Thursday
Jun122014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Another green committee
Jun 12, 2014 Climate: Parliament The House of Lords has established a committee that will specialise in the Arctic. It will perform its work over the next twelve months.
The issues to be explored will include the potential impact on shipping routes, energy resources, mineral extraction, the environment, international relations, security, tourism, fisheries and indigenous people.
Headed by the LibDem peer Lord Teverson, who could best be described as "a bit of a fruitcake", it also features Lord Oxburgh and former head of the Met Office Lord Hunt.
Why do I get the feeling they are up to no good?
Reader Comments (33)
I am confident that this committee will be just as successful and objective as all the other environment-centric committees funded by the tax payer.
Maybe they will be counting "Russian Bears"? Looks like there are going to quite a few taking up residence!
And the Arctic is the business of Westminster, why??
LibDem peer Lord Teverson, who could best be described as "a bit of a fruitcake", it also features Lord Oxburgh and former head of the Met Office Lord Hunt
so the three stooges but without the comedy part
Britain has no territories in the Arctic, correct?
I have been a bit worried that the NOAA forecast for Arctic ice minimum this year (http://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfsv2fcst/imagesInd3/sieMon.gif) showing a *positive* anomaly would prove too good to be true, but now that the noble Lords are creating a special committee to deal with the perceived crisis, it is a certainty the NOAA will be right...
"Britain has no territories in the Arctic, correct?"
Correct. But socialistic governments love telling others what they are doing wrong.
Norman is right. 'The Arctic' is about protectionism. Science is useful to tell others what not to do.
On the subject of telling others what not to do, Ben Pile has a long [superb, IMO] piece up at Climate Resistance: “Why Do Environmentalists Hate Liberty?”
Jobs for the boys
We must throw lots of money at the Green zealots, otherwise how could they live!
Perhaps instead of a recreation of the route taken by Three Men in a Boat, the above worthies could recreate the "Row to the Pole" trip sponsored by Old Pulteney several years back (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/british-team-are-the-first-to-row-to-the-north-pole-2344427.html). Granted this was the Magnetic North Pole - as of 1996 no less, and there is the minor detail they finished the last leg by hauling their rowboats over a few kilometers of ice, but I think they are just the men to inspire us all by loading up and heading out as part of their committee work. Though please leave the dog behind...
Three Men in a Rowboat. It has a nice ring to it.
Stick all three of 'em in an observation hut, up on the north of Baffin Island for three months, commencing 1st of Dec 14 - only one rifle - to make it interesting.
Ahh... The Hunt/Oxburgh/Teverson AKA: The HOT Arctic Committee. What's the betting that they are willing to believe the lack of penguins in the Arctic is down to AGW/CC.
Perhaps they can attempt a re-enactment of Top Gear's successful drive to the North (Magnetic) Pole.
But to be as enviromentally-friendly as possible, do it by bicycle?
Perhaps they can attempt a re-enactment of Top Gear's successful drive to the North (Magnetic) Pole.
But to be as enviromentally-friendly as possible, do it by bicycle?
With a bit of luck the Canadian Arctic Rangers will find them and arrest them as illegal immigrants. To be fed nothing but seal flipper whilst incarcerated.
Perhaps they could follow in the footsteps of Lord Franklin. They'll need to wrap up warm, though.
Doesn't their mission statement have something missing?
"The issues to be explored will include the potential impact of what??? on ..."
Do they assume that we all know that the missing "what" is so obviously "climate change" that it doesn't need to be stated?
forced the greedy Lord Oxbung to make an “unreserved apology” for omitting to declare an interest in the “Real Asset Energy Fund” (Green subsidy milking vehicle), from which he has had to stand down from.
Looks like he has lost no time in (re)positioning to get his snout in the trough again.
Global Warming, who now wishes to be known as "Climate Change" because it is easier to hide the pea. The gravy train now appears to come in a husky-drawn sled variety.
Wasn't the British Antarctic Study Team, or some such anagram on Wiki climate mis-editor William Connelley's cv?
The ice-caps have form in the UK's falsification of science..
Those fellas are welcome to use my igloo as a research base. It's a little cold -- but the warming should soon set in -- I would think
Is Canada still a British colony? If so, as jamesp suggested, we should send a new John Franklin to discover the Northwest Passage.
@ michael hart
Many thanks for the link. An excellent article indeed.
Lord Oxburgh hid the slime from Climategate, now he will work hard to hide the increase in the Arctic. Busy guy.
Lots to hide- more ice, more polar bears, no crisis, historical evidence. This will be a busy committee indeed.
The Five Arctic Ocean Coastal States are: Russia, Canada, the US and Norway and Denmark (Greenland). They held their inaugural Arctic Ocean Conference in Greenland in 2008.
The UK was not invited, presumably because Canada has not been a colony for about 150 years.
So why form a Parliamentary committee now? Ask any of them and they can probably tell you more about the Antarctic than the Arctic, but most of that will be what they see on the telly. These silly beggars know nothing about the fluctuating climate of the Arctic, not having read either Hubert Lamb's writings and knowing nothing about the diaries of the great Arctic explorers, some of whom were British.
Meddlers and know-nothings and that's about it. So it's a mystery what UK Parliamentarians find interesting about the Arctic just now.
But forming this committee is very apropos what is happening in Europe for the Prime Minister and the Government-of-the-Day: a bleeding disaster, what with losing whatever semblance of political influence it once had on the Continent
It is very apropos what is happening at Home, a bleeding catastrophe for electric power users, what with the news that the UK must return to the dull old days of the 1960's when one in three UK households had electric refrigerators and few other electrical appliances.
British commercial, service and manufacturing are being called upon to use emergency stand-by generators during peak hours. The most expensive energy in the country is now to be considered available to be brought online every day.
What a fantasy-land these politicians live in! As disaster looms for the British economy, so the politicians turn their attention to a part of the world that is virtually uninhabited.
There is a certain mad logic to this, because it's:
1. Too painful to think about the inhabited world perhaps.
2. Too painful to contemplate the robust industrial economy of China gobbling up the world's supply of coal, the supply of which will increase now that the US too will be closing down coal power stations.
3. Too painful to think about all the new coal-fired power plants that will come online in Germany now that the Germans appear to be drawing back from their Green Precipice.
4. Too painful to think that the UK Parliament, the Mother of Parliaments has become only a debating society. Germany is powerful enough to thumb their noses at EU energy policy. But toothless Britain must obey now that the UK bureaucracy take their marching orders from Brussels.
O mighty Britannia, how hast thou sunk so low.
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.
—I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,
with your little debating society on the Thames.
Please tell us that the committee will spend their year on site on international ice floes and multi-year ice.
We'll even promise to knit them some socks and mittens. (did I mention that I don't consider promises to liars and shysters as binding?)
I'm sure the other failed Arctic adventure expeditions will be happy to lend them tools, (ice drills, almost unused ice depth measurement machines, soy sauce and mustard packets). Chris Turney will be probably be glad to lead them and he's cheap to feed.
Athelstan / Mike Singleton
Various restaurants and soirees on expenses are likely - more's the shame....- but then they have no shame eh?
We may well be a a motley crew of Deniers, Lukewarmers, Skydragons, Goths and New Romantics, but that doesn't mean that we need this committee or are wrong to question why it has been created.
Haven't you Brits realised yet that the Empire dissolved due to CAGW and you didn't have any Arctic territory to worry about anyway. Will this committee be chasing rainbows, ice flows or the oncoming headlights of snowmobiles the latter would seem the best direction for the upper class political nobs to wake them up to the realty of no global warming for 17years 9 months. Perhaps a committee to speed up fracking would be more useful.
They'll have to open up a dialogue with representatives of the local polar bear community to discuss their impending extinction due to heat stroke and just what the British taxpayer can do to help. Preferably with face to face contact.
These committee members are extremely wealthy. They are getting even wealthier off of the backs of tax payers via the 'green' energy they have voted for. Not one climate centered policy they have voted for or promoted has helped either the environment, the cliamte or the citizens of the UK. Now they get multiple vacations to the Arctic regions of the world at public expense.
One could almost think there is a pattern involved.
Do you have a citation for the characterization: "a bit of a fruitcake" ?
@Will Nitschke
Lib Dem - 'nuff said ;)