Controversial… lol

“With the money to be wasted on climate change I would sooner have every western nation take a partner nation in the third world and use the money to save those people.”

Hear hear. This was my starting point: having studied developing countries for a long time, I realised that the ideas and agendas coming off the back of climate change bore little if any resemblance to the measures necessary to combat the problems of less developed countries.

Bottom line: adaptation will “save” us all and, eventually, the planet. Mitigation will just benefit the wealthy. I have not heard a single argument that convinces me otherwise, and I have been looking fairly hard!

So, what do we do about it? It’s all very well ranting on a blog. How can we turn it into something constructive?

Joined thinking is required, that is my point on most green solutions, there is no joint thinking, never are the interdependencies examined.

When it comes to helping people who need it in third world and developing countries fight the suffering of starvation, poverty, no education and disease we have a dismal track record, we give more money to save the spotted wood whale polar bears than to feeding the poor.

With the money to be wasted on climate change I would sooner have every western nation take a partner nation in the third world and use the money to save those people.

Perhaps we could consider not enacting the “green” fees and carbon taxes being proposed across every nation with a GHG emission reduction mandate, in a misguided effort to “encourage” people to change. The market prices are going to do that just fine on their own.

I currently have a levey on electricity and natural gas energy right now, they are going to add an infrastructure rebuilding user fee on electricty. Other legislation like cap and trade and carbon taxes are threatening to add another 20%-30% onto the rising costs of energy already, for the explicit purpose of renewable energy implementation, whose cost to me for energy will be an additional 20% over current levels when it becomes available. Of course I will still have to pay the taxes regardless of source, so no relief there. All while global economic slow-down and possible recession threatens to drag the world economies into the mud and add millions to the ranks of the poorest people in our countries.

Why is oil higher?Good old fashioned supply and demand. Emerging economies are demanding more oil and
the OPEC countries are constraining production to keep oil prices higher while the western infidels attempt to release themselves from the bonds of their oily embrace. Great for them, not so good for us. “All the more reason for renewables!” the greens shouted together, yet how are you getting there from here without the energy for everyone to make the journey and what will be the cost?

A green liberal answer to higher energy costs will be to increase the subsidies to the poor in pure old fashioned tax and spend mentality that will divert all the revenue from intended targets delaying the renewable developments.

Kiashu, your 2 prices on the bill still represents real money being giving to the energy provider through grants and subsidies, some government, some industry, some in the US courtesy of Hugo Chavez.

Perhaps the sacrificing of our poor is what is required to save the planet? Nearly every environmental pro-AGW group has made a statement regarding population controls or human population demands on resources are part or if not the root of the problem.

To be expected, really. The sad thing is that most greens/activists rely so heavily on governments for their information (e.g. IPCC) and actions (e.g. taxes), because this is the easy option. We have become so lazy that people think they can vote away their problems…. and many don’t even vote!

Public affairs are often presented in this way, that if we spend money on X we can’t spend it on Y, and so on; I’d rather spend it on Z which goes some way to achieving both X and Y.

I don’t know how they give out winter energy concessions in the UK, but here it’s simply that your bill has two numbers on it, most people pay the higher one, people on benefits present their benefits card when they pay their bill and pay the lower one - it’s about half. So they have more cash spare, but don’t get sent a cheque.

If people would rather buy pressies and freeze to death than be warm, I don’t think there’s much we can do about that. Whatever people’s income level, they’ll have to make choices about what they do and don’t spend on, and those choices will affect their lives, sometimes for the good, and sometimes for the bad.

“a few simple machines like water pumps”

As someone who spent months studying them, I say there is nothing simple about it! Maintenance is a massive problem. Pumps are only really any good for rural dwellings - people tend to forget that even developing countries have massive urban centres. Pumps in new villages tend to be monopolised by the rich. Etc

A better way to go about water supply in many developing countries is making life easier for private water vendors - i.e. removing the barriers to formalising this industry. I’ll write something on the forum if you want to know more.

The connections you draw out from this are good but simplified. On the whole they are correct, but I would disagree with the “better local government” and “less violence” comments. This tends to be location-specific and tied into trade.

“sometimes I forget that not all of us live in a civilised country where poor people get winter energy concessions”

Again, I see your point but you’re not quite right. In the UK, pensioners are more likely to spend their fuel concessions on Xmas presents for their grandkids than they are to spend it on fuel.

The highest rate of EWD in Europe is in Portugal. Countries in Scandinavia, that deal with cold all the time, have much lower EWD rates. Why? Arguably because they have district heating systems which minimise fuel bills and make heat readily available.

The rising price of oil and gas will not be such a problem for fuel poor people if we implement combined heat and power with district heating and cooling. Combine this with the roll out of decent insulation to ALL homes, ALL offices, ALL tower blocks, and you’ll deal with both EWD and (in the UK) >30% of total national CO2 emissions.

For example, “third world education, sanitation, water supply, food production technology” - putting in some renewable energy would allow things like lights in homes (hard to study if you must work all sunlight hours and then go to a dark home), a few simple machines like water pumps to save the several hours a day women in these countries spend collecting water, and this water pumping combined with well-planned by locals agriculture would ensure a sustainable use of this water. All this would enhance people’s daily lives and food production, giving them a surplus they could sell and use to invest in education, better housing, small businesses (eg buy a sewing machine and start making clothes), and so on. The better sanitation, cleaner water, more and better food, these would contribute to an increase in material wealth, and this combined with the education would mean better local government, less violence and so on.

Or we could just jab them with vaccinations and send them whatever food we’ve got spare that we’re not yet turning into ethanol.

So it’s not either/or, what we find is that if we choose the right approach, a few things help many many problems.

And closer to home… well, sometimes I forget that not all of us live in a civilised country where poor people get winter energy concessions. But again, renewable energy comes into that, too. How affordable will winter heating be for them when oil is $180/bbl, and coal and gas rise in proportion?

Much of the AGW debate focuses on population. E.g. per capita emissions. Plenty of studies show that increasing women’s agency - their ability to work and make choices - reduces fertility rates and child mortality rates. I.e. stabilises population growth.

Stop changing indigenous land use and farming patterns in developing countries through the “export-led development” model and you’ve got a pretty sound strategy to deal with both human health and climate change.

We would have to put up with some CO2-induced GW (if it’s real) to achieve this, but if we get our priorities right now then we might avoid making things worse in the future.

it doesn’t matter whether climate change is man made or not. Its only a symptom of planetary mismanagement.

As I said in Climate Change to Climate Changed, the Government were given the means to the solutions of the whole situation.

The entire climate change debate is so 80’s. Move on please.

Mark said he was doing something about my work. When he puts that up stoke up the debate with that.

I told the Government climate change was a greater threat than terrorism so they wouldn’t drop bombs on children. I couldn’t say planetary ecological life support system collapse. In 2002 most politicians had only just heard of the words climate change. The truth, they couldn’t handle the truth.

If you value your life, your families life and the beauty of this planet. Please stop debating this global aberration of climate change the politicians have caused by playing Chinese whispers with my work.

Stop dicussing how to deal with a fever when the patients dying of cholera. Get a plumber and a groundworker to supply clean water and sanitation.

You have 5 years or your dead and it won’t be climate change.

Will make sure we give you something in the next post to get your teeth stuck in to!

And if you feel to urge to use your formidable debating skills today then have a look at my latest post on EcoWorldly - that will almost certainly get your juices flowing

http://ecoworldly.com/2008/01/28/the-end-of-cheap-electricity-in-europe/

I will shock everyone and say there is nothing here that I do not agree with!