Having given up trying to stay PM and handed over the kulturcampf to Mr Brown, St Anthony now wishes to save the world:
In his strongest warning yet on the environment, the prime minister will tell fellow EU leaders that the world faces “conflict and insecurity” unless it acts now. “We have a window of only 10-15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing catastrophic tipping points,” Mr Blair says, in a joint letter with his Dutch counterpart, Jan Peter Balkenende.
I am not interested for this purpose in whether he is right about ‘catastrophic tipping points’. It is entirely possible he is. It is interesting that this is certainly not from his own knowledge. And since actually no one knows enough about climate to say under what conditions, never mind when, a catastrophe, bifurcation, flip, transition… whatever you would like to call it… might occur, then the fact the firm limit of years is reported as as little as 7 in some places, and up to 25 elsewhere, should not worry us.
What should, is the contradiction between the millenarian rhetoric and the irrelevance in its own terms of the hair-shirt policy that we are being exhorted to adopt. If the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause catastrophe at some threshold level, then capping emissions from human activity merely postpones reaching the threshold. By not very much.
If things are that bad either: (1) We should find ways yet unknown to make global human greenhouse-gas emissions close to zero or net negative. (Sorry, no cooked food – except sun-baked and geyser-boiled – until we do.) Or (2) we should enjoy the party at the end of the world. But it seems those in charge do not know the difference between quantity and rate.
Now that is really scary. Reality I can cope with. I am aware I’m going to die, and probably suffer disease and loss first. That the course of my life will be determined not by biology, physics and economics, but by messianic imbeciles with no grasp of any of them, is harder to bear.
For me; the non-exclusive or: technofix plus fun.
For the Head Boy; “Repent, o ye sinners or burn in hell on earth! Go, and sin no more. (Than you did in 1990).”
Add to that the 5 million miles of state-paid air travel by Blair (at a cost to the taxpayer of at least £9.5m per annum) which he intends to ‘offset’ by making personal carbon emission points donations to third world countries, presumably whose ministers can’t afford to hire a Boeing Business Jet at the daily cost to the taxpayer of £400,000. Quite how Mr Blair or any of his ministers would actually be able to personally afford to make these payments has not been discussed.
I am reminded of a Song By R.E.M.
‘It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’
If the science he is using is correct it is correct, and thre is not a lot we can do about it at this very late stage in the process, if indeed that is where the Earth is.
Later (or sooner than we think 🙂 )
Gengee
Dear God. Brown’s speech mentions “social justice” (presumably of the New Britain, New Labour kind) and the Scottish Enlightenment, as though they’re kindred spirits.
Those Scottish philosophes would turn in their graves.
James,
Brown is the man who, in another lecture comemorating another nasty Scottish socialist, characterised John Stuart Mill’s position as “libertarian extremism”.
Gengee,
My point exactly. But Blair doesn’t comprehend that, plainly.
Actually, ‘the environment’ has a capacity to absorb quite a lot of C02, so you’d still be able to have cooked food. Computers? Only for the rich.
Of course, according to some of the more gloomy side of the environmentalists (how many can define what ‘the environment’ is, I wonder), then we’ve already caused catastrophe by starting the release of natural stores of ‘greenhouse gases’ (which don’t work at all like a greenhouse), and so we’re all doomed anyway, unless we soak up large amounts of the greenhouse gases.
And then there are still all the wars, authoritarian states and asteroids out there, of course.
Tipping points are little but a beautifully set way of preventing us calling the bluff as early as we otherwise might.
Satellite data especially suggests the warming since 1998 has been slower (or even 0) than in the decade up to 1998. A few consistent years, and a few weak hurricane seasons might give enough support to sceptics to allow fightback, but with the mystic tipping Sword of Damocles hanging over us – well, hysteria can run – too many people have too much invested, and politicians love the feeling of control.
Branson’s joined them (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9072-2350242,00.html), and he and anyone else involved in the industry will naturally want their money back and more – any science is nothing but means to an end to these types.
Do you have a link for that, Chem Ed? Preferably a scientific one?
Sorry, no cooked food – except sun-baked and geyser-boiled
You forgot grilled over some lovely fission rods, now that is my kind of cooking!
What should, is the contradiction between the millenarian rhetoric and the irrelevance in its own terms of the hair-shirt policy that we are being exhorted to adopt. If the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause catastrophe at some threshold level, then capping emissions from human activity merely postpones reaching the threshold. By not very much.
Impeccable logic — congrats.
Just as an aside: the European Union now has a ridiculous ‘Climate Change Campaign’ online where you can ‘take a pledge’ to reduce your carbon dioxide emissions using a ‘Carbon Calculator’. I’m not joking — a pledge.
It’s just that the software is so badly designed that it will accept any name you enter in — and you can toggle back and forth and enter the same name as often as you like, or you can enter ‘Cameron Dias’ or ‘Micky Mouse’ — anything goes.
I’ve just entered Tony Blair, pledging to reduce his CO2 consumption by 3 kg per annum by turning off the tap when he brushes his teeth.
Then I added Cherie.
Go ahead and have a bash, folks!
The web address is (Link)
Said Sir Anthony wants the EU to lead the way, but this particular organization excels at Doing Nothing or Screwing Up Completely.
I personally believe that the entire issue of either climate change or global warming is a waste of time. It usually comes down to lots of handwringing and running around, of the ‘the sky is falling’ sort. That’s BS. Suppose that, as predicted by that immortal prognosticator AlGoramus, the Netherlands will be 75% underwater by 2050. That would a problem, if there weren’t houses on water already (and a hotel planned somwhere). I think that’s a viable solution to that problem. For everything else, there also exist perfectly good solutions.
There was a pagewide op-ed in the NRC (NL’s liberal-conservative paper), complaining that politicians are afraid to put the Big Issues on the agenda. Instead we get chattering and candidates appearing in idiotic programmes. Wouldn’t climate change be a Big Issue? No. Here, on the other side of the Channel. it’s still 16 to 17 degree C. Problem? What problem?