Monday
Feb142011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Climate quango cuts
Feb 14, 2011 Climate: Parliament The Guardian is reporting that the Climate Change Committee, part of the plethora of quangos set up to provide sinecures for environmentalists, is tunder threat of losing its independence. This follows a series of cuts to similar quangos.
Why, we want to know, is it not being closed down entirely?
Reader Comments (91)
Your Grace, could you alter the alter the "Captcha" to include some phrase that ZedsDeadBed would find itself ethically unable to type? This might, with a following wind, prevent the regular disruption of sensible discussions into the repeated ravings that it always presents.
Jack Cowper
Name calling in what way? Do you feel that being referred to as 'Hilly Billie' is being called a name? You must be a particularly sensitive flower.
I notice also your failure to take offence at the commentor who called me pathetic - which rather suggests you have double standards and take offence when it suits you to do so.
Feb 14, 2011 at 5:24 PM | Charlie
There's this thing called 'inflation' and 'potential investment loss'...
Feb 14, 2011 at 5:26 PM | Alexander
In what way does your comment deal with you calling me 'pathetic' and you own inability to read the number of papers I was referring to?
It seems to me that you've made two mistakes and been caught out. Instead of acknowledging either, you've just changed the subject and started waffling on about something completely unrelated. It suggests that integrity isn't too high on your agenda, and you're more interested in point scoring than debate.
Zed, I think enough people have mentioned to you that you're way off topic, there is an unthreaded thread if you wish to continue your own topic. Now, what do you have to contribute to the topic of culling the quangos?
This should be interesting if you have a spare half hour tonight (Monday) on radio 4.
I'm sure it will remain as balanced as we have become accustomed to expect from our esteemed state broadcaster.......
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00yj3ww
Time to take your meds, ZDB -- you are getting frantic again. Calm down.
"Time to take your meds, ZDB -- you are getting frantic again. Calm down."
Feb 14, 2011 at 6:15 PM | Don Pablo de la Sierra
Yet more name calling by commentors here. It's pretty much the norm.
ZDB
All of your comments are subjective and politcally based, like most of the Alarmist "facts". As someone else has suggested what is your position on the culling of the Quangos?
Zed
Just harking back a bit, wasn't it Brown's failure to regulate the banks during his decade as Chancellor that allowed the disaster to do as much damage as it did? Admittedly, many others failed in their regulatory duties, but it was Brown's particular failure that meant the situation was so bad in the UK.
Now, say something relevant to the headpost.
"ZDB
All of your comments are subjective and politcally based, like most of the Alarmist "facts"."
Feb 14, 2011 at 6:53 PM | MacSteep
Politcally based? My comments are at least in English. As for subjective, I would say that my comments on this thread have been much less subjective, and substantially more fact-based, than most other comments on this thread.
And entirely off-topic too!
Good work, Zed.
I think a crozier will be coming down soon ;-)
Why don't you take the fascinating defence of GB to Unthreaded? Not being arsey, just fair.
ZDB
You appear to be searching for an argument - try trolling elsewhere.
"What is Guano? - Guano is excrement from birds, seals, or bats that is used by humans as
fertilizer. Export of guano is a key resource for..."
I am sorry. Thought you were speaking about something else entirely. Couldn't imagine what it was everyone was... never mind. sorry once again.. we do speak a different language on this side of the pond, I keep forgetting.
Regarding your question about the Climate Change Committee quango, I believe it takes time for the remains to "cure".
BBD
Agree - in retrospect, far more regulation needed.
However, nobody else in the World was doing it, so it would seem a bit hard to single out GB alone for failing to act.
I also don't think anyone would try and argue that the Tories would have implemented tighter regulation had they been in power. And the elephant in the financial room, is what regulation have they introduced since coming to power to stop it all happening again? Pretty well none.
About half of all Conservative party funding comes straight from banks. Those regulations are never going to come to pass.
See you in unthreaded - I shall be wearing a shiny top hat and carrying a vintage Tory party manifesto from the Thatcher period ;-) (I think the Australians avoided the worst, as did Canada - through better regulation. I may be wrong but that is my impression).
The trail of guilt for AGW politics goes something like this
Milton Friedman / Monetarism/ destruction of British manufacturing /creation of big bang in the City of London/ Margaret Thatcher speech on AGW to UN/ Thatcher's appointmentment of John Houghton to IPCC/ set up of Hadley Climate Centre/ Enron creation of carbon trading/ Blair and Prescott push through Kyoto/Gordon Brown spectacularly fails at Copenhagen. Game over !
Here
Sorry for going off-topic here but I just saw this...
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/wivenhoe-dam-decision-an-admission-of-failure/story-e6frg6nf-1226005370326
...and wondered just how much more real-world damage will be done by all those climate change 'experts' whose advise to governments is based solely upon their magnificent models!
There's an old saying that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” but the champions of CAGW theory seem quite ignorant of it… bio-ethanol, anyone?
BOFA; Zed; All
Re that dodgy Anderegg 2010 paper making the '97% of
catsclimate scientists endorse the IPCC' claim.Found an absolute gem of a non-endorsement for it. You really won't believe who it is ;-).
Please see Unthreaded at 8:29pm Feb 14 for a good laugh.
(In the interests of preserving the thread, best keep any responses in Unthreaded I think. Don't want to incur the wrath of the Bishop).
What Mr.Cameron is whispering to the Canadians
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/british-envoy-to-set-new-tone-in-climate-change-talks-with-canada/article1905705/
You'll recall that we (the UK population) have been described as 'extremely selfish' by a member of this Committee.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/6293
Julia King "I have a lot of sympathy for our politicians, because they are dealing with extremely selfish populations."
DR
Yes, I remember that interview well.
They're not very nice are they, these CCC people?
@ ZedsDeadBed
Gordon Brown studied history at university and therefore should have known better than to imagine that any politician had the power to abolish the business cycle as he implied when saying "no more boom and bust." His father was a Church of Scotland minister and therefore Brown should be perfectly familiar with the story of Joseph in Egypt and the 7 fat years followed by 7 lean years yet Brown failed to use the good times to prepare for bad times. Does ZedsDeadBed work in the public sector or is he/she too rich to worry about pensions? Brown ruined the private pension system.
Brown also is at least partly responsible for a huge increase in the number of managers or bureaucrats in the NHS and the public sector in general. That puts a huge burden on the country, especially when their future final salary pensions are taken into account. That might possibly be a price worth paying if they were doing essential tasks but many are just pen-pushers or, even worse, are PC i.e. political Commissars such as diversity parasites whose actions make race relations worse or climate change officers who waste money and impose extra burdens on society.
They say:
"There is concern that decisions over the CCC's future could be determined by the opinion of the minister for the Cabinet Office, a member of the government who may not necessarily have a knowledge of climate change matters."
It strikes me they don't have many to choose from if they want somebody actually qualified. I hope the penny drops before we've emptied the bank account completely.
Bish,
There's no point talking about getting rid of QUANGOs, unless you get rid of the function the QUANGO is supposed to be discharging. If you don't, the effect is window dressing, as the functions simply become accommodated in civil service departments.
The fact that the Climate Change Committee is not being closed entirely, shows that the talk of the 'bonfire of the QUANGOs' is exactly that, talk. Something the government felt obliged to offer but had no intention of getting rid of the function and finds it convenient to leave it as a shell to be repopulated later.
I kinda liked Gordon Brown, always reckoned that if he hadn't been brought up in Kirkcaldy he'd have made a great receptionist with Fife Regional Council.
The Climate Change Committee is glued to the infamous Climate Change Act even more tightly than a slipper limpet (Crepidula fornicata). David Svaalbard Husky Cameron is most unlikely to prise it off. More likely, proliferate it, as that alien and invasive species is want to do, as graphically explained in the middle part of this link:
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/oyster2.htm
Another interesting post trolled out!.
The topic is the Climate Change Committee - should it be curtailed or disbanded?
Let's stick to the point or Bishop Hill will not be work following.
ZDB
I'm sorry you took umbrage at my use of the term 'pathetic'. It was my response to the use by 'researchers' of a group of 75 people to get the '97%' statistic, not to your mentioning it.
Hope that's cleared up, also the fact that the CCA was based on incorrect science as can be proved by simple experimental observation. So the CCC is barking up the wrong tree.
If I were you, I'd go and get something else to be angry about, like the treatment of the elderly in hospital, because global warming probably stopped in the last decade as the reduction by Asian pollution of low cloud albedo saturated and CO2-AGW is very low.
As fossil fuel aerosol production falls, so may that temporary AGW. The activists hate this idea, but that's science for you. You never know when a single experimental fact can destroy an elaborate theory! Einstein said that......
It seems that Green central isn't too worried about the Quango cuts so far, a Fabian Society seminar on 19th January:
Sunder Katwala, General Secretary of the Fabian Society chaired the discussion that was led by Tim Yeo MP, Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee who was joined by Andrew Raingold, Executive Director, Aldersgate Group and Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation.
'With the role of government in mind, much of the discussion looked at the legacy of Labour’s progress on green issues as well as the plans of the Coalition. One speaker described the previous government as ‘pale green’ though another claimed that it was the greenest in history. The setting up of DECC, Europe’s largest wind-farm and leading position in Kyoto and Copenhagen were praised though this was tempered by a suggested emphasis on legislation and messaging rather than implementation with the green stimulus being seen as a wasted opportunity.
The coalition’s grand aims were supported though, as with Labour, questions were asked around the table about implementation. The scrapping of several environmentally orientated quangos was suggested to be a step backwards though another speaker believed that they had had little impact in their own right anyway. The green bank and green deal won praise around the table though many thought that this did not go far enough. It was argued by many that the green bank needs to be an actual bank with funding in the region of £4-6billion, a figure that one speaker noted was less than the bonus round for city banks this year. Questions were also raised over whether the coalition’s policy of localism could conflict with the need for a centralised plan for a greener economy. A speaker posited that a potential measure of whether the coalition’s policies were a success would be how many households took up the green deal. What was agreed by all was that a broad non-partisan consensus was needed in parliament and that continuity between governments was essential for a consistent approach to climate change.
http://www.fabians.org.uk/events/event-reports/new-politics-of-climate-change'
What's a few Quango's when it's the direction of parliamentary parties that has to be kept on track.
"ZDB
I'm sorry you took umbrage at my use of the term 'pathetic'. It was my response to the use by 'researchers' of a group of 75 people to get the '97%' statistic, not to your mentioning it."
Feb 15, 2011 at 7:07 AM | Alexander
I'm glad to hear that you weren't calling me personally pathetic, although I still feel that it's a judgemental boderline abusive term that has little place in debate. The authors of the paper are not pathetic people either.
You still don't seem to have taken on board that I referred to more than one paper. The Anderegg paper deals with way more than 75 people, as in fact does the Doran one anyway.
The rest of your comment is just strange. We've just had the hottest year on record following the hottest decade on record. I'm guessing you don't have a good evidential source for your claims.
"It seems that Green central isn't too worried about the Quango cuts so far, a Fabian Society seminar on 19th January:"
Feb 15, 2011 at 9:02 AM | Lord Beaverbrook
Err, Green Central? The Fabian Society is a political and public policy think tank. Ecology is just part of what they cover. To describe them as Green Central is a woefully inaccurate term. Do you perchance regularly confuse science and politics? Perhaps I should point out to you that the policies of the Conservative party, are at least as green as those of Labour, if not more so.
ZDB: the report that claimed 97% consensus from 10s of thousands by picking out 75 was pathetic in absolute not relative terms. As for the other report - haven't made my mind up yet.
The reason why 2010 was a bit cooler than the hottest on record [GISS fiddled data] is because we had a substantial El Nino from heat absorbed by the oceans over 50 years of a solar Grand maximum.
As determined by ocean heat content, sea surface temperature and air temperature, the World is now cooling. I may be wrong but my rain cloud test has not been challenged so future AGW cannot be the level predicted by the IPCC. How much lower, I don't know. Has there been AGW, probably yes. Has it all been from CO2, probably not. I'm just being objective.
ZBD
I fail to see any ecological or scientific issues in the report that I referenced as it is purely a political seminar around the issue of global warming from a green Marxist perspective seeking to influence all sides of the political landscape.
So your point is?
Feb 15, 2011 at 9:53 AM | Lord Beaverbrook
Good Lord - you think the Fabian Society is Marxist now? Do you actually understand what these terms mean?
You refer to them as 'Green Central'. A very silly term for a respected political society, for whom ecological matters are only a very small part.
It suggests you confuse science and politics.
Feb 15, 2011 at 9:30 AM | Alexander
GISS fiddled that data. What absolute nonsense. It's not the only dataset showing 2010 to be the hottest on record you know. But I suppose you're of the type to think 'they're all in on a big scam'.
I imagine you think the last decade wasn't the hottest on record either. That's not really much reasoning with a mindset like that.
ZDB:
GISS fiddled some data. The last decade was the hottest ever. The next 25 years will probably give substantial cooling, but I could be wrong.
The deliberate exaggeration of climate sensitivity is a disgraceful insult to the great majority of honest scientists in the discipline. Those who set out to use unscientific arguments to justify fraud have already lost the debate.
ZBD
Again I fail to see where the science comes in.
Green Central:
The Fabian Society's Environmental Policy Network brings together political, policy, business, civil society and academic participants to discuss key themes in environmental politics and policy.
The network has existed since 2000, and the Fabian Society's work in this area has analysed and helped to inform the marked shift in priority given to environmental issues over this period..
Marxism is an economic and socio-political worldview that contains within it a political ideology for how to change and improve society by implementing socialism.
Enough said?
Meanwhile, back here in Australia, well known uber-alarmist Tim Flannelhead has been appointed Climate Commissioner, being paid $180,000 a year for a part-time job. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/tim-flannery-appointed-australias-climate-commissioner/story-e6frg6xf-1226003546894