Wednesday
Nov202013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill About those Poles...
Nov 20, 2013 Climate: Parliament Climate: other Foreign ;)
Marcin KorolecReaders who watched yesterday's questions in the Lords will have noted the noble and learned Baroness Worthington asking a question about what the government are doing about learning from the Poles on the shale gas front.
Interestingly, today we learn that the Polish prime minister has sacked his environment minister Marcin Korolec and is to bring in someone who is going to work a bit harder to accelerate the pace of shale gas development:
"It is about radical acceleration of shale gas operations. Mr Korolec will remain the government's plenipotentiary for the climate negotiations," Tusk told a news conference.
Reader Comments (29)
Before long Eastern Europe will have to bail us out with 100 billion euro loans...
Quick, add them to the EU! ;-)
"Mr Korolec will remain the government's plenipotentiary for the climate negotiations"... Some reward, eh?
And at least the Poles are able to sack their AntiMidas political disasters - we get saddled with ours for life.
"This is nuts..." said Maciej Muskat, director of Greenpeace Poland.
The standard go-to for a comment in the Graun is ever thus. Greenpeace is to the environment what Scientology is to religion.
But Owen Paterson is one of the only two good ministers we have. It is the DECC ministers who should be sacked.
Vote UKIP.It's your only chance to stop these Green Looneys.
Sorry Phillip - I was envisaging a defenestration from the House of Lords, not of Paterson - he is, as you say, one to keep.
And promote.
As a general rule, Greenpeace is a fabulous contrary indicator - if they think something's 'nuts' then it's almost certainly the right step.
Put your hands together for Poland.
Wijnand:
Before long Eastern Europe will have to bail us out with 100 billion euro loans . . . Quick, add them to the EU!
The fact that Bulgaria, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia (not to mention the Baltic states) are already in the EU has of course got UKIP over-excited, esp Bulgaria.
With luck, Poland will simply ignore any EU attempts to restrict development of its shale extraction.
"This is nuts..." said Maciej Muskat, director of Greenpeace Poland.
No greater commendation for that bold decision.
It would appear that worms are turning all over the world.
Australia, Canada, Japan and now Poland.
The Greenies must be soiling their breeks.
I think Poland understands better than the UK the threat to national security a Government business such as gazprom poses to their national security.
I highly doubt the UK will understand this until it's too late.
Mailman
The analogy may be rather obvious, but the honourable member for Kingston and Surbiton should suffer the same fate as Korelec. Davy more than anyone has held up development of UK shale gas extraction, and probably nuclear as well to the point that we are now being screwed by EDF and the Chinese.
Like Korelec, Davy should remain in Warsaw representing the UK in the climate negotiations and explaining to the G77 group why we are not going to pay reparations after just a few days ago claiming along with his boss Cameron and his future king that hurricanes are now stronger due to CO2 induced climate change.
yeah. out of curiosity, has Davys missus ever been done for speeding ?
A question interesting to me just came to mind.
I think I know of three--this one, the WW II Air Forces, and Bletchley Park.
How many times have the Poles saved or tried to save the British bacon and that of its followers?
Mr Sheldon, though the Polish squadrons were some of the best they did not save Britain, there were only a few hundred of them:
Battle of Britain
The Royal Air Force roll of honour for the Battle of Britain recognises 595 non-British pilots (out of 2,936) as flying at least one authorised operational sortie with an eligible unit of the RAF or Fleet Air Arm between 10 July and 31 October 1940. These included 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 10 Irish, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 7 Americans, and one each from Jamaica, the British Mandate of Palestine, and Southern Rhodesia.
@ Stephen Brown:
"The Greenies must be soiling their breeks.
--------------------------------------------------
One of the things that keeps me coming back here is the marvellous use of language. I take it that Mr Brown is a Scotsman. Perhaps if he were Welsh, he would have said :"The Greenies must be soiling their trews."
O/T, but hats off to the Bish for attracting readers and commenters who demonstrate the richness of the English (although they are in the minority) language. I recently used the wonderful American term "Monday morning quarterback" in a comment. As Shakespeare might have said - keep on truckin'.
johanna says
"O/T, but hats off to the Bish for attracting readers and commenters who demonstrate the richness of the English (although they are in the minority) language."
Please note........
The Scots language was developed in parallel to the English language.
It would be just as accurate to say English is a dialect of Scots as to say Scots ia a dialect of English.
johanna
Breeks and trews are both Scottish though breeks can also be Northumbrian. What a Welshman would soil is something only the Welsh know!
The Scots are in a class of their own when it comes to language. Nowhere else in the world, as far as I know, is there a word that carries quite the dank, dismal, raw, drizzly nuance of 'dreich'!
Hey Jo
Take a look at this in the Grauniad:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/nov/20/climate-talks-walk-out-compensation-un-warsaw
Lots of whingeing about Aussies not taking the negotiations seriously, apparently, 'wearing tee shirts and gorging on snacks'
Heh! For shame. How do I get to be an Australian? Do I still need a criminal record? Go Ozz!
@ Joanna
The Scots language was developed in parallel to the English language.
It would be just as accurate to say English is a dialect of Scots as to say Scots ia a dialect of English.
As someone who received most of his formal education in Scotland I understand the point you are making. However, Max Weinreich, a Yiddish scholar and linguist, popularised a saying that expresses the way in which we commonly describe different tongues as languages or dialects:
A language is a dialect with an army and navy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy
Of course, given the number of generals in the British Army in World War II who came from Northern Ireland, you could say that English should then have been a dialect if those generals had used their native brogue more!
Returning to the environment; as Mailman pointed out the Poles do seem to take energy security rather more seriously than does the British government or opinion formers in this country. Given a choice between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, the British government would plump for both! Being dependent on both the Middle East and Russia for energy supplies would simply mean that we would face twice the risk of blackmail. Our government's fallback position is windmills!
O/T, but hats off to the Bish for attracting readers and commenters who demonstrate the richness of the English (although they are in the minority) language
Nov 21, 2013 at 6:36 AM | Registered Commenterjohanna
It would be just as accurate to say English is a dialect of Scots as to say Scots ia a dialect of English.
Nov 21, 2013 at 9:11 AM | Unregistered CommenterBryan
I recommend a read of "The History of Britain Revealed - the Shocking Truth About the English Language"
It explains that the official story of how English evolved is about as close to reality as CAGW is. It explains things that puzzled me in the Official version eg how, (we are asked to believe) within two or three hundred years of modern English appearing, everyone from Exeter to Aberdeen was speaking it - at a time when there was no BBC, no printed matter, no education for the ordinary person.
The extremely hostile reaction of some Amazon commenters to the book has some strange resemblances to SkS commenters to, for example, Dr Murry Salby's lectures.
Other commenters take a view paralleling some views on CAGW that can be found on BH - for example:
"The academics don't seem to take any responsibility for having misled 99% of the population or for continuing to do so even now that there is substantial peer-reviewed evidence that backs up much of the argument of this book."
50 odd years ago, from the perspective of the south coast of England, Scotland seemed a very far off land and maps could be imagined that included all manner of terrifying beasts.
On my first visit whilst being shown into my hotel room the young lady turning down the sheet let out a blood curdling cry - "Arrgh! A horny gorlich!"
Fearful as to what it might be, I advanced, inwardly trembling, to protect the damsel in distress as was expected in those chivalrous days of yore, and was relieved to discover that the cause of her disquiet was but a humble earwig!
50 years on and the most emotive new word in Alex Salmond's lexicon is "carbon".
What a sad grey unimaginative fellow he is, and what a mess he has already made of Scotland.
If I may just add this little gem to the 'language' discussion...
Watching a (fairly) recent 'Taggart' on a cable channel recently, the boss (Alex Norton) was berating Robbie (John Michie) for having had his 'contacts' book stolen by one of his frequent assignments with a 'laydee'.. Robbie was mumbling that he would definitely find the missing book..
Boss, angrily (of course): 'You couldn't find your arse if it was sat on your face...'
Love it...!
Martin A - were you also convinced by Fred Hoyle's theory about life on Earth originating from viruses carried here by comets? And that Archaeopteryx fossils are mn-made fakes?
Johanna: you might say they were packin' their daks.
In the drilling industry, there is no corner of the world where you will not find an Aberdonian.
Many speak "the Doric" which is about the most extreme dialect that can still be called "English" and bears little or no relation to the modern Glaswegian that most foreigners think typifies "Scots".
diogenes - no I was not convinced. But an alternative views are often interesting and sometimes amusing.
When cold fusion was announced, my immediate reactions were:
- It is obvious bollocks (apart from other things, why weren't the experimenters in hospital being treated for radiation injury sustained from working close to their unshielded apparatus while producing significant power from fusion?)
- Amusement at the thought that the principal investigators of existing hot fusion projects would have spent a night or two worrying that they had overlooked something that would make their efforts immediately redundant.
"Polish prime minister has sacked his environment minister Marcin Korolec"
Support from the Baroness must have sealed his fate...
So: Canada, Australia, Japan, and Poland. And, is it possible....the UK?
Are breaking free of the AGW rent seeking hype machine.
The US move to limit one of the big green cash scams, ethanol, may be signs of rationality, but then I am an optimist.