The next Conference of the Parties (COP29) is due to take place in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 11th to 22nd 2024. Ahead of this private-jet jamboree, the UN Environmental Programme, has issued another Emissions Gap Report (EGR 2024) continuing the fear narrative. The Executive Director Inger Andersen says “crunch time is here” and “we need global mobilisation on a scale and pace never seen before, starting right now” to reduce carbon emissions. Otherwise, the world is in danger of missing the 1.5°C temperature cap set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.
When we consider the question of climate change without the rhetoric, we must assess three aspects: the observations, the science, and the policy. This reminds me of the three sources of temptation of the soul: the world, the flesh and the devil. Although not a perfect analogy, in the search for scientific truth with regards to the state of the climate each aspect has been corrupted to some extent. Most egregiously, the temptation of policy makers is to overlook the observations and science, with their sources of error, and press ahead with the excessive drive towards Net Zero regardless of its social and economic impact.
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Well if you mainly conclude that doing nothing is the best option then policymakers don’t have much of a job. So is it not just another case of turkeys not voting for Christmas. Sadly voters seem to expect policymakers to “do something” too. I can’t see this changing much in my lifetime.
Exactly.
The same applies to the other woke causes.
An organization set up to address “racial inequality” is hardly likely to come up with the conclusion “thing’s aren’t too bad, nothing needs doing” and disband. They will need to find “urgent and pressing” issues that need to be tackled, demand more money for action and further investigation and then discover yet more evidence of “racial inequality”.
See also “Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies” aka SAGE. Why would they ever say “there’s no emergency” or “emergency is over”? See also “Public Health”, Big pharma, the Medical Industrial Complex in general, the Military Industrial Complex…
Konstatin Kisin talks about the same in the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsLIP1ScHUg
The Cobra Effect: Why Good Intentions Don’t Solve Problems – Konstantin Kisin
Just had a look at that.. Something only becomes a “problem” when it’s “solution” presents a lucrative opportunity. This is why problems like out of control immigration – which is cheap and easy to solve (just tweak the policy and don’t allow illegals across and insist on a valid passport going through the proper immigration channels just like every other country on the planet) – are ignored while “sustainable”, “green” tech projects are worshipped because they make billionaires.
“Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcome.”
Charlie Munger
They do this because this is NOT about climate change.
Must be tricky to know who to vote for in the U.S.:
‘Trump has consistently dismissed climate change as a “hoax” and downplayed scientific consensus that it is anthropogenic, or driven by human activities.
As president, he gutted funding for research, appointed climate skeptics and industry insiders, and eliminated scientific advisory committees from several federal agencies.
Thousands of government scientists quit in response. (In fact, still reeling from Trump’s attacks, new union contracts protect scientific integrity to combat such meddling.)
His administration censored scientific data on government websites and tried to undermine the findings of the National Climate Assessment, the government’s scientific report on the risks and impacts of climate change. If reelected, Trump would almost certainly adopt a similar strategy,’
https://www.vox.com/climate/379450/election-2024-climate-stakes-presidential-race
Or not really…. if you want a smaller public sector…..and fewer publicly funded nut zero charlatans…..
This is why it is vital for the entire free world that Trump wins. The alternative is World Socialism.—— Combine that with the determination of the left to silence all dissent of Liberal Progressive Policies by shutting down social media like X where John Kerry recently admitted that is “The First Amendment is getting in the way of Online Censorship”. —-The left do not want you having an opinion different to theirs. But when government becomes the arbiter of truth then we are all in big trouble.
We always hear about the risk of using fossil fuels. But never about the risk of NOT using them. Since 85% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels that risk is very high. But as the latest COP is approaching it is worth remembering that back in 2009 not long after the Climate Change establishment were exposed by Climategate, that the COP took place in Copenhagen. As usual the agenda was all about rich countries handing over billions to poor countries to “fight climate change”. As it became clear that this was never going to happen, world leaders like Obama flew home early. But one UK leader stayed to the bitter end fighting for UK taxpayer money to be wasted on this Eco Socialism, and that was ————————Ed Miliband. The same guy who is now back in charge of energy and climate in the UK once more. ———-Watch your wallet people because this cretinous Eco Fundamentalist wants to empty it.
Presumably it is timely from the point of view of Caribbean nations to get their slavery reparations claims in now, because in a few decades we will have no money left.
Climate and Reparations. The two wealth extraction schemes currently attempting to bleed us dry. —-The scary thing is that our Progressive Political Class are all onboard with this crap.
Indeed. The magic money tree will blossom and fruit for these two things. It doesn’t blossom and fruit to keep pensioners warm in winter.
I don’t think we have any money left now and even less likely after Thieves goes on her spending spree of public sector wage rises and stupid schemes.
He would love to think he was in charge of climate – he’s not.
No but he is in charge of climate policy, and that is 10 times worse for us than the alleged climate crisis itself.
2 points:
1 The precautionary principle as referenced is not correct. The original idea of the principle was that you shouldn’t do something unless it could be proven that the benefit outweighed the downside. It’s now been twisted to mean you should do something “just in case” which is not correct.
2 The reference to a “low probability, high consequence” risk, is by definition, a low risk as risk is the product of probability and consequence. The consequence of you dying in a plane crash is high, but the probability of it happening these days is very low, hence the risk is low.
It’s not science, it’s politics and global social-engineering.
The UN has admitted that the Climate Change Agenda has nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with wealth redistribution.
They don’t have to present accurate, reliable scientific models and scientific justification for the policy because it’s not based on science; it’s based on a political agenda.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2017/05/24/global-warming-is-not-about-the-science-un-admits-climate-change-policy-is-about-how-we-redistribute-the-worlds-wealth/
The arrogance of these people is stunning. It is unquestionably clear that pollution should be minimized or avoided where possible, but to imagine that we can control the climate, especially by adjusting one completely irrelevant parameter in that vastly complex system – CO2, the abundance of which is essential for continued life – is very sad proof of the poor intellect of our leading politicians. Very sad because it reflects on us.
Michael Crichton summed it up nicely in his excellent book, State of Fear:
We live on the third planet from a medium-size sun. Our planet is five billion years old, and it has been changing constantly all during that time. The Earth is now on its third atmosphere.
The first atmosphere was helium and hydrogen. It dissipated early on, because the planet was so hot. Then, as the planet cooled, volcanic eruptions produced a second atmosphere of steam and carbon dioxide. Later the water vapour condensed, forming the oceans that cover most of the planet. Then, around three billion years ago, some bacteria evolved to consume carbon dioxide and excrete a highly toxic gas, oxygen. Other bacteria released nitrogen. The atmospheric concentration of these gases slowly increased. Organisms that could not adapt died out.
Meanwhile, the planet’s land masses, floating on huge tectonic plates, eventually came together in a configuration that interfered with the circulation of the ocean currents. It began to get cold for the first time. The first ice appeared two billion years ago.
And for the last seven hundred thousand years, our planet has been in a geological ice age, characterized by advancing and retreating glacial ice. No one is entirely sure why, but ice now covers the planet every hundred thousand years, with smaller advances every twenty thousand or so. The last advance was twenty thousand years ago, so we’re due for the next one.
And even today, after five billion years, our planet remains amazingly active. We have five hundred volcanoes, and an eruption every two weeks. Earthquakes are continuous: a million and a half a year, a moderate Richter 5 quake every six hours, a big earthquake every ten days. Tsunamis race across the Pacific Ocean every three months.
Our atmosphere is as violent as the land beneath it. At any moment there are one thousand five hundred electrical storms across the planet. Eleven lightning bolts strike the ground each second. A tornado tears across the surface every six hours.
And every four days, a giant cyclonic storm, hundreds of miles in diameter, spins over the ocean and wreaks havoc on the land.
The nasty little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide. For these same apes to imagine they can stabilize this atmosphere is arrogant beyond belief. They cannot control the climate.
The reality is, they run from the storms.
Is it really the policy of the Labour government to unnecessarily increase energy costs for the working and middle classes, while the money goes to big business and wealthy landowners through green energy subsidies?
It is the blob, and yes because they don’t give a shit about the peons.
“Although not a perfect analogy, in the search for scientific truth with regards to the state of the climate each aspect has been corrupted to some extent.”
There is no ‘the climate’. There is no single Earth climate. I defy anyone to characterise this thing ‘the climate’ using the standard scientific Köppen-Geiger climate classification, because science is all the rage, supposedly. See the map below showing the 30+ climate regions on Earth.
While we are on the subject of science, lets consider this exhortation “reduce carbon emissions”. I thought it was CO2 we must reduce because Carbon is a key building block of all known life. Precision and clarity are a key characteristic of the Western scientific tradition and so talking of de-carbonising does not sound anywhere near precise, in fact it sounds political/religious/ideological, the complete opposite of science.
The modern day Malthusians have come up with Earth Overshoot Day. This ludicrous organisation asserts that we are using up more earths each year, so that this year we will have consumed 1.75 Earths! What?!!!
“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Global warming is a good thing, caused by sun and orbital cycles, sadly not something humans can control.
Because the cost of doing nothing would mean they would lose their “jobs” and not be able to signal their virtue.
When everything worked out fine, better even, people would realise no need for policymakers – get thee to the Job Centre.
The Industrial Revolution occurred without any help from “policy makers”. Our economy has been continually held back and trashed by policy makers.
Forget these “RCP Scenarios”. Maybe one of them is correct, maybe none of them are. Either way they should in no way be prescriptive of policy decisions, because if one of those scenarios is going to play out then policy will do the square root of sod all to change it.
The fact that someone in the headline photo has chosen to stand wielding a placard that reads “If the climate can change, then why can’t we?” speaks volumes. The answer is that the climate WILL change and we WILL also change in response to it, as we have since the dawn of mankind. The one thing we can’t do is change the climate.
And I find it quite arbitrary and bizarre that the alarmists’ prognostications of climate Armageddon always have to be consistently around 12 years in the future. It’s like chasing a mirage in the desert that always appears the same distance away no matter how long you continue to approach it.
When anyone tries to placate your climate scepticism with the claim that “People are dying from climate change” I urge you to refer them to the following graph, showing climate-related deaths from 1920 to 2020 from the International Disaster Database: (scroll down the page to find it).
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/28/climate-fear-mongering-bad-analyses-cause-bad-remedies/
Something must be done is the hallmark of most politicians that want a job. Many behave like the characters in an old comedy that more or less made that point. The Chair of a sclerotic committee announced that “Something must be done, so we have called another meeting, so we can say that something has been done”!
So far as the UK is concerned this entire debate is completely absurd. Most major non-Western countries – the source of over 70% of GHG emissions – don’t regard emission reduction as a priority and, either exempt (by international agreement) from or ignoring any obligation to reduce their emissions, are focused instead on economic and social development, poverty eradication and energy security. As a result, global emissions are increasing (by 62% since 1990) and are set to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. As the UK is the source of just 0.72% of global emissions any further emission reduction it may achieve would essentially have no impact on the global position.
Indeed, the Net Zero cure is worse than the climate change disease.
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/risk-net-zero-worse-climate-change
“we need global mobilisation on a scale and pace never seen before, starting right now”
These people are barking mad IMHO.
Neither India nor China show any signs of changing their fossil fuel economies any time soon or maybe at all.
So there is no point banging on about this in the UK which has less than 1% of global emissions and when India and China and others are increasing their emissions by greater than the UK’s less than 1% contribution.
Nothing the UK does or can do can make any difference whatsoever.
If there really was a ‘climate change’ problem the UK would be better served by spending all the billions on lobbying and persuading those foreign governments to change their ways [which they won’t do as that is like turkeys voting for Christmas].
These climate change activists are hell bent on destroying the UK economy whilst at the same time not going to China and India and other countries to demonstrate, remonstrate and campaign for those countries’ governments to shut down their fossil fuel habits.
We should tell them all where to go.
And we can be specific – China, India and all other countries doing sweet FA about the alleged ‘climate change’ which can no longer be called ‘global warming’ because the scientific evidence of that is absent.
[So if there is no scientific evidence of global warming, there can’t be any for climate change – allegedly caused by – you have guessed it – ‘global warming’.]
Loonies, loonies, loonies IMHO.