Patrick Crozier has an interesting list of things that might disappear if AGW alarmism, now very much on the defensive, loses support from policymakers.
Here are a few suggestions from me about products that might wane or go into defensive mode:
Carbon-trading hedge funds and other financial firms trying to make money out of cap-and-trade rules.
All those various “Green” mutual funds and even the occasional hedge fund. They sometimes smell like a scam, and the latest revelations of AGW alarmist skulduggery do not help.
Sellers of loft insulation where there is not a genuine economic demand for it.
Pressure to change building codes in the light of AGW alarmism might abate somewhat. New homes, I have noticed, often have tiny windows so they resemble houses in a children’s story book. We might go back to having bigger, more light-enhancing windows.
Alas, I don’t expect the alarmism theme to diminish in Hollywood movies or BBC documentaries. Mind you, as I said in a comment on one of Brian Micklethwait’s posts the other day, you know the prevailing climate of opinion (excuse the pun) has changed depending on the kind of villain chosen for a Bond movie. When they cast a deep Green scientist as a baddie, and put the villain’s lair in a bunker in deepest East Anglia, we’ll have won.
Suggestions welcome.
In my opinion, it won’t be AGW alarmism driving changes to the building regs, but simply the rapidly increasing cost of heating a home changing the builders’ and DIYer’s attitudes.
I’m in the process of “updating” my father’s c1930 semi detached (solid walls, timber boarded floors, etc) and the sheer amount of heat lost through walls, windows and doors is astonishing. Every external wall is being drylined and insulated, big bay windows replaced with uPVC, floors insulated and energy efficient lighting fitted with the intention to drop in LED replacements when they get cheaper.
I don’t give a damn about CO2 emissions; I’m just trying to limit the exposure to increasing energy costs.
The building regs, however, are a nightmare to negotiate.
I don’t see the AGW alarmism going anywhere, and the already highly restrictive building regs aren’t going to get any better. I’m betting it won’t be long before baths are banned in new builds – now that CO2 is entrenched, water’ll be next…
Another interesting thing to ponder is what the liberals will use to demand our obedience if they have to abandon climate hysteria.
One thing is for sure. They’ll think of something.
Nothing personal to anybody, but I really wish Americans would stop using the word liberal the way they do. It properly means something noble and good, and the word has been captured to mean almost the exact opposite of what it should mean.
And yes, I know I am flogging a horse that is not just dead but also rotted away and reduced to bare bones lying in the desert.
I thought the term “liberal” in modern British usage implied Lib-Dem? Not so?
And movie villains will continue to be 1) evil capitalists, 2) folks with English accents, and 3) Tea Party activists for at least another five years. Hollywood casting cycles are decades long for stereotypes.
“but I really wish Americans would stop using the word liberal the way they do”
progressives are to blame
“Things that would disappear if the AGW alarmists lose.” Brian Micklethwaite’s posts.
if you don’t mind, I think I’ll recycle pete’s post above:
“Another interesting thing to ponder is what Brian Micklethwait will use to demand our attention if they have to abandon climate hysteria.
One thing is for sure. He’ll think of something.”
I wish, if the AGW-alarmists do indeed lose (by no means certain) that British scumbag-school exam papers for “science” will contain no questions which refer, even vestigially and tangentially, to the following: “Recycling benefits for firms through reduced costs”, global warming that “might be” increased by cement-kilns emitting CO2, carbon-neutral biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, reduced energy-transfer through house walls by cavity-wall-insulation, “Sankey Diagrams” showing something called “useless energy transfers” in particular (usually for things termed “filament lamps”, and phrases to judge such as “most of the wasted energy in a fossil-fuel power-station is transferred to rivers as heat” (believe it!)
What would happen to all the climate scientists? Who would give them jobs?
The problem with having a “Green” Bond villain is that a lair made out of hemp, or wattle, or whatever would require Q to come up with noiseless hedge clippers concealed in the wristwatch so 007 could make his insertion.
Keep sticking the boot in, Jonathan. Kick them while they’re down. You are obviously getting under some people’s skins — and for that we all owe you big time! Keep up the good work.
Of course, the junk science of Alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming will be replaced with some other kind of junk science. Anything will do, as long as it requires us all to be over-taxed, miserable, and to remember our lowly place in the world the liberals are building.
Many of the Warmers also are concerned about Peak Oil. Yes, it is a logical contradiction to be concerned simultaneously about burning too much carbon and about running out of carbon — but who ever claimed that the consumers of junk science were logical? Since Peak Oil is another excuse in the liberal world for raising taxes, it is a real possibility as a replacement for Alleged AGW. But what isn’t an excuse to raise taxes in the liberal world?
Am I overdoing the liberal word? Of course. But that is only because I have my own pet peeve about words.
Historically, ‘gay’ was a nice word — the kind of word that a Jane Austen might have used to describe the behavior of a fresh-faced young woman at her first big society dance. Why should we let a bunch of homosexuals drag that word behind the bicycle shed and do unspeakable things to it?
As for ‘gay liberals’ — Grrrr!
Al Gore should be near the top of the list. Primarily for being such a boil on the arse of polite society.
The FILM The Spy Who Loved Me featured a villain who wanted to destroy humanity and make everyone live under the sea. Definite Green tendencies, i’d say.
The other good thing is that the science of geography might one day return to its previously-honoured place in the pantheon of useful and construcive disciplines, which teach us something worthwhile about the planet.
Currently, it’s just one more of the gigantic outdoor-relief-programmes for otherwise-unemployable greens and sociologists. And not the least one either. Typical 6th-form-college paeans to it as an A-level stress the possibility that you can __/”work in a local authority planning department!!!”/___
I suspect that very few of Patrick’s list will disappear. You’ll recall the 60 / 70 MPH speed limit introduced during the fuel crisis of whenever it was and never rescinded, as well as other regulations introduced for some ostensible reason but continued indefinitely. The same groups which benefit from green laws now will continue to benefit absent the green justification.
AKM, go and boil your head.
Brgds.
‘Demand’, AKM? Anyone is forcing you to read anything here?
Relax, I was just amused by Dom’s post that Brian M would have nothing to write about if AGW collapses. Brian “demands” our attention through great writing, nothing more, and I am well aware that he writes on many different topics.
“Sellers of loft insulation where there is not a genuine economic demand for it. ”
Loft insulation cuts your heating bills and gets the investment back in about 2-3 years. Long before the current AGW thing, people were putting loft insulation in for this very reason. Cavity wall is the only other thing that’s worth considering.
Windmills might work out if you’re on a hill or by the coast, and you’ll struggle to ever get solar to return the costs of installation, cleaning and maintenance.
AKM: fair enough – just goes to show that some times there is no replacement for body language:-)
np Alisa 🙂
One thing I would like to lose is the tendency by unthinking leftists and more than a few moderate rightists to parrot the “expert” opinion they’ve heard on the official media as if it’s dogma. The activist left will just shift their attention to another issue (they have many to choose from) but if this issue injects even a little doubt about “the experts” into the minds of the moderates it will almost have been worth it.
Unemployed climatologists turn into zombies who wander our universities mumbling “more funding!”.
We will never hear a smug leftist claim than the right doesn’t understand science.
Hippies will have to get haircuts to avoid harrasment.
I would like to add, those curly wurly light bulbs.
Stupid things!
Pete is right though: the good news about global warming is, there isn’t very much of it, and what there is is neither a catastrophe, nor our fault. The bad news is, the same jackasses that dreamed it up, will dream up another pile of crap directly it stops working for them.
The trouble is really, there is a large portion of our culture that is eager to believe we have screwed up the planet/solar system/universe in some way or other. As long as there’s a market for it, it will remain an infinitely renewable form of energy…