The Climate Consensus Died in Parliament This Week
Following the Met Office’s report, Ed Miliband appeared in the House of Commons on Monday to give a ministerial statement on the “state of nature and climate”. Following the statement, based on the misleading and alarmist headlines produced by the Met Office (which have been debunked by Paul Homewood here), there was a short debate. But if Ed Miliband was hoping to put “climate and nature” centre stage, he will have been disappointed. The statement and the debate revealed more ‘hard truths’ about the state of UK politics than it did about climate change.
The most striking indication that the climate agenda is weakening is its conflation with “nature”. In recent years, green politics has extended the notion of the ‘climate crisis’ into the ‘nature crisis’. Neither of them has any scientific credibility. Despite Miliband’s emphasis on “science” the IPCC makes no statement about the ‘climate emergency’. And, as I have pointed out, attempts to measure the extent of the ‘climate crisis’ requires metrics of human welfare that are seemingly ‘linked to’ climate change (often also without any scientific basis) to be compared with the same metrics produced by simulations based on counterfactual scenarios in which there is no global warming.
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As you mention Brasil, a member of BRICS, it’s worth noting that a lot of sugar cane is farmed there, which is now often used as a source of ethanol for use as a fuel. Thus the Net Zero scheme is convenient for the local industry, in effect.
Leave fossil fuels in the floor and chop down the Amazon to produce biofuel. Is that what passes for environmentalism?
yes, strip mine for lithium, tear down forest and cut them up to make ‘biofuel pellets’, rip apart meadows, farms, and natural landscapes to erect solar panels and bird choppers with the average chopper containing 3.000 tonnes of steel, aluminium, plastics etc (carbon), kill birds and sealife – all to save Gaia.
what idiot believes that plant food, 400 parts per million, causes weather and climate?
..and rip up the seabed for nodules of manganese!
In Germany they’re ripping out an ancient forest in order to plant windmills.
It is also important to note that the costs of Net Zero are nearly always calculated by reference to a narrow estimate of direct costs of spending. The UK has already spent hundreds of billions subsidising highly inefficient and uneconomic items such as windmills, solar panels, and electric cars. But this is a small part of the total cost of Net Zero because the elevated electricity prices have also seriously damaged growth. With the previous trend 2% average annual growth of GDP per head between 2007 and 2024, instead of 0.373% of GDP per head which actually occurred, the UK economy would have been 31.4% larger by 2024. This represents an annual loss of about £13,260 per person. Meanwhile, the total loss in output over that period is approximately £900 billion. There are regular articles about Britain’s “productivity puzzle”, as if it is a mystery why productivity growth has stalled since about 2010. It is not a puzzle at all. It has been caused by: The very high energy prices resulting from Net Zero, which has also diverted huge sums into subsidising unproductive and economically destructive items, caused rapid de-industrialisation, destruction of the most productive jobs and businesses, and generally… Read more »
Excellent post. I wonder why Millibrain and his cohort cannot provide such details.
Because they don’t need to.
Indeed… it’s a disgrace that day after day, week after week, the Speaker allows the government to, repeatedly, get away with this obfuscation and evasion in response to questions.
It’s also down to those asking – ask a very specific, closed question, and explain why you’d like a specific answer. Giving them room to give a wooly response doesn’t help…
I wonder when any of the Labour front bench will actually answer a question with an answer, instead of basically blaming 14 years of Tory Government, Liz Truss, or reading what is as useful as reading the latest recipe from Mary Berry, frankly the last would be more useful than the crap they spout.
Their complete disdain and contempt for the electorate could not be more obvious.
When the Tories push back.
”You blame 14 years of Tory government for the position we’re in but you’re finding it’s easier to sit on the opposition benches than to govern and your government has made things worse, not better.
The honourable gentleman should reflect that his party had the same 14 years to decide how they might run the country, in the event that they were elected, and they have nothing. Despite having the biggest majority in our history, they have manifestly failed to grasp the problem of welfare where, as with everything else, the party’s only answer is to throw yet more money we haven’t got at it.
Now, I will ask again, will the honourable gentleman please answer the question, or admit he doesn’t know?”
Perhaps the whips could issue their troops with Bingo cards and the nonsense answers given by ministers could be peppered with cries of ‘Bingo!’.
Hear hear. This is one of the finest posts I’ve read since Frederick Chichester was causing havoc over at the Guardian in their early stage comments pages. (He’s not been seen in recent times, I can only assume he’s long decreased, been banned by them or got married).
The Net Zero SCAM has destroyed whole industries and tens of thousands of decent manufacturing jobs.
I expect many of the people made unemployed by the lunacy are now claiming welfare … possibly for life … and have added to the exploding welfare bill. That too can be added to the costs of the SCAM.
You mean … the winds of change can be felt in Westminster?
Well it’s full of bloody hot air that’s for sure.
Follow
the MoskvaFather ThamesDown to
Gorky ParkEmbankment…It will be a while before the Scorpions write about the Freedom Bell ringing the collapse of the Green Agenda, I fear…
Ah… that came up on the random play from my USB stick on a long journey in the car yesterday
The country is moving back towards the Middle Ages, led by donkeys. It won’t be long now.
I agree. On so many fronts, the end-game is coming. There is abundant and growing evidence that the electorate is getting angry at being unable to demand the attention of its elected donkeys. I’m thinking that if we’re to avoid serious violence, the next GE really is Britain’s last chance.
I’m not convinced we’ll make it that far…
In todays world emotion wins over facts. Facts require work, knowledge and understanding as well as imagination to balance alternatives. Emotion requires nothing other than “triggers”. To prevail, those against net zero have to develop their own “triggers” and hold facts in reserve. We live in an infantalised world, particularly the politicians media and lanyard classes.
Absolutely right. We could start with images of little old ladies shivering in the dark because they can’t afford their energy bills. It has been notable how the Left got upset when pensioners’ winter fuel allowance was removed, when the cost that has already been added to their energy bills by Net Zero is much larger.
Once you’ve been convinced / brainwashed into believing that the “science is settled”, why would you bother exercising your critical faculties on the matter? (If you have any, that is.) We need MPs who are prepared to think for themselves and ask difficult questions. They are sadly under-represented in our Parliament. Or they’re sitting on their hands because they don’t want to scupper their chances of rising up the party hierarchy.
You are obviously talking about MP’s like this waste of oxygen. Miatta Fahnbulleh, there are hundreds like her. I want laws where MP’s and Lords have to submit their bank accounts annually to a select committee, not from Parliament, with instant dismissal, jail and massive fines for corruption, not just for the MPs but for the banks that service them. They are all part of the same club of liars, thieves and vagabonds. And for 5 years after they leave parliament.
Desperation is setting in, more subsidies for battery cars, new gas plants, in direct conflict with each other. It’s a clown show.
“Climate change” has been “happening” now for over 40 years, so how much less is GDP now because of it?
GDP in any case is a very inaccurate number, but if it is to be used as reference it is better expressed GDP per capita to show whether people are getting richer or poorer.
The biggest threat to GDP is Net Zero and the transfer of our manufacturing to China.
The best answer is what I saw on Facebook today. Until I can no longer walk to St Michaels Mount at low tide, I don’t believe in climate change.
I think as I read in a comment from elsewhere that we should give Milliband the Moniker borrowed from Game of thrones. The Cult religious leader who overthrew the Kingdom and forced its ways on the people was known as The High Sparrow, his followers were the Sparrows. I think we should all call Milliband The High Sparrow.
Here are a few quotes that I think Ed could well fit into future speeches
‘The faith militant are very stern with those who overstep their bounds”
“Together we announce a new age of harmony. A holy alliance between the Crown and the Faith.”
“To die in the service of the gods would please each and every one of us”.
Miliband’s answers are like all green arguments, if you don’t have an answer, shout, make wild claims, and then try to denigrate the questioner. Stuff like ‘unpatriotic’ are the last refuge of a scoundrel and loser. They all do it. Do you not think that the longer this goes on, in the end when it becomes obvious to even the dimmest light in the country, that the result will be something like what has just happened with the Afghan debacle. The dimmest will get it (usually they are the poorest too) and there will be a massive mess. All the traditional parties are doing this, winging it hoping they wont get caught out, the day they will is coming. Cannot these people see we were lied to over Covid, the rape gangs, the Afghan debacle, Thalidomide, WMD and Iraq. The list is endless, yet the headlines today are 16 year old get the vote. No one is saying the true main reason for this. It means many, many thousands of corrupt postal votes will be made backing Labour in certain areas. Very few kids will actually vote, but the traditional postal voters, who can’t read or write English or even… Read more »
Anderson’s response should have been “you don’t know, do you?”
The Tories criticisms remind me of their complaints about the EU which went along the lines of “it has problems, minor issues are criticised, we must remain in and improve it”.
As we know it only got worse.
We tried, Cameron practically begged, warning of the feeling in the country and that the people of the UK may return a leave vote in the referendum. They told him to sling his hook. Too many involved are making too much money for them to even consider adjustment, let alone change.
Wind turbine blades are primarily made from composite materials, most commonly fiberglass or carbon fibre, and are held together with resin. These materials provide the necessary strength and durability to withstand wind and weather conditions while remaining lightweight. While a large portion of a wind turbine (85-95%) is recyclable, the blades present a challenge due to their composite structure.
In other words the wind industry needs OIL!!!!!
Mostly balsa wood apparently, or so I’ve read in a piece about the large scale destruction of the balsa wood forests.
I’m sure balsa may be used but if you look for any video on blade construction I only ever seen oil derived polymers and resins being used.
I’ve been evaluating solar farms this week for a client-investor. Everything they use to generate, control, and distribute the electricity is made in China
There is something else as well: energy production is included in economic output (GDP) figures. The GDP figures do not say anything about what has been produced – energy, washing machines or burgers in McDonalds.
If Miliband’s lunatic policies make energy more expensive, that will reduce the output of other things, and make us all poorer, to be sure. But the extent of our impoverishment will not necessarily be reflected in GDP figures.
Imagine a typical household has to spend £1,000 more on energy, and therefore £1,000 less on other things. GDP will not change – the composition of that GDP will change so that £1,000 more of it is energy, and £1,000 less is other things.
This will be partially offset by the inflation figures reflecting the increase in the price of energy, but only partially.
Basically, the actual level of impoverishment caused by Net Zero lunacy is even worse than the trillions of pounds mentioned in the article.
An excellent article and another that I will share as widely as I can. At last, there is some hope. Although it’s as misleading as much of the alarmist claptrap, the chart of GDP per capita since we adopted Net Zero is hilarious.
One is tempted to think Milliband simply doesn’t know the answer, but I’m inclined to believe he knows full well the figure, ahem, guess, and it scares the life out of him. 65 Billion people deserve far better than this considering they are picking up his bills.