TalkClimateChange

I fully agree with him. Green’s are too often tarred with the extremist socialist brush, which is not what most people believe.

“other green behaviors such as localised approaches to grocery shopping and production actually result in a net increase of greenhouse pollutants.”

I would love to know how he justifies that statement.

The key word here is “activists”. I would include Gore in this category.

Caring about people and planet has only recently come to be equated with reducing CO2 emissions, and on very suspicious grounds. Activism such as the marches held in the UK is organised by the Socialist Workers Party and affiliations, whose aims are very different from “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations”.

The rest of us - that work hard and dedicate our lives to understanding the world’s problems and trying to solve them, instead of just jumping up and down - find ourselves completely outnumbered by wave after wave of hysteria, and as a result nothing is getting done - we simply have more to argue about.

Anyone versed in humanity’s ills knows that solving them is far more complicated than the reduction of carbon emissions, yet activism leads us to think that CO2 is the only problem out there.

That said, I am not a fan of King either. I do not believe the UK installing new nuclear power stations is setting a good example to the world, nor is it going to have any effect whatsoever on climate change, and I can’t believe that any serious scientist would suggest that it will.

Reduce our reliance on oil and gas (by extension, Russia and the Middle East), yes it will achieve that. Global CO2 emissions caps, they will help us keep control over developing countries. But to think any of these proposals will actually reduce global CO2 concentrations is barmy.

I understand that the main argument against localised food production is that it tends to be smaller scale and therefore less efficient.

There was an interesting article in the economist last year claiming that if everybody went the organic local produce route then we would basically starve.

I do agree with your arguments that we need to understand things rather than jump up and down. And using climate change as an excuse for other agendas is despicable.

I guess it is the depth of your belief in the AGW theory and associated predictions that decides how you come down on this one.
IMO this issue will never be resolved in a classic manner of some compromise and some concessions.

If the threat is real, a solution would be being discussed right now at the highest levels of every government and International body on the planet. The collective population of the planet would be paralyzed waiting for the solution.

There would not be a 2 year plan to get an agreement on a global CO2 reduction and carbon cost system.

If the bulk of humanity believed what the people at the top are saying; like the Nobel winners Al Gore / IPCC, Climatologist James Hansen, the UNFCCC and their lot, why are they not out marching in the streets all day everyday in every city in the world?

If I thought for a minute that AGW is real and that we are headed for a preventable fate, nothing would stop me from being heard. That is why I speak out against the propositions in regard to fighting an imaginary threat. I will not just go with the concensus unless I am convinced that they are right.

This is the puzzling part of this debate, either the science is wrong and there is no global climate crisis, or it is right and people just do not care. I am not sure sure which one is the greater failing.

I really get mad at the ones using this issue to further their “it is just better for the environment or save the spotted tree whale whatever” movement du jour. Because they do not believe it either, they are just using it to further their own causes.

“the main argument against localised food production is that it tends to be smaller scale and therefore less efficient.”

So instead we use economic tools to force farmers in developing countries to produce for export instead of feeding their own people.

I would tend to agree with the Economist (actually, I’d agree with the farmers who complain of worms and other diseases in their organic produce), but with sensible implementation of GM the problem may go away. Of course, GM rubs the ‘mentalists up the wrong way too…

“If the threat is real, a solution would be being discussed right now at the highest levels of every government and International body on the planet.”

I wonder about London flooding. If sea level rise a-la Gore were even a possibility, Parliament and every business in the City would be jumping up and down, demanding the new Thames barrier be built.

Or are they all just naive unbelievers?

I was the author of the climate change terrorism risk assesment. Not Sir David. I had been invited to contribute to a UNED-UK report commissioned by the UK Government. We had had still born twins. With the build up to the war in Iraq I didn’t want anymore chuldren dying or parents grieving.

So it was in the context of there are more important things than terrorism or war eg climate change.

Sir David I believe part of the UNED took my assessment and made it the be all and end all. In bad science did not cite my work.

Scientifically I do not assess climate change as a problem. It is a symptom. The problem is global ecological life support system collapse.

Sir David using my work for the media friendly soundbite approach has created a very dangerous situation. He has diverted attention from the real problem. You would not trust a doctor if he was only concerned withyour fever if you were really dying of Cholera.

This is the original. Note it also relates climate change and Africa. The agenda of the 2005 G8. I did carry a certain amount of kudos as I had been recommended to the UK Gov Cabinet Office by DEFRA to advise on sustainable development and the UK legislative process.

http://www.mp2.worldfriend.com/sustainable_development_forum.htm

It has now been taken off the DEFRA site. We have placed it here for reference. email address has changed.

The BBC have accepted for years that I am the real author and have even said my work is better than King’s. They have told me they will continue to prentend he is the original author as he is an establishment personality.

Very dangerous but it’s all about popular culture, sound bites, media personality. A proper approach to the ecological challenge of the planet went out the window when King published in Science and misrepresented my work without citing me.

I said climate change is more important than war or terrorism so do not kill innocent children in Iraq. I was dealing with politicians in 2002 who would hardly know what climate change was at the time. As such I could hardly say global ecological collapse. diversity, cycles etc etc.

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King is confusing a few loons picked out by the media to make interesting reading in the morning papers with more representative beliefs. It’s a bit the way in the old days when people suggested a progressive income tax and relief for the poor they were called Communists and revolutionaries. Of course, King is probably deliberately confusing things.

I like that, “if the threat were real, government would be doing something, government is doing nothing therefore there is no threat.” Of course government always reacts with great prescience and alacrity, for example when Britain and France stopped Germany from militarising the the Rheinland. Good thing they stood up to him, or else we might have had a second Great War, seen two-thirds of Europe overrun by the Nazis and…

Oh wait.

I am speechless.

I cannot even communicate how poor an example of comparing Germany before WWII to AGW is.

“I cannot even communicate how poor an example of comparing Germany before WWII to AGW is.”

I have used the comparison in a slightly different context: that political wool is being pulled over activist eyes. The pre-WWII German population wasn’t entirely evil, they were just mislead by a clever and manipulative elite.

I think it’s reasonable to compare this phenomenon with a lot of what is happening today. I also think it’s a reasonable to point out that governments don’t always know what’s going on, or react to what they do know in a reasonable fashion.

I am surprised you’re being belligerent towards Kiashu considering some of what was written above his comment.