"Peak heat", peak nonsense

Belatedly, a link from 6 October to John Gummer haranguing the Australians on their global warming policies, if you can bring yourself to watch and listen to it. Too many clichés to mention, from human caused floods in South Carolina to Australians  having to think of their children and grandchildren....... Very feeble interviewer, no challenges and no attribution of the backgrounds of the people asking questions. TM

[Typos corrected. TM]

D is for diesel

In my Twitter feed yesterday came something entirely without precedent: a tweet from Lord Deben. This was something of a shock, as the noble lord has hitherto made it a matter of policy never to address me directly, leaving his followers in the slightly strange position of trying to work out who it is that he is insulting.

I assume that this was an error on his part.

He was responding to a tweet from someone who asked rather alarmingly:

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Greens trashing the environment part 625

According to the Committee on Climate Change's recent report, soils in the south-west of England are facing a problem:

Changes in crop type are reducing the risks of soil erosion in some areas. The area under high erosion risk crops such as potato and sugar beet has fallen while there has been an increase in the area under low erosion risk crops such as oil seed rape. However, this has been partly offset by the five-fold increase in the area of land under maize between 1988 and 2010, which is potentially increasing soil erosion risk in some parts of the country, particularly the south west of England.

And why has there been a five-fold increase in maize?

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Muddy, or waters?

As noted yesterday, Lord Deben is concerned about the loss of peat soils in East Anglia. According to his CCC report:

Peat soils have high organic content (over 50%) and as such tend to be very fertile. Such land provides a comparative advantage for intensive high-value cropping, including vegetables, salads and horticulture.

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Deben diggin' in the dirt

Lord Deben has been speaking at a food industry conference, still exhibiting the pronounced eccentricity we have noted in recent months:

Lord John Deben, a member of the Government’s climate change committee, said there would need to be some ’fundamental changes’ in how the [food] sector operated.

A recent report by the committee warned the UK was in danger of seeing a reduction in productivity because of the damage caused by intensive farming practices.

Lord Deben said soils were degenerating ’so fast it is visible’.

"So far the agricultural community has been blind to what is happening.

"In 30 years the Fens will not produce because of what we have done to it," he said.

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The two Ds and their killer plan

Many of the metropolitan chatterati are getting their knickers in a twist this morning over the expansion of London airport capacity. Deep-green Tory MP Zac Goldsmith is threatening to resign his seat in protest over the official Airports Commission decision to go with a third runway at Heathrow.

While the commission has been working away, its chairman Howard Davies has engaged in some interesting correspondence with Lord Deben. I was particularly struck by this letter from Lord D in which he specifies the level of carbon emissions that the aviation industry will be permitted to make:

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The madness of Lord Deben

Lord Deben was on the Today programme promoting the Committee on Climate Change's 2015 progress report, which I shall read at my leisure. However Lord D's performance was amazing: he sounds more and more like Paul Ehrlich every day. No doubt the writing in capital letters will follow in due course.

This was completely swivel-eyed stuff, a full-on regurgitation of every bit of environmentalist disinformation that he could conjure up in three minutes with barely a pause for breath. For example, we had a bogeyman tale about Bangladesh facing doom, although Lord D was rather vague about what precisely it was that was going to be causing this crisis:

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What a difference a week makes

Deniers continue to say science is disputed when it isn't and suggest the Pope has been misled when he hasn't been.

Lord Deben, 17 June 2015

When people know they've lost the argument they get desperate & rude.

Lord Deben, 24 June 2015

Deben's new witchhunt

Readers may be aware that Bjorn Lomborg has been lucky enough to win a significant tranche of funding for his think tank from the Australian government, a story that was widely reported at the end of last week.

The result, I suppose, was inevitable and it seems that a new witchhunt has been launched by the illiberal left. At the forefront is our very own Lord Deben:

.@Thom_Mitchell @marxdeane Surely no responsible academic institution would connive at this blatant bias against science?

— John Deben (@lorddeben) April 22, 2015

This displays many of the hallmarks of the great Lord Deb. It is well known that Lomborg accepts all of mainstream climate science as gospel - his work is focused on climate policy and more specifically considers how spending on climate issues should rank compared to spending on other matters. Deben is therefore fairly nakedly fabricating a false allegation that the Dane thinks otherwise. The other way that this tweet epitomises Deben's malign influence on the climate debate is the immediate attempt to destroy Lomborg's livelihood. Deben has no arguments to put forward, no case to make. He simply wants dissent silenced.

You can't imagine ever voting for a party that had Deben in it, can you?

Update on Apr 22, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Jo Nova looks at the Australian reaction here.

Why is Lord Deben against "food waste"?

Lord Deben has been a busy boy again in recent days, making the keynote speech at a conference about waste management in the food industry.

Former farm minister and environment secretary, Lord Deben (pictured), has called for a ban on food waste to landfill while speaking at Waste-Works today (23 March)...

The Rt Hon. John Gummer, Chairman of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change and sustainability consultancy Sancroft International, chaired the event’s keynote session and took part in a discussion on changing attitudes to food waste and sustainable procurement.

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Lord Deben and the bureaucratic mindset

Experts (it says here) at the University of Leeds have declared that the UK is not really cutting its carbon emissions; it is merely exporting them to China.

The analysis shows that CO2 emissions produced within the UK fell 194 million tonnes in 2012 compared with 1990.

But the cuts were outweighed by a rise of 280m tonnes created abroad during the manufacture of goods imported to Britain.

So it seems that these experts have discovered what Nigel Lawson has been saying for nearly ten years (H/T Paul Matthews). As he put it in An Appeal to Reason (2008):

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Compare and contrast

Be warned, this is very, very ugly stuff, and there are several messages in there that seem to me to be criminal.

Colour me disgusted

Yours truly in the aftermath of death threats to Phil Jones

Now that lukewarmers have been outed by facts they are playing the 'victim' card. It's not the world that's against them it's the science.

Lord Deben in the aftermath of threats to Matt Ridley and David Rose

Hilarious self-pitying nonsense as @DavidRoseUK interviews himself for 'The Mail on Sunday'. Seriously. http://is.gd/AQFsVF

Bob Ward in the aftermath of threats to Matt Ridley and David Rose

Hitchens on freedom of speech

A propos of my recent flurry of posts on freedom of speech, here is Christopher Hitchens on the subject. Some lessons in there for Lord Deben and Bob Ward I would say.

Why does Lord Deben misreport the science of extreme weather?

Updated on Nov 17, 2014 by Bishop Hill

The appointment of Lord Deben as the government's chief adviser on climate change matters was always something of a nonsense. As somebody who knows little or nothing of science, let alone climatology, his appointment was always more about sending out messages to target voters than the provision of meaningful or useful information. As if to underline the point, the noble lord has sent out a tweet today on the subject of extreme weather:

Pity it takes American to tell #Abbott truth about Australia. Climate change makes extreme weather worse & #coal is a cause.

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Quote of the day, rake's progress edition

Rumor has it that the Earl of Deben, the most notorious rake in London and in need of an heir, has set aside his penchant for married mistresses and turned his skilled hand to seducing innocents!

But if Lord Deben expects Henrietta Gibson to respond to the click of his fingers he can think again. For she knows perfectly well why she should avoid gentlemen of his bad repute:

1. One touch of his lips and he'll ruin her for every other man.

2. One glide of his skillful fingers to the neckline of her dress will leave her molten in his arms.

3. And if even one in a thousand rumors is true, it's enough for her to know she can never, ever trust a rake….

From the blurb to Never Trust a Rake, by Annie Burrows

Golly. He doesn't look the type to me.