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Discussion > Is it really believable that there is a conspiracy behind the climate policies of western governments?

I believe that there is and this subject needs another airing.

For some reason the government asked the DECC to decide if Lord Deben was a suitable person to be chair of the Committee on Climate Change. He was interviewed in September 2012, during the discussion about reducing our emissions and creating a low carbon economy, Lord Deben said "I do say to those who are sceptical about Climate Change.....clearly there is no need to talk about Climate Change because we have got to do all these things anyway if we are going to meet "the needs of 9 billion people"

In September 2013 a speech by Connie Hedegaard included the following: "Let's say that science, some decades from now, said 'we were wrong, it was not about climate', would it not in any case have been good to do many of things you have to do in order to combat climate change?."

Sustainability now has to be included in every policy proposal in every department of government, even defence. This is coming from the UN Agenda 21 document which our government has signed up to.

So looking at our energy policy; it is under attack for two reasons, these are first that fossil fuel is not a sustainable resource and second that its carbon emissions are too high.

Hedegaard and Deben are both paid to deal with the perceived threat of climate change but both indicate that they believe sustainability is the real problem.

May 18, 2014 at 11:58 PM | Registered CommenterDung

Let's assume there is a conspiracy. What would they be most worried about? I'd say that the global warming narrative is falling apart and sustainability doesn't have a hope of gaining the same level of public support. They could try and bull it out with raw power but that's very risky. Squeaky bum time as Alex Ferguson would say.

May 19, 2014 at 12:20 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

No. They aren't that clever. It's a compelling narrative that man is somehow destroying the planet with fossil fuels. It had an airing in the ice age scare and the acid rain scare and now the global warming scare. But the absolute worst thing you can do is set up an institute - or in this case several hundred - whose only aim is to investigate the harmful effects of something that has not even been established. If the scientists had been guaranteed employment for investigating the role of natural variation too then the science would not have been so tainted with blatant opportunism. Politicians accidentally forced the agenda by their unrelenting and inexhaustible (one might even say sustainable) resources of rank stupidity. They got what they paid for but not necessarily what they wanted. The biggest stakeholders (Mr & Mrs Taxpayer) have not yet had their say because they don't yet realise just how much of their money is being sunk into this black hole.

May 19, 2014 at 1:45 AM | Unregistered CommenterJamesG

James: I fully agree it's a compelling narrative that man is somehow destroying the planet with fossil fuels. For me this doesn't make it impossible for there to be a conspiracy involved, one which takes advantage of that very fact. But - without saying there definitely is one - my above analysis would also agree with you that they aren't that clever. Because it's falling apart.

May 19, 2014 at 3:35 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

It can hardly be a conspiracy if you tell everybody what you want to do and why, and then set about doing it. There is a conspiracy in there, which is the child of the objectives and that's to have world government for environmental issues. And it was a sweet move to start the IPCC with the sole objective of proving human emissions were a danger to the planet. Otherwise I think James nailed it.

May 19, 2014 at 5:54 AM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

Commonality of interest or coincidence of interest are the two phrases I've been bandying about, Dung.
To paraphrase a comment I made elsewhere, the eco-freaks (enviro-mentalists, eugenicists, neo-Malthusians et al) don't really care about global warming; they just want us to stop using fossil fuels "to save the planet".
The climate scientists don't really care about the same thing as the eco-freaks; they just want the funding to continue.
The politicians don't care about anything except the tax-raising possibilities.
The control freaks — which includes all of the above and others — have found a way (they hope) to re-design mankind in their own image.
The common denominator happens to be CO2 which has been turned into an all-purpose bogeyman to scare the sheeple.

May 19, 2014 at 7:39 AM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson

Is it really believable that there is a conspiracy behind the climate policies of western governments?

Well, according to this, a senior Chinese scientist seems to think so:

... the massive propaganda “human activity induced the global temperature increase” has been accepted by the majority of the society in some countries, and it has become a political and diplomatic issue. Why do the developed countries put an arguable scientific problem on the international negotiation table? The real intention is not for the global temperature increase, but for the restriction of the economic development of the developing countries, and for keeping their own advantageous positions.

May 19, 2014 at 9:22 AM | Registered CommenterRobin Guenier

The UN see climate change as the vehicle for justifying a degree of world governance with global taxation to enable the redistribution of wealth from the rich, who allegedly pollute, to the poor who suffer the consequences. The deputy leader of the IPCC admitted this publicly several years ago.

Greens worldwide obviously support all these initiatives but are maybe driven more by a hatred of industry and what others may regard as essential commodities for modern life such as heating, lighting, clean water and food.

Governments are hugely supportive of alarmism for three reasons. They see the opportunity for more control through legislation and significantly more taxation all with the blessing of a worried public. They also see an opportunity to demonstrate that they are more green than rivals by doing even more control and taxation.

Businessmen can make a fortune through the skewed energy market, feed in tariffs and a myriad of green initiatives funded by the taxpayer. Quangos flourish.

The academics who started the whole thing are rewarded with funding, power and global recognition.

So, the pattern emerging is that a large number of organisations benefit hugely, literally at the expense of the taxpayer who has to pick up the tab while observing massive waste and the destruction of energy security, industry and the economy.

This strange alliance of moneymen, greens and leftwingers are well practised at controlling NGOs and pressure groups. It is in their interest to press the government further in the current direction. The government, being a mixture of moneymen and people without a scientific cell in their bodies give in to the pressure through greed and ignorance respectively.

Saving the planet appeals to the left leaning academic elite and there seems to be a fashionable social dimension to all of this. I don't see a conspiracy as such, but a huge opportunity to further a number of agendas, many of them at high ultimate cost to the taxpayer. I don't see much benefit to the environment either.

May 19, 2014 at 9:29 AM | Unregistered CommenterSchrodinger's Cat

geronimo:

It can hardly be a conspiracy if you tell everybody what you want to do and why, and then set about doing it.

Sure, but does that accurately describe the situation? In particular, isn't it possible that some inner circle saw the possibility of much greater power, and unjust profits, for themselves, and has never given a damn about improving or safeguarding the environment? In other words, they have been far from honest about the 'why'. Look at the policies enacted so far. They sure include the concentration of power and the unjust profits I just mentioned but many are as carbon-reducing as an array of backup diesel generators. I would offer that this means the data are not as you suggest. But of course they don't prove a conspiracy either. What delighted me when I saw Dung's introduction was the much more important matter of whether, if a conspiracy was behind the initial CAGW push and the backup plan of sustainability (being put forward with far less gusto and credibility), it is winning. I hope everyone appreciated the reference to Sir Alex Ferguson, avid believer in conspiracy behind the assassination of JFK, aided and abetted by his friend Gordon Brown, who has very similar interests. Squeaky bum time was an afterthought but an enjoyable one.

May 19, 2014 at 9:31 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

"... isn't it possible that some inner circle saw the possibility of much greater power, and unjust profits, for themselves, and has never given a damn about improving or safeguarding the environment?"

I am preparing a little billet doux for my wife's cousin on the global warming issue ( I may ask you to review it for me if you wouldn't mind,if I ever finish it) and I deal with this issue (briefly because I don't want it to be boring), and to some extent you're right. The three drivers, or "forcings" for this scare are, in no particular order, the Club of Rome, UNEP and the environmentalists. All three have the same "conspiracy" and are Malthusians who want to stop growth and reduce population. I put conspiracy in inverted commas because there's nothing secret about their intentions. UNEP wants to use money from the developed world to bring about equity (which means basically that, apart from the elite bureaucrats of UNEP, and the Great and the Good of the Club of Rome and its offshoots, everyone in the world have to wear Chairman Mao suits and eat a diet of rice and vegetables and have their life regulated by "omniescient busy bodies" (C S Lewis)).

I believe the global warming came about because of some sort of breakdown suffered by an eminent scientist who then persuaded some politicians and bureaucrats in the US that it was true. For UNEP, the Club of Rome and environmental groups it was the chance of a life time to impose their views on the majority and they've grabbed it with both hands.

Flattered by the money and attention the climate scientists were only too willing to go along with it uncritically, and those who did criticise were quickly isolated in the community, or ostracised. Luck is said to be a combination of planning and opportunity and that's what I think happened here for the Greenies and they grabbed the opportunity with both hands years before any of us woke up to what was going on.

May 19, 2014 at 12:31 PM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

If you're quoting CS Lewis you get a free review any time. :)

May 19, 2014 at 1:40 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.

At the official level, would you call normal diplomatic tooing and froing conspiracy? Friendly governments are always exchanging intelligence about matters of mutual interest and you would probably call that diplomacy. Maybe nowadays you could get at what is going on using the FOI legislation.

Things look a little different outside officialdom. Mostly, in the climate wars, you are then looking at Greenpeace, FOE and other so called charities, and some businesses.

So if charities and businesses exchange views, tactical proposals and the like on the climate wars, are they conspiring? It is certainly tempting to say yes. But the charities and businesses actually do no more than your average government does every day (week, month) and calls diplomacy.

So what would make such communications conspiracy in the eye of the man in the street? Attempts to conceal what went on would do the trick certainly, and there seems little doubt that some things discussed have been kept out of the public domain. Also, covert communication between government, or more likely people either in or close to government, and charities and businesses would seem to fit the bill, particularly if they are off the record and effectively beyond the reach of FOI enquiries. So to these extents there's no doubt there has been some conspiring. Whether these conspiracies actually have had a significant effect on the climate war can hardly be known given the fact that we do not actually know what it was that was both said and concealed and therefore amounted to conspiracy.

The result has been that there has been much conjecture. While some of the deductions have been easy to believe others have been as believable as the story that World Trade Centre was brought down by the CIA, but have nevertheless been substantiated. But no doubt some of the conjecture has been plain wrong.

And there is another point. Material discussed in conspiracies is usually, by its very nature, vague and ill defined and of limited value in discussions and decisions that depend upon firm facts and science. So only of value in the politics of the matter.

So is Dung's point significant?

May 19, 2014 at 2:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterEcclesiastical Uncle

Well Uncle the Agenda 21 document perfectly fits your description: " Material discussed in conspiracies is usually, by its very nature, vague and ill defined and of limited value in discussions and decisions that depend upon firm facts and science. So only of value in the politics of the matter."

In my opening post I tried to show a connection between a speech by Connie Hedegaard and one by Lord Deben, their words were so similar that I thought that it could not be coincidence but where could they have met? Lord Deben was then President of Globe International; an NGO pushing sustainability and Co2 policies but I can find no connection with Hedegaard.
In December 2012 Deben left/lost his job as Chair of Globe which was right after his interview to become Chair of the Committee for Climate Change. In a further coincidence January 2013 was when Globe International launched a new initiative:

The GLOBE Climate Legislation Initiative (GCLI)

"Domestic legislation on climate is the absolutely critical, essential, linchpin between action at the national level and international agreements. It is absolutely at the centre."
"...nothing is going to be agreed internationally, until enough is legislated domestically."
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC,
1st GLOBE Climate Legislation Summit in London,
14 January 2013

Yes this initiative was launched in London IN government buildings:

The GCLI was launched during a Summit held on 14-15 January 2013 at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London by Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Rt Hon. Ed Davey, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Hon Alastair Burt, Minister of State at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and senior cross-party legislators from over 25 countries.
You ask yourself why a non government organisation is being allowed this kind of access to policy makers? Look no further than Agenda 21; by signing up to this document our government agreed that NGOs must be included in both the making of policy and its implementation. Just exactly what has the poor tax-payer been told about any of this?
Conspiracy anyone?

May 19, 2014 at 3:48 PM | Registered CommenterDung