MMGW - a balanced article

[bilbobaggins]

Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said: “It isn’t helpful to anybody to exaggerate the situation..... People pick up whatever makes their argument, but this works both ways."

“When people overstate happenings that aren’t necessarily climate change-related, or set up as almost certainties things that are difficult to establish scientifically, it distracts from the science we do understand", said Professor Sir David King, director of the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, and a former government chief scientific adviser.

"The danger is they can be accused of scaremongering.... I worry a lot that NGOs are very much in the habit of doing exactly that,”

It's worth reading the full article, which seems to me to reflect the kind of cautious balance we used to see as normal for good scientists. The fact that these senior people are warning their colleagues from 'jumping on political-agenda bandwagons' is both telling and timely.

None of which detracts from the significance of the question. However, it lends weight to the 'other question', which is why our politicians are so very keen to burden us all with such heavy taxation, when the science is to this degree uncertain.

Or is it that 'carbon credits trading' and 'marine wind farms' are nice little earners......?

 

[timbartlett]

Or is it that 'carbon credits trading' and 'marine wind farms' are nice little earners......?

You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment
(Remember the House of Cards TV series?)

 

[Lakesailor]

It's a way to regenerate manufacturing and supply. The country (world) is running out of new things we "need" because we've replaced so much with digital virtual stuff and there are only so many hot tubs you can use or houses that need double-glazing left.

By creating a whole new environment (the out-of-control one) it opens a huge new area for business to supply remedies for and governments to collect taxes from.

Climate change is happening. We cannot do anything to alter that. (oh yeah, you can switch off the telly at the wall before you go to bed)
But the Peoples' Servants will make bloody sure they collect as much money from us as they can in the name of Flash Gordonism.

 

[webcraft]

Why?

.
Why on Scuttlebutt?

- W

 

[wotayottie]

However, it lends weight to the 'other question', which is why our politicians are so very keen to burden us all with such heavy taxation, when the science is to this degree uncertain.

Or is it that 'carbon credits trading' and 'marine wind farms' are nice little earners......?

It's a way to regenerate manufacturing and supply. .

Both comments owe more to cynicism than realism. What politician has ever protected his job by dishing out "heavy taxes"? And since when would any new industry regenerate British manufacturing? Like mobile phones didnt, or computers didnt, or wind farms didnt?

It's understandable for an academic like the guy quoted to see everything in shades of grey, but grey doesnt get any sort of message across. What notice would anyone take of a politician who said " we might have a problem"? And wouldnt the media have a field day asking " why dont you know for sure?".

The politicos have no real alternative to the extremes of ignoring the issue or going all out for it in my view. And I'm sure that under media pressure they are just as subject to bandwagons as anyone else.

Why, for example, would they continue to dish out foreign aid to corrupt and venal third woprld dictatorships if it werent easirer to do that than to justify cutting aid to the left leaning media?

 

[maxi77]

Bearing in mind the fate of the head drugs scientist should this lot be being a bit more careful, they could also find themselves sacked.

At present it does seem as if God Gordon has determined that climate change taxes are the new heaven and thus must be pursued vigorously and articles like this one do suggest that perhaps the justifications for some of the taxes which seem to being proposed now are a trifle over the top.

 

[Pye_End]

At present it does seem as if God Gordon has determined that climate change taxes are the new heaven and thus must be pursued vigorously and articles like this one do suggest that perhaps the justifications for some of the taxes which seem to being proposed now are a trifle over the top.

So what whould you do if you were in charge?

Faced with 2 fossil fuel issues -
1/ There is a large group of scientists who are 85% certain than CO2 pumped out by man is going to cause a big problem for mankind for future generations;

2/ The UK is increasingly reliant on foreign powers for fuel, which is itself a finite resource.

Is doing nothing an option? If not, is taxation one of the best means to alter behaviour?

 

[maxi77]

So what whould you do if you were in charge?

Faced with 2 fossil fuel issues -
1/ There is a large group of scientists who are 85% certain than CO2 pumped out by man is going to cause a big problem for mankind for future generations;

2/ The UK is increasingly reliant on foreign powers for fuel, which is itself a finite resource.

Is doing nothing an option? If not, is taxation one of the best means to alter behaviour?

Indeed taxation can change habits, but to change habits quickly taxation changes have to be very siignificant, and that for any government anywhere is suicide, so it isn't going to happen. As we have seen in recent years with significant rises in the cost of both petrol and domestic energy they haven't really had that much of an impact on consumption, so how far do you really have to go with taxation to have an impact.

Reduction in CO2 creation can be approached in 2 directions, firstly use less energy, now promoting this on a carbon basis does not have that much impact as a large proportion of the population sees the whole excercise as a new tax collection process so does not believe, they need to be sold the concept of saving their own cash by using less energy.

Equally how do you get the public onside when the government fails to invest significantly or in a timely fashion in technology that may help. Funding for carbon capture and wave energy is taking far to long to come on stream.

At the end of the day we have a PM who told us he had abolished boom and bust just before we hit the biggest rescession of my lifetime (and I am an original baby boomer so this is the third Labour induced rescession I have seen) who now expects us to believe that all these new so called green taxes are to save the planet rather than deal with the parloius economic situation he has created. We need a new salesman or a new sales pitch, preferably both