Bishop Hill A timely reminder
Aug 25, 2013 Greens Also in the Telegraph, and on equally good form, is Christopher Booker, who issues a timely reminder about where the real green menace is:
All media eyes were last week focused on that infantile little ruckus over fracking in the Sussex village of Balcombe. But virtually unnoticed recently was a very odd and much more significant event in the fracking drama, which shed further disturbing light on the curious workings of that system of government which now rules our lives much more than most people realise. At a meeting of the EU’s Council of Ministers in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, a special “informal” lunch was given for 28 environment ministers, including our own Owen Paterson, to discuss what should be the EU’s policy on fracking.
Reader Comments (81)
EM, you replied to MikeC thus:
"MikeC
I think your problem is with the word "average".
Firstly the average temperatures do not apply everywhere. There are area where the sea surface temperatures are lower than the air temperatures, allowing heat to be absorbed by the oceans.
Secondly the average temperature of the ocean volume is much lower than the ocean surface. Energy absorbed at the surface is mixed and conducted to lower layers.
Thirdly you neglect downward infrared radiation, which is absorbed by the sea surface regardless of air and sea surface temperature gradients"
You make four points here:
0=Average Temperature: Is that a different average from the much beloved Global Average Temperature with which warmists are betting our shirts (and our cash) on?
1=average temperatures do not apply everywhere.- now that's impressive EM. Your understanding of the word average aligns with the 97% of sceptics (and the other 3% too0.
2=the average temperature of the ocean volume is much lower than the ocean surface" - You are so on the ball here-it's uncanny.- we even have a name for it- it's called the convection hypothesis. Dunno if it's true but it does meet the pre-Arrhenius chronology and is still widely accepted (Something about density and upward propensity)
3-Your switching of the pea and thimble is, truly, worthy of a Gavin award. You appear to claim conduction beats convection while betting your shirt on the converse.
Love your sense of humour mate; have doubts about your grasp of logical thinking but am in awe with why such a clearly intelligent bloke believes in such pap!
The misanthropes who seem to shape so much opinion in the AGW/enviro world are not going to just give up and walk away. If they can shut down successful energy again for their lucrative wind and solar they will.
Calling it "beloved" is just a lot of absolute nonsense. Cameron is a pragmatist. He recognises the importance of the EU to the UK's interests and therefore his policy is to try to get along with it as best he can. This has been the policy of British PMs since the 1950's (before it was the EU) and it will be the policy of future Prime Ministers for as long as the EU exists. Which, judging by its support in Europe at least, will be a very long time indeed.
All of this "UKIP Year Zero" rubbish is becoming extremely tedious.
Robinson:
Dung's turn of phrase. Have to agree with you there.
Not so fast. This was the Mail on Sunday on 13th October last year:
Add to that the BBC report Michael Gove and Philip Hammond would vote for Britain to leave the EU in May. It's far more up in the air than in all the time I've been of voting age. (I was five months too young on Harold Wilson's referendum in June 1975.)
"fracking in one country may affect its neigbours, for example by pollution. The EU has a legitimate role in making sure that doesn't happen" Aug 25, 2013 at 10:48 PM 1001
Leaving aside the question of how fracking in one country could cause pollution in another - especially when the country in question is an island - is this not a matter of relations between two countries? And as such would it not best be dealt with bi-laterally?
A perfect example of what is wrong with handing such powers to unaccountable supra-national bodies like the EU is the Common Fisheries Policy. Countries with no access to the North Sea, some of which are land-locked, get to decide (after extensive horse-trading, of course) whether British (or Irish, or...) fishermen should keep their jobs and how fish stocks should best be maintained.
We know how successful that has been.
Attack on Syria.
Watch the oil prices shoot through the roof.
EU will be soon start Fracking themselves in their pants then.
Hamish
It's very generous of you to treat that piece of idiocy with such respect.
Fracking causing pollution at all, let alone in a neighbouring country, is a pretty dubious prospect since nobody has yet produced any credible evidence of it.
Robinson
You seem to me to be a Conservative party member, may be an MP and you have a wonderful sense of humour.
HS2
Wind Turbines
Solar Power
Electric cars
Planning a new Coalition
Maybe we use different dictionaries?
He does not recognise that the people are sick of living in an undemocratic country, that they are sick of unelected bureaucrats removing their freedoms and then laughing all the way to the bank.
You seem very sure of future policy, I suppose governments of undemocratic countries can feel that way.
What does Estonia think of it?
Isn't Estonia in the EU?
Estonia becomes self-sufficient on shale gas boom
The Baltic tiger of Estonia is the world’s first country to meet all its power needs from shale, with enough left over for neighbours and fuel exports for the shipping industry.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10265383/Estonia-becomes-self-sufficient-on-shale-gas-boom.html
The EU will be wanting a policy on when an electric light can be switched on: not at night as the solar panels won't be working.
Dung:
What must be very helpful in your world is that you can make assumptions about nyms based on the flimsiest evidence and use them as part of your argument. What about the hypothesis of Robinson being a Conservative or even a floating voter who wishes the UK to remain in the EU? That's a much larger set than the ones you assume and is entirely consistent with what he or she has written on this thread.
On Cameron generally we are looking for positive change. On fracking we seem to be getting it. This is what winning the argument looks like: people in power coming round to our point of view. What's not to like.
Richard Drake
Do you object to me breathing as well ^.^
"seem to be" "may be" did you by any chance miss those qualifiers? Keep it up Richard, I enjoy a good laugh.
Chin up old chap. I'm making clear I judge "people on the basis of what they write," as you advised we should all do recently. So why not attend to my specific criticisms of the rather sloppy things you've written here rather than playing the man, as you have so often preferred to do in the past?
Alex cull,
This seems an important change in process they are trying to get through. The costs involved in a full eia are massive and very time consuming. This change is only proposed at the moment though. The current list of annex 1 requirements are as below; the addition of fracking of any size would seem egregious..
PROJECTS SUBJECT TO ARTICLE 4 (1)
Crude-oil refineries (excluding undertakings manufacturing only lubricants from crude oil) and installations for the gasification and liquefaction of 500 tonnes or more of coal or bituminous shale per day.
Thermal power stations and other combustion installations with a heat output of 300 megawatts or more and nuclear power stations and other nuclear reactors (except research installations for the production and conversion of fissionable and fertile materials, whose maximum power does not exceed 1 kilowatt continuous thermal load).
Installations solely designed for the permanent storage or final disposal of radioactive waste.
Integrated works for the initial melting of cast-iron and steel.
Installations for the extraction of asbestos and for the processing and transformation of asbestos and products containing asbestos: for asbestos-cement products, with an annual production of more than 20 000 tonnes of finished products, for friction material, with an annual production of more than 50 tonnes of finished products, and for other uses of asbestos, utilization of more than 200 tonnes per year.
Integrated chemical installations.
Construction of motorways, express roads (1) and lines for long-distance railway traffic and of airports (2) with a basic runway length of 2 100 m or more.
Trading ports and also inland waterways and ports for inland-waterway traffic which permit the passage of vessels of over 1 350 tonnes.
Waste-disposal installations for the incineration, chemical treatment or land fill of toxic and dangerous wastes.
Al:
Thanks. I have a suspicion David Cameron and Owen Paterson will have been made aware of that by the legal brains at their disposal. :) From the moment Booker and Cull brought this to our attention I have read it as kidology from the Euro power-seekers and rent-seekers. Worth knowing about but never the death knell for UK shale that they intend.
Al
This is a done deal, fracking is already added to the list.
Richard Drake
Do I assume then that "Richard's Rules" now frown upon anyone hazarding a guess about people who post without disclosing their background?
There are only two rules in Richard's Rules:
1) Never mention Richard's Rules
2) Never use Richard's Rules as an excuse for avoiding the matter in hand.
You have now broken two of the rules and I've broken one. But I'll never do it again.
The important issue here is whether all UK fracking operations will be subject to a full EIA. I'm sure that that requirement is already added to Jeremy Wates's wish list. But what do Owen Paterson and his legal advisers say? I'm assuming it's not considered legally binding in London. Do you have a reference that proves otherwise?
Richard Drake
I once again suggest that you pay more attention:
You state :
Wates was at the meeting where where the decision was made to add "shale-gas exploitation" to Annex 1, he therefore does not need to add it to his wish list.
You appear to put great store in Cameron's words at the moment (ho hum) and you will know that he plans a referendum in around 2017. Until and unless the UK withdraws from the EU it has no choice but to do as it is told.
Dung: You may be right that we are on the hook, by our own foolish agreement. But Al believes "this change is only proposed at the moment". I'm in favour of leaving the EU but in the meantime I'm in favour of not giving up without a fight when some unelected nobody wants to cripple our economic future. I want to hear from the UK minister concerned that all fracking will be subject to a full EIA, not just from some EU PR puff. What has legal force? I guess it'll become clear soon enough.
Richard Drake
If you had followed Alex Cull's link it would have taken you to the website of the European Environmental Bureau, the page is shown below:
Gove is pushing Cameron to pull out of the EU now and if he has any interest in the UK then he will, we shall see.
I read all that. Do these guys ever call our bluff? I'm sure that answer to that is yes, a thousand times over. I want to know where the thing stands in law.
That certainly doesn't sound done and dusted. And why was this even necessary?
It sounds to me like an attempt at an assumptive close, as we used to say in selling. I'm not buying.
Have you no answer Dung? It would be helpful if you were explicit about how
can possibly be the end of the road. Sun Tzu famously said
I fear you were doing the enemy's work in this case.
Richard Drake
There were indeed some ambiguous phrases on that page but the following sentence contains none at all:
So you're willing to accept this as gospel, when in the very same document there's a paragraph that makes clear it's complete bullshit? Why not some scepticism of these self-contradictory claims? This sly piece of psywar is clearly subject to the incomplete process alluded to in that final sentence.
There is a directive that already exists, annex 1 defines what activities the directive applies to. The annex has now been amended so my interpretation is that in view of this change to the annex they hope that the directive itself may be changed to more reflect their idiot views. However I know you reserve the right to speculate to your self alone so best we just wait and see. I would love to be proved wrong here.
I'm sorry to go back to the same old sentence but
shows that the change to the annex by the Environment Committee doesn't mean a thing until 'plenary' (whoever that may be) has its say. As I said way back this puts the clobbering of shale gas on Jeremy Wates's wish list and nothing more.
Thank you for finally admitting that I may well be right on this. My concern throughout is that we don't raise the white flag simply because our enemies are liars and we believe them. UK shale is going to blow Jeremy Wates and co out of the water and they know it. Let's hope Owen Paterson, George Osborne and their advisers spot and counteract every slimy move they make.
Richard Drake
The directive as its stands with the now amended annex 1 makes an EIA obligatory for projects of any size. I am suggesting that they also hope to amend the directive itself at a future plenary session of the relevant EU committee.
Do you know which committee that is?
Richard Drake
I didn't know the answer to your question so I put a request for help on unthreaded however Wiki says:
I imagine amendments are handled in the same way.
Thank you. And an amendment to an annex? Surely bringing all shale projects on the continent under the directive would require the same 'co-decision' process. But I'm not saying they wouldn't try :)
Reuters is reporting this afternoon that the prime minister has told European leaders that shale gas rules must be simplified. I think that's the first time Cameron's had that opportunity since we discussed the matter here.