Bishop Hill The futility of the EU
Sep 13, 2012 Climate: other Some months ago I covered Amelia Sharman's paper on the way the EU mandate on biofuels had come into being - a tale of corruption and graft if ever there was one.
Having spent the last five years enforcing the use of biofuels, the commisison has now changed course:
The European Union will impose a limit on the use of crop-based biofuels over fears they are less climate-friendly than initially thought and compete with food production, draft EU legislation seen by Reuters showed. The draft rules, which will need the approval of EU governments and lawmakers, represent a major shift in Europe's much-criticized biofuel policy and a tacit admission by policymakers that the EU's 2020 biofuel target was flawed from the outset. Flawed from the outset? That's a strange way of summarising what happened. The policy was never intended to reduce carbon emissions - it was designed to benefit a handful of farmers. H/T Roddy Campbell.
Reader Comments (30)
The USA needs to back away from this mandated biofuels nonsense, too. I don't see anything changing fast here, though, due to the farm state politics and election year, etc. Maybe after November elections if enough awareness builds that biofuel subsidies and mandates are shifting so much corn from food markets, raising prices dramatically, etc. But there are such powerful interests aligned with US biofuels policy alas....
Too little too late. How many people have died, and how many more will die, as a result of the EU and US policies on burning food? Just like Hillsborough, those responsible will get away with it and escape prosecution.
" fears they .. compete with food production"
Gosh - that must have come as a surprise.
And Alex Salmond is worried about being excluded from the EU if Scotland votes for independence in 2014! Great Britain's withdrawal from the EU nightmare is long over due. We are governed by a gang of incompetent clowns!!!
The Entrepreneur remains one of my all-time favourite posts on Bishop Hill. Who knows whether such passionate irony had an effect on the decision reported by Reuters three days ago. We can only do our bit but I say yes, it had an effect and that part, perhaps the only part of the story so far, is not futile. And "Corruption is at the root of the policy incoherence" is a brilliant way to tweet the latest news. Which brings me to:
Too much too soon about Hillsborough today surely Phillip. I just bought a paper copy of the Sun as a treasured momento. I can't imagine there not being prosecutions after this dreadful plot involving police and a Tory MP was so clearly unveiled, to maximum publicity and a fullsome apology from a Conservative Prime Minister.
The Hillsborough victims had to wait over 23 years for this vindication and, as I mentioned in some impromptu liveblogging on Climate Audit last night, it's worth noting that even they were shocked by the extent of the conspiracy:
As I pointed out on Bishop Hill fifteen days ago it's amazing how mad conspiracists can be transformed overnight into sober, mainstream realists by such wisdom and courage on the part of the establishment - if James Jones, bishop of Liverpool, doesn't mind me including him in that hated group just once.
In the climate game we are still waiting for such a clear and transforming verdict but yesterday should give every one of us hope. On some dark matters even historians never know, because sufficient light was never shed on possible conspirators or the unhappy lords of groupthink. Then there is no way to learn from history, except for the extremely perceptive and precocious. But the human race can do better and yesterday tells me the UK is capable of giving a lead again in such matters. Now that's a welcome surprise.
Stephan Shakespeare has drawn attention to a new study by Professor Philip Tetlock, commenting:
"If we can’t have wisdom, at least we want "evidence-based policy". Well, I refer once again to the amazing evidence of Professor Philip Tetlock, an academic at the University of Pennsylvania who made a 20-year study of the forecasts of 284 experts from academia and practitioners, including viewpoints from Marxists to free-marketeers; 28,000 predictions were tested, and the analysis showed that they were only slightly more accurate than random, and worse than basic computer algorithms. It’s an eye-opening study and if you want to check it out for yourself, here’s the Amazon link."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/dp/0691128715/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347461716&sr=8-1
Add in the single minded pursuit of a cause by single issue pressure groups framing the debate (perhaps even manipulating the "evidence") with the corruption and graft described here and we have a surefire recipe for disaster.
Richard Drake; at the end of last year, the man who destroyed my company in 2001, died. He had boasted to me of his renewables' investments. His connections included the W. Midlands' Mafia boss [a relative] and those who paid for Brown to get to power, later Balls. The renewables' subsidies, and biofuels are part of this, were set up for these 'businessmen' by their captive politicians.
We might not get a choice, probably won't
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19568781
Speaking on behalf of arable farmers up and down the country, I say "Ouch!"
From the BBC report cited by Morph, from yesterday:
But the inability of governments to respond effectively while keeping the euro together may turn out to be permanent and total. What then? I'm sure that there are those who would like a Europe-wide totalitarian solution to 'populism and extremism' but perhaps they are too late. Perhaps the Euro opt-out John Major negotiated at Maastricht was just enough to end those 'dreams' forever. It's because I don't know that hope springs eternal. But does anyone really know?
With carbon markets having collapsed and the news the Bish brings about biofuels some of the climate aspects of Euro madness in search of vested interests are in deep decline. There much else to do on renewables - over to you, Environment Minister Paterson. But, as Eurocrats are all too aware, what the UK is capable of, as evidenced by the report on Hillsborough, remains a wild card. Let's not rule anything out.
If they can U turn on Bio Fuels they can U turn on Wind Turbines.
Current technology Renewables Targets are unrealistic.
The futility of the EU, eh? At least it took the EU a mere five years to reverse its biofuels policy. It seems we'll be waiting a lot longer for the US Congress to follow suit. Similarly, the UK's government's attachment to wind power is still going strong. If this was the worst example of EU governance, ever closer union would look much preferable to the alternatives.
Richard: Yes it is too early, but the Hillsboroiugh cover-up has lasted 23 years and those responsible have no doubt lived a comfortable life for 23 years and will either be dead when the time comes to pay-up or they will be too old to worry.
Two or so years back the N Y Times had a major story on biofuels which contained a strange anomaly.
Amongst the wonder and promise of biofuels was a short paragraph noting the dangers it posed to food production and the unrealistic costs of other fuels it required to bring one gallon of biofuel to market.
It was an odd little orphan of a paragraph in the context of the article as a whole, and I noted it with some puzzlement and remembered it.
Why was it there? Someone certainly understood the reality, but to include it like that made no real sense... it was almost as though the story was "required" but the journalist(s) who wrote it, or an editor, found it just too rich for their stomach(s) and was making a gesture to truth.
The UK's attachment to wind power is because it was never designed to cut CO2 emissions/lower fossil fuel use. Instead, it's to make us the windmill carbon-offset milch cow for the EU thereby benefiting the Mafia who own the renewables' companies, the rent seekers including UK Government which gets the Crown Estates' rental stream and the emissions' traders who organised, I suspect, the present fixed term coalition to protect their investment.
The troughers like Deben and Yeo have had a field day, as have politicians' relatives. The poor are suffering from energy starvation and as that proportion of the population, currently 30%, increases, out of it will come considerable political opposition.
"The inability of governments thus far to respond effectively to economic developments was "fuelling populism and extremism in Europe and also elsewhere", [Barroso] added"
And Barroso is quite right. He's seen the writing is on the wall for the postwar social-democracy model which essentially is "Vote for me & I'll give you xyz" because Ponzi'd out politicians can't find new money to keep on funding yesterdays promises let alone tomorrows. (Carbon taxes were one of their new money hopes, thats why the political support was so strong). So now what is the point in voting for them if they're not able to bribe us any more? And if our votes won't go to the existing political class who offered material bribes, of course a lot of them will go to 'extremists & rabble-rousers' who offer existential bribes which don't come with a price tag.
Bad politics on top of bad science, with the latter the root problem.
The UK/EU relationship is now in "endgame". Barosso put the Federal Europe plan and associated treaty changes on the table in plain sight of all.
Cameron will be exposed one way or the other by the question we are asked in the referendum he is now forced to give us. If the question does not have an "out of the EU" option he will be (politically) dead in the water.
So many in the environmental movement thought they were harvesting sunshine when, in reality, it wasn't even moonshine. Now is the winter of their discontent...
Richard Drake
"yesterday tells me the UK is capable of giving a lead again in such matters"
But only when there's overwhelming evidence, the event is on film, it's chased down relentlessly by a group of stroppy scousers with a grudge, and even then it took 23 years!
As is sometimes said of Americans, they do the right thing in the end, but only after they've exhausted all the other possibilities...
Phillip: you're right to be concerned about those that 'got away with it'. What would be far worse is if the truth about their incompetence and coordinated deception had never been told. Having read all the Sun and the Guardian have to say on the subject today (sometimes paper still seems essential) I remain of the opinion that some prosecutions are now inevitable. Mind you, I came away from the Sun fully believing this and was somewhat dampened down by various wrong notes sounded pessimistically (as I saw it) by the Guardian. The repentant prodigal wins over the self-righteous brother once again?
Even so, this was some way to start their main leader in the dead tree version, given recent public discussion of Lewandowsky's 'findings', starting with Adam Corner's effort in their own paper early in August:
That's also available as Editorial on the Web, with the date and resultant date-related phrases changed. Not often I test the systems that much.
The latest on Greg Barker I may make some observations on on the other thread but is also interesting in the ongoing evaluation we might want to make of our premier leftie London rag.
just checked almost all front pages of your MSM. European Commission's Barroso's latest power grab did not feature at all on most of them. not a hint of a call for a referendum, except for a blog in the Tele:
13 Sept: UK Telegraph Blog: Iain Martin: Barroso's call for EU federation points to a British referendum and trouble for Cameron
In PMQs yesterday there was, despite there being many questions, no mention of a hugely significant speech made by the President of the European Commission.
Jose Manuel Barroso's remarks – a call for the EU to turn itself into a "federation" – will reverberate around the continent, although they do not seem to have made it as far as London, SW1...
Apart from a portentous, daft digression into historical mysticism (Barroso said that "Europe has a soul") it was a coherent explanation of what the Eurofanatics are about to do. A continent surely doesn't have a soul. Human beings, theologians, atheists and humanists have been unable to agree, after many centuries of argument, whether or not men and women have souls. But a continent? No, definitely not.
In other respects, Barroso was pretty straightforward. It has long been obvious that the logic of the euro crisis is that there must be political union, to follow the banking union belatedly being established in a bid to correct the design flaws of the troubled currency union. This latest stage of the project looks to me like a doomed rejection of democracy which is at odds with the lessons of European history. But there you go. I thought the single currency was bonkers from the start...
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100180847/barrosos-call-for-eu-federation-points-to-a-british-referendum-and-trouble-for-cameron/
MSM wouldn't even publish the full results of the last poll on the bailout plan, tho BBC did mention 54%
wanted the Court to reject the ESM. BBC left their audience with the impression 46% were in favour. tried to find the poll, which had been published in Der Spiegel, but they cleverly only included it in the German version. however, this blogger has a link to the poll results in translation:
8 Sept: globaleconomicanalysis blog: 54% of Germans Want Constitutional Court to Kill the ESM; Merkel's Disingenuous Reservations
According to Der Spiegel a Majority of Germans Want the Constitutional Court to Kill the ESM
Poll Results
54% want the court to reject the ESM outright. Only 25% want the court to ignore the Euroskeptics
53% are against transfer of more powers to the EU. Only 27% are in favor.
42% want Greece out of the Eurozone. Only 30% want Greece in the Eurozone...
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/54-of-germans-want-constitutional-court.html#cWRYHvo28qaIWETp.99
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/54-of-germans-want-constitutional-court.html
what is the point of voting in National elections?
jamesp:
:) As the older brother says in the film The Firm, to Tom Cruise, as he languishes in prison and is surprised by a visit from the only family member he cares for: "I've become a patient man."
But the left currently has a lot to gain by rediscovering its social conscience and this could play directly into its attitude to green sleaze. We don't want mad conspiracism but a dose of healthy realism and scepticism would take them a long way. And I think you downplay the power of the example displayed by Bishop Jones and his panel yesterday - even for Tories. Such candour could just catch on.
should have mentioned that Financial Times has a slew of articles on the ESM, all with positive headlines. similarly, Bloomberg and other "Business" Channels are ecstatic, tho never mention how the decision might impact the public. wonder why?
a clue:
12 Sept: Der Spiegel: Constitutional Court Ruling
A Setback for Germany's Euroskeptics
An Analysis By Roland Nelles and Severin Weiland
The material he had to work with was indeed highly complex, but for a moment, the president of Germany's Federal Constitutional Court even managed to generate a bit of laughter when he announced the decision in Karlsruhe on Wednesday morning. The clamor came at the moment when Andreas Vosskuhle misspoke and stated that the petitions by the plaintiffs had been largely "founded." But it had been a Freudian slip and he quickly corrected himself after a colleague pointed this out, saying "unfounded."...
However, everyone sitting in the courtroom knows that there is precious little democracy when it comes to the current crisis in Europe.
In reality, these kinds of policies have long been determined elsewhere. For days, it has already been clear that the European Central Bank's (ECB) decision to launch an unlimited bond-buying program will bestow upon Germany's constitutional democracy debt burdens and stability risks that are of unimaginable dimensions -- and ones that this court cannot pass judgment on. What's more, German parliamentarians and the citizens of EU member states have had just as little say in all this as the German government...
There is now another powerful player, one which is not included in any theory of democracy: the financial markets. They force politicians to act and determine their thoughts and behavior, as if traders, and not the people, were the ultimate source of political power and authority. Their leitmotif is greed. Merkel has already obligingly promised the financial markets that she is working on a "market-compliant democracy."
The losers, in any case, are the people, who, according to the German constitution, should be the source of all state authority. In a representative democracy, voters have power over parliament -- and when parliament loses, the country's citizens also lose...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/constitutional-court-ruling-a-setback-for-germany-s-euroskeptics-a-855413.html
“Such candour could just catch on.”
I do hope so! The Augean stables are due for a clean...
not on the front page, but did find this in the Finance section. Evans-Pritchard may be showing his bias, but he holds out some hope sovereignty is not dead yet:
12 Sept: Telegraph: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: German court backs ESM rescue fund in double-edged ruling
This bans eurobonds, debt-pooling or fiscal union under the existing Basic Law. Any alienation of the Bundestag’s budgetary powers would require a new constitution and a referendum.
“This is the key clause,” said Hans Redeker from Morgan Stanley. “The court’s ruling is 'back-loaded’. The consequences will hit later. For now we are living in a monetary paradise with the ECB ready to do some heavy weightlifting, so we think risk assets will continue to rally until Christmas. Then be careful.”...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9539695/German-court-backs-ESM-rescue-fund-in-double-edged-ruling.html
We are governed by a gang of incompetent clowns!!!
Sep 13, 2012 at 9:12 AM | Charlie Moncur
And what does that make the people Mr. Moncur?
The SBEM calculations absolutely dictate which heat-sources / heating systems are allowable to enable a new building to be built. They are designed for the purpose of indicating compliance with UK building regulations part L2a and L2b in England and section 6 in Scotland as regards CO2 emissions from non domestic buildings.
Each fuel has its CO2/kWh production factor.
Recently, every single fuel had its CO2/kWh factor "corrected".
*Amazingly*, all except BioMass & BioFuel had their CO2 production factor increased, making conventional fuels less viable vs the two Bios.
[Greenhouse gas (GHG) conversion factors are used to calculate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions caused by energy use. They are measured in units of kg carbon dioxide equivalent**. In order to convert 'energy consumed in kWh' to 'kg of carbon dioxide equivalent', the energy use should be multiplied by a conversion factor.]
Where are the ecos to comment on the effects such drastic U turns have on bird life. Changing from cereals to sunflower for oil had monumental impacts on bird life. Equally large will be the reversal. This is a repetition of the CAP folly of destroying hedgereows in the 80s, which now we know was an act of unique destruction. But ecological blunders are OK as long as they are committed by non elected eurocrats who know the jargon and use it.
Here is a link to the Sharman & Holmes (2010) paper:
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publications/research-articles/Docs/Evidence-Based-Policy-or-Policy-Based-Evidence-Gathering.pdf
Derek O'Connor
Donard
Co Wicklow
Ireland