Wednesday
Jun152011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Lynas on the IPCC
Jun 15, 2011 Climate: IPCC Energy Greens Mark Lynas has posted an article on the IPCC/Greenpeace shambles:
The IPCC must urgently review its policies for hiring lead authors – and I would have thought that not only should biased ‘grey literature’ be rejected, but campaigners from NGOs should not be allowed to join the lead author group and thereby review their own work. There is even a commercial conflict of interest here given that the renewables industry stands to be the main beneficiary of any change in government policies based on the IPCC report’s conclusions. Had it been an oil industry intervention which led the IPCC to a particular conclusion, Greenpeace et al would have course have been screaming blue murder.
Reader Comments (62)
Richard Drake
I am going to assume that Richard Drake is your real name, although we have no proof of it. How do we know that it is your real name? Actually, I don't think any of us care.
However, as Shub pointed out there can be repercussions. I am 70, been through many battles, and learned many serious lessons. I believe you have yet to learn some of those lessons. Hopefully they will not be too painful, but most likely they will.
Well said Shub.
But Justice4Rinka is right. Bunnies will go to Durban.
We’re a few thousand. The committed eco-bankers and enviro-journalists are tens of thousands, green voters are hundreds of thousands. The millions will yawn “a plague on both your houses” and switch off, if they ever hear of the story. Optimism is out by several magnitudes.
@ LC the real game changer will come, as was always going to be the case, when the general public realise just how much this is all going to cost them and the little return they will get for that cost.
I doubt it. We went through the same thing in the UK with European integration. The cycle is:
1/ something outrageous is floated, like, we will lose control of our borders.
2/ Eurosceptics prophesy that this latest outrage will be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back. The great British public won't stand for this one. If there is hope it lies in the proles.
3/ Europhiles in unison deny that any such thing is going to happen and that it's all a lot of nonsense got up by the other side.
4/ Whatever it is is then formally proposed.
5/ Europhiles say that it's not a change at all really, and that it's trivial. Eurosceptics disagree.
6/ Europhiles try to worry us by saying we're in danger of being left behind, the consensus us that it's good,etc.
7/ Europhile say it's all too late now anyway. That thing that was never going to happen is now law.
8/ Europhiles solemnly promise that this was positively the last sovereignty grab ever. Even more jobs and unverified expenses all round.
8/ Return to 1.
The reason why there will never be a "game changer" in CAGW is because what you're betting on is that the populace will revolt against the taxes.
This will not happen because the taxes have been too deftly disguised. What people will do, and are already being encouraged to do, is blame their energy suppliers for the cost of their energy.
This is exactly, precisely what already happens with fuel prices. The price of a litre of petrol at a UK pump is £1.35 a litre (about $7.50 per US gallon). £0.85 of the £0.35 is tax. Maybe £0.40 of the remaining £0.50 is the cost of crude oil.
Governments successfully blame Russians, Arabs and oil companies for the price of petrol. In fact governments take at least twice as much in tax as the Russians or Arabs charge for the actual product. This is then moved, shipped, refined, and driven to petrol stations at an addiitonal cost not a lot higher than what you are charged for mains water.
These facts are all out there and perfectly ascertainable, but when the price of petrol goes up, everyone blames Shell. Everyone thinks Tesco are heroes for selling petrol cheaper than Shell. In fact they sell it for much the same price because, er, they buy it from Shell, and because while you're there you're going to spend £200 in the supermarket which doesn't happen for Shell.
Why are the energy companies so pusillanimous? "Nice little energy company you got there, buddy. Wouldn't want anything nasty to happen to it. UK windfall taxes based on your global profits...regulator decides to reduce the permissible annual level of price rise...or be our bitch and take the blame. Heh, heh, heh."
This isn't conjecture, it's already happening. We saw that little creep Salmond at it the other day.
So much of what has been said above strikes home to me; on all counts. I have been involved with public campaigns and know the time, effort and emotional drain that they can be. Sometimes you just have to take a stand, and here I'm with Richard. However, not everyone is in a position to do this, as others say, or, to be blunt, have the courage to do so. That's not a criticism it's just the way it is. What everyone can do though is throw what they can into the fray.
An issue like this does not come down to winning or losing. The situation evolves and changes. In the climate debate there are major fault lines being exposed on a number of fronts, building on the extraordinary efforts of Steve MacIntyre. There are many many people plugging away at this in what seem to be tiny irrelevant ways, but they all have a cumulative effect. Two years ago if Steve M made a post, it would have been noticed by just the 'sceptic' community and possibly by the paper authors he aimed at. Today the post has generated discussion across the blogs, into serious commentators and the main dailys. Doug Keenan's post on Phil Jones' stats has made almost as many ripples. Fuel prices are having a very major effect in our household, and it may well prove to be a defining moment.
I'm rambling a bit, but, whether you are open or pseudonymous, high profile or just expounding in the pub to colleages, the cumulative effect of spreading real information, clear data, and effective opinion becomes irresistable. Whatever chance you get to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt into the hearts of those that influence decisions, do it. Remember we don't have to convert hundreds of thousands. There may be a dozen people in this country who, if they really understood what's up would be able to turn the ship around.
Whatever your lot is in life, there is something you can do. And we can all be very grateful to Andrew, Steve, Richard, Doug and the many others who do put their heads above the parapet.
Cumbrian Lad, well put and not rambling at all. Keep plugging away, it has to be worth it!
I've just come back to this thread for the first time, at the end of a truly exciting week. Forgive me if I don't answer any questions or respond to any comments, except to say it's by no means a new theme for me (just not on climate blogs) and repeat something said to 'j' on Monday:
The rest I leave as a puzzle, because I'm still puzzling over it myself. Have a good weekend, with those you love (or even, in the worst case, in splendid solitude), one and all.
P.S. Those two paragraphs are from a wider discussion here. I especially recommend the interaction with Steve Mosher I quote further down that thread, for fuerther meditation. But a number of the surrounding posts are worth taking in, if you're really interested in the pros and cons of pseudonymity in the blogosphere generally. I won't discuss this again, unless and until there's a thread set aside for the subject by Bishop H... er, Andrew Montford :)
Richard
If you want to discuss anonymity why not start a thread in Discussion? As you have probably gathered, we are not in agreement, but that only means I would welcome an opportunity to debate further - without pulling a thread off-topic.
I will say this: what you propose essentially amounts to delegitimising anonymous comment solely because it is anonymous. I can think of several reasons why this is not a good idea.
I want a break before I start on this again. But what you say about delegitimising anonymous comment is wrong. Certain kinds of anonymous comment, yes. Which kinds? That's what I want to go away and think about.
Richard
You are a careful thinker, I know. Recall Churchill's remarks on the relative merits of democracy and its alternatives.
@ Justice4Rinka Jun 16, 2011 at 10:33 AM
Sorry for the slow reply, been away for a couple of days. I totally agree with almost everything you say (particularly your EU example/analogy - I‘m a Brit by the way) and I’m only too well aware of the various energy taxes. However, don’t go thinking the public don’t know every time those in power play these tricks, the public knows they’re being conned. So far, they just put up with it. But everyone has their limit and I just feel something in the air lately that makes me think that limit is being reached for a great many people. I deal with the public every day in my working life and I often discuss things like this with various people. I’m not forecasting riots in the streets or anything silly like that, but more of a sudden and very large surge of public consternation and outrage that will scare the MPs and their ilk half to death. Something along the lines of what happened at the time of the expenses scandal for instance. History shows us that the masses can only be pushed (or, more correctly, controlled) so far. For a recent example, look what happened to the USSR and it’s satellites. Who, in all honesty, could have foretold the sudden and comprehensive collapse of that system even a year or two before it happened? Yes, the CAGW crowd still control the agenda and yes, the tentacles of influence reach right through almost all branches of government, media and commerce, but I still firmly believe that can be reversed. When the big policy change comes, it will be sudden and very quick. The various infrastructure will take a lot longer to dismantle, but it will happen.
As an aside, the EU itself is a big part of this and that organisation’s days may be numbered too. Many Germans, Dutch and even French feel exactly the same way about it as most Brits, even though they generally consider themselves to be good Europeans. If the Euro should collapse, and that’s looking more and more likely, we may well find the whole structure comes tumbling down. I spend a lot of time in Ireland. Five years ago, nay, even two years ago, you would have thought the EU was the best thing since sliced bread. I’m amazed how quickly that has changed. Now it’s hard to find anyone who admits they voted to join it.
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