Bishop Hill Science at the crossroads
Nov 21, 2012 UN Christiana Figueres, the UN's climate chief, is interviewed at Yale360. Her views on science and public policy are startling to say the least.
It is the most inspiring job in the world because what we are doing here is we are inspiring government, private sector, and civil society to [make] the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken. The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn’t a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science. So it’s a very, very different transformation and one that is going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different.
Didn't they once call this "scientific socialism"?
Reader Comments (69)
Figueres is just another "Useful Idiot" like Lisa Jackson and Susan Rice. However, when you point to the incompetence of these people you are promptly labeled as a "RACIST".
Pre-emptive strike, eh?
You don't get called a racist by pointing out someone's incompetence. You get called a racist when you attribute the incompetence to that person's race.
"the most inspiring job in the world"
Which wouldn't exist if she didn't keep repeating the mantra.
Aelfrith (above) beat me to it.
Pol Pot is the correct comparator here. Localism, de-industrialisation, agrarianism, limiting energy supplies, all underpinned by a facile noble savage meme. What could passibly go wrong? Apart, perhaps, from millions of people in the previously First World starving and freezing to death, that is.....
I think I have just seen the love child of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
It is not a pretty sight.
On occasions, when "discussing" climate politics on blogs with less enlightened readership than the present audience, I (and by implication all sceptics) have been accused of being a conspiracy theorist who believes climate scientists are part of a shadowy conspiracy to bring about one world government. This is presented as evidence that we are all crackpots over here, as self evidently no such conspiracy exists.
Well its not "shadowy", she even seems proud of it!
"But no-one will ever have to make an industrial revolution, ever again."
We did do it again, with the internet. Which was not centrally planned and was not even anybody's particular vision in terms of what it now is. Unlike many technical innovations, what we have now was not even foreseen in science fiction. Yes, bits of it were, but not this. It isn't finished, and we don't know where it's going next. But it will probably need to be destroyed or controlled to enable the green utopia to come to fruition. Or some word like fruition where the fruit is rotten and bitter.
I think I have just seen the love child of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
It is not a pretty sight.
Nov 22, 2012 at 10:01 AM | Unregistered CommenterGeckko
The love child of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution is China today. Is it good or bad?
At least they've got a bit more intelligence by going to a 100 year plan. It mostly allows them to enjoy their gov pensions. Obtw, if you happen to know the address of these folks, I've got a Y10K insurance policy (modeled after the popular Y2K ones) which they can buy very cheaply. 100% refund if it's not needed after Y10K.
Very little recognition of public accountability in that interview. Lots of energetic talking from an appointed position of authority.
I am also amused at Figueres thinking if the US don't sign up to something they are excluding themselves from persuing future low-carbon technologies. They did not need to sign up to Kyoto to get involved in solar and biofuels. What a strange view of how the world works.
You know that is not true.
China today is the result of the repudiation of the principles behind both.
She is a crazy woman, but it is scary that the UN is being used this way. A lot of people believe they are the good guys.
I remember reading that Kofi Annan was an American puppet brought about by withdrawing their contribution. The UN is owned by the Americans and their corporations.
What are these eco-fascists going to do? Round up all the homosexuals and blame global warming on them? Humans never seem to learn from history.
"All the while the flock of the Bishop prattle on endlessly but ineffectively."
George Steiner, are you a guillotine salesman?
Mr Steiner, Figueres has the eyes of the fanatic, she is like one of the charismatic preachers - I've seen the look and recognize it well - it is a sign of psychosis.
Further, what would you have us do Mr Steiner? The political and 'scientific' consensus is truly bonkers and the money involved is enormous but lets face facts George - even though big business gets it and all western government - it is [CAGW] still all based on a lie and a scam.
In the end the public do not get it George because they can smell a big rat and that is the key factor here.
Top down and globally toxic.
Eat your heart out, Pol Pot.
Carnwennan cited this cartoon: http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/wp-content/uploads/climatechange_cartoon.jpg
There are many people who believe the claim the cartoon makes that 'fighting climate change' would result in a better world.
Tthey're wrong. The steps the cartoon proposes would result in a totalitarian nightmare.
Although they refer to 'energy independence', they mean restricted access to energy, not the freedom to buy the cheapest in the world.
The craziest of the Greens consider sustainability a virtue in its own right. They'd ration the baby's breast milk so it would have some left when it turns fifty.
Green jobs are an economic detriment, consuming the production of two ordinary jobs in order to sustain every single green job.
By 'livavble cities', the crazies mean places where you can't drive, and must walk or bicycle. Great if you're young and fit and time-rich, but grandma just can't go to the city any more.
The claim of clean water and air is utterly false. The greater the poverty the worse the air and water. The expensive 'solutions' the cannot sell and so seek to impose, will create vastly greater poverty worldwide. Already we feed 40 percent of American grain production to cars, not starving people. We've doubled the cost of food to the poorest, and hundreds of millions of people have engaged in food riots around the world as a result of this evil policy.
And when the cartoon refers to 'healthy children', of course they mean banning children 'till population meets their wishes.
Quite worrying really in the sense that one can see from her responses that 'they' have given up on the idea of including 'the great unwashed' in their schemes.
As was plain shortly after the great (enviro) crash of '09' there was a move toward forgetting about 'the (fickle) public' and toward 'moving ahead' (in the background) without them. Figueres demonstrates in the interview exactly how the scheme works in the post normal world. A quick meeting with 20 UK 'reps' and billions of UK fun bucks leave the UK for shores distant (and a 4000 page 'agreement' arrives by courier next day) - 'democracy' in action eh?
I think that what these muppets fail to grasp is that, as with the EU, the downside of 'going ahead without the public' is that when the scheme starts to show cracks there is complete silence from 'the public'. That is to say that the downside of having given 'the public' no say in your 'grand scheme' is that they have no 'personal investment' in it and can dump the scheme as quickly as it was imposed.
Again, as with the EU, we will soon see just how far they are willing to go when defending their project against those who, despite having no 'say', are left paying for it all
You shouldn't confuse socialism (the idea the economy should be run for the benefit of the masses)
Socialism is the economy being run for the benefit of the masses? Please give me a break! Free health care, free housing, a lifetime of income without work, none of these is for the benefit of the masses and all of these encourage the masses to depend on the state to solve all their problems. In 64 years I have never seen a Socialist government that truly ran itself for the benefit of the masses.
Is it OK that we are being invaded by PSI? (Doug Cotton and friends)
Right now the population of the western world is at what is probably the end of a very comfortable period of life encompassing democracy, wealth, personal freedom and military security.
The threats to this are growing by the minute but most of us are still asleep with a nice warm glow.
Christiana Figueres is a symptom of a large internal threat as is the EU, the ambition of China and the total corruption of Russia are external threats. Radical Islam is both an internal and external threat. All of these threats depend upon us contiuing to sleep.
WAKE UP!
“The love child of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution is China today. Is it good or bad?” sHx @ Nov 22, 2012 at 10:23 AM
I’m not qualified to answer that. But perhaps the descendants of those massacred or starved to death could answer that. Oh, wait…