrs Thornton was not immediately committed is an indictment on the British nation.
#13 Hillyminx, your comment sparked me to have a peek at the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s Sea Levels Online web site. And, Katy bar the door! Los Angeles has a mean sea level trend of 0.84 millimeters/year (0.28 feet/century).
It actually took a bit of googling to find that site, lost amongst the multitude of “If the sea rises X feet, Paris is underwater” scare monger model sites. I only looked at few locations using the NO&AA; site, primarily in Texas. Several of the ones I find with a higher sea level rate I know for a fact attribute this more to subsidence than to rising waters.1970s: global freezing’s gonna getcha!
1980s: AIDS’s gonna getcha!
1990s: Y2K’s gonna getcha!
2000s: global warming’s gonna getcha!
2010s: [insert doomsday scenario here]‘s gonna getcha!
2020s: [insert doomsday scenario here]‘s gonna getcha!
2030s: global freezing’s gonna getcha!
... and around we go again
Posted by neoZionoid on 2007 03 06 at 06:39 AM • permalinkcoming soon to a cinema near you
‘a new advertisement in cinemas of young Australians demanding immediate and decisive action on climate change
The 30-second ad features 7 young people speaking out about global warming, the looming global climate crisis, and how it threatens their future.
“It’s hard to believe that we keep on polluting our planet like this,” 15 year old Sunshine Coast student Taylor tells film-goers.’
see the ad here
might have to buy the overpriced jaffas to throw at the screen if i go to the movies any time soon
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 03 06 at 08:00 AM • permalink“I’m not going to feel guilty about my holiday in Spain…” This explains why the GW movement will die in the arse. Feeling guilty is a bad motivation for doing something. Feeling guilty will only inspire resent.
And saying you’re not feeling guilty implies you think there is something you could otherwise feel guilty about. You’ll still end up resenting.
The problem for me is that they have no problem in the same breath (or article) saying “I refuse to feel guilty because I have a family holiday in Spain…” and also “Some of this advice, and attempts at lifestyle control, is sound.”
Which attempts at lifestyle control are OK and who gets to decide? Why does flying to Spain not qualify for lifestyle control? It’s basically the mentality shown by Al “Sasquatch” Gore. It is always someone else’s carbon footprint that is the problem.
Posted by Not My Problem on 2007 03 06 at 08:46 AM • permalinkSounds like Robin doesn’t appreciate his own ox being Gored.
Typical. These envirotards are all for the rest of us greedy Gaia-rapers giving up our [insert Green-hated consumer lifestyle choice here], but ask them to make a sacrifice themselves and, whoa, watch how they turn their footprint into a Reiki massage.
Given that the world’s climatologists have just published a careful, sober report showing global warming is real and worrying
But the report was NOT published by the world’s climatologists. It was published by a bunch of bureaucratic government hacks.
I wish the media would stip printing lies.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 06 at 01:44 PM • permalink#23 wimpy: “I wish the media would stip printing lies.”
Silly you.
If wishes were beggars, horses would fly.
:-D
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2007 03 06 at 03:51 PM • permalinkGreenpeace already beat ‘em to it, eeniemeenie. Its ad, available at YouTube, features an obnoxious lecture from a really, really snotty kid. The kind of kid that has zero friends because no one can stand to be around him. The kind of kid that would have lasted about five minutes in my parents’ house.
The Australian Youth Climate Coalition seems a little short on “youth”. Its steering committee
members are all in their 20’s, some well into their 20’s. One of their projects:The Coalition is planning for ‘youth climate conferences’ aimed at training young people from a variety of different backgrounds to be effective youth climate advocates, especially those who will be most affected by the impacts of climate change (low-income; Indigenous; and coal-affected communities). We held our pilot training in February with 17 new youth climate organisers, which was a great success.
This exploitative use of “the children” is quite disturbing to me. I can’t help but draw parallels to another organization of young people who were exploited by their authoritarian “leaders”.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 03 06 at 08:07 PM • permalink#25 Kyda, I saw that video and wanted to scone the snotty little brat.
As for the Aust Yoof Klimate Cloaca, I see one of the tossers from GetUp is involved, and another, the sweet young Anna Rose, co-produced a doco on Afghan ‘asylum seekers’ in Indonesia.
I wonder if she addressed the questions of why and how they made their ways to Indonesia, and what were their intentions. ie were they going to remain in Indonesia, a muslim country, or continue on to Dar al Beer for a damned fine welfare setup, even if it is full of infidels and crusaders.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 06 at 10:03 PM • permalink
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Unfortunately, this is the lefty view of the unconcerned.