Bishop Hill Happy Mr Farage
Feb 14, 2015 Climate: Parliament UKIP There will be much happiness in UKIP circles today, with the announcement that Messrs Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are to sign a joint declaration on climate change, a move which has been brokered by green NGOs.
The prime minister, deputy prime minister and leader of the opposition have all clashed over green issues, but the joint declaration states: “Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing the world today. It is not just a threat to the environment, but also to our national and global security, to poverty eradication and economic prosperity.”
“Acting on climate change is also an opportunity for the UK to grow a stronger economy, which is more efficient and more resilient to the risks ahead,” the joint statement says. “It is in our national interest to act and ensure others act with us.” A senior UK military commander has warned previously that climate change poses as grave a threat to the UK’s security and economic resilience as terrorism.
A better way of making their parties look as if they are completely out of touch and/or working to NGOs' agendas is hard to imagine. That said, one of the pledges they make is to do away with coal-fired electricity generation. This may actually mean that the underlying message is "frack baby, frack".
Reader Comments (164)
No they're acting on their orders from the EU.
Our EU masters have decided that's the way to go, off a cliff, Lemming style........
http://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/articles/news_2014041401_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/eccp/index_en.htm
Dale Vince. Innocent face.
Dale Vince has made a lot of money out of governement subsidies, raised from tax payers, and electricty consumers. Without them, he would not have a business.
He generously donates some of this money, secured by Miliband's climate change act, to Miliband's Labour election war chest.
I am sure the BBC and Grauniad will be keen to look at Labour party funding, once the Grauniad are assured that rising sea levels won't flood their Cayman Island bank vault.
Paul 11:10 Is this what you were Bercowing about?
" This may actually mean that the underlying message is "frack baby, frack"."
They aren't that intelligent and far too beholden to the environmental and leftard special interests.
kuhnkat the old joke used to be "could the last one out, please turn off the lights".
This will need updating for 2015 if Labour/Green get hold of power in the UK, literally.
Suggestions please, on an unstamped postcard to the Grauniad's humour department.
"could the last one out, please turn off the lights".
I am afraid there is a distinct possibility you will no longer have the ability to turn on or off the lights. You will be designated as not capable of making such a decision.
Green Sand, look on bright side, at least their electric cars won't go very far, unless someone invents a windmill, that you can tow behind a car. No doubt Ed Davey has his finest brain cells working on it, flat out, so they don't fall over.
Harry Passfield
Your comment is too obscure for me to understand - whatever the people who read and mess about with our temperature data do, it is warm enough here in real terms to puddle about all day in shorts, tee shirt and sandals except during the depths of winter when we may need to wear light woollen pullovers over tee shirts, and choose to wear jeans rather than shorts.As far as climate change goes, nothing much has changed here since I began at Primary school just after the close of WWII.
Our 91 octane petrol is well under $2.00 per litre (or way less than a £1 per litre), and our weekly grocery purchases total about the same as they did in the UK, so we can afford to run our two cars too!
Much as we love the UK, and we spent a few weeks in London last year, our decision to return here was the correct one.
@GolfCharlie Stew said "The Australian gov got elected with a mandate to scrap their Climate Change act. - So it is possible to win an election if you are against the green loonies."
- You said "stewgreen, the Aus PM only just survived a no-confidence vote. The Aussie media were vocal in their support of no-confidence."
- but 1. That is a different issue, and does not invalidate my point that the public can vote against the green blob. A non green gov was elected and continues well into 2016/17
2. You are pushing the spin the greenblob feeds you " the Aus PM only just survived" rubbish..it was not like he got 41 votes and the other bloke got 40, and the 3rd person 10. They didn't even get that far. In the vote to say whether they should have a leadership vote the motion was defeated 61 to 39. True that's not 99 to 1 but being 22 percentage points ahead of the naysayers is not "only just".. And as you note that is with greeblob turned in full volume.
- There really is tremedous opportunity for the nongreen vote. Martyn Lewis looked at UK consumers spending and declared "the problem is, the only people interested in green are the people who are interested in green" ie at £ level it does not have anything like majority support.
- Our 3 Musketeers "All for green gimmicks, and all vulnerable for having all their eggs in the green basket". One big green scandal and you're looking at a UKIP government not just right coalition.
- Ask a climate Science bod ; green is the best colour for painting yourself into a corner with.
(See my point above about how the GreenAlliance staff are whiter than UKIP)
They are too scared to go after the real bogey man.
http://www.steynonline.com/6810/the-war-on-free-speech-day-in-day-out
@Pharos has a good point about defections to UKIP
- The conservative party could before harbour both green business subsidy farmers and anti windfarm people, but not now. Those who have seen that the green dream has not lived up to promises are justified as Stephen Richards said in asking "what benefits green leadership has brought us so far and shouldn't we be hanging back to let other countries find where the cliff is ?"
They have a strong incentive to leave rather than futilely try to change the party from within..
I think the anti-green gov in Canada is doing OK in the polls due to lunatic hydro prices from provincial governments etc.
This just shows that it's not about climate, it IS just about politics
on an unstamped postcard to the Grauniad's humour department.
Golf Charlie
I would but that particxular address is going to be very hard to find.
Golf Charlie: "could the last one out, please turn off the lights". Do you mean, blow out the candle?
How is the view from France?!
Golf Charlie
Well, it's strange, and I'm sure Alexandre K will verify, When you look across to a country in which you once lived and watch the antics it's very strange. You get a completely differrent sense of what is happening. The UK from here just looks like utter madness. It is clear that if UKIP is not elected to power this year the UK will fall into an EU made hell.
In france, as you may know, we have the mad socialists with a president who not only thinks with his penis but also from his penis. His first copine, now energy, environment and god knows what else (they form very strange combis of ministries here) has said that she will stop half of all nuclear power production by 2025, place 7 million power sockets at the side of the roads and price all fossil fueled vehicles off the road.
I always chuckle to myself when I here the worldly financial analysts talking about europe and the euro. They quite clearly don't live anywhere near europe. I have been right with every (major) financial prediction I have made since 2006 (yeh I know conceited but it is true) and they have been wrong. They keep saying that europe will persist. It is improving. The germans are doing well. Let me tell you right now. Even though the EU economy is the worlds largest, and you probably didn't know that, it can and will collapse. The french are all socialist, even le Pen although she hates the eu, and they cannot stop themselves from tax and spend.
New cars using fossil fuels now carry several taxes. VAT (TVA), eco tax on the carte grise (UK log book) and supplementary tax according to the CO². This tax ranges from 150€ to 8000€. The 8000€ is for vehicles giving over 250 gr/km. My car does 42.6 MPG - 6.6ltrs / 100kms and I would have to pay 4000€. You must also pay a vignette of 160€/ an for co² over 200g/km. On top of that their employement taxes amount to 60% of salary to be paid by the employer. Health care is not free and cost 8.3% of your salary along with a tax on revenue up to 75% (although this may not happen).
All this and more coming to the UK soon. The brits don't have the nunce to vote UKIP.
The government have never understood what the EU means to them apart from a lovely well paid retirement home. They just don't seem to realise that a company and it's directors can just up sticks and leave for a lower tax regime elsewhere and that is exactly what is happening right now. VW in USA. Their biggest and most efficient factory anywhere. BMW to the USA. Merc to the USA. Renault to Eastern Europe and the far east.
They will crash the french economy before the end of this presidency.
Incidently, I was a councillor for 6 years( in france bien sûr) and the EU had already begun their moves to federate the continent. In the UK, the socialist tories have also begun the process but if you live there you will not have noticed.
In 10 years, if the EU still exists (it will as a core), all countries will be merely regions of a federal europe broken into territories. Some of these territories will be under Sharia law and others under EU management. The whole will be a copy of the USSR with a central polit bureau ( commissioners) and a Dumar ( parlement w/o portfolio). Local regions will be given a budget by the commission, all health services will have to be integrated and paid at source.
Of course, a violent revolution will change all this and I can foresee that happening unless the brits vote UKIP and the french Le Pen, the germans AfD, the spanish Podemos.
Otherwise, I love it here and always have. The french are lovely people. They have their rotten apples but don't all countries. They do at least stick to their principles unlike the slimy british polis.
Seems that we can try to point out the errors in the warmist case till the cows come home, with limited success. Wonder would it not be more productive to focus on the consequences. To develop the best estimate scenarios if the Green policies are fully enacted. Develop the future vision to present to people to maybe make them realise what the policies they support mean for them in the future.
What are the say the financial consequences to Britain if money continues to be poured down the drain - Infrastructure collapse, NHS decimated, aged pensions a dim memory.
What are the consequences of ever increasing energy costs - industries exported, job losses etc, what might that mean on a regional basis, specifics. What might people do if they can't afford heating costs - New Forest stripped for fire wood, individual open cast coal mine working (as in the depression) pressures on social services and the health service.
What might the consequences of erratic energy supplies mean, service disruption, water shortages, transport breakdowns,
Make it dramatic - Maybe "The Inconvenient Consequences"
And as an after thought - If we recognise that as the likely consequence what individual actions can we take to best adapt to the bleak future.
I think Cameron has been very astute here. He has neutered the green blob and taken the "greenest government Evah" meme out of the election completely. The first mention of it and he can quote this agreement and he is off the hook. The Liberal Dimwits have, yet again, shot themselves in the foot as this was the only area where they could have fought the Cons. Moribund is still chasing his own tail and will continue with that unless someone shouts "dinner!". Cameron has removed his only weak suit at the stroke of a pen. I would not vote for him even if he was the only polly alive but he certainly paid attention in his politics degree on the subject of neutering his opposition.
Stephen Richards: As a fellow inhabitant of La Belle France, I heartily concur with all you have written.
Vive Le Pen! (a distinct possibility for presidency)
and good luck, Nigel, but I fear the sheeple aren't listening - they don't want to. Their loss.
Ivor Ward
You are, of course, absolutely right but it is a hell of a risky strategy. The vast majority of brits will just see the fact that he wants to continue erecting windmills evrywhere.
Old Goat
According to the latest sondage she would be president if an election were to be called right now. The problem is that she hates immigrants and that's us. I voted for her in the last election, at which I stood down, and as you know she did really well. I was really surprised. Most of the locals were saying she was too risky but in the end they still voted for her.
Election expenses + Hedgefunds also connect Cameron to the Climate Cooperation Agreement
- Just as for Labour it's : Election expenses + Dale 'Ecotricity' Vince etc.
and for Liberals : Election expenses + what subsidy benefits claimant ?
..Ivor Ward seems to have a point with Cameron's strategy to deal with the corner he's painted himself into with the Green paint.
- Still be handy to UKIP if they can communicate that at the end of the day their strategies are better for the environment than the 5 fake green parties.
- and come up with a pro-green policy like a new National Park or an Environmental Agency that actually works etc.
Good discussion underway on yesterday's post here
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/02/14/liblabcon-leaders-agree-to-destroy-uk-economy-at-greenblobs-request/
The Green Alliance is a bunch of government apparatchiks, check through staff, associates and trustees. The Director is ex-Greenpeace and FoE also figures amongst several names. Trustee, Tom Burke is co-founder with Blair's climate czar, John Ashton, of the quasi-governmental organisation, E3G, a with a much used revolving door between them and various government departments. Sophia Tickell I guess would have to be related to the still very active behind the scenes, Grand Old Man of Global Warming, Sir Crispin Tickell. There is influence on pretty near every aspect of government policy, including research priorities with NERC.
http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/ Look in "about us, people" for the various categories.
This is the sort of input they have:
"Dimitri Zenghelis is a senior visiting fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE) and an associate fellow at Chatham House. He is also a senior economic advisor to Cisco's long term innovation group. Previously, he headed the Stern Review Team at the Office of Climate Change, London, and was a senior economist working with Lord Stern on the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, commissioned by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown.
Before working on climate change, Dimitri was head of economic forecasting and european monetary union analysis at HM Treasury, providing regular briefings to the Chancellor and Prime Minister. He has also worked at Oxford Economic Forecasting, the Institute of International Finance, Washington DC and Tokai Bank Europe, London."
srewgreen 03:12 thank you for your clarification/correction over the recent Aussie no-confidence vote.
The worrying thing for anybody bothered about democracy, is the way the state funded broadcasters, in this case BBC and ABC, work so well at maximising difficulties for any leader who may threaten the ratification in Paris, of what has already been decided, must be agreed on.
The UN, that so champions democracy throughout the world, does not see why it should be constrained by democracy itself, and the IPCC is proud to uphold such concepts.
The EU, in its quest to be the dominant world power, knows that to control the populations votes, it is necessary to control the population. Continuity of control, is best achieved by continuity of leadership. Therefore the european electorate gets no opportunity to vote on the EU leadership.
Democracy, modelled on communist principles
Right now (Sunday lunchtime), coal is producing 37% of our electricity. Remove that and there'll be no roast dinner!
Stephen Richards 10:01 The view from France
I think that after Germany's unsuccessful attempt at National Socialism, EUrophiles are quick to confuse nationalism and national pride.
Under Tony Blair I was not allowed to be English. British, yes, but not proud to be British. Meeanwhile the Scots, Welsh and Irish, were encouraged to be proud of their Nationality, and the Labour party are now seeing their political chickens go elsewhere to roost.
French National Pride is alive and kicking, and is generally encouraged. A few disaffected English fishermen would not be allowed to blockade the Port of Dover, but French fishermen, lorry drivers, air traffic controllers etc can get away with it, because no French politician would dare issue orders to the French police, to break up a demonstration, when the "bad guys" were identified as being non-French.
Of course the French and other EUrophiles are quick to label British dissenters as "little englanders" no matter what part of Britain, the speaker comes from.
Enoch Powell warned about the consequences of what is now praised as multi-culturalism. He was branded a racist.
The French reaction to Charli Hebdo, was not so much a warning to extremists, but a warning to French politicians, to put the French people first.
In the UK, the people who criticise UKIP and its supporters most, are the same people who created the conditions for it to exist and succeed. Hence this thread!
JamesP what percentage of the rosbif, is being produced by French Nuclear?
So Dale Vince performs no useful function in life other than to collect subsidies that accumulate from a direct tax imposed by the government.
He then uses a portion of the tax to donate to the political party which authorised said tax when in office whilst at the same time avoiding paying tax on the profit he has made on the extra we all must pay on our energy bills.
FFS - vote UKIP!
@Golf Charlie
Powell's rivers-of-blood speech was indeed racist.
Roger, but it all meets red/green blob approval. What is wrong with extorting money from taxpayers to fund political parties, to prevent penguins getting their feet wet? It is all so lah-lah-logical.
"This may actually mean that the underlying message is "frack baby, frack".
Bish I am heartened that you think there is any coherent plan never mind a message in these political numpties.
JamesP what percentage of the rosbif, is being produced by French Nuclear?
Golf Charlie
Nail - head. In summer I've seen nuclear at 110%. Through winter it ranges from 60 to ~ 80%. Windturbines, all in the north, deliver upto 6 GW but that's rare. I've seen many broken and stopped turbines in my journeys around nothern and western france. I demissioned myself from the council last year when I was outvoted by the local farmers on wind turbine build in the area. They have been offered €5000 a year for each turbine on their land, the idiots don't know what they get paid in the UK. I had a heated discussion with a local mayor, not mine, who was pleased to tell me that he was having one installed in the field next to him. I wished him la bonne chance. I think he was a little puzzled. All of people here think that the only noise you get from a wind turbine is a gentle swoooosh.
I stood next to turbines in portugal back in the late 90s early noughties. I know what noise they make and it isn't swooosh, swoooosh.
The French reaction to Charli Hebdo, was not so much a warning to extremists, but a warning to French politicians, to put the French people first.
Golf Charlie
It wasn't a warning to anyone. It was what the french call "solidarity". Their whole social being is about "solidarity" We even pay a tax on revenu called solidarity. However, what it was used for was as a prop for the most useless and disliked president of all time to appear with the most obnoqtious world leaders of all time in an attempt to appear wordly and courageuse.
Interesting Australian research on the negative health impacts of wind turbines, here:
http://www.thegwpf.com/leading-acoustic-experts-warn-of-wind-turbines-negative-health-impacts/
"And Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, said: "The importance of this pledge cannot be overstated."
I would agree with him on that!
"In this critical year, both for the international climate change negotiations and the agreement of the sustainable development goals, this statement of cross-party recognition of the importance of climate action, as well as support for a legally binding global deal, sets a terrific example for other countries to follow."
I thought he said that it "sets a terrible example for other countries to follow".
He is Dutch, not British, and he "co-founded the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition, currently led by former Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Polman
It's that word 'Sustainable' that attracts my attention,and not for good reasons.
It seems to me, having done a bit of digging beyond the DM report of a PA release, that this is little more than a vague pledge to work towards 'something' at the Paris conference, rather than an sort of firm UK declaration or legally binding commitment on the UK.
What's more, I doubt if dear old Nige and his disparate collection of 'blokes down the pub', disaffected tories and ex BNP/NF supporters even have the intelligence to make any political capital out of this - they've yet to come up with a coherent policy on climate change, let alone a manifesto, and time is ticking
Your Grace
"A senior UK military commander has warned previously that climate change poses as grave a threat to the UK’s security and economic resilience as terrorism."
I.e. none at all, other than British government terrorism, including Computer Aided Global Warming, all funded by the taxpaying livestock.
DP
A lot more claptrap to go until May.
DP - I think this refers to Rear-Admial Neil Morisetti who was UK climate and Energy Security Envoy, now Director of Strategy at UCL Science Technology Engineering and Public Policy Department. It explains everything having discovered his BSc in Environmental Sciences was from, yes you guessed it, UEA!
Salopian lets just kowtow to the Eton crowd and join the hangers on shall we. Do we really care about a coherent policy on climate change or even a manifesto. The prats we have, and have had leading this country are stretching democracy to fill the pockets of the incrowd and to hell with the blokes down the pub.
Bugger now I have to open another bottle of Bollinger,
Martyn, if you open the Bollinger, think of all that CO2 that you will be liberating.
Why isn't there a CO2 tax on champagne and coca cola for example?
His sin, Powell related the truth.
Powell's sparklingly accurate polemic was made in an era of frank opinions, he was slighted by the illiberal establishment of which was formed by the Tories, and Labour, the f***wits of the media, who named him some sort of maverick and weak headed castigation but with much angst ridden mental effort and a great deal of strained perspiration summoned up the worst slur their tiny minds could conjure - racist.
Stephen Richards.
There are moves afoot to regionalize local government under the guise of 'Super Cities' - very worrying not that I trust local government you understand but I have watched the advance and massive power grab by our alien government - through the councils and quangos - EU government in all but name.
Stephan, Britain was being readied for joining the Brussels gang - in the mid Fifties by the FO and into the late Sixties for the "common market" one of the first things on the 'roadmap to slavery' was the local government act of 1972. Where the local government administration was politicized and 'compartmentalized' and as most people who actually concern themselves with the detail and methods of local government can attest - most of the social engineering and facilitation of mass immigration is fashioned at local government level.
Local government, it is a massive organization and its strings whether directly or indirectly - are pulled by Brussels. Its offices are more closely guarded than are the buildings of MI5 and MI6, the enemy run from afar but next door - how neatly done was that?
Salopian wrote:
quote
What's more, I doubt if dear old Nige and his disparate collection of 'blokes down the pub', disaffected tories and ex BNP/NF supporters even have the intelligence to make any political capital out of this - they've yet to come up with a coherent policy on climate change, let alone a manifesto, and time is ticking
quote
Your assertions are in error.. Anyone (with one exception that I know of) who has been a member of extremist racist parties is banned from being a member of UKIP. The exception is a man who was in... I think BNP.... decades ago and has since denounced all extremism and has demonstrated that he knows he was wrong. You've been spending too much time on the Guardian.
Perhaps you don't realise that climate change is natural and has been going on as long as there has been a climate. Climate changes, that's what it does, but perhaps you really mean you'd like to see an energy policy. How about this one:
UKIP will repeal the Climate Change Act which costs the economy £18 billion per year. (It's in the pre-manifesto publication Policies For People which a quick Google will find.) In the same document you'll find our proposal to rescind the Large Combustion Plants Directive, which will go some way to keeping the lights on in the next few winters. It will also cut the legs off the STOR operators who are currently salivating over the prospect of energy prices at ten times the going rate.
My personal wish is for a decent business tax on windfarms and solar parks -- at present a turbine earning... sorry... "earning" ... £300,000 per year in subsidies will pay the same tax as a small high street newsagents -- but that's not policy and in spite of my efforts I doubt it'll be in the manifesto. It would be nice, though, to see the green millionaire having to contribute to the communities his subsidy farms are damaging. We had a very grumpy council meeting last week where I suggested to the Cons that a better solution to cutting services every year from now until 2020 was to explore new revenue streams such as taxing away the subsidies that dubious 'Green' energy attracts.
If I were to write the UKIP climate change policy -- which I won't so this is just personal opinion -- I'd go for locally produced methane to replace coal as it will be cheaper and less polluting, and I'd hang fire on the stupidly expensive nuclear programme that young Matthew Hancock is overseeing. I'd like to see the temperature graphs for another decade before I spent one bent brass farthing on further attempts to mitigate something that looks less like a problem every day.
HTH
JF
Feb 15, 2015 at 9:00 PM | Unregistered CommenterGrumpy
A look at The Navy List makes me very confused as to how exactly Morisetti managed to obtain his qualifications from UEA.
Results of online survey of participants of the climate debate conducted early 2014
GC
"what percentage of the rosbif, is being produced by French Nuclear?"
A good question. UK Gridwatch shows us importing nearly 2GW almost all the time (even though the accompanying text suggests that it's unreliable) and the French version concurs. The French overall consumption is almost into the red, at 77GW, but this seems to be normal. I guess they can always cut us off if the occasion demands...
Here's my dilemma:
A few years back, I completed an online questionnaire that showed my political stance to be closer aligned with UKIP than with any other party - I suspect that the "climate change" stance strongly influenced the result.
However, I'm hesitant to support UKIP in their current guise, for several reasons. Nigel is highly unlikely to become a popular figure up here in Fife, I would say. "Too English" is one way to express it - can't see him commanding true respect, once the novelty "contrarian" value has worn off. The name "UKIP" itself seems too single-issue, too emotive, too redolent of a nationalism that will scare too many folks off. Bad dose of wrong image.
Instead of creating yet another alternative party and losing all that momentum, I do believe UKIP should consider an extensive rebranding exercise, and perhaps an alternate leader. I'll propose "the Rational Party", and up here, we can have the Scottish Rationalists. Proud to be a ScotRat. Pull in Lawson as economic advisor (An Appeal to Reason is a minor classic, in my view), and snaffle Ridley too (again, +1 for the Rational Optimist). Get some gravitas. And find a new face for leader, perhaps one that laughs a little less...
Julian
"It will also cut the legs off the STOR operators"
That's a happy prospect, however remote! Does anyone know if STOR has been called upon yet? It must represent a pretty hefty investment, which rather suggests that its backers know more than they are letting on, and/or that they've tied up the contract in such a way that they get paid whatever happens.
jamesp, in the event that the French have an internal power supply problem, how will they reduce demand without damaging French interests?