Wintonsweek Stern Report, Despite BBC’s Efforts, Points To Cul-De-Sac Hidden Agenda For More Tax, Less Freedom, Quickly Apparent MIT Scientist Says Global Warming Slight, Stop Worrying About CO2 Respect Scarce Hydrocarbons, Step Up Replacement Research “Socialists were forced to admit that economies prosper with as little interference as possible from government and with the smallest possible taxes. The global warming issue is manna from heaven for them” On Monday, the BBC was telling us that we must forswear our selfish ways and stop using cars and planes because that would lead to unstoppable and disastrous climate change. By the end of the week, it had lost interest and switched to another preposterous report, saying that there might be no fish in the sea by mid-century. To be fair to the BBC, it wasn’t the only media outlet apparently incapable of reporting on controversial issues with balance and fairness. Sky News was just as irresponsible, not to say childish in its “we’re all going to die” presentation. The ludicrous Independent newspaper (of “It is, Are You?” fame) blasted us with this fatuous headline – “The day that changed the climate”. The Stern report, with overtones of Keith Waterhouse’s famed Ministry of Guesswork, estimated that global warming might eliminate between 5 and 20 per cent of world economic output, and that this could be avoided by spending 1 per cent of the world’s GDP. The Wall Street Journal wasn’t impressed. “The U.K. produces only 2 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, but its government is responsible for a much higher proportion of the world’s rhetoric on the economics of climate change,” the journal said. The Stern report was published on Monday, but the Sunday newspapers and broadcast media were already cranking out horror stories, unquestioningly falling for the government line that humans were warming the climate with their emanations of carbon dioxide. The BBC’s Broadcasting House radio news programme on Sunday, with no hint of irony, ran a scary sounding weather forecast from BBC weatherman, retired, Michael Fish, for 2020, 2050 and 2080 pointing out the mayhem we can expect across the world because CO2 use is warming up the planet. This was the same Michael Fish who denied a hurricane was about to devastate his own backyard, only eight hours before it struck as The Great Storm of 1987. Is global warming happening? “For the past 5 years, the global mean temperature has been flat to within a few hundredths of a degree. Indeed there has been no statistically significant change in 10 years” Lindzen might just as well have saved his breathe because the British media led by the BBC was convinced. No “climate change deniers” were allowed anywhere near their studios. But even those innocents who’d assumed that because of this overwhelming avalanche of opinion we were all guilty, the hidden agenda suddenly became clear. The likes of neo-Labour’s Tony Blair and his fellow anti-conservatives in politics and academia in Britain and across the world were forced in the latter years of the 20th century to admit that economies prosper with as little interference as possible from government and with the smallest possible taxes. The global warming issue is manna from heaven for them. If it can be established that human activity is really warming the planet disastrously, that would justify a return to the regime where the “Man from Whitehall Knows Best”, the mantra from Labour Party stalwart Douglas Jay in the ‘30s. It would justify the most intrusive policies from government as they strove to safe the world, and save us from ourselves. Dalek motor-mouth Not surprisingly, Conservative Party leader, fatuous, vacuous Call Me Dave, takes the green fascist line hook, line and sinker. “Climate change is the biggest threat facing our planet, and our generation will rightly be judged on our response to it. The evidence for climate change has never been so stark,” Dave told “The Spectator magazine. I’d bet my house that Dave has never spoken to a serious scientist about climate change, relying on Eton expellee and half educated Zac Goldsmith for his information. Rational look “Yes, there does appear to be warming, but the amount is hardly certain or, indisputable. And the amount found does not appear that alarming,” said MIT’s Lindzen in his Sunday Telegraph article. “Carbon dioxide and methane are minor greenhouse gases. Doubling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would, all else held constant, only lead to about 1C of warming; quadrupling carbon dioxide would only add another 1C (there is diminishing return in warming per unit of carbon dioxide).” “Spending just a fraction of this figure - $75 billion – the U.N. estimates that we could solve all the world’s major basic problems. We could give everyone clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education right now. Is that not better?” “Given the above, what is all the hyperventilating about? Personally I don’t know. It certainly can’t be the temperature record. For the past 5 years, the global mean temperature has been flat to within a few hundredths of a degree. Indeed there has been no statistically significant change in 10 years,” Lindzen said. Fred Singer, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia points out that the world’s climate has always been variable, either warming or cooling. Telling logic “If one assigns all of the observed 0.6 degree temperature increase of the 20th century to an anthropogenic increase in green house gases, (which together have gone about 50 per cent towards a doubling), then the additional forcing from the next 50 per cent will only add a little additional warming. This is so because the calculated temperature increases only as the logarithm of CO2 concentration,” said Singer. I don’t pretend to understand that, not appreciating higher mathematics, but I do have great faith in Singer as an experienced climate expert and brave campaigner. Meanwhile, economic experts were digesting the mammoth report from Stern, the British government’s chief economic advisor. “today’s environmentalists are the first cousins, if not direct descendants, of yesterday’s Marxists” Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Sceptical Economist, called Stern sloppy and his conclusions flawed. Stern had said hurricane damage would devastate communities, but according to Lomborg, this is occurring simply because people were moving to risky areas. “It is estimated that 95 to 98 per cent of the increased damage will be due to demographics,” said Lomborg. Hugely expensive schemes to eschew CO2 were counter-productive. “Most cost benefit models show that dramatic and early carbon reductions cost more than the good they do,” he said. Lomborg said the huge sums recommended to be spent by Stern on carbon reduction – 1 per cent of GDP or $450 billion a year - would be a waste of money. Solve all the major problems The Wall Street Journal wasn’t impressed either. “(Stern) has taken complex and still-controversial climate and economic models, attempted to integrate them, and then extrapolated the results over the next two centuries,” said the WSJ in an editorial. “Most of them (Stern arguments) are simply nicely dressed arguments for giving government a larger share of the economy through higher taxes and recentralized control over business. In this way, today’s environmentalists are the first cousins, if not direct descendants, of yesterday’s Marxists,” said the WSJ. There is surely a more sensible way forward. Conserve resources, don’t destroy economies Call Me Dave is talking nonsense when he told the Spectator “The need to tackle climate change is urgent”, because humans haven’t yet found a way to change the climate. The British government is about to introduce a “Climate Change Bill”. That makes as much sense as a “Make The Sun Rise In The West” bill. Surely it makes more sense to husband scarce hydrocarbon resources, and make sure the private sector is incentivised to develop renewable fuels like nuclear, fusion and hydrogen, always bearing in mind that hydrogen power with the raw material derived from hydrocarbons isn’t really progress, Stern wasteful “Many of those goals (water, health, education) could be more easily achieved if we ceased to focus on carbon dioxide which is a natural and essential substance produced by breathing. With trillions of dollars at stake, this is no small matter. To be sure, for those who enthuse over the regulatory state, the possibility of regulating breathing must be like a dream come true.” “Under the circumstances, perhaps we should be suspicious of the dishonourable tradition of establishing the alleged truth of global warming by constant repetition, while ignoring reality,” said Lindzen. Neil Winton – November 4, 2006 |
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