UK election: what should the government do now? 09 May 05

There are a few encouraging points to to take from the election. firstly, the Green Party substantially increased its share of the vote, doubling it in target seat including getting 23% in Brighton, and gaining seats on a lot of councils. Secondly, now the election is over, politicians will get back to doing whatever it is they really want. Note, for example, former Tory front bencher Tim Yeo saying he wants the party to concentrate more on climate change. Likewise, the increase in Lib Dem votes may well be percieved as partly an environmental vote (although in fact the party is no stronger on CC than Lab or Tories, they do talk about it more) I have very little time for Brown on the issue – I spoke to him about CC once – he may be an iron chancellor, but when it comes to anything else, he is a spineless git, but I think Blair probably does want to do something – he will never have to face the electorate again, and is famously woried about his legasy – which means he probably wants there to be a planet to remember him. Brown will not allow fuel tax to rise, but an advance of renewables and greater energy efficiency may well be on the cards.

I think there are a number of pressing problems our government faces. Pensions and health being the two big vote getters at the next election. Expecting Brown to cough up some big cash is very unlikely. If you wathched the channel 4 election unspun series you will have seen Mr Blairs view on airline fuel taxation. Answer not in a million years.

I believe that we have to come up with simple no brainers that make a difference. Things that dont cost money. or better still could be passed of as business opportunities for there mates.

IE. I read a report some time ago that said between 17 and 14 percent of domestic energy was used on domestic lighting. It would be fairly simple to get cross party unity on itroducing legislation that would unltimatly ban the munufacture, distribution and then resail of none energy efficient lamps. This would be farly painless, and reduce CO2 emission from 2,100,000 tones to about 700,000.

There is a lot that could be done with small turbines. Look on the top of street lights, then think about our motorway infrastructure. Brown field development, save the highways agency millions and become a net generator of electrickery.

If we can lead the horse to some simple ideas, when the beast starts drinking, then it is time to strike with the big stuff.

Right now, they are to scared to commit to big budget life changing ideas. Remebers they have an election to win and four years is not a long time in the wonderfull world of politics.

On the subject of Blairs legacy, It will be one of two things, One Europe (Kicking and screaming) or the dark horse PR. I was at a meating with Claire Short earlier this year and she recons it has been mentioned.

Big present from a departing PM next summer.

Laters Ian.

Hi all,

In todays independent. see link.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=636853

Enjoy.

Laters Ian.

By Larry Mounser

THROUGHOUT most of the 20th century, scientists were convinced there were canals on Mars. This delusion went so far that they published highly detailed maps in scientific journals. In 1969, photos taken by the Mariner spacecraft showed there were no canals. Scientists can get it wrong.

Andrew Darby (Herald, October 10) made the claim that “global warming is one of the 21st century’s greatest environmental concerns”. Darby presumably meant “the greenhouse effect”, because “global warming” is something that has been occurring periodically throughout Earth’s history. But his point still contains some great big holes.

The problem is this: the Earth is normally much colder than it is now. For millions of years, we’ve been in ice ages, with short, warm interglacial periods, lasting no more than 12,000 years. “Our” interglacial has gone on now for 10,000 years, and we should be grateful for the Indian summer in which we live. This warm period has led to human civilisation as we know it. The next ice age will see a third of the planet under ice and cause mass extinctions

The widely publicised fact that “1998 was the hottest year since records have been kept” is one of the most startling incantations in all this witchcraft. Fifty million years ago the planet was temporarily so hot, trees were growing at both poles. It was far hotter then than in 1998 and the only ecosystem damage that occurred was that there were more trees. The old “since records have been kept” line simply moves us into the realm of the last half millionth of the last second of our history. That is not a representative sample.

If conditions in Alaska are anything to go by, just 1,000 years ago the Arctic was two to three degrees Celsius warmer than it is now. This was known as the Viking-Norman Period, and all the damage that occurred then was that Eric the Red moved to Greenland and started grazing cattle. Over the past century, the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from around 0.02 to 0.03. At the same time, some measurements of the Earth’s temperature indicate that it may have gone up by 0.6 degrees C. Big whoop! Putting those two facts together and going into a panic is not only problematical because we may well want the planet to warm up if the other option is freezing over, but there’s also no hard proof that CO2 is causing the warming anyway. In terms of our attempts to get rid of the dreaded bogy gas carbon dioxide to keep the planet cooler, the problem is also that:

less than 5 per cent of CO2 in the atmosphere is the result of human activity; most of the CO2 that gets taken out of the atmosphere is taken up by the oceans; water vapour is by far the most significant greenhouse gas. (If it weren’t, the average temperature in Sydney would be -60C.); recent NASA satellite figures show the planet is actually cooling

And don’t forget that any recent risings or coolings are measured in parts of a degree per decade. Claiming you can measure a change in temperature across the whole planet in the order of one degree per century is like claiming you can measure the change in velocity of a woolly mammoth hit by a mosquito. Climatologists on both sides know: “If you torture the data long enough it will confess.” And if you feed it into your favourite computer climate model, it will come out balancing a ball on its nose.

Larry Mounser is a freelance writer, a physics teacher and runs a course in mass communications at UNSW where he is an honorary research fellow.

I like it. Resorting to opinion.

The problem is this: the Earth is normally much colder than it is now. For millions of years, we’ve been in ice ages,

Distraction: at no time in the past ~400k yr has the CO2 ppmv been so high. The analogy is inapt.

The widely publicised fact that “1998 was the hottest year since records have been kept” is one of the most startling incantations in all this witchcraft. [emphasis added]

Ahhhh…here we go. Invoking religion.

Fifty million years ago the planet was temporarily so hot, trees were growing at both poles.

And most mountains were not the height they are today, so wind patterns were different. So the analogy is inapt.

Over the past century, the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from around 0.02 to 0.03

33%.

Increase your Xanax or Percocet by 33% and get back to us on what happens (your dosage should be less than than .02 of your body weight, BTW).

At the same time, some measurements of the Earth’s temperature indicate that it may have gone up by 0.6 degrees C. Big whoop!

Ahhhh…here we go. Ol’ Larry obviously doesn’t have a science degree. Remember freshman chem, lar? Didn’t think so.

Less than 5 per cent of CO2 in the atmosphere is the result of human activity;

More mendacity. But nearly 100% of the 33% increase is the result of human activity.

And don’t forget that any recent risings or coolings are measured in parts of a degree per decade.

We don’t understand scalar differences either.

Claiming you can measure a change in temperature across the whole planet in the order of one degree per century is like claiming you can measure the change in velocity of a woolly mammoth hit by a mosquito.

Larry, meet astrophysics. Astrophysics, meet Larry.

Larry Mounser is a freelance writer, a physics teacher and runs a course in mass communications at UNSW where he is an honorary research fellow.

Holy cr*p! This guy’s a tool! The mass communications says it all.

Best,

D

.... more on the hilarious antics of David Bellamy at http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1480373,00.html

From the Monbiot:

He had cited data that was simply false, he had failed to provide references, he had completely misunderstood the scientific context and neglected current scientific literature.

Well, if they didn’t have that, they wouldn’t have anything, would they?

Thanks, Mark.

D

Just reading your comments. Good posts! People have to be more careful!

Now, I like to do my own calculations once in a while. It helps me to understand concepts better and I try to be careful about my assumptions so I stay within my boundaries. I also like to share the wealth of what I learned and add clarity to the blog instead of sow confusion. I hope I accomplish that at some level.

Now, with that said, I did do a few simple calculations using Mark’s posted imbalance number of 0.85 W/m2 and wondered what your candid thoughts about them were.

http://www.marklynas.org/wind/message/1332.html

Mark, your New Statesman piece on the UK election left me feeling uneasy.

The election was a strange one with a campaign that was far too long and a restricted range of issues raised by the 3 main parties. Usually most political leaders assert that they will win an election. This time it was different. Blair et al were warning of the consequences of not voting for Labour, “you’ll let the Tories in”. Howard et al were arguing that voting Blair “will get you Brown” and so on. And Iraq and trust influenced a lot of voters. Protest votes are unlikely to be cast in the same fashion next time round so watch out Lib Dems and, I’m afraid to say, the Greens too!

The environment did not really feature. No mainstream politicians, even if they “get it” on GW/CC, have worked out how to tell us, the voters, that if sustainable policies are to be implemented we may have less. Less air travel, less car miles, less products in the shops and so on.

Why does your NS article make me feel uneasy? You target a number of groups, organisations and issues but highlight the road hauliers. (Maybe your emphasis has been distorted by a NS sub revving things up a bit.)

You refer to the miners – no group in society deserves to be “broken” in the way Thatcher broke the miners. She was intent on destroying as many sources of opposition to her policies as she could. As a then employee of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), part of the Greater London Council (GLC), both of which were abolished I consider her actions to be utterly unforgivable. Look at the damage done to the mining communities. Unemployment, appalling drug abuse, the heart ripped out of communities.

As individuals truckers are just people caught up in the way our economy “works” at the moment. Low pay, long hours, boredom and danger. I don’t fancy it as a way of life but they will have mortgages and rent to pay and human beings to support. And of course their trucks pollute and chuck out CO2. But lots of us (most of us?) use the supermarkets so we are party to this. I’d love to shop at a local farmers’ market but there isn’t one in EN1. If I’m wrong someone please tell me.

As I understand it the truckers object to the amount of tax they pay on diesel fuel. Now from an environmental/sustainability point of view you can argue that the tax should go up. But the truckers will argue they do not deserve to be squeezed, they provide a service we all depend on and so on.

Taxation has to be approached with caution. Taxing aviation spirit is easy to argue for. It’s a necessary correction to a policy which is decades out of date and we have alternatives as you say, “holiday closer to home”. The transition from current truck and car use is more difficult. At least some of it is “essential” for the time being. And remember the rich can pay more thereby avoiding the restrictions the rest of us will be subject to.

Rationing is fairer but some way off. I’m taken by the Green Party’s proposal to move from VAT to a carbon tax. This is appealing not least because of its consciousness raising characteristics but would have to be implemented with regard to the inequality that exists.

Imploring the government to “act tough” and “break” the truckers no matter how unappealing their representatives may be is more likely to increase bad feeling and distract us from developing a range of policies to deal with GW/CC.

Douglas Coker

I’m glad that you have brought up the human cost of the changes, many of which are unavoidable and will become much harder to deal with and more disruptive the longer we leave them. The government’s lack of a structured plan to move to a better system, even a market-related system, of total energy management within the economy, will allow an even more violent ‘boom and bust’ to occur than they have harrangued the Tories about for years.

Much of the grant funded projects that colleagues of mine work on are in Assisted former Coal and Steel manufacturing areas and since many of ‘my’ environmental projects are also in the South Wales valleys I can vouch for the social devastation (not a word I like to use too often) wrought by the vindictive confrontation of the miners’ strike. It has destroyed a whole generation of skilled productive people and the effects are only starting to subside 20+ years on. The fact that no economist has ever (to my knowledge)attempted to evaluate the collossal cost of writing off that skills pool to the UK economy, let alone the on-costs in terms of social dysfunction, healthcare, crime and out-migration is an indictment of our economic reporting system.

But of course, we are never allowed to know the true costs to our collective wealth of blunders on this scale: the loss of railway infrastructure following the Beeching closures of the 1960’s probably £40-50bn at today’s prices; the huge losses sustained by the Nuclear waste reporcessing industry and more recemtly the losses from the BSE and FMD disasters.

Before someone jumps in and bites my head off, I am not talking about normal market effects on over-capacity, outdated working practises or inefficiency, I refer to politically motivated adventures or bad reactions to crises that are not thought through, not evaluated and of which the true costs are either never recorded, or worse, suppressed.

The real tragedy, and I don’t see how we can avoid it, is that our present party-political system works against establishing medium to long term action plans that do not deliver easy statistical wins, but which are the least painful way of making change. Whilst individual administrations such as the Greater London Authority are able to pursue a more progressive agenda because they are just that: administrations, on this occasion I am going to agree with our contrarian friend Norbert and say that the lead will probably have come from enlightened private sector investment. The only caveat I would add is that there also needs to be a layer of small to medium size enterprises (SME’s), cooperatives and social enterprises at local level to keep the local economy robust, diversified and better insulated from macro economic shocks such as fuel price increases and major plant closures.

I note that the top 500 corporates in the US, lead by General Electric are now seeing the sense that moving to progressively more sustainable production methods is good business sense: a prediction made in 1999 by Hunter Lovins and which is at the heart of ‘Natural Capitalism: the new industrial revolution’.

kind regards

Colin