Monbiot’s mission

Sam Davidson

Well, this is an encouraging step on the road from idiocy to sense. I encourage Mr Monbiot to brace himself, because taking the several thousand more required is not an easy feat. Gin helps though. As does not referring to climate change "deniers".

Clear Memories

So we can assume he'll be recanting his support for AGW and all the other watermelon bo**ox he's been spouting through any Dead Tree Press that will give him room?

Liz Brown

Doesn't his windmill work?

David Booth

Credit to Mr Monbiot for having the courage of his convictions and changing his mind.
I can almost smell the buckets of ordure being prepared for pouring on his head by some of his erstwhile "green" colleagues for having the honesty to speak out.
Courage George you will soon have the opportunity to find out who your true friends are as opposed to the usual time serving fellow "greeny" travellers AKA Luddites.

Ed P

"Failing to provide sources, refuting data with anecdote & cherry-picking studies" describes exactly what the IPCC, not the "deniers" have done. It's utterly disgraceful, reflecting very badly on many otherwise fine but hoodwinked scientists, that the CO2 hoax is still believed by so many.

Colin

Follow the money...

Simon Stephenson.

Sam Davidson : 4.59pm

"Well, this is an encouraging step on the road from idiocy to sense. I encourage Mr Monbiot to brace himself, because taking the several thousand more required is not an easy feat."

Have a heart, Sam. Poor George is probably spending 18 hours a day going through all his previous utterences about nuclear power, so that he can offer unreserved apologies to all the people who in his past life he has ridiculed and/or accused of pursuing undisclosed self-interest.

Fair play to him. I await the results.

Stepney

Ah yes; dear old George. The very same who likened TransAtlantic air travel to Child Abuse.

Pleased to see he has one functioning brain cell left though.

Verity

I'm glad, but what is that little leafy wooden shack thing growing out of his head on the left? Is it abstruse indication of something?

daniel maris

The time for argument is through. We now have facts.

The fact of Japan's continuing nuclear disaster.

The fact that Japan's wind turbines survived teh earthquake and tsunami.

The fact that Germany, Europe's most successful big economy has turned its back on nuclear and is ploughing vast resources into renewables.

The fact the "new generation" reactor in Finland has proved a financial disaster with a cost overrrun measured in the billions of Euros.

Nuclear is being destroyed by facts not green hysteria. It is yesterday's technology, no longer relevant to the modern world.

TGF UKIP

Is't come to this? The Speccie teenagers promoting Moonbeam now. I guess it always was a toss up who would be taking the Barclay shilling for a regular weekly column in our oh so right on Spectator, him or Polly.

Victor Southern

People do grow up and with maturity often acquire wisdom and a sense of reality.

John Richardson

Verity
April 5th, 2011 5:58pm

"I'm glad, but what is that little leafy wooden shack thing growing out of his head on the left? Is it abstruse indication of something?"

Yes Verity.
Like you, I am also glad that a thing grows from his head and I also wonder exactly what it is.
Well, wonder in a very mild way.

If a turd floats in the water tank of life, that turd, though it may by polished and perfumed; remains a turd.

I do not care if BAD people say something GOOD every 15 years.

I only care if GOOD people say something BAD from time to time.

....I reckon Verity's keyboard slipped.
Or it was bribed. Or drunk.
:-

Santorum

Stepney

He did; I remember the article well. Monbiot is always more compelling in person than in print. But his pragmatism on this issue is admirable and requires us to take him more seriously than many of us have hitherto.

2trueblue

Flip flop, flip flop.

Dimoto

It reminds me of Malcolm Muggeridge in his dotage suddenly converting to Catholicism.

Perhaps we could ask George M to have a quiet word with Mr Cameron (the Goldsmith sprog needn't be invited).

Verity

John Richardson - A curiously disconnected post from you.

I didn't write I was glad that "a leafy wooden shack thing" I wrote "I'm glad, "but what about that leafy ...". You misread my post. You posted it at 7:21 BST, so perhaps cocktail hour had begun to take its toll ...

John Richardson

Verity.

Right on every score...actually it was Rum,not a cocktail...and I don't even drink Rum usually....

I was trying to say that he remains an idiot.

Ironic really.....

Baron

The newest convert to nuclear has a go: “Failing to provide sources, refuting data with anecdote, cherry-picking studies, scorning the scientific consensus, invoking a cover-up to explain it: all this is horribly familiar”.

Yup, it does sound familiar, it was, still is the tactic of the ecochondriacs.

Poor George, whether he, any of you backing him now likes it there really are village idiots educated to high degree, articulate, keen, deep down none of it overpowers their inbred imbecility, lack of common sense.

NadePaulKuciGravMcKi

Fukushima Internal Emitters

An ill wind comes arising
Across the cities of the plain
There's no swimming in the heavy water
No singing in the acid rain

Absalom Absalom Absalom

yank

No clue who this guy is... but if he's babbling about "global warming deniers"... then he can be dismissed on all counts.

No need to be concerned with the softheads' catfights, and whose turn it is to change the bong water.

daniel maris

Monbiot has a planet-sized ego and demands that the whole planet bends to his will.

That I think explains the perversity of this "green" advocating nuclear power. He's basically a controversialist rather than a serious analyst. The important thing is that he should appear to be adopting a lonely and austere position. That's what matters to him - and his planet-sized ego.

runtoeaven

iz more valuable for nuke org to gain a former anti-nuclear supporter in order to better shift pubblic opinion, like in paradise will be more happines when come in a sinner, nd for him much more money than before he supported till 2009 also Indigenous Right people with its book "We are One" maybe now he will made a new book
" how to kill last indigenous people by uranium mining in south dakota " for the benefit of green-power, whotta kind of BS

Maddy1

This has been a fixture of our society since the mid sixties! Probably Paddy Pants Down knows more about screwing secretaries and the Nuclear Power debate than me but what expertise does PPD. really have? This ambience seems unique to our culture, some rich, trendy, filmaker makes a film about endangered hybrids and this filmaker suddenly morphs himself into a world expert on environmental protection. The environment is one thing that will not bend itself easily to leftist or rightist political rhetoric. Our lords and masters have a simple choice give us all a vote and whatever happens in the industry will be a result of our own thinking! Our destiny is our own. We are not custodians of this planet or caretakers for future generations, ask the people in Northern Japan about this.

Simon Stephenson.

Santorum : 7.52pm

"But his [Monbiot's] pragmatism on this issue is admirable and requires us to take him more seriously than many of us have hitherto."

Not me, Santorum. At least not yet, anyway. I see Georgie boy as as an angler fishing for trout, and this article as a big fat mayfly with a big sharp hook attached.

Anyone can write a piece or two out of character, but it ought to take a lot more than this to convince the reader that the writer has actually changed, and not just that the he wants you to think he has changed.

Hell, it's only a few years since a short-term charm offensive had almost the entire MSM swooning about new Prime Minister Gordon Brown bringing a breath of fresh air into government. I should have thought the lesson of this misjudgement would have haunted people for the rest of their lives, but perhaps not.

Anil Parab

I appreciate Mr. George Monbiot's study and view point . True environmentalist must take a wholistic view based on facts and practical aspects rather than take emotional positions. I support his stand fully . Moreover growing economies from BRIC countries if they don't have right balance of various energy options available to them and simply keep adding power generation capacities with disregard to climate change we are sure to advance dooms day for planet .

santorum

Simon

Maybe you're right. His mother and father were prominent tories dontcha no.

The Laughing Cavalier

Thorium, the answer to all our woes.

Mr Oulton

Monbiot's change of heart is admirable. However, he makes no mention of nuclear waste.

The Laughing Cavalier

" ... there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance."

daniel maris

The Laughing Cavalier -

If Thorium is the answer, what's the question? Possibly:

"How can we develop a new form of expensive radioactive energy but make it easier for terrorists to exploit?"

If Thorium were that good a solution it would have swept the board by now since it is an old technology.

Other Monbiot-style nukies -

Why should we look to nuclear power when land based wind energy is cheaper - without subsidy - than nuclear?

Please don't tell me base load. If you want base load go to gas, half the price of nuclear and no risk of an environmental catastrophe.

The Laughing Cavalier

The reason thorium was not chosen as the base for nuclear power 60 years ago was that uranium provided the raw material for nuclear bombs and thorium didn't.

Private Schultz

This report deserves the widest possible publicity: http://www.jmt.org/news.asp?s=2&nid=JMT-N10561

Hat tip: James Delingpole

Dimoto

daniel maris:

... and you, by contrast, are a true believer ?
Park your critical faculties and accept the whole package, then smugly feel you have merit ?

The Laughing Cavalier

Mr Maris,
Thorium: you need to do some research.
Gas: where do you propose to find a reliable source of supply?
Wind energy: There isn’t a wind turbine in the UK that is economically viable without substantial subsidies.
Base Load: of course you don’t want to discuss base load, it knocks your polemic into a cocked hat. Even if the UK were covered in turbines we could not be sure of a reliable supply. During the periods of intense cold weather we had during January and December 2010 the wind didn't blow. Wind turbine Contribution to the energy grid was negligible.