By A make-or-break moment for our planet is now only six months away. In Copenhagen this December, the world will try to find a deal on climate change – and we have to succeed.
Whether we succeed cannot be left until the winter, and cannot be left to politicians alone. To open up debate, the Labour government has published our proposals for what the deal should include.
In some negotiations, the government’s position can seem like a state secret. We’re taking the opposite approach – sending it to schools, putting it online, discussing it as much as we can – because these climate change talks are not like any other negotiations in recent history. More than any other, they will affect everybody’s lives. And, more than any other negotiations, while governments might be the ones to sign the deal, it will be governments and people together who will deliver it.
In making our case within Britain and to the world, we are guided by science, experience and ethics. The science tells us that the consequences of half-hearted action would be catastrophic. So we must be ambitious.
Two years ago on a Wednesday in June I saw people in my local high street in Toll Bar, Doncaster in canoes, plucking people out of first floor windows, raging at what had happened, bewildered and scared.
And two months ago in a village in the North West of China, in Minqin, a remote part of the country, I talked to a local farmer about his battle against the pincer movement of two deserts threatening the livelihoods of 300,000 people.
For the people of Toll Bar, and the people of Minqin, the question is whether our politics can rise to the challenge of the science and show some ambition.
So, to be ambitious and not half-hearted, the test we set for the deal is whether we can limit climate change to two degrees, the threshold for the worst tipping points and most irreversible damages.
We must reverse the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions in this coming decade, not later. They must start to shrink, and they must keep on shrinking to reach at most half of their 1990 levels by 2050.
Under the Labour Government we have already cut emissions by almost a quarter compared to 1990 and we have written our commitments into law to cut emissions further. National “carbon budgets” will cut emissions by a third of their 1990 level by 2020, and at least 80 per cent by 2050, and we are confronting the choices this commitment implies. Earlier this year, for example, I announced new proposals to forbid any new coal-fired power stations that don’t capture and store a substantial proportion of their CO2.
We hope other countries will raise their ambition too. Many already have, but the truth is that the offers currently on the table are not enough.
Even if developed countries cut their emissions to zero today, the world would still breach two degrees unless developing countries also move from high-carbon growth to low-carbon growth, so an ambitious climate deal will have to involve action from everyone.
Experience, meanwhile, teaches us a separate lesson: that the deal must be not just ambitious but effective. Kyoto, the first climate change agreement, achieved many things but not all the emission cuts that were promised were achieved. Not all the flows of finance to help the poorest countries ever reached their shores. Not all the actions that were taken were done so in the most effective way.
So to be effective the agreement at Copenhagen needs robust monitoring. It needs to be effective in how cuts are achieved, by linking carbon markets between developed countries, so that each dollar of spending finds the place where it can have the biggest possible impact on emissions.
For developing countries, a full carbon market will not be possible straight away but sector-by-sector trading systems can still mean we get more effective action, and more flows of finance to where it is needed.
And that brings up the third of our lessons for the kind of deal we need: ethics, and the obligations that rich countries owe to the poorest.
At the core of the debate is a fundamental moral question concerning whether we see ourselves as neighbours and fellow people to citizens of other countries, and whether we care about the legacy we leave to our children. It is a question about whether we choose to preserve or break the bond that says the earth is held in trust by each generation for the next, and accept or walk away from our ability to transform the lives of others.
This is an issue of equality, of fairness, of morality and we should say it.
In Labour’s document we want to live up to that moral challenge, so the deal we are looking for must be not just ambitious and effective, but also fair. The global downturn has made budgets tight for many countries but the Prime Minister has a deep personal commitment to getting the right, fair finance to deal with climate change - not instead of existing overseas aid, but in addition to it.
Last week, he urged countries to work on a global figure of around 100 billion dollars per year by 2020 to help developing countries, with new financial mechanisms to make it possible.
And we have seen, in the last six months, how debate can be transformed. President Obama has changed the game. China has upped its ambition and made clear it wants to find a deal. In the six months that follow, we have even further to travel and our need to speed up is urgent.
The make-or-break moment is upon us. With a deal that is ambitious, effective, and fair, dangerous climate change can be stopped; with action by governments and citizens in every country, that deal can be found.
Please pledge your support for a deal at Copenhagen.
Ed Miliband is the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Pledge your support for Labour's Copenhagen vision here.
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If you have two people from the UK, one with two homes and one with one - who suffers more if a home floods?
Stopping climate change is absolutely about fairness, equality and morality
The assumption of Global Warming is really the manifestation of a higher energy climatic environment. This is due to the ability of air to retain energy when increased amounts of greenhouse gasses (CO2 has the longest "life" in the atmosphere, I think over a hundred years). I was always advocating climatic extremes, stronger winds, hotter summers (lax of ozone to protect us also contributing), in some cases colder sharper winters.
Global Warming I think is a way of scientists selling to the public a summary of the idea of climate change.
However one of the reasons I chose not to pursue a career in the environment sector when I graduated was because of the lack of understanding we have and also the double standards of those in the sector. Guys like me like to spend the greatest commodity (and it isn't money, it's time, as I am certain you are wise enough to appreciate with your experiences of life) doing things for a purpose. Even as the sea erodes Coastlines generative zones are pushing the earths crust up out of the sea creating new lands, it's just nature...
I disagree with your point that science is concentrating on just CO2, there are other greenhouse gases too but research needs funding, we want to know more and the only way to get money for this research is by "convincing" our politicians and public it is in our best interests which it ultimately is in my view.
Remember no money, no research, no knowledge. There is intense research in the US for alternative energy sources, I read recently on the BBC News website about some super-laser that is going to be fired this year, it has taken fifty years to develop and countless other projects are out there I am certain.
This is huge area for discussion and I think we could both spend years debating it because it literally covers everything. When I read this at Uni I covered everything from Botany to politics to Geology. It was a wonderful course and has made me into a good multi-tasker.
The atmosphere retained CO2 as I said will result in a higher energy environment in terms of climate, there is no doubt about this, how it will manifest we will and are finding out. But the truth is I don't know.
I don't have the answer. I welcome any research you find. For me there are greater concerns than the climate as a single factor. I am more concerned with population and the imapct we have on our ecostystem. Just look what would happen if the humble bumble bee died out, it would make the bank crises seem like a hobbits happy picnic party. There numbers are going down in the US and in the UK....a third of all the food we eat we owe to this single species that pollinates our crops......
I think we are more likely to experience a calamity through overpopulation than from climate change alone. As we continue to cosume, take and not give back, increase in numbers and squabble over money and resources, it's not really going to surprise anybody really I think. Once again because our politicians are too afaraid of facing up to reality and are not motivated into doing anything. It is easier for them to advocate and believe in unlimited consumption and take that private job at a bank (or wherever) and get rich than do the very opposite and be equally if not more unpopular.....
That is just it with the climate side. Because all arguements are based upon the increase of CO2 being the cause for the climate to warm rapidally, there is no further debate for climate scientists or the believers of this theory. They claim the high ground, dismissing all other arguements as conspiracy or madness because they have their CO2 theory carved into stone. I like the climatic wave theory though, it would explain some of what Mike was saying below and would explain rapid changes in climate. Why are our scientists so convinced they have the answer when there is so much more research to be done?
Now, to get to the real 'gritty-nitty' :
The problem that I have with 'climate change' and the contribution of man-made emissions thereto, is that the planet always has seen great swings in climate conditions : think of the great ice-age a few thousand years ago ; think of the explosion of the dinosaurs (cold-blooded creatures) a few million years ago - the earth's temperature must have been 'warmer' to support such a great growth in cold-blooded creatures. What caused these great climatic changes?
The problem seems to me that how do we know that we are not in a phase in which a 'great swing' is occurring? We can look (and derive 'conclusions' from) measurements from the last hundred, or thousand years, but how do we know that we are not in a great climatic wave?
Back to subject, we fundementally disagree on the base of the arguement, which is what Mike has outlined very eloquently below. The main push of man-made climate change is based on a singular assumption that this all revolves around CO2, and it is on that basis that a lot of studies are conducted and raise conclusions that would be very different without the original assumption.
In simpler terms, if you build a house on sand expect it to sink over time. And that is the man-made climate change arguement in my opinion, a house built on sand. I mean look at some of the most recent arguements. CO2 will apparently increase five fold over the next millenium. What led those scientists to that conclusion? And when they studied that, at the University of Liverpool I believe, what were they basing their arguement on? That CO2 would increase global temperatures.
Global temperatures may well be influenced by CO2 increases, but you have to look elsewhere to see what is really going on. Aerosols for instance have been suggested as a mask, assuming that if aerosols did not exist that CO2 levels would be higher. Or the continuing studies about a single and abrupt increase of CO2 and how that would effect climate. Mushrooms involved in that one I think, but do you see a pattern? Science is concentrating solely on the influence of CO2. The seas of the world will hold the CO2 of today for hundreds of years apparently, well great, but what does that actually mean to climate change? Do we presume that this holding of CO2 is a disaster in waiting? Can we say catagorically that this is the end of the world as we know it?
The problem is exactly as you say Ralph, this is a young scientific field and we are making assumptions based on current knowledge. We are at the stage with climate science that medical science was at when they were still drilling holes in the head for very little reason other that to see what happened. The one thing that all reasonable climate scientists agree is that there is little or no agreement and that they have no clue to temperature increases. The reason I view it as a sort of religion is this point that will not be argued within certain circles, that it all relates to CO2. There is far more going on, there really is and Mike's comment below about solar activity should not be dismissed, it should be investigated fully and all evidence should be put forward in debates. The blanket denial of other evidence and the continual opression of those who disagree with main thrust is what is damaging the whole field of scientific research and that is before we get to 'green' taxes.
Now I've already said I believe in climate change. I am fully aware that we could walk across the English Channel, and the Bering Strait for that matter, and the climate will change the face of our planet forever. The sea will erode coast lines, the wind will bring down rock formations and nature generally will turn our planet into something completely different over the next thousand years. The challenge is that as we, mankind, live on this planet that we adapt accordingly and show respect to nature. Few would argue that they wouldn't win a fight with a Bengal Tiger, but ask them the same question about a gorge in Cumbria. They are just as dangerous, one will eat your head, the other will smash it about the place and generally toss you from side to side like a rag doll.
We have a civil defence budget, we have taxes taken for the purposes of maintaining the roads and the open spaces of Britain, so these now need to be diverted to coastal defences, maybe investigate those flood plains and see whether we can't use the forces of nature to our advantage, but the last thing we should be doing is pressuring or panicking the public that we are going to be 3 feet under water within the next 100 years. It isn't going to happen unless there is a freak event, and in that case we should be preparing for aliens landing. Thats a freak event, so lets brush up on our Vulcan and practise the hand movements. It makes about as much sense as what governments want us to do to tackle their version of climate change.
Incidently Ralph I couldn't find the research I wanted to quote. Sods law it will appear in the next day or two and I will post it up if it does. It was an interesting piece by someone who really believed that the end of the world was nigh. Fascinating logic but a brilliant arguement. It was key in that it proved what could happen if you take a premise, distort it and extrapolate that into armageddon.
So trawling the media outlets is not the way to secure it, you research your subject, get it peer reviewed then argue for funding.
Indeed, the Greenpeace story is often ignored that the environmentalist movement is infested with loony left types using this bandwagon to push with politics on the population.
Stern himself wrote about the IPCC: We have some concerns about the objectivity of the IPCC process, with some of its emissions scenarios and summary documentation apparently influenced by political considerations. There are significant doubts about some aspects of the IPCC's emissions scenario exercise, in particular, the high emissions scenarios. The Government should press the IPCC to change their approach. There are some positive aspects to global warming and these appear to have been played down in the IPCC reports; the Government should press the IPCC to reflect in a more balanced way the costs and benefits of climate change. The Government should press the IPCC for better estimates of the monetary costs of global warming damage and for explicit monetary comparisons between the costs of measures to control warming and their benefits. Since warming will continue, regardless of action now, due to the lengthy time lags.
Remember what Deep Throat once said: "Follow the money".
Now work out the billions of pounds of eco-tax revenues and science community grants being generated on the back of The Myth.
Think I'm wrong? Here's Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore:
"As I completed a Ph.D. in ecology, I combined my science background with the strong media skills of my colleagues. In keeping with our pacifist views, we started Greenpeace. But I later learned that the environmental movement is not always guided by science. As we celebrate Earth Day today, this is a good lesson to keep in mind. At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986".
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882720657033391.html
That just made me laugh like a drain, Bill (o: I remember '76 and canoeing on the 'Thames', it was about a foot deep and not much wider.
I can't believe that we are completely uninvolved in climate change but I also think we can do absolutely nothing about it. I am also worried that this governments solution to it is their solution to everything else - "give us your money". I have no idea how that is going to solve the 'problem' but it does mean the government end up with even more money.
So far I have disagreed and disapproved of comments made by some, but I generally am starting to love this site as a place for real discussion and debate. I owe some of commentators already for thier contributions to my article on facism. Some of the comments made (by Labour/Troll/whatever)I have written down as the advice on tackling the issue was very good and will be used and where possible; implimented. I think Jon Cruddas MP will also be grateful also when I pass them on to him when I see him in August. This was not party political, more democratic political and so I humbly thank you all and I will not get tired of doing so or of mentioning your names. It will hopefully make a difference on the doorstep ;)
You were right to take deforestation out of the CO2 arguement except that wood is a store of CO2. But in the context I used it in desertification you are correct so I concede the point. You are right that we cannot "control" climate change though we can contribute to it (the evidence of acceleration of change is in the observations we have made in habitat composition where species favouring warmer or higher energy climes have been increasing in numbers at the expense of others that do not, we can also observe changes in the growth of trees and of course in pollen counts taken from soil sampling and geology). So I think we have accelerated it but we have returned CO2 that was fixed by ferns in the Carboniferous period that later became coal/petrol etc, So the earth has been here before, I have no doubt the earth will be fine however the speed of change or any change at all will certainly mean the end of some species and the success of others including us).
A "new age religion"? haha maybe I am a "new age hippy"! Lol. No as a graduate in the science I appreciate and understand that environmental research is still a budding science. All our attempts to duplicate and create an artificial habitat have failed. It is simply too complex at the current time (though I may be a little out of date here). So I won't pretend to know something I don't. You may well be right. But with the science we still have manage with the exiosting (affected my humans or not) global warming that has been occurring for a very long time. That means coastline defences, flood plain management etc.
I am glad you agree with me on the green tax situation, I have never been able to see the justification for it. Like I said if governments want to discourage or promote a certain behaviour they should change the law. I am disappointed that our mainstream parties have failed to reach a grown up consensus on this incredibly important policy area.
When I was councillor it the I received many death threats from green fanatics from groups such as Animal Aid who did not understand the measure I was taking to manintain green areas. They concentrated on single species whilst I tried to ensure the whole habitats thrived to suppoort said species. They are not generally a very knowledgable lot when it comes to trying to understand natural processes.
Many farmers (regardless of thier individual politics) recieve death threats all the time from these people.
The environment is a very complex area, the countryside is a very conflicted area, it does not surprise me that people have used language in describing views as it is an area that is very emotive. Rightly so. It means people give a damn about it. Better than apathy in my mind.
Yes our MP's have not been frank on the issue at all. They seem to duck and dive from any real debate thus giving the impression that they either don't care or are lying to us. But as you may well have noticed this aweful attitude they are displaying is one of the things I am challenging. Not just for my ego, but because I want my party to have real debaters being as frank as they can with the people they want the votes from. I am deeply saddened by the conduct of Ministers and some MP's, not to mention some PPC's. I am not sure about civil unrest, that generally requires further distancing of Parliament from the people...our country has taken the first steps. You only need to look at history.
The science is not 'pretty clear' at all. It's arguably the scientific debate of our generation. There are almost infinite sources supporting both sides of the argument and supposedly factual data is being debunked, discredited and discarded most days. By both sides.
I am not a scientist and nor am I a 'denier' (although I begrudge the use of the word 'denier' as it's so often preceded by 'holocaust' or equally dubious terms), I seem to fall under the 'lukewarmer' definition. But whilst the sceptics seem to have the edge over the IPCC and there is so much doubt cast over the IPCC, then I will not fall over and meakly agree this is inevitable. If you want to argue with people who disagree do it with some kind of fact, not just telling them they're stupid. If you disagree with each point the poster above made, or even some of them, refute them. I'm not saying I agree with them but i'm so sick and tired of the 'you're wrong, we're right, we aren't going to argue with you about it' rhetoric that goes on from your side in this debate. Realclimate.org would be a great website as they put across some really good arguments for the pro-global warming camp from some very respectable sources, but when they filter a large majority of anti global warming comments and totally stifle debate they lose all respectability. Like it or not, there is a wave of scepticism towards global warming (conveniently name changed due to dropping temps) and it is your responsibility to prove it scientifically or stop spending our money on it.
"Tackling climate change is about equality, fairness, and morality - we have to be amibitious at Copenhagen"
What exactly does climate change have to with anything in this the title - answer absolutely nothing,
climate change has absolutely nothing to with equality, fairness or morality.
I do not understand this premise...
In fact it strikes me a mixing of ideologies which is designed to mix disparate items aimed at appealing to
broader range of people.
The ony thing equiitable about climate change is that the temperature will rise at about the same rate for everybody simultaneously.
Or is there some hidden subtext about living in a world where we can all equally afford air-conditioning.
Expert denied attendance at Copenhagen
Like yourself I have serious reservations regarding the impact of man-made CO2 on the climate.
We have certainly had warmer periods in man's history than now, the Roman viticulture in Northumberland, Greenland being, erm, green, the greenification of Saharan Africa and the Nile Delta, the warmer Middle Ages. Also, conversely periods of cold, the Little Ice Age spanning from the 1400s to 1700s; the Thames frost fairs is one anecdotal piece of evidence.
Man's contribution would have been utterly negligible and even now we are talking of increases of 1-75 ppm (parts per million) of molecular CO2 in the atmosphere increase since 1850.
I also find some of the climate change science disturbing in terms of a failure to appreciate thermodynamics, a gas that traps warmth would trap warmth everywhere especially in the upper atmosphere, yet below 20 Latitude there is cooling. If temperatures are increasing, why is the African Sahal region greening?
Most of the climate change 'science' comes from modelling, yet the models do not contain all the variables and the impact of CO2 on global temperatures was only added from 1970 yet ice-core evidence shows a lagging effect, temperatures increase first, then CO2 level increase later.
The Hadley centre research on solar observations and mathematical modelling is largely ignored or downplayed which is perhaps the most telling of all; the 2003 revision to this work said that radiative forcing could contribute as much as 1/3rd of recent temperature increases. With 99.7% of all greenhouse gases occurring naturally, I have doubts on man-made CO2 making such a noticeable contribution.
I have other issues with when the median global temperature was taken, the lack of research into urban heat sink theory, the very poor climate change science critique on solar observation and the general ignorance of satellite temperature observations (which are the most accurate and comprehensive on the planet).
A lot of excellent, well-informed carefully crafted responses to your article. You haven't bothered reply to any of them. What's the point posting a blog if you can't be bothered to interact with the readers?
Phil
Oil is not a finite resource, so the environmental argument that we need alternative fuel again has little to do with climate change, just the reality that one day there will be nothing to put in our cars, buses and motorbikes to make them go. We have far more oil left than we are led to believe, but it would be idiotic to wait until this resource is completely exhausted before we look for an alternative. But look at the alternatives being suggested. Hydrogen fuel, a fuel which requires far more energy to produce than we can afford, or the new saviour, the electric car. On the surface the electric car looks like an ideal solution as once the battery life issue is resolved, we could all just plug into the existing electricity network for cheap fuel. Well, no, we couldn't. We are already facing an energy crisis in this country because we do not have sufficient power stations to meet the demands of the nation, so if we all started plugging cars into the grid as well we would have rolling blackouts every other day. Not to mention the fact that the power stations producing the electricity would need far more natural resources to burn, which goes back to sustainability.
Wind farms are being built all around the UK, but this doesn't make up for the lack of investment when it comes to power stations and besides which, wind farms have begun to throw up some unpleasant surprises like the housing estate in the north east that was treated to a shower of ice shards being flung at them at around 200mph. Nobody thought for a minute that if water settled on a wind turbine, froze and then the wind suddenly picked up that we had actually developed what can only be described as a 60ft tall, 4 tonne water-powered machine gun! And this is one of the problems, we are in such a rush to solve a problem (or be seen to be solving a problem) that we're not researching things properly. There will be more mistakes rather than less if we don't sort out problems before we start building more iron giants around the countryside.
I agree that deforestation does contribute to our ever expanding deserts, and although this is definately a man-made problem, it is a different issue to climate change. The answer is to convince the farmers who clear the forests to make way for arable land or grazing areas for livestock that if they remove too much the land will become useless to their crops and cattle. Encouraging programmes of replanting not just the odd field, but regions would be a good start, but tackling the root cause which is our ever increasing need for more food has to be the long term answer. I have no real solutions to this one because I don't know how population numbers can be controlled without something along the lines of the Chinese system and I don't think that will ever be accepted in the West.
The CEH were very clear with their assessment of the 2007 floods. Terry Marsh, lead author of the report said "The river floods of summer 2007 were a very singular episode, which does not form part of any clear historical trend or show consistency with currently favoured climate change scenarios". I agree they are going out on a limb with their report, but I believe it to be a good example of common sense. If everything is blamed on climate change, as it so often is by our media and environmental groups, people will start to switch off to any message you want to get across. It is the same argument when the government decided that as part of the smoking ban we would be treated to no smoking signs in every shop window of our town centres. We become so used to seeing them everywhere, eventually we switch off and take no notice of them. Anyway, I'm going off at a tangent again.
I don't argue that climate change doesn't exist, but what I do argue Ralph is that man can not control it. I genuinely don't believe we are responsible for the speed or types of climate change we are experiencing and unless we get some new fangled technology we so often see in science fiction, I can not see how anything we do as a nation or as a world can possibly reverse or slow down nature. With our comfortable lives, debating on the internet or watching comedy on the television, it is easy to forget just how unforgiving and cruel nature can really be.
One of the things I strongly disagree with though is the bullying attitude that surrounds this debate (I mean with regards to the general public, not here on the LL). I am disturbed to see environmental activists surrounding 4-wheel drive vehicles in London and terrorising the occupants of that vehicle because the environmentalists believe them to be evil or irresponsible. Equally I am disturbed to see the government's reaction to the environmental groups when they protest, it is far too heavy handed. I may disagree with their cause, but I do not disagree with their rights to peacefully protest about their cause. I personally am getting tired of commericial enterprises using the whole climate change issue as a hook to sell more products and I'm tired of people telling me that I am insane for believing what I believe. And I realise you may take offense at this Ralph, but it is my honest opinion that climate change has become a sort of new aged religion. Rather than people analysing the facts of the matter, all it takes is for a campaigner to blurt something out on television and it becomes fact in the minds of those watching. Al Gore has made a lot of money from the film he produced, but I don't think he has the first clue of the amount of damage that film has done, not only to the adult population, but to our children who are growing up with the same fear that our parents and grandparents had during the World Wars. They are growing up believing that the world could end tomorrow and that isn't right. What they need is a positive message, a message of hope and a message that tells them that they really can make a difference in the world if they learn, develop and understand.
I realise this is getting to be possibly the longest reply in the history of the LL, but I can not ignore or resist the urge to reply about the green taxes. If any evidence was needed to show just how ridiculous this government's response to climate change has been, we need look no further than Ed's brother, David and the patently absurd 'Carbon Credit Card'. For those who are unaware of this scheme, it was quickly abandoned when the so-called 'credit crunch' began as not only would the idea have been a surefire vote loser, it had the potential to fuel 'poll tax like' riots if it had been introduced. The basic concept, if I understand it correctly, is that we all get a ration of carbon credits. This would include our homes, our transportation and pretty much everything we do day to day. Once we have used our alloted 'credits' we would then be charged if we wanted to use more, or to make that clearer, we would be taxed on every single aspect of our lives twice. Once with standard taxes and again with 'carbon credit' taxes.
So without any debate, with no real evidence or reason, if it hadn't been for the banking crisis and the resulting chaos that followed, we would have been treated to these 'Carbon Credit Cards' by the year 2011. We'd have been massively taxed and for what? What would the billions of pounds in 'green' tax have been used for? We may never know, but something we do know is that these CCCs highlighted just how crazy the argument is. When David Miliband announced in 2006 that it would take roughly 5 years to put this scheme into place, Friends of the Earth climate change campaigner Martin Williams said: "What worries us is that it could take quite a long time to implement it and really we don't have that long to tackle climate change."
Now I'm sorry, but that sums the whole man made climate change argument up for me, and I should imagine many others. Campaigners who haven't really done their homework are given media airtime in response to the (then) environment secretary to tell us all that 5 years is too long to wait before we are all taxed into oblivion. In five short years they would have us believe that the 'damage' man has done to the climate in that time frame will be so severe that a hair-brained scheme, that doesn't even tackle the things Martin Williams blames for the change in climate, will not be effective.
Until we can have a sensible, reasoned debate about the climate of this planet without politicians rubbing their hands together for more tax, without being bullied and having other people's views rammed down our throats and until there is definitive evidence that climate change is man-made and not just part of a natural climate course, then it will end up being another Europe debate. Some will believe, some won't, but the issue will not be resolved and any rash decisions will result in civil unrest.
One final thing, I have been called an idiot, a nutter, a window-licking mentalist and a heretic for my views on climate change. Ralph has managed to disagree with me without name calling, so why is it so difficult for those who believe in man-made climate change to accept that my view may well be different from yours, but it doesn't make it any less valid?
How much of a reduction from 1997 when you were elected?
I'm right wing and no lover of left wing socialist dogma but on climate change the science is pretty clear.
I would respond to your points one by one but I'm losing the will to live reading this sort of rubbish. The only problem is the more cranks like you spout this nonsense the more the ignorant public buy into it.
Care to comment on the retreat of coral reefs and increased salinity of the oceans?
I'm sorry but your post is one of the most rediculous I've seen in a while.
Point by point then...
1 No idea what you are talking about
2 The ozone hole and its increase was pretty incontrovertible given the mapping and publishing of the pictures. If anything the action on banning cfc's shows what can be achieved. The only reason you now take the proverbial out of the ozone hole is that it wasn't over your neck of the woods and it has stopped expanding (due to the action taken) at the alarming rate it was. I suggest you go look up what happens to life stuck under a no ozone layer area.
3 Sars killed quite a few people in Asia, the only reason we can be thankful we dodged the bullet of a pandemic is that it didn't mutate into a form that allowed easy transmission form person to person. It jumped from species to species which is the first hurdle it had to cross and as a result it rightly set of alarm bells.
4 Swine flu. What is your issue with swine flu? It's a global pandemic and has made the all important jump from species to species. At the moment it's not as deadly as say the spanish flu outbreak at the end of WW1 but if it mutates (and it probably will) we could be in a lot of trouble. Already there are reports coming from health authorities in Europe that it has mutated to become resistant to tamiflu and the nothern hemisphere flu season is fast approaching.
One of my girls has it and it isn't nice. My wife who has linkns with WHO and Ephemra is pretty clear about the threat this could cause. Do you need as many deaths as we got with Spanish Flu before you understand the threat?
Or is it you're just impatient and if it doesn't strike within a news cycle then it's a load of scientific rubbish again?
5 Hiv/aids..... at a loss with this one. Have you any idea how many millions have already contracted and died from HIV/AIDS? Again because it doesn't touch the cosy western world so much it's all a bit of scaremongering?
6 Mad cow Disease, a disease that killed a number of people in the uk and has a shelf life of a few decades so once again not to worry?
Your sort is the reason why I despise the public. Anti-science, no concept over scientific theory or the quality of life you lead being a direct result of science. Instead you adopt the language of a cheap tabloid trash paper and use sarcasm to try to win a few cheap points.
Utterly retarded, grossly irresponsible and exactly the sort of reason why I won't stand for public office.
In fact, having looked at both arguments, the case for the sceptic seems to be based on firmer science. Of, course, there is 'climate change', the climate is indeed always changing. What was once green pasture becomes desert and vice versa...
Of course, this government will salivating at the prospect of a new type tax. It's about the only one that labour did not think of!
Equality and fairness are regarded as important as one the key difficulties we have across the Globe is in convincing other countries (who want to live to the unsustainable level at which we live, oh it is unsustainable by the way) to try and do so in a more responsible manner. So the idea is that all enjoy a certain level of living that is fairer and therefore are able to have more weight in convincing poorer countries or poorer groups of people to take part. Of course actually having everyone in the world living to the level of what might be termed "middle class" is completely unsustainable as is the possible population increase that might occur as a result (I am not sure on the population issue).
Your spot on with housing development, the problem lay with planning especially on flood planes. There was little or no consideration of potential flooding risks. Planning is changing though as we (across the political spectrum) are beginning to understand more about hydrology.
Climate change has been constistent over the last 15,000 or so since the last Ice Age, the Globe has been getting warmer since that time (15,000 years ago there was no Channel and you could walk to France). The main concern for scientists is the speed at which we have accelerated global warming. Habitats, communities may not be able to adapt in time, and deforestation has contributed desertification. My main concern is desertification which people can actually observe.
The CEH quotation concerns me a little. I suppose they are saying that variations in climate still occur though not necessarily as a direct result of the general pattern of climate change. I personally would have kept quiet as climate is incredibly complicated at the best of times and we still trying to build computers powerful enough to understand and model it, the range of contributing variables is incredible.
You are spot on about the Nile Delta and Egypt, as I said Global Warming is nothing new and much of our knowledge has come to us from Geologists, environmental and climate researchers, palaetologists etc who I thank every day for giving us the understanding that we can take for granted.
Though Labour I have yet to be convinced that "Green Taxes" actually do anything for the environment, I am a sceptic with this method of tackling the environment. I believe it does the cause more harm than good and insults public intelliegence. If you want to stop people doing the wrong thing...make it illegal. But our MP's are not a brave bunch.
People would respect a strong decision on the environment if they were given a sensible explanation as to why it benefits us all and those who lose out as a result are given the help and support they need to make a reasonable living.
Thanks Bill my degree was in Conservation and after speaking to a contributor Gabe, I have started researching the field again. Please feel free to comment I look forward to replying.
My issue with your post is the linking of "Toll Bar" (a weather event) with Minqin (a climate driven desertification event).
You would do everyone a favour if you would stop attributing climate change to individual freak weather events. Freak weather events have always occurred and always will and are meteorological events not climate events. Climate change may lead to more extreme weather events but quoting one off events doesn not win either the science or public argument and both need to be won.
It would also help if you'd drop the socialist dogmatic use of "fairness", "moral" and "equality". I'm on the right and subscibe to climate change being probably the greatest threat to humanity (along with viruses) and if it puts my back up as an ex-evironmental scientist then it will annoy the hell out of a lot of other people.
The issue of climate change should not be a political football, so stop trying to make it one.
Finally you are a government minister, show you have a brain and stop mixing weather with climate. Can I suggest you get a better briefing?
And don't worry - Opik Lemsip [sic] has the last one covered....
I can't believe we would commit billions to a policy where you can't measure success. Climate change is something with so many variables and so many other sources of interaction that whatever we do, we could never be sure our actions were successful.
And you just know that by trying to reduce emissions on a global scale, no-one will be able to agree on anything and the whole process will draw out, waste money and be a complete shambles.
A more sensible approach is to stick to what we can do and measure ourselves. We can decrease dependence on fossil fuels within our borders, we can implement incentives to use low-energy equipment within our borders, we can implement alternative energy production within our borders. We can measure success by the reduction in energy consumption within our borders and the reduction in reliance on fossil fuels supplied from outside our borders.
What we really, really, shouldn't be doing is spending money outside our borders on policies and projects that can never, ever be measured. You might as well burn the money.
Every month the EU Parliament makes an utterly pointless journey from Brussels to Strasbourg creating 20,000 tonnes of carbon emissions but non-one in his government is doing anything about it.
When will our politicians practise what they preach? Don't they realise that we are all tired on their finger-wagging, their moralising and their 'do as I say, not as I do' attitudes. They should look at their own actions before ascending into the pulpit. There is absolutely no reason why a 'puppet parliament' should be allowed to damage the environment and waste so much money on completely pointless journeys.
Before you commit huge sums getting the UK and other countries to invest in "alternative" technology, ask yourself: are you really, really sure about the science? Is the scientific community unanimously lined up and agree that global warming exists and unanimously lined up and agree on what steps need to be taken to reduce it?
If you can't say yes to both questions, then you shouldn't be committing vast sums of money to try and chase the ghost of global warming when you aren't sure it exists, aren't sure how to combat it and aren't sure how to measure success is folly in the extreme.
By all means, use alternative technology to increase security of supply and reduce our dependance on fossil fuels sourced outside the UK. It would be a far more honest approach to the electorate and would gain more support than spouting the climate change mantra that no-one really believes.
The problem with policy in the past, is there has been to much stick and not enough carrot. People should be given incentives to switch from fossil fuel to alternatives.
My personal opinion is that Hydrogen is the clean fuel of the future and incentives should be given in the form of tax breaks for companies installing hydrogen infrastructure and as near as possible zero duty levels for hydrogen used as a fuel. Tax incentives should be created for people buying and using hydrogen-powered cars.
Similar tax incentives should be used to promote low-power technologies for the home.
Further afield, do you think imposing uncertain western science on emerging countries is a sound policy? Will they embrace it, thank you with open arms an hail you as saviour of the Earth, or will they look at it as an attempt by western governments to negate any competitive advantage they have in the global market?
Finally can we really afford to spend all this money on uncertain science given the current global financial crisis? What is the point of pledging money to a cause when the value of that money will be worth half it's current value in 12 months time?
"This is an issue of equality, of fairness, of morality and we should say it."
Damn well say it man - NO THIRD RUNWAY!
Don't you feel better already?
1 a new ice age - polar bears roaming all over surrey
2 the ozone layer thinning to the point where 5 mins in the sun means death
3 sars
4 swine flu
5 hiv/aids
6 mad cow disease
and all supported by the best scientific minds money can buy !
oh yes and let's not forget the wandering asteroid that will collide with earth and wipe out the dinosaurs (again)!
Believe what you want but if you want to tax me on your beliefs, like Religion or Politics, I'd like some proof please.
With regards to the floods of 2007, you simply can not label it as climate change, global warming or anything of the sort. We have built on flood plains, covered natural run offs with tarmac and built concrete structures to hold back water that shouldn't be there. We created the problems that led up to the 2007 floods and we didn't prepare for the consequences, it had nothing to do with the climate.
What short memories the British people have though. We had heatwaves in the 1970's, blizzard conditions in the 1960's and floods throughout the 1950s. Anything out of the ordinary that happens with our weather cycle is now put forward as 'evidence' of climate change. Look at the weather right now and the squawking of the eco-friends on the news saying 'we told you, we told you' but half of the squawkers were not even born in the late 70's when the summers here melted my Lego.
I know you view me as a heretic Jonathan and I know you think I'm deluding myself and others with my argument, but I will not live my life worrying about something that will never happen. We are more likely to have a polar-flip in the next 50 years than we are to be flooded by rising sea levels and if the Earth's axis shifts you can forget about climate change. When it flips we may be at the centre of the coldest part of the Earth, or we may turn back into the jungle we were a few hundred thousand years ago, but one thing is for sure, you and I won't be alive to have the luxury of debate.
This site is so full of people who want to trash any reasonable opinion from the left that when the same thing comes out against our views on climate change it's difficult to know if you're any more believable. I hope you are right and that we have nothing to worry about, although taxing energy use rather than incomes might help society, energy use harms people even if climate change doesn't happen, but I doubt it.
I believe autumn is getting later, also April showers, and that those floods were climate change related. A warming climate puts more energy and more water into the atmosphere. To me opposition to climate change is a lot like the other nonsense conspiracy theories.
Comment typed with the use of two thumbs...
Global Sea-ice Extent A steady heartbeat for 30 years.
Arctic Sea Ice Normal in winter, down a little in recent summers, but well within natural variability.
Arctic Temperature Warmer in the 1930s and early 1940s than today.
North-West Passage Amundsen sailed through it in 1903. It was also open in the mid-1940s.
Greenland Mean ice-sheet thickness grew by 2 in/yr from 1993-2003 (Johannessen et al., 2005).
Polar Bears Population up fivefold since the 1940s.
Antarctic Sea Ice Growing for 30 years.
Antarctic Temperature Little change in 50 years.
Antarctic Peninsula Ice-shelves about 1/55 the area of Texas have gone, but were not there in the Middle Ages.
Sahara Desert Greening so fast that 300,000 km2 has become vegetated, allowing nomadic tribes to settle where they haven't been seen in living memory.
Droughts and Floods Variable as usual. Hurricanes and Other Tropical Cyclones Lowest activity for 30 years.
Sea Level Rising at 1 ft/century since satellite measurements began in 1993, compared with average 4 ft/century over the past 10,000 years. No sea-level rise in the last three years. UN High-end Forecast Slashed from 3ft to <2ft sea-level rise by 2100: UN best current estimate 1 ft 5 in.
Bangladesh Has gained 70,000 km2 land area confounding UN sea-level forecasts.
Pacific Atolls Not at risk: corals can grow towards the light at 10x the rate of sea-level rise, which is why so many atolls are just above sea level.
Maldives No sea-level rise in 1250 years (Morner, 2004).
I could source these all and many more besides I just can't be bothered, if you want to check them out just paste them into google. An 80% reduction in our carbon footprint means that we would be living life in the fashion of our ancestors of the 17thC. You need to be truly mad to believe hat that is a desirable thing.
Clearly you are not old enough to remember but in my childhood we were told to ready ourselves for a forthcoming ice age as global temperatures were falling.
They have certainly not increased anywhere near the 1988 predictions since 1998 so the campaigners change from a global warming line to a climate change line.
Which understanding meteorology a little, the phrase 'climate change' is oxymoronic.
Anyway, to the issue of climate change. Undoubtedly the climate is changing across the world with coral reefs dying off, deserts expanding or contracting and then there are the huge chunks of ice dropping off the North Pole, but how does that relate to Tollbar? What happened in Tollbar, along with other floods around the country have very little, if anything to do with climate change. Britain has always flooded since the beginning of time, but the difference in the past was that flood waters had somewhere to go. We, as a nation, have rushed to build houses and roads onto plains that should have been left as plains. They are known as flood plains for a good reason Ed.
If flooding is to be used as an indication of climate change, then climate change must have been present in 1953 when over 300 people died, 24,000 homes destroyed and 34,000 people displaced in London. But wait, wasn't there a flood act brought in by Parliament in 1897? I could list many floods that have effected the landscape of Britain over the ages, but why would you want to listen to those if you believe that climate change is the real cause.
Maybe I'm wrong, but then that would make the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) wrong as well. They state that (and I quote) 'The key cause was that extended rains early in summer soaked soils that would normally have been dry at that time. When heavy storms came later, water could not soak away into the ground.' and furthermore 'The UK’s summer floods of 2007 were a freak event unrelated to global climate change'. So when you visit Copenhagen it may well be worth looking at the facts before you rely events that have nothing to do with the subject at hand.
Thinking about it is quite remarkable that a Labour MP would talk about equality and fairness in relation to these floods in the first place. Do you have a ballpark figure on the number of people who were still without fresh water, electricity or a home in these areas well into 2008? How 'equal' and how 'fair' was the government's response to these events? Politicians from all sides were very quick to visit the sites of these floods, standing in front of cameras with their wellies on, but how was the aftermath dealt with? Was it 'equal' and 'fair' to leave people living in caravans without the financial means to put their homes right? Was it 'equal' and 'fair' to continue to bill them for council tax when their home was no longer livable? Where was the 'moral challenge' back then in 2007?
Back to climate change though and you speak of Minqin in China. You're right about the deserts edging their way across arable land, but unless you slept through the history lessons at school you would know that the very same thing happened in Egypt just over 2000 years ago. The Pyramids were not built on desert sands, they were built in an area with rich soil, crops and fruit trees in abundance and a well-fed population built the marvels we can still see there today. Did man-made climate change alter the landscape of Egypt? Was it green house gases that caused the arable lands that lined the Nile to turn into sand with less nutrients in it than a Pot Noodle?
Lets assume for a minute that you are right though Ed, that man has created the perfect storm that is climate change. In 300 years of industrial activity we have destroyed the planet and we now need to correct this as quickly as possible. How do you propose this is done precisely? Should we cease all industrial activity, park up our transportation systems permenantly and slaughter all cows for their excessive flatulence? How arrogant we are, the human race I mean, to think that even if we are responsible for the changes in our climate that we can effectively control the climate of our planet in the opposite direction by devolving.
I realise for my words I will be branded a heretic, but there has been no debate about climate change with the British people. We are told what scientists believe, we are treated to climate models that have been proven flawed and we have the great Al Gore from across the pond who was so sure his argument would hold water that he included 11 mistruths in his film (and this film is now shown to our children on the basis it proves the man-made climate change arguement) I accept that the climate is changing Ed. I accept that the temperature fluctuates and I also accept that the weather can throw up some unwanted variations on the norm, but please give me more evidence than showing me a film of the polar cap melting, but then convieniently forgetting to show us the satellite imagery that shows it reforming at a later date. Please don't use flooding around Britain in your argument when it has been proven that it didn't have anything to do with climate change and finally, before using the every expanding desert in China as a hook, read a GCSE history book.
Feel free to raise taxes to tackle the energy crisis that we are about to experience as a nation due to successive governments failing to invest in the grid, gladly raise taxes to rebuild our national industries and give the population of the country their pride, diginity and professions back, but please don't raise taxes because flawed scientific logic and poorly done research tells us that the sky will fall on our heads if we don't stop driving to work every day or leaving our central heating system on in the depths of winter. And you can admit it you know, those of us who aren't deafened by the screaming eco-friends can already see this is about tax and given a decade or so, even the eco-friends will know as well. Then there will be a problem though, what crisis can be thought up that the population needs to pay for? What other scientific evidence can be incorrectly analysed so governments of the world can sell credits to industry?
So this was due to global warming was it?
Not according to the Environment Agency: "Much of the upper catchment has steep sided valleys and gets high rainfall totals. The lower catchment is low lying and influenced by the tide. These factors combined mean that large areas of land and thousands of properties are at risk from flooding."
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/cy/ymchwil/llyfrgell/cyhoeddiadau/108762.aspx
Can anyone stick Dr in front of their name?
Since you are posting on here I thought I'd ask if you find it totally humiliating to have to serve a Prime Minister who lies and then seems willing to continue to appear insane by projecting a 0% rise in public spending.
The man is a lunatic. How can you stomach working for such a dishonest mad man? Surely it is time to finish him off and to find a decent leader for Labour?
I make my living from "renewable" energy and am utterly minted. Keep chucking our money at Wind Turbines and I'll keep banking it offshore.
Cheers mate