Bishop Hill No Mr Cameron, no.
Nov 17, 2013 Climate: WG2 
David Rose is back in the global warming groove, pointing out some of the absurdities of the reactions to hurricane Haiyan, including the one by our own David Cameron:
Listeners to Radio 4's Today programme were given an unmistakable but totally bogus message last week: that catastrophic storms such as Typhoon Haiyan are linked to global warming – and are set to increase.
The same claim, which has no scientific basis, was echoed by David Cameron, who said there was 'growing evidence' that warming was responsible for storms.
Interviewing Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, presenter Evan Davis announced that climate change has made the Philippine islands 'one of the most fragile parts of the planet' and asked what would the world do if more frequent storms forced its population to abandon them.
'That's a great question,' Kim replied. In his view, rising seas caused by global warming would make not just islands but the Thai capital Bangkok uninhabitable 'within the next 20 to 30 years'.
'The predictions the scientists are making are that the severity and frequency of these extreme weather events are going to go up,' he said
Reader Comments (31)
This line was repeated by Tessa Jowell (Labour) on The Andrew Marr Show (BBC1) five minutes ago. It was stated as fact, of course, apparently there is no uncertainty "we have to follow the science".
All three parties are drunk on the green taxes they have implemented for our own good and are not going to give it up.
The Disasters Emergency Committee has been at it too. I have emailed them telling them that I am ceasing my donations to their appeal because of this.
Copied from my comment on unthreaded:
The BBC is at its alarmist best again, with Matt McGrath. "Aid agencies say typhoon shows need for action on climate change" here
You might wonder what a collection of 14 aid agencies know about the climate; and indeed why the BBC would quote a collection of 14 aid agencies as a source of knowledge about the climate.
The Mail seems to be struggling with its comments. None has got through moderation since the middle of the night.
If there was the slightest chance that Bangkok would be uninhabitable in 20 to 30 years then Bangkok property and land prices would be dropping like a stone.
Are they?
No.
So no-one really believes it.
Cameron strikes me as one of the wet class. Forgive me, but I do not live in the UK and visit rarely these days; so I have been not TOO aware what a fool he is. I am not completely unaware of the levels of foolishness he is capable of demonstrating, but this is unbelievable. He seems to believe the foolishness that issues from the IPCC; but not even these idiots agree with the connection between "climate change" and carbon dioxide and typhoons/cyclones. Living in Queensland, I am aware of the power of tropical cyclones and the causes of these storms. I suggest that someone from the "stock-broker" belt of SE England is not a person to be believed on these topics. Can no one shut this idiot up; he just makes your country look foolish.
Coming from a marketing background, Cameron really should know by now that it is perilous to start believing your own advertising. He needs to be telling that to people like Jim Yong Kim.
Meanwhile, Evan Davis should pay attention to the right "McGrath" at the BBC. Not the Mr McGrath quoting aid agencies regaling us with fairy tales about global-warming catastrophes that are still not happening outside of failed computer models, but the McGrath writing about the suffering resulting from having your teeth removed unnecessarily:
I haven't seen toothache blamed on atmospheric carbon dioxide yet, but it's probably only a matter of time.
http://www.campaigncc.org/blog
"FIONA GOES TO WARSAW" - CLIMATE PROTEST CAN BE SUCH FUN - IF YOU'RE YOUNG & NAIVE !
"Tussling" with those hunky young policemen, making new friends - at taxpayers' expense.
What's not to like ?
Typhoons in that area have been much worse in the past when the area was less populated.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/44204307
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F3071EF6385416738DDDA10A94D9415B8785F0D3
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2867284?searchTerm=china%20typhoon%20death&searchLimits=
toad,
Its easy to mock these people.
In fact its very easy to mock these people!
How have we arrived at this place?
Multiple politicians, media outlets, NGO's and people of influence are stating a line that is, factually, incorrect. No room for opinion here. This is not a subjective issue. There is NO evidence to support the claim that storms are getting stronger, worse, greater in number etc. Actual evidence falls quite clearly in the opposite direction.
This is misleading the nation on an industrial, epidemic-sized scale.
If Lewendowsky is reading
Steve Its all a big Conspiracy Theory to con the local peasants by scaring them with stories about rising sea levels and floods.Western Property Sharks backed by Western banks are circling ready to devour the poor locals
Then steal their coastal land in the Big Tropical Tourist hotspots Bangkoc Bali Maldives Caribean etc etc
Western Property Sharks developers build cheap Tourist Hotel Resorts Timeshares Villas for rich western tourists.
JFK getting accidently shot iby a hung over secret service agent with an M16 from the car behind.Well?
Dont know if the locals are quite so gullable.
In my opinion Cameron has been and still is heavily influenced by the strength of his wife's 'progressive' opinions. There were stong clues in a 2008 Telegraph article:
'Yet Samantha’s influence is political as well as personal. According to Nick Boles, a family friend and founder of the Policy Exchange think tank, she was the vital factor in her husband’s belated support for gay rights – as late as 2003, he did not support the repeal of Section 28, the clause in the Local Government Act that banned councils from promoting homosexuality. David has also credited her with pushing him towards a more eco-friendly approach: “She was Green a long time before other people,” he says. “She supported Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth right back when we first started going out with each other.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/3088625/Tory-party-conference-Is-Samantha-Cameron-ready-for-the-spotlight.html
On 5 December 2006 he laid out his support for radical green taxes and targets and his great green vision at a keynote speech to the Green Alliance. The full text is here:
http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/uploadedFiles/Keynote%20speech%20by%20David%20Cameron%20MP.pdf
Jamspid
I watched that programme last night. He was out of luck that day, hit by a ricochet and by an accidentally fired bullet which missed several other people but managed to hit the only visible, to the gun, part of the most important man in the world.
Very much like the missing heat going to the only place we can't easily find it,
Or it got bounced off into outer space
JohnRMcD
Nov 17, 2013 at 9:59 AM | Unregistered Commenter
Cameron is the epitome of modern UK politicians I'm afraid and pretty much everyone knows it. No real beliefs, no spine, no dignity, no character, (would anyone voluntarily spend an evening with him if he wasn't PM?) and no experience of the real world inhabited by most of the population. A deeply shallow man content to allow the country to be run from elsewhere and tinker with trivia. In any sane political landscape he would be a faceless junior PR man that real politicians would barely notice and certainly never consult if they wanted real insight or wisdom.
Sadly we don't have any of those real politicians, we have shiny nonentities like Cameron.
This isn't a party political point, it would be difficult to scrape together half a dozen vaguely admirable people under 50, whether one agreed with them or not, from among the whole of the political class. Even with the drastic fall in the numbers voting (and of course this is blamed on the voters, not on the dismal options on offer) it looks like there is no chance of anything different in the future without a radical change and it's difficult to see where that is going to come from - at least not any desirable change.
Interestingly, Kim (?) might be right for all the wrong reasons. Bangkok has been inundated with high rise buildings over the last 20 years and is establishing a new isostatic equilibrium. It is sinking.
While the death toll of more than 3,000 is indeed devastating, it does not compare to the 1970 typhoon Bhola which killed 300,000. Apparently, when carbon dioxide concentrations are lower, storms are deadlier. :)
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303559504579201072362469250?KEYWORDS=typhoon
Since 1950 there have been 35 typhoons with the same or deadlier barometric pressure as the recent one, and most of them were earlier than in the recent twenty years. Intense typhoons are in decline.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/most-intense-typhoons-on-the-decline/
Of the hurricanes to hit the Philippines since 1970, Naiyan is the seventh strongest, measured by wind speed.
http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2013/11/14/is-typhoon-haiyan-the-strongest-storm-ever/
global warming?
I thought the earth was cooling?
DC is only really concerned about certain aspects of climate change. Foremost in mind at present is which way the wind will be blowing on 22nd May next year.
The political climate can change quicker than the weather. Get ready for the opinion polls. Maybe, with hype surrounding the issue this time there will be pertinent questions? Questions about the political intervention into energy generation and the effect it has had on the well being of UK citizens?
Nov 17, 2013 at 1:13 PM | Unregistered Commenterartwest
Quite agree with all you say. My wife, who is a relation of Camoron, is also of the same opinion.
Alex at 9:38 makes the point that property values in Bangkok would be falling if the city were to be abandoned in the 20-30 year view. Just as oil and gas companies would have values collapse if Al Gore was right that the fossil fuel assets were to be worthless, collapsing in some sort of subprime mortgage disaster because the State will prohibit their development. When Britain abandons wind and solar power because the subsidies are too high - politically handled by saying that private enterprise did not develop efficiencies and reduce costs as they claimed they could ("they lied to you"), will the eco-green Companies collapse, instead?
What a state of mental confusion we exist! Have we always been told such foolishness by our political masters? Is it only that joe-public has become educated enough and has good enough access to background data that we see through the foolishness now?
I must be missing something here.Everyone seems to be saying you don't have any choices,but to vote Lib Dem Lab.
What is wrong with UKIP?
They are the only MPs that have stated they will withdraw from the NAZIs at the EU.That being the case,you should do all you can to spread this,far and wide.Do what we in Australia did.Give the Bastards the Boot.
I have Googled Jim Yong Kim President of the World Bank
Seems the Student of Dartmouth College (Harvard USA not Dartmouth England) are not keen on him or Forbes magazine
Copied and pasted this over from his Wilkipedia entry
"Subsequent to Kim's announcement that he would leave Dartmouth for the World Bank if elected, Kim's presidency was scrutinized by the student body president as an "aberration" and a failure.[35] Forbes also chastised Kim's presidency at Dartmouth, describing it as "disappointing" and a "cautionary tale" to other narcissistic leaders.[36] A valedictorian from the Class of 2012 noted that in addition to Kim leaving for the World Bank presidency, "word on the street is he's already looking for the next big job".
"and a "cautionary tale" to other narcissistic leaders" ouch
Have not found his exotic coastal property portfolio yet still looking.
David Cameron. “Ok Gov. It’s a fair cop. We done it. Us and our other co villains in the western world. It’s only right we should pay the fine and do the time.”
Is David Cameron thick or what? Should he be spouting such gross claims without the slightest bit of evidence and effectively making admissions as to our culpability, just in order to maintain the deceit and the gravy train? This new situation is a couple of orders of magnitude greater than any creeping effect due to sea level rise. In this case, it is 3600 deaths and billions in damage mitigation and that is just for one event. The G77 group of countries are already saying that they will not leave Warsaw without a loss and damage mechanism with which to screw the west.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/13/climate-talks-typhoon-haiyan-philippines
If they had any sense, our leaders should, in the light of the new pressure, be playing down any suggestions of increased storm intensity due to climate change.
So Mr Cameron, please keep your mouth very firmly shut. Your principal duty is to represent the interests of the British electorate.
"Dartmouth College (Harvard USA not Dartmouth England)"
I wouldn't like to have to walk from Cambridge MA to Hanover NH :)
I never thought I'd find myself agreeing with The Sunday Times' Jonathan Leake - their environmental columnist - but he was quite clear about the reasons for the disastrous effects of Typhoon Halyan in this week's issue. He points out:
There is no connection with climate change - 'policy-makers... use it as a scapegoat because they can claim it is beyond their control'..
The population of the Philippines has increase five-fold since the 1950's - many of them living in vulnerable coastal zones (in totally unsuitable housing - my additional comment).
Halyan was funnelled through the channel separating the island of Samar from the island of Leyte. Tacloban sits on a promontory poking out into this channel - hence the devastation.
Anybody argue with any of that..?
Cameron has just restated the bogus claim, regarding Typhoon Halyan and global warming. Some one really should take him to one side and put him right on the matter.
from WUWT-
h/t - Robin says : November 18, 2013 at 9:43 am
Anyone wanting to say “David Cameron says” should definitely read this UN report to see the conomic, social, and political transformation he and other politicians are using CAGW as an excuse for. http://www.post2015hlp.org/the-report/ He was a member of the report’s panel.
http://www.post2015hlp.org/the-report/
"The Panel was established by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and co-chaired by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron."
blablabla...
"The Process
The report builds upon the historic advances of the Millennium Development Goals. It also harnesses the incredible passion and diversity of voices heard in the Panel’s consultations with people around the globe. The Panel interacted with more than 5,000 civil society groups from 121 countries in developing its recommendations.
The report was presented to the United Nations Secretary-General, as an input in the process of consultations being conducted by the U.N. in crafting the development agenda to succeed the Millennium Development Goals following the 2015 deadline for their achievement. The Secretary-General is expected to present his own vision for the world’s next development agenda to U.N. member states in September 2013."