Monday
Jan242011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Mad? Drugged? Or just civil servants?
Jan 24, 2011 Bureaucrats Climate: WG3 Also in the Independent, the simply flabbergasting story that the Environment Agency is proposing airlifting fish from the Lake District up to Scotland, in order to mitigate the effects of global warming.
Fish from the Lake District will be moved to cooler waters in Scotland under radical plans – which will be unveiled this week – aimed at coping with climate change.
Haunting the Library (to whom a hattip is due) wonders if the government are on LSD. It's possible, but I wonder if this is just one of those bureaucratic documents that the minister signs off without reading. The explanation is more likely to just be bureaucrats wanting to expand their empires, and grubbing about for a way of doing so.
Reader Comments (36)
These are surely the last, lunatic, dying days of the Roman empire.
Anna Raccoon's take:
http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/flying-fish-and-other-phenomena/
I thought they already had fish in Scotland. After all, fishing does seem to be quite popular there! If the Scottish lochs were devoid of fish then moving some from the Lake District might be a sensible conservation measure but moving them because of global warming is ridiculous.
By the way, have any of the civil servants who dreamt up this scheme been walking in the Lake District this winter?
Something fishey going on here :).
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Who is going to teach the fish to understand Sotttish English I wonder?
Peter Walsh
Same problem with the acidification of the oceans and its very worrying: I have no idea where we are going to put them all.
/sarc off.
And how about STRESS Counseling for our aquatic friends?
PW
I'm reminded of an episode of "Yes, Minister" in which Humphreys proudly says "There are some things a Minister has no need to know"
Only in this case, the minister really hasn't got a clue what's going on and instead of a career bureaucrat making a call, we have self-serving activist quango's claiming omniscience.
Sheesh.
Moving them to a new plaice because of WARMING???
Arer these fools not aware, that fish can live quite happily in the Caribean, Central Pacific, off the North Coast of Australia? Have they not also realised that these places are....well.. WARM?
The only time a fish suffers from warming is in my bloody frying pan. But at that point, I guess it is too late.
Has anyone actually measured the lake water temperatures? It would interesting to see the results, especially as they would represent some sort of empirical evidence. If they're not warming up, the whole scheme is even madder!
When I first saw this I thought a joke by the copy boys but no it's a joke by the government and I'm paying for it ! can't they just get Jethro or Iannucci to write this stuff it would be cheaper !!
Tut, tut, Bish, you really shouldn't go off at half-cock on these matters. Have a look at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3346740/Ancient-vendace-fish-saved-from-edge-of-extinction.html
From the article, to save you looking it up:
quote
Cameron Durie, the Environment Agency's technical specialist said: "The loss of vendace in Bassenthwaite Lake is down to a number of reasons. They've suffered from competition and egg predation from illegally introduced fish species as well as nutrient enrichment of the lake from agricultural run-off and sewage.
"But the final blow is sediment that has come into the lake - we consider this to have been the most damaging factor in its decline.
"Eggs laid by the fish in the early winter months have become smothered by sediment before they have had chance to hatch the following spring. We have tried various techniques to help the vendace survive but unfortunately none of them have worked."
unquote
This is a nice illustration of one of the problems with the deep green eco-loons: by hectoring, nagging, bullying, truth conservation and straight-out lying they produce a reflex opposition in those whose natural inclination is pro-conservation, pro-nature, pro-environment. Saving the vendace is a good thing*. To keep the loonies quiet, the Agency has obviously just shoved the AGW label on a project that was already ongoing. Perhaps a study of the run-off sedimentation bands could be used to quantify local tree rings or something if suitably inverted....
As for the floppy wrist, flappy hand horror of flying the things -- compare the costs of, for example, filling a family car with fuel and flying a family of four to Malaga. Air transport is cheap, don't let the loons persuade you otherwise.
*Apparently they taste good as well.
JF
More run-off, more dissolved silica, diatom blooms out-compete calcareous phytoplankton as the silica restriction is removed, less DMS leading to reduced stratocumulus levels and hence increased warming of ocean surface, relatively higher 13C pull down by less-discriminatory C metabolism of diatoms compared to calc. phytos so a false 'fossil fuel' signal... Maybe they're onto something.
This is such madness! It strikes me that this is part of the great climate change scaremongering push that these idiots seems to be indulging in at the moment. I think the public are just laughing at them as every story gets more and more ridiculous.
The Environment Agency must be part of Huhne's department, so I wouldn't put it past him to have signed this off. He probably thought of it in the first place.
You'd never guess that money was tight, would you..?
XX You'd never guess that money was tight, would you..? XX
I don't believe for one second it is.
It is just, as withz the constant "terror" warnings, a method for controling the proles.
John Flood
Informative, thank you. Also, your final speculation is interesting.
Julian
"a partnership of conservation bodies in England and Scotland has helped rescue the vendace from extinction."
Except that, as the article admits, there were Vendace in Derwentwater all the time, so not really in danger of extinction at all. But that wouldn't raise alarm bells and extra funding and lots of news coverage - remind you of anything..?
I've haddock up to here with these ridiculous news stories. Surely this is cod environmentalism at its worst.
I'm sorry, this has just got to be one of those April Fool's Day articles that got published a little early due to civil service incompetence.
BTW, I don't think they claim it is to "mitigate global warming", rather it is to cope with climate change.
Don't you love the way every thing that comes from these bureaucracies starts with the magic words
Repeat after me ......
But they could be right. Start stocking up on the thermals.
Apparently, the fish were going to be driven up there - but the road is being re-chipped.
The story contains several different mad details, but one detail it doesn't mention anywhere is air lifting. I'm sure that was just HtL being hyperbolical but I'm not sure all the commenters have noticed.
Why not just dig a big canal and let the lazy bastards swim...
"As a result, oxygen levels will fall"
If they can work that out, howcome they haven't twigged that the same happens with CO2 dissolved in the oceans..?
"the fish were going to be driven up there"
What by - pike?
I have a plan that will work and save money !
Stick a fish stall on the M6 and everyone going north gets a fish in a bag to drop in a lake above the warming line that will be drawn on the map by a leading greenish expert/economist /nutter or b list celebrity, which ever we can get! then on the way back down they can drop off the bag with the water still in it of course as we don't want all that hot water going north that would be stupid!!
Tipping the scales.
The introduction of all these fish will undoubtedly cause water levels to rise. Finally they will be able to prove it's due to global warming.
What would you imagine the carbon footprint to be of this transportation? The trip? Mule drawn carts carrying fish tanks, self-flagellating monks in green, manually operated bellows in adjacent carts to keep the water aerated, icy roads, snow banks. Louise tiptoeing through the tumbrels.
Josh? Josh? Opportunity beckons.
Josh? Josh? Opportunity beckons.
You are going to need to get that first book of cartoons out soon just to have room for those that will surely come. Never I have I seen such creative opportunities as those created by the Greens. This is even funnier than the cartoon I saw of Al Gore standing by his green painted Lear Jet, explaining it was "green".
They could always go by British Whale.
I might add that your bureaucracy is cleverly filling the void left by the departure of Monty Python.
Bish, please nip out and break the ice on Loch Leven for them
I have been wanting to ask a similar question about the good drugs they have over there, but I didn't wan to be inflammatory and get snipped. It cross my mind often as I read this stuff.
They have some really good shIt!
It's time we come up with a counter-precautionary principle.
As well, I propose an Open Climate Science Model project. Just as software has moved into the public arena with the idea that many minds are better than a few, we should start an Open Source Climate Science Modeling project to see what many minds can come up with.
Chances are that this will not work out at all as planned.
Remember: People thought that having mongooses in new places to kill wicked snakes was a great idea. And that bunnies were so cute in sandy ol' Australia. And that cane frogs would kill off the bugs.
And that America needed to have every bird mentioned in Shakespeare.
There is never a shortage of stupid.
Obsessive manias like AGW only means that stupid is in an even greater abundance.
Good Cod! Is the Government still carping on about global warming? They'll have to fund this madness to the tuna 4 or 5 billion pounds.
. . . I'll get me coat. :-)
HtL: This plaice is not where you should flounder about with fishy puns. The sole reason for Bishop Hill is as an outlet for the trout, the whole trout and nothing but the trout, so help me Cod. It's brill and the Bishop is a dab hand.Time eels, all, however, including this lot of pollocks. So stop pouting and we'll skate over this episode.
ur yu tryin to nick ma bird ya southern stickie?
no, im a stickleback dont you know & your female is not a 'bird' , are you hen.
This is just not a subject worthy of discussion. Save your breath. Something worth debating will crop up soon. (Perhaps). I don't know what's got into you all. Are you doing any serious thinking?