Blair is right on climate change

kinglear

No

Pat

Well, since the world has been cooling since 1998, the solution to climate change is to burn more carbon- at least it is if you believe that carbon dioxide causes warming. Not a difficult technological fix is it.

Verity

Blair is not right on "climate change" and neither are you, James Forsythe. The climate changes. There is not one scary powerful event called "climate change", whch can be ameliorated by socialist power freaks.

It has changed throughout the history of the planet.

When the Romans were occupying Britain, there were vineyards, as productive as those in the Languedoc, north of York. People, went around in togas and sandals.

I think it was during Dickens's time that the Thames used to freeze over regularly, and people could drive their coaches and horses across. (I think they must have been daft, but that's another issue.)

In Medieval times, they had another hot era. Or a mini-Ice Age. Either way, the climate was on a cycle that took them to an extreme.

It's activity on the surface of the Sun that determines our climate, not assorted leftist moonbat control freaks who want to drive back the progess of mankind.

Point: the climate on Mars mirrors our own. There are no RVs, no non-efficient light bulbs, no air-conditioners blah blah blah on Mars. Yet its climate change mirrors our own.

It's due to activity on the surface on the Sun. Mankind cannot control the surface of the sun. Write this out one thousand times.

Rhoda Klapp

What scientific evidence? I think the most generous verdict is 'not proven'.

Richard

He's not doing as badly as other's but he's not correct; we can't do anything about climate change. It is a natural process, and I would compare trying to stop it to King Knut, except that I know that Knut wasn't actually tryign to stop the tide, but demonstrate to his ministers the folly of believing in human power. In fact we need Knut back, where is he when he would be so insightful?

Jeremy

"One of Blair's great skills as a politician, was to argue powerfully that the future can be better than the past."

Really? It takes skill to do that does it, James? What if I was to argue that daylight is better than night? Or that sunshine is better than showers?Would you consider me to be a great statesman, too? I really cannot understand how or why people were ever taken in by Blair. It was, and remains, a mystery to me.

Take this statement for example: "People are not going to return to the 19th century." What do you call it when somebody says something as bone-numbingly banal as that? "People are not going to return to the nineteenth century." Well, I suppose that one could ask: How would it be possible for them to do so, Tony - I mean given where we are and given the point at which our cultures, societies and technology currently stand? One could ask such a question but, quite frankly, what would be the point?

"Yes, we will get changes in the way we consume but we will be consuming differently, not necessarily less."

I suppose you could have made a statement like that at any point in the past one hundred years and - at any point - you would have been right. Do you see what I mean? There is absolutely nothing there. The man is a void. Devoid. Avoid.

“The answer to climate change,” he says solemnly, “is the development of science and technology."

Well whoop-de-doop. Alrighty. There we go, then. In a sense it's the "he says solemly" which gives the game away. Blair has made a long career out of false pietism - like an extremely manipulative preacher who knows that his flock simply cannot see through him. You know, the carefully cultivated expression of put-upon moral righteousness. The messianic moral indignation. It's all there, innit? But there's nothing round the back of it, James. It's all front. It's just painted cardboard.

"The critical thing is to use the technologies we have and to incentivise the development of new ones."

When, since the Industrial Revolution, has that never been the case?

Do you know...one of things that I am proudest of and most thankful for in my life...is that I never - ever - voted for Tony Blair. In that particular respect at least, my conscience is clear. And thank God - yeh? - for that.

Sarah Gibbons

Climate Change - Baloney!

Paul Owen

There is no evidence for man made climate change. That's the problem. Climate models and circumstantial evidence are not scientific evidence and certainly not enough to commit billions of our money 'being green'. Ask politicians for the evidence before they put up their taxes.

Dan Grover

I think, whatever your view on climate change (ie whether it's man made or not, or whether it's even happening), the real problems that get ignored are the ones that we know about for certain. You know what we definitely cause, and has absolutely nothing to do with the natural cycles of the earth? Acid rain, mercury in our water, the mass destruction of rain forests, etc. We are screwing up the planet for ourselves. 50 years from now, there are going to be some huge changes in both the environment and the way our society views it. People are going to realise that whether or not we can do anything about global warming (or even if it is a problem), we need to stop buggering up the world in just about every other way if we want to keep living on it.

There's also the issue of fossil fuels running out. New technologies need to be developed before they do. Ok, so the gradual increase in oil and gas prices will force companies to find new means of generating electricity before it all runs out, and that's fine for those who can afford it, but for many who're struggling to make ends meet now, the prices going up exponentially is simply not a viable option (and nor are tax cuts right now, which I appreciate contribute most significantly to most fuel costs).

Finally, there's also the issue of hydrocarbons. They make basically half the stuff in our homes and workplaces, and yet they are distilled out of crude oil. We're happily burning it away in our cars, but what happens when we use it all up and suddenly realise we can't make any new plastic objects? Yes, there are alternatives, but they're incredibly expensive.

Tony Blair is certainly right inasmuch as technology is going to have to be our saviour - we don't really have a great deal of choice there.

Major Plonquer

What on Earth does Tony Blair have to do with Climate Change? I thought he had a job fixing the Middle East. Has he finished that?

Kennybhoy

Verity,

You are of course entirely correct about the "climate change" nonsense, but you really should try to gie even the deil his due. As Richard rightly says, on this issue Blair is very clearly "not doing as badly as others", and any faint signs of rationality, of the sinner cometh to repentance, should be encouraged.

PS You are a bad woman! I cannot get the image of Jo Brand as an "ambulatory septic tank" oot o' my heid!

Cheers!

Kennybhoy

Richard,

While we cannot of course “do anything about climate change” per se, we can adapt technologies and economic models over time in order to alleviate any negative effects or take advantage of any positive such. If this is what Blair meant then he is entirely correct and even if it is not precisely what he meant, ANY display of faith in human scientific and technological capability, with it’s foundation in logic and reason, is surely to be welcomed and encouraged....?

mitch

Anything Blair supports is by definition wrong and him talking about hot air is sublime irony.
The climate changes fact! is it CO2 no! 0.03% by volume isn't enough.
The sun drives our climate and the sun has cycles! live with it.
There never was a bandwagon that blair wouldn't jump on.

David Ossitt

I think that the three ladies Verity, Rhoda Klapp, and Sara Gibbons have got it right.

WASHBROOK

All this nonsense on climate change is to do with the control of people.

Rosa

Please take a day out to study climate science - apparently the most serious problem facing mankind.

The science is quite simple, you need just to cut through the (deliberate?) obfuscation

Doubling CO2 changes the earth's radiation balance and will cause about 1 degree warming. This is pretty much undisputed.

The "climate models" amplify this change by five times, by assuming a hostile feedback action

There is no evidence whatsoever that such a feedback mechanism exists, and significant evidence that feedback acts to reduce changes, nor increease them

The predictions made by the models have not come about over the last two decades. Most of the excess heat from CO2 should cause the oceans to warm and there is no evidence of this. Likewise there are no telltale signs of changes in atmospheric temperature profiles.

Polar ice, bears and whatever are relevant only as advocacy props

And lastly, even if the alarmist predictions prove correct, the IPCC reports themselves contain information that shows the global warming would be a considerable net benefit to mankind.

Warm = life
Cold = death

john miller

Well, since Blair's attitude to personal philosophy is to repeat whayever someone said to him at dinner the night before, statistically, there had to come a time when I would agree with him.

But, as Verity points out, not for the reasons he gives.

We are using fuels faster than they are being replaced. We will run out of these fuels. Therefore we have to find other fuels. As dear old Isaac said, QED mate. Or was that Albert?

RW

Here's my climate change prediction: around 2050, give or take a few years (not a precise business, this climate forecasting stuff) there will be, as there has been since the Middle Ages, a mini Ice Age.

It will become very cold, and anyone still going round babbling about man-made global warming will be taken away by 2050's equivalent of the nice caring men in flapping white coats and fitted up with a cosy, thermally insulated straitjacket.

Alan Douglas

Re Blair "The man is a void. Devoid. Avoid."

I knew a Scot who spent 3 years at Fettes with Tony Blair.

His terrifying comment "Can't remember a thing about him" !

I guess no one had yet wound him up ?

Alan Douglas

country mouse

Jeremy. You are a bit harsh on Blair and I am not a supporter of his. His self righteous interview was pure PR and, as a result, extremely irritating, but it was also right. I never thought that I would ever write that.

Don't forget who he was talking to. There are loads of people out there who need these facts spelt out simply

Maggie

I don't believe a word Blair says about anything. Someone from the Climate Change community is probably paying him large sums of money to propagate their dodgy theories and increase their profits. There's not much Blair won't do or say if it involves a load of cash.

Jeremy

Major Plonquer:

"What on Earth does Tony Blair have to do with Climate Change? I thought he had a job fixing the Middle East. Has he finished that?"

I don't think he ever started it. He just sat tight and took the money. This is Tony Blair we're talking about, after all. What makes you think he would actually want to risk life and limb getting seriously mixed up in the politics of Middle East? He got a lifestyle to enjoy. Money to spend (a lot of it probably American money). Savvy?

Frank P

“The answer to climate change,” he says solemnly, “is the development of science and technology.

Humanity cannot stand in the way of climate change, for better or for worse. Shit happens. Just as humanity cannot change human nature. It evolves. The reason for both unfortunate states of affairs is that any meagre human intelligence that exists (individual or collective) is retrospective. We can only know about was has already happened and then only partially know, because the Great Scheme of Things has always been, is and always will be beyond the complete understanding of we mere mayfly mortals.

Taking a stab at diagnosis of events is sometimes successful. Any prognostication more often than not turns out to be risible as events unfold. When scientists claim certainty about the future, they are quacks. The good ones try to learn from the past and tentatively extrapolate on what might happen. When politics and the need (or rather greed) for research funds are entered into the equation, as in war, the first casualty is the truth (a dubious concept anyway - subjective at best, deluded at worst). He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Tony Blair is a politician, a lawyer, a quack and one of history's biggest bullshitters. He has found a way of packaging his bullshit and marketing it around the world, in particular among our credulous friends States-side. Good luck to him, we all try to survive best we can, but please don't waste column inches on this blog, bumming Blair's load. Champagne for the brain it is not.

Chris lancashire

Blair may be 110% right (or not) but frankly anything this politician with a 100% record of lying on the big issues merely discredits the cause he purports to support.

Nicholas

The growing use of the term "Climate Change Denier" for those who are sceptical or challenge this new religious cult tells you everything you need to know about those promoting the cant.

Just another bogeyman for those who like power and telling everyone else what to do as their imperative to make up laws, regulations and moral blackmail soundbites to compel and coerce people into their way of thinking and behaving. The fact that most of those people are leftist is just a coincidence - isn't it?

Fascists and zealots and, worst of all, wimmen with a cause. One good thing about Death - beyond the grave the control freakery of these assorted leftist idiots can no longer touch us.

LLOYD J

I wish that we could return to basics with the climate change discussion.
1. Does climate change? yes but the scientists do not know what causes the variation.
2. Does human activity have a significant upon the change? yes supposedly! as 90% of scientist have declared. but let me remind you that some time ago 90% of scientists declared that the world was flat.
3. If human activity is to blame is it possible to change this by restricting the development of the emerging nations? It is going to be impossible to stop the industrialization of China, Brazil, India and then the nations that will want to follow them.
4. would the investment that is proposed to force a reduction of co2 be better spent elsewhere? yes by protecting the populations from the effects of global warming, and the eventual global cooling, by tide and river defenses etc.

Now for a true story. I worked as a university researcher for most of my life. my expertise was in aeronautical engineering. In the 1970's the forecasters were predicting the world oil production would run out by about 2010. In my department we investigated the possibility of making wind turbines more efficient so that these could replace oil powered electrical generation. As professional engineers we started by calculating the energy required to manufacture, install and maintain a wind turbine system. The answer was that it would take more energy for this than the system would generate in the expected operational life of the system. At the time this did not matter as we were effectively using energy now to release when oil was scare. A analogous to an electrical battery. What we are now doing is to create more co2 on wind turbines than they will save in the future. Politically this might not be a bad idea as we will be OK (Jack) after we have stopped the world industrial development by imposing CO2 restrictions.

TrevorsDen

Mr F - Blair is arguing that countless billions be spent on totally unproven technologies (like carbon capture and sequestration) to solve a non existent problem. You simply show your pathetic ignorance.

Increasingly it is clear that 'man' is not affecting the climate. The solar cycle and cycles of currents in the oceans are affecting temperatures as they always have. There is masses of real evidence out there showing this.

Think of a swimming pool with 1 million white ping-pong balls in it Mr F. Take out 350 and replace them with red ones and give a good stir. That was the level of CO2 in our atmosphere before this scare began. Now take of another 30 and replece them with red ones. And stir. That the change which is said to be so catastrophic. 30 parts per MILLION.

BTW - just dive in and try to find any of those red ball. That is the true scale of this scam.

Rhoda Klapp

Use no more gas and oil on electricity production. Nuclear is the best option, we need to shortcut the planning process to put new nukes on Magnox sites, already connected to the grid. Then there will be oil and gas for more difficult applications such as transport. When the price goes up, the technology will be there to extract more oil, or create more efficient biofuel (direct from algae grown on brackish water or in cooling towers or whatever). Given time the technology will come, and the right technology, not the stupid windmills and so on.

Forget the crusade against CO2 without any proof that it does harm. Forget trying to control the Earth's temperature when we don't know how the climate works.

Ben

This revisionism on Blair is a bit much really, James. Even Guido does it. Just because Brown is amusingly, catastrophically bad, doesn't make Blair good. It's neck and neck who was the worst prime minister, but I'm giving Blair my vote, just.

John Page

Is the earth warming? Not recently. So why are the models wrong?

The 'climate change' label is a retreat from the phrase 'global warming'. Why the retreat? To avoid ridicule. Yet the proposed action on 'climate change' assumes it will in fact be global warming.

And if you wanted to combat dubious global warming, would expensive action to cut carbon emissions be without question the right way to go? No. The scientific case is very far from proven.

Carbon reduction is a ruinously expensive and irrelevant solution to a problem which looks non-existent anyway.

Rhoda Klapp

Apropos of Blair, and seeing that the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is up for discussion again, is it not obvious that we need to comemorate the Blair regime and the way he fooled so many of the people so much of the time.

I propose we use the fourth plinth to depict not only his achievements but the good things in his legacy. It will not be expensive, for I propose to leave the plinth empty.

Sir Graphus

The news isn't Blair's views on Climate change, it's the fact that he's making speeches and giving interviews on a wide range of issues, again.

As with all things Blair, one must ignore what he says, it's probably dishonest, but ask why he's saying it. Clearly, he's relaunching himself into the public sphere again.

Denis Cooper

There's an increasingly strong whiff of Lysenkoism about all this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko

"In 1940 he became director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR's Academy of Sciences, and Lysenko's anti-Mendelian doctrines were further secured in Soviet science and education by the exercise of political influence and power. Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in 1948, and for the next several years opponents were purged from held positions, and many imprisoned. Lysenko's work was officially discredited in the Soviet Union in 1964, leading to a renewed emphasis there to re-institute Mendelian genetics and orthodox science."

Neil Turner

Check out the Oregon Institute petition, and the Manhattan Declaration, for scientists/PhD's who reject the Global Warming scam

Warmists have only one agenda: to reduce our freedom, and take our money

Rhoda Klapp

Climate change: Rosa has it right.

It really is time that the Spectator began to have a good look at climate change and the rigmarole which goes with it.

You don't have to buy in to the whole sceptic line in order to have a good look at the state of the argument. My own suspicion is that the public, as expressed here by most comments, is far ahead of the media in the acceptance that there is more to this than the simple 'science is in, debate is over' mantra adopted as a tactic by the AGW people and taken up by pretty much all of the media. Is there no chance of opening the debate, not again, but for the first time in a respectable organ. Time this one got out of the comment section on the blogs into the outside world. Or we could have a live debate if the AGW crowd would put someone up?

Rob C

Whatever people think of climate change, we DO have a responsibility to take better care of the planet than we currently do. We need to do this anyway for our children, our health and our quality of life. Who actually wants to die of lung cancer or live next to a landfill, polluted river, etc?

I would be the last to endorse Blair and believe that he and his governments have a great deal to answer for, but with regards to technology he is largely right. Why would we want to burn oil, gas and coal if there was a cheaper, cleaner alternative? The modern world has a lot to be proud of, but much to be ashamed of too. Plastics have revolutionised our way of life, but should we really be using them for 'use & dispose' applications like packaging?

I have some big reservations however:
1) Any new technology has a cost implication and as such we need a moratorium of say 25 years on any new taxes. Issues like the proposed new 'phone line' tax show just how devious this government is and with declining oil revenues, I for one don't trust that they won't tax the new technologies with more new taxes!
2) We have to be sure that any new technologies are both suitable in terms of cost and not even more dangerous to our environment. Wind farms are a prime example of poor investment as they offer neither consistent energy nor that on demand. Hydro-electric wave or nuclear all do. What about the contents of all the batteries in electric cars, wouldn't hydrogen be a cleaner route?
3) Government policy. This flies in the face of common sense as the car scrappage scheme just proves. It is both greener and better for jobs to a) produce goods designed to last and be repaired than produce new and b) not destroy vehicles that perhaps have as much as 10 years serviceable lifespan! (and spending taxpayers money for the privilege)

Governments do have a role to play in saving the planet, but Blair's had far from a good record.

Global warming may be due to man's activities, nature or both, but it isn't going to be reversed overnight and the sooner the hysteria subsides and we start to tackle things from a long-term perspective rather than knee-jerk reaction the better.

Hereford

I agree fundamentally with all the 'climate change deniers' on this thread. I do not believe we are affecting the climate singificantly. But I am kind of willing to go along witht the whole dogma. Why? For two reasons:

1. We are not looking after our planet properly anyway (see various comments re acid rain etc).

2. Because we currently depend on oil and, for some unknown reason oil always seems to be found (where it is in signficant quantities) underneath places where insane, bigotted, backward, totalitarian regimes rule.

If getting onto the climate change bandwagon makes us pay more attention to our planet and husbanding its finite resources, and makes us develop technologies which allow us to stick a middle finger up to our friends who own the oil then I am all for it.

John Levett

Blair is just doing his bit to big up the climate change nonsense prior to the Copenhagen conference. And, of course, there is the possibility of a nice little sinecure within the ludicrous but profitable carbon trading market when his Middle East peace-making initiative is quietly shelved.

What should really worry us in our so-called democracy is the political consensus for anthropogenic climate change (ACC). Inevitably, the only solutions being proposed involve more state control and higher taxes. The Daily Mail (I know, I know)is running a poll that suggests that about 90% of their readership does not believe in ACC (compared to a figure of about 50-60% nationally) whereas, on the strength of last year's carbon reduction bill, almost 100% of MPs are as convinced of ACC as they are that their expenses claims are entirely justified. There is little representation for the majority view in parliament and with the exception of the efforts of a handful of journalists, virtually no acknowledgement of the evidence and arguments for that majority view in the media.

Frankly, unless the Tories are prepared to abandon the climate change rhetoric (and genuinely commit to the abandonment of the whole ID scheme including the wretched database), I am at a loss to understand why anybody would see them as a viable alternative to the control freaks we have had for the last 12 miserable years.

John Moss

Surely, if science and technology advance sufficiently to develop time travel, will we not be able to, "go back to the nineteenth century"?

TGF UKIP

"I tend to the view that the scientific evidence suggests it is a genuine problem."

Well, of course, James, being a committed Heirite employed by Dave's very own fanzine you would be bound to tend to that view, wouldn't you?

After all isn't the Green Cause the only one to which The Heir and his controller The Mekon are devoted?

Rhoda Klapp

The biggest problem about the climate change consensus is that it focuses on the wrong thing. If there is a problem with acid rain (I thought that was in fact an obsolete scare, completely blown away by its failure to happen) or fossil fuel depletion or actual real pollution of whatever kind, then worrying about (beneficial) CO2 and planning to spend billions trying to fix a non-problem will not fix the real problems but provide a diversion from them. Being a sceptic (or a denier) of AGW does not mean one cares nothing for the environment.

I say again, the media, including the Spectator, is way out of tune with the public on this. Just as the political establishment got MP's expenses wrong, and immigration and the BNP, it is wrong on this.

Why cannot the Spectator be the first medium of influence to move in the other direction, and make the scaremongers prove their case in a proper scientific manner. It's time.

Paul

If anything, in a nut shell, the planet could be cooling, and a consequential danger would be lower crop yields.

Global Warming is a dangerous religion.

JMT

Rhoda Klapp: You are so right, Acid rain was a prime example of the difference between Theory and Practice - in theory there is no difference, in practice there is.

The whole thing was debunked after billions of dollars were spent by the US - and then quietly "dropped", NO pickup by the media.

However taxes and legislation were passed - Government can NEVER admit being wrong, let alone reducing the punitive taxation and legislation.

Global Warming is currently the golden goose that keeps on laying, no government will ever turn down an opportunity to raise "ethical" taxes to cover their profligacy.

Since "Green jobs" depend on subsidies/taxes from the use of fossil fuels, they are neither "sustainable" nor "green".

Frank P

Rob C

Whatever people think of climate change, we DO have a responsibility to take better care of the planet than we currently do."

"We?" And who laid this this responsibility upon "us"? Who decides on who does what to discharge this responsibility?
By any rational analysis it would be appear that "we" and the planet have a limited role in the Great Scheme Of Things, anyway. It will be a short run, too. So strut the stage and enjoy your moment. Stop worrying about what comes next, have a cup of coffee and count your blessings. The rest of the mad bastards in this pantomime are taking the piss and your sanctimony won't change the script.

Btw, this is Blair, they're talking about, Rob. You know - the cranky grinning clown from the Gramscian troupe: the one who got replaced by the lugubrious grimacing gargoyle from the same follies, to frighten the kiddies and make them obey. Now he's off-stage, whispering prompts, probably just prior to rejoining the fray.

Oh no he isn't? Oh yes he is! Impresario Mandelson just hasn't decided in what role yet.

More costume change than climate change, I fear.

Verity

Remember when a couple of years ago, the climate fascists were referring to "man made global warming"?

Then lots of real scientists, whose background was real science, not the Student's Union, took the trouble to prove that this was balderdash.

Did they abandon their mission to control the behaviour of mankind? I should cocoa! They just changed to language to the more amorphous, less specific, "climate change", which just about covered every eventually on earth and, well, the solar system in general.

To the individual who wrote that he has an acquaintance who can't remember Blair at Fettes, his old headmaster certainly seems to remember him as a little interfering, attention-seeking plonker. "But, I say, sir, don't you think ..."... One of those. Always with an uninvited bright idea, always with an attention-seeking enquiry ... I suspect that headmaster drank an entire bottle of whisky to himself the day he saw the last of this monstrous personality.

Baz W

This is all good stuff! I really am beginning to resent the fact that all the politicos seem intent on joining the ACC camp. It worries me a lot when you see their 'camp mates' - sorry but I didn't go along with CND, Greenham Common etc. etc. because I thought they were wrong.
This will date me but sometime during the 60's or 70's a book came out hypothesising on the posibliity of an imminent ice age! I can't remember the title but it got a lot of exposure in the media and contained a lot of convincing science. It just goes to show that things change, particularly the climate!

Rob C

Frank P - I entirely agree with your take on Blair/Brown, but can't agree with your stance on our 'responsibilities' to future generations.

As to "Who decides on who does what to discharge this responsibility?" - the answer is nobody but yourself. We don't need government nor religion to tell us what is right and wrong. If you have a choice of which bin to discard a battery or plastic bottle - (recycle or landfill) that's down to your conscience as much as it is for the council to provide the facility. It's not however the councils job to facilitate 'bin inspectors', surcharges or other stealth taxes. Education works better than persecution.

I'm guessing you probably don't have children? If you do, perhaps you would take time to think of the consequences of them drinking water polluted with heavy metals or living on dialysis etc? Just because much of it is shipped abroad into someone else's backyard doesn't make it right! We don't own this planet, but merely occupy it for a short time and, perhaps because I'm not religious and don't believe in life after death, a better place and all that claptrap, I don't think it is our right to decimate and plunder the planet to the detriment of our children! That said, nor am I in favour of a return to the dark ages - we must progress as a civilization but not at ANY cost.

Much of what was wrong with the Blair/Brown era is the same - they don't care what debt nor what mess they heap upon the next generation as long as they did what they wanted and spent what they wanted. It's short-sighted and an illusion. Gorden Brown made much of his children's trust funds, but boy do they pale into insignificance when directly compared to the debt he has bequeathed them! Will they they thank him for all the wind turbines when they are sitting in the dark or the great new hospital that their taxes cannot afford to staff because the states taxes are repaying debt, pensions & PFI? I doubt it. As a society we must learn to live within our means - financially and ecologically. What has all the billions frittered away over the last 12 years achieved? Sod all. It created a false 'boom' of unsustainable public sector 'jobsworths' and squandered the pensions, future and aspirations of a large part of the electorate. Mrs Thatcher saw the future getting better by encouraging people to work hard and to better themselves - she had her faults, but inspiring people to do better was not one of them. In contrast, the Blair/Brown approach is to tax to the hilt via as many stealth means as possible and re-distribute via a complex method of tax & pension credits, benefits etc in order to facilitate a larger, union subscribed civil service. Aspiration is dead & buried and hard work doesn't pay. Many have yet to wake up to the consequences, but when they do they'll look back at the last decade as the biggest wasted opportunity in a 100+ years. No other UK government to my knowledge has inherited such a golden legacy and turned it so succinctly to s**t!

As for the coffee, I drink too much of that already... still another 11 months of Brown and it'll be Whiskey & Valium so perhaps I'll put the kettle on after all. ;-)

Frank P

Rob C

Heh, heh, heh ...!

Having fathered four children and grandfathered 12, lived my allotted biblical threescore and ten years + 5 'n' a bit and interfaced with fellow primates across the full spectrum of race, creed, nationality, intellectual capacity or lack thereof, I am reluctantly forced into the philosophy of determinism.

Which means, of course, that I believe that your thoughts and mine about man's disgusting habits won't make a nanosecond's difference to the fate of our planet, which adjusts to our presence and will eventually readjust to our absence, according to the machinations of a higher order of imperatives which we amusingly entitle The Universe (because we haven't the wit to discern anything beyond our five senses, all of which are exercised mainly in the cause of surviving and procreating). At a very recent stage in our development as a species, some of us have grown to believe that we shouldn't shit in our own nest; but we always have and we probably always will, in one form or another. All the politics, religion, philosophy and art in all its disciplines on Earth have failed to prevent humanity's hordes from despoiling the moving vehicle whereupon it was conceived, born and destined to die - sooner or later.

Individually some of us do the best that we can with the faculties with which we are born. As families, tribes, social grouping and nations we are born to conflict and war. All I am saying is gather ye rosebuds ...

Most of what I have gloomily augured in my life has not happened; most of the horrors that have befallen me were unexpected. Between the two it has been middling to good. And the craic has made it all worthwhile.

As for my kids? Do yours listen to your advice, or remonstrations? Perhaps a better question is, should they? I suspect they are better of seeking and finding their own solutions. Legacies can be lethal too.

Remember Voltaire's lament? You'll find it here:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poem_on_the_Lisbon_Disaster

I won't quote it all, it's longer than one of my small-wee-hour-comments, but here's a taster:

>I am a puny part of the great whole.
Yes; but all animals condemned to live,
All sentient things, born by the same stern law,
Suffer like me, and like me also die.
The vulture fastens on his timid prey,
And stabs with bloody beak the quivering limbs:
All’s well, it seems, for it. But in a while
An eagle tears the vulture into shreds;
The eagle is transfixed by shaft of man;
The man, prone in the dust of battlefield,
Mingling his blood with dying fellow men,
Becomes in turn the food of ravenous birds.

Thus the whole world in every member groans:
All born for torment and for mutual death.
And o’er this ghastly chaos you would say
The ills of each make up the good of all!
What blessedness! And as, with quaking voice,
Mortal and pitiful, ye cry, "All’s well,"
The universe belies you, and your heart
Refutes a, hundred times your mind’s conceit.
All dead and living things are locked in strife.
Confess it freely -- evil stalks the land
Its secret principle unknown to us.

....

Once did I sing, in less lugubrious tone,
The sunny ways of pleasure’s genial rule;
The times have changed, and, taught by growing age,
And sharing of the frailty of mankind,
Seeking a light amid the deepening gloom,
I can but suffer, and will not repine.<

'Twas ever thus Rob. Will it ever change?

Plus ca (climate)change ...

:-)

Verity

Thanks for Voltaire's lament, Frank P. I'd never read it before.

Frank P

Verity

What a great blogger Francois would have been, had he been around today. Not sure there is an equivalent among today's literati. Mark Steyn's dancing pen gives me almost as much pleasure at times, but invidious comparisons must stop: scribblers are a jealous bunch. Each to his own delights - your own contribution to the intertubes keeps my giggle glands well exercised also and I do enjoy your acid etching on the vanity of those that deserve it.

Btw. I guess you know that as a result of the impact of the combination of The Lisbon Earthquake and the Seven Year War, Voltaire, in just a few days, knocked off "Candide" - perhaps the finest short story of all time wherein pessimism was probably never so imbued with such wit and humour.

Now that was (and remains) Champagne for the brain.

MATT

If one really wants to understand all the current alarmism about global warming, you need to follow the money. It has very little to do with saving the planet, although there are some who are genuinely believe that this is what is at stake .Nuclear promoting nations are hungry for business abroad and it is difficult to sell the nuclear option unless one demonizes fossil fuel first. With all the free money coming from the governments, you have to constantly promote new threats in order to get some of this money. Here is an extract from an article by Richard .S Lindzen from MIT called Resisting the Climate Hysteria
In view of the above, one may reasonably ask why there is the current alarm, and, in particular, why the astounding upsurge in alarmism of the past 4 years. When an issue like global warming is around for over twenty years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear. So too are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself. Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted because it is necessary for ‘saving’ the earth. Nations have seen how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. But, by now, things have gone much further. The case of ENRON (a now bankrupt Texas energy firm) is illustrative in this respect. Before disintegrating in a pyrotechnic display of unscrupulous manipulation, ENRON had been one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto. It had hoped to become a trading firm dealing in carbon emission rights. This was no small hope. These rights are likely to amount to over a trillion dollars, and the commissions will run into many billions. Hedge funds are actively examining the possibilities; so was the late Lehman Brothers. Goldman Sachs has lobbied extensively for the ‘cap and trade’ bill, and is well positioned to make billions. It is probably no accident that Gore, himself, is associated with such activities. The sale of indulgences is already in full swing with organizations selling offsets to one’s carbon footprint while sometimes acknowledging that the offsets are irrelevant. The possibilities for corruption are immense. Archer Daniels Midland (America’s largest agribusiness) has successfully lobbied for ethanol requirements for gasoline, and the resulting demand for ethanol may already be contributing to large increases in corn prices and associated hardship in the developing world (not to mention poorer car performance). And finally, there are the numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue For them, their psychic welfare is at stake.
Lindzen in his final comments also said ,
However, for more serious leaders, the need to courageously resist hysteria is clear. Wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever present climate change is no substitute for prudence.

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/07/resisting-climate-hysteria