Monday
Nov282011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Back from Germany
Nov 28, 2011 Climate: Sceptics I got back from Germany last night. The conference was lots of fun and I came away thinking what a nice bunch of people we sceptics are. I think for readers here there was not a great deal to report, apart from the fact that sceptics in Germany have a much bigger mountain to climb than those in the English-speaking world.
Reader Comments (74)
Speaking of the English-speaking world -
Canada to withdraw from Kyoto
Presumably the francophones are in agreement.
This is the 4th conference in Germany - that is in itself a milestone and shows the scepticism is taking root in even the most green of countries.
A great start to Durban, thanks GrantB. It's striking to me that the stinking rich are trying to foist their poverty-making plans on Africa the day DR Congo has its second election since wars that killed four million. Some of these countries have a few other things to think about than the western obsession about carbon emissions. One of the worst 'travesties' is that the UN can always bribe one or two 'representatives' from such countries to demand even more action on behalf of the poor, completely against their real interests. (What would you prefer, the electricity grid making to your door and thus a release from slavery or a big fat cheque given to one of your revered leaders, to do with as they choose?) Sorry to speak in such undiplomatic language but I've been reading some very nasty emails and that's what I see underneath. It's despicable - but the English-speaking (and French-speaking) worlds may now be in a place to make amends.
As we are sort of gaining ground, I'd like to re-gain the use of the word 'green'. I am a green person in general, and always hated it being purloined by the CAGWers for their own exclusive use. I have never been anti-green. If by green you mean conservation, increasing efficiency, reducing waste and taking care of fragile environments and populations. Not an agenda-driven set of lies mostly to do with wealth redistribution and protecting egos.
TheBigYinJames 10.54am Could not agree more. To see through the CAGW hoax is totally compatible with a concern to see our planet cared for and the worst excesses of our species discouraged. The warmists whilst flying round the world to their conferences have been allowed to purloin the green label for their propaganda ends and the public although suspicious do not yet see the full extent of the hypocrisy .
Totally agree with TheBigYinJames. I recycle what I can, compost what I can, use grey water on my plants, work to reduce my energy usage etc etc, so I am 'green' in all the ways that don't involve knitting yogurt. I just don't like liars and those pushing AGW have been lying to me perpetually for decades. It is also the case that the AGW nonsense detracts from real conservation. Who cares about the wildlife in an area or its use in agriculture when you're going to fill it with solar panels and save the planet?
Take a good look at the responses from country specific green groups to their democratically elected national governments leading up to Durban - they have been utterly hostile and derisive - irrespective of these governments green policies and actions on such matters as conservation and energy.
You are not dealing with rational and reasonable people your are dealing with ideologues and zealots who believe they are fighting for a just cause - to exercise power over others.
The truth is that these people care not for the environment that has become simply a means to an end.
TheBigYinJames, count me in. As I've contested since involving myself in the climate debate, green thinking and climate scepticism are not mutually exclusive. Many of us sceptics come to this debate through a genuine concern for our environment. I consider myself an environmentalist, a conservationist and a humanitarian (and, in the interests of full disclosure, a League Against Cruel Sports supporter too).
TBYJ
Engineering, of which Germany is renown, strives for efficiency and as a profession is therefore naturally green. When policy dictates design the result can be something otherwise. Do we imagine that the aerodynamicists, electrical and mechanical engineers working on wind turbines all aspire to dwelling in yurts hand-carved by Mongolian artisans treated with dignity and justice? The answer would be no, however, to propose that wind energy can be a substitute for the developed power generation we have had since the inception of the National Grid can only come from policy, not engineering. Green policy is a burden on engineering, clips its wings and misguides its direction. Green thinking and personal action as you display should be a right for all individuals: it is a freedom to be enjoyed and not a stick to be beaten with. Green policy however, is a misnomer - the colour that springs to mind is black.
hi andrew,
yes, i found the conference very interesting too and learned a lot; i think that you could probably extend your assessment to most people. if you'd hang around at a "convinced of AGW" climate science conference without trying to confront them with your view you'd see most of them are really pleasant people too. people tend to become more mean when they feel their view is threatened, which is probably what you experienced when confronting people convinced of AGW, as i did when approaching those that aren't. meeting people in person, in a non-threatening environment, is in this respect much more useful than debating via weblogs etc.
as a person that's pretty convinced that AGW will be a problem, this conference helped me a lot to break down preconceptions and negative prejudices, and i'm currently rethinking how i approached the debate in the past and will soon write an article detailing what i learned and what i think will help making the debate less shrill and more constructive.
cheers!
p.
It is a myth that Germans are practical and logical. They are quite an irrational people and their politicians and bureaucracy follow suit often magnifying the effects. My favourite example has always been teh case of Bottle Banks. At the threat of a fine of 100 Marks you were not permitted to use them after 1900 Mon-Fri, after 1300 Sat or at all on Sunday and holidays. Basically whenever you were able to use a Bottle Bank, you couldn't ! Their fear of nuclear power is another good example and a further one is the issuing of badges to cars for 4Euros. A green one for petrol driven and automatic yellow one for diesel engines ( regardless of their output ) and red ones for any dodgy/old vehicels. One day they will start banning cars depending on their badge from driving through city centres.
German media parrots without any qualification at all the warmist message. There have been brave attempts to the contrary ( a few years ago the "Swindle" film was shown on one of the commercial stations ), but basically a sceptical view is whistling in the wilderness. Austrian media is no better, I listened this morning to reports on the radio on the imminent failure of the Durban talks in almost funereal tones. There is the odd spot of nimbyism about wind farms, but basically the whole media and political establishment and thus the populace have swallowed the AGW story whole and are happily digesting it as it fits in with their world-view.
Like others earlier, I consider myself relatively "green". Recycling, use grey water, and I even cycle everywhere I can (even as a middle-aged old duffer!!) and use the one car we have very rarely. We have bird seed in the garden, along with a bird bath. Members of National Trust (getting fed up with them believing in this AGW guff) etc etc. So why do I, who is a "true" environmentalist, want these warmists to just go away? I argue so many times with mainly younger work colleagues (who incidentally drive everywhere and quite happy to fly around the world on holiday) who believe in AGW?
Incidentally, talking of the NT. We visited Wordsworth's house in Cockermouth earlier in the year. I was absolutely astonished to see the gardeners throwing perfectly good eating apples onto the compost. I asked a lovely lady why and her response was "health and safety reasons. We are not allowed to sell them or do anything else with them". I said this was madness, why don't they sell them in the shop? "Tell us about it" was her response!!!
DNFTT
@John Barrett
I can only echo your view on German irrationality - this is the nation whose 'organic' movement has effectively hijacked agricultural research across the EU for decades through using billions of euros for dogma-blighted pointlessness, which incessantly fearmongers about nonexistent threats to our food supplies.
This movement has directly resulted in the killing 45 of its own citizens and the blighting of hundreds of lives through internal organ damage (lifetime of dialysis or transplants) becaue the thought of killing bacteria on organic beansprouts, was idealogically *verboten* - once again misguided green fantasies fail horribly - killing more than four times as many people as Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima combined.
Are the Germans banning organic food? No, they're banning nuclear power stations.
And thanks to TheBigYinJames for kicking off the thread about genuine green measures - couldn't agree more - how did the CAGW fraudsters manage to conflate every genuinely environmentally beneficial message into their sepulchre of corrupt lies?
What would it take for honest folk to claim it back?
Cant find her
I think her name was Greta Vitz
She was the female leader of the West German greens in the 1970s or 1980s
I can vaguly remember as a kid she commited suicide
Can anyone remember her
Trouible is i think there was also a femael Olympic runner back then with the same name
Sorry not to have been able to get to the conference and meet you in person, Bish.
But unfortunately not all of us can take the time off work to go gadding about the world to Climate Change conferences in exotic locations, know what I mean? Or even - as in my case - to jump on an S-Bahn and make the 45 minute journey into Munich, I'm afraid.
Hope you found time to to look around the Christkindlmarkt, even if it is unseasonably warm and not very Christmassy at the moment. I blame Man-Made Global Warming, me. Doh!
Jamspid, I suppose you're not thinking of Petra Kelly who was shot dead in strange circumstances.
TBYJ, AH, NA, SH, etc, yes, absolutely. I'm a member of RSPB and NT. The story that climate sceptics don't care about the environment is at best a myth and at worst a fabrication.
In fact one of the main concerns regarding AGW hysteria is that it distracts attention from genuine environmental problems.
thespecialone:
"Incidentally, talking of the NT. We visited Wordsworth's house in Cockermouth earlier in the year. I was absolutely astonished to see the gardeners throwing perfectly good eating apples onto the compost. I asked a lovely lady why and her response was "health and safety reasons. We are not allowed to sell them or do anything else with them". I said this was madness, why don't they sell them in the shop? "Tell us about it" was her response!!!"
That sounds about right. :) Though, at the NT garden where I work we put up a sign saying "please help yourselves to windfalls". (Don't tell anyone though - I daresay we're breaking all sorts of EU rules.) The rest of the apples get turned into juice, which we then flog in the shop. We also sell any produce from the kitchen garden that the restaurant don't want. Sounds like someone at Cockermouth needs to go on a "using common sense" training course.
Not that I'm trying to defend the NT's green credentials. A lot of it is window dressing, from my experience.
I can't even see the troll any more :)
Nov 28, 2011 at 1:33 PM | Peter Hartmann said:
I can't tell you how pleasant it is to read a reasonable comment from a self-confessed AGW supporter, Peter. It certainly makes a change from the froth coming from Omega trlol.
May I offer you something to get your teeth into for your article. It is an open letter to Phil Jones from Willis Eschenbach. In it, Willis outlines the problems he has had getting the HADCRUT3 data out of CRU and, as he discovered, the lengths to which Jones et al went to to stop the data being released - to the extent that we discover that Jones admits he doesn't even think he can reproduce the data himself. I'd be very interested in your thoughts on that. (I warn you, the letter is very long - 5k words - but very much worth the read).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/an-open-letter-to-dr-phil-jones-of-the-uea-cru/
I also totally agree with TheBigYinJames. In particular, I am dead set against mercury vapor in my light bulbs -- I just bought about 100 old fashion incandescent light bulbs because they become illegal to sell in the US next year. Since I am paying for the electricity, I simply turn them off when not needed.
As for the hill to climb in Germany, just wait. The Green movement will impact a hard wall when the Eurozone collapses. The current bunch of Eurocrats running Germany will be pushed out off office when the average German punter (and voter) sees their beloved Deutschmark -- aka the Euro -- tank.
Petra Kelly
So there are conspiracy theoryist who would obviously say
That because West Germany was quite literally on the front line back then
And that because of the cold war and the 2nd world war they werent allowed a Communist or Fascist party and their only form of political radicallism was through Enviromentalism
So the consiracy theory would proberly say that they she was getting too close to East German secret intelligance and Bardur Meinhoff so the CIA bumped her off
Total rubbish but very entertaining
Germany is on the political fault line of Europe
A brief last 100 years history of Germany
1st World War, Defeat, Treaty of Versalies Reparations The economic collapse,Great Inflation Devaluation ,American black jazz musician escaping racail persecution in Swinging Berlin IE Caberet ,Rise of Nazism ,Rickstagg fire, Rosa Luxemberg ,Hitler, Autobahns, Jewish persecution, World War 2 ,Allied bombing, Dresden, Defeat again, Russian invasion ,Mass rape ,Division ,Discovering the Gas Chambers ,Guilt about discovering the Gas Chambers and rather not talk about it
The cold war nuclear stand off,The Stazi, The Beatles both the cars and the band ,Defeat again by England in 1966, East German not quite female Shot Putters on steroids ,Munich Olympic Massacre ,Barder Minoff ,James Last ,Mogadishu luffhanser airline hijacking rescue , The Berlin Wall Collapse ,Reunifacation, The cost of Reunifacation, Mass Imigration ,The re appearance of Fascism, The Hamburg Cell
Finally The Eurozone Crisis
But on the plus side they have had Unparralled Economic Prosperity ,Funny Shaped Toilet Bowls, A lot well hung men with big moustashs in their porn ,Boris Becker, Steffi Graffe ,Claudia Shieffer ,Autobahn by Kraftwork ,David Hazzlehoff and their football team won Euro 96
The saying goes "May you have a prosperous healthy life and live in uninteresting times" Uninteresting Not in Germany
The Death of GREEN.
"The UK's oldest environmental charity faces closure: By Daniel Boettcher, BBC Environment Correspondent"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15924233
Quote, "The UK's oldest environmental charity faces closure because its income has been hit by cuts to local authority budgets. Environmental Protection UK was originally established in 1898 as the Coal Smoke Abatement Society."
Becoming Green to continue to being funded is now no longer sustainable in the current economic environment.
TheBigYinJames
They are probably hiding under ZDB's bed. Scary week for trolls, it was....
Another suggestion for Josh as well. :)
The Death of GREEN
"Air Quality and Climate Change Guidance"
http://www.environmental-protection.org.uk/aqclimate/
Quote, "Environmental Protection UK is pleased to announce the launch of 'Air Quality and Climate Change: Integrating Policy in Local Authorities'. This new guidance document is intended to assist local authorities with integrating their work to reduce the impacts of both air pollutants and greenhouse gases."
Perhaps if the Environmental Protection UK stuck to concerns over real air pollutants rather than CO2 it might have survived.
There is warning here for organisations such as Oxfam and others that if you dilute your key message by jumping on board the Green-AGW bandwagon there are real consequences further down the line.
Nov 28, 2011 at 10:54 AM | TheBigYinJames
Count me in too.
For my part, I strongly believe in looking after our planet, started recycling long before it became fashionable, am seriously concerned about the lack of clean water and sanitation in 3rd world countries (especially when you consider how cheap it would be to solve), don't have a car anymore and only ever buy ONE Water
I too don't think mercury in light bulbs is a good idea - any more than putting mercury into teeth was a good idea.
A good proportion (10%?) of low consumption lamps seem to finish by getting broken, and releasing their payload of mercury vapour, when being removed from the lampholder, having prematurely failed. I think this is because the plastic reinforcements between the thin glass tubes have fallen away due to ageing of the adhesive that held them in place.
If you heat by electricity - as lots of people in France do - the power consumed by tungsten lighting is essentially free for the time that your heating is switched on. Every joule released by the lighting is a joule less that the heating has to provide to keep the temperature at what you set it to.
I think that that the outlawing of tungsten lamp bulbs on climate change grounds is another example of a money pot being opened up (in this case to lamp manufacturers and their sponsored politicians) on the Climate Change Gravy Train.
@ MangoChutney "ONE Water"?
http://www.onedifference.org//food-drink/water
They admit they add "bubbles" - the additive that dare not speak its name (aka CO2 - confirmed by the United Nations as a dangerous pollutant).
Low energy light bulbs seem to me to fail to work straight out of the packet much more frequently than the old type and to last nowhere near as long.
It's an interesting point. I often wondered WHY the UK government in particular is so keen to push the CAGW message, and I've come to believe it's because they hoped that the UK had enough patents or development jump starts in renewables or other so-called 'eco' products that it would reverse the decline in manufacturing in this country. Anything which led to the UK as the sole/lead manufacturer of some tech (and not China) was definitely going to be beneficial to our economy. (this is quite apart from a side goal of getting China to agree to reduced CO2 = reduced energy use = strangling their economy to stifle their dominance)
But they had to get everybody else in the world to agree. China, understandably, isn't going to.
Nov 28, 2011 at 4:10 PM | Martin A
Another good reason for supporting them ;)
I wonder if it's possible to make a Hocky Stick graph out of coke sales and then make a fortune telling people it's the cause of global warming based on correlation?
How about this newspaper vote: http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/11/whats-going-on-here.html
H/T EUreferendum
I have a friend who teaches English in Germany, visiting in Wales this year we discussed the curriculum the state has set for the year. An Inconvenient Truth is on it, I'm sure there was another example of the green agenda on young minds but I don't recollect it.
The Death of GREEN II
"Royal Bank of Scotland cancels climate change campaign sponsorship"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/28/royal-bank-scotland-climate-sponsorship
Quote, "RBS will not be sponsoring Climate Week in March 2012, a government and industry-backed effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
It must be catching. Who next will pull the plug?
J4R
"Low energy light bulbs seem to me to fail to work straight out of the packet much more frequently than the old type and to last nowhere near as long."
Another example of engineering hijacked to produce policy solutions which are mandated into use.
Re: TheBigYinJames
The UK's days as a major manufacturer are long gone and are unlikely to return.
It wouldn't matter whether it was solar panels or turbines that needed to be manufactured, it would still be cheaper to do this in, say, China and then import them. As a result the most you could hope for is that they are assembled here.
"Low energy light bulbs seem to me to fail to work straight out of the packet much more frequently than the old type and to last nowhere near as long."
Really? I'm no fan of the things, but I've never known one to not work, and never yet had one fail. I use them for things like the hall and porch lights which stay on pretty well all the time.
TerryS: Not so sure about our not manufacturing again. The Huhne led attack on our economy could well result in us finishing taking in manufacturing work from China in the not too distant future.
steveta_uk
Well, there is an 100-year-old Edison (the maker) light bulb in a San Francisco Fire Department fire house that has NEVER been turned off. Cycling any electric device causes thermal stress that cause it to fail. Turn your lights off and see how long they last.
As for low power light bulbs they are also low output. I have used a light color meter (I use to do serious color photography) and found that they tend to give very low temperature color (more to the red end) and since we tend to see best with green light wave lengths, they are actually less effective than the hotter incandescent bulbs.
I am looking at the new LED bulbs with interest, however. They give a much bluer light and are therefore brighter, and they use next to no power and have no mercury.
geronimo
Best learn Mandarin -- we will need to be able to speak to our supervisors at work.
Re: Don Pablo de la Sierra
Not me. I'm trying out retirement.
@ Don Pablo, at the risk of being OT, LEDs are great, white LEDs have almost taken over from all other forms of lighting as far as caving is concerned. They are much brighter, use far less battery power and rarely ever fail. They are now becoming available for domestic and automotive uses, and, if you shop around, are dirt cheap. The only low power bulbs I use are in my terrarium as they give a better UV spectrum, but the lizards still prefer to bask under the day and night incandescents.
@ TBYJ
I often wondered WHY the UK government in particular is so keen to push the CAGW message
CAGW is just the latest area they've all agreed not to disagree on.
It has become pretty clear since the advent of Blair that party labels are losing their meaning. The LibDems are further left than Labour, and they, Labour and the Tories are all in complete ideological agreement with each other - and at odds with the electorate - in a whole slew of areas. Capital punishment, law and order, selective education, immigration, EU membership, the size of the state, and climate change are all areas where the public pretty clearly holds one view and all political parties hold the opposite view. So you don't have any way of voting against any of them.
It's post-democratic, one-party rule.
Right of centre parties are supposed to dislike high taxes, but in practice they need and welcome a pretext to levy more of them on middle income earners, because this is the only way to raise serious income. Everyone else is either a net taker of tax or can leave the country.
So the left likes CAGW because it's a pretext to raise taxes, and the right likes CAGW for exactly the same reason. The catastrophism affords an excuse to increase taxes and simultaneously provides a get out of jail free card from the economics you're supposed to espouse.
As well as re-claiming the word 'green' the word 'denier' needs to be redefined from that which has come into common usage. Surely now, a denier is someone who has had the lying and cheating of their idols exposed to them in black and white but still chooses to back the cause.
Don Pablo: "Turn your lights off and see how long they last."
As far as I can tell, my bulbs last indefinitely when off.
They only fail when I try to turn them on again. ;)
Don Pablo
Agree with you entirely about the photography. CFL's give a horrible light that is almost impossible to correct, as some colour frequencies are virtually absent.
I'd like to know what the total cost is, including air miles from China, electronics and disposal/clean-up, compared to a locally-made incandescent. Not much in it, I imagine, and the incandescent will also have warmed you...