By Dan Wilson
With all eyes on the Norwich North by-election, the Brighton and Hove City Council by-election result in the Goldsmid ward might have passed you by. The Green party were concentrating on both contests, looking for indications of the General Election result next year in adjacent constituencies. They were equally cursed and blessed.
Norwich South is one of few seats the Green party think they can win at the General Election. But a miserable showing in next door Norwich North doesn’t augur well: they were pipped by UKIP into a shabby fifth place. The story was different in Hove’s Goldsmid.
That’s why MEP Caroline Lucas, the Green’s leader, was campaigning in a council by-election on polling day rather than concentrating on a national race. Hove’s Goldsmid ward borders Brighton Pavilion: Lucas is standing there in the hope of becoming the first Green MP at Westminster. In Goldsmid the Greens took the Conservative seat, pushing Labour into third place. The Greens are now the joint-opposition with Labour on the council with 13 seats apiece. The Conservatives hold 25 seats, the Liberals have 2 and there’s an Independent in the mix too. The Greens are ecstatic.
Lucas called the Green win “spectacular”: “It signals an unstoppable surge to elect the first Green MP at Westminster.” And hyperbole aside, she has a point: if the Greens gain a seat anywhere it will be Brighton Pavilion. That’s a constituency currently held by Labour.
Labour PPC Nancy Platts is running an energetic and well-organised campaign with a well-funded Green party at her heels. The withdrawal of Tory David Bull a few weeks ago reinforced the contest as a wide-open three horse race. Labour can win.
Many Labour colleagues may wonder if a sole Green victory is a bad thing. After all, Labour people worry about climate change, sustainability and small-g green issues too and a Green presence in Parliament could be an attractive catalyst to pushing them up the agenda. One Green MP isn’t the end of the world. Right?
Yet the Brighton experience over the last decade demonstrates why we must mobilise against the Greens: they generally take their vote from Labour. Progressive voters can easily desert us and go Green, especially when they’re upset with the Labour government.
Secondly, we’re looking PR in the face. A proportional system is good news for niche parties. Right now, even with FPTP, the Greens are a credible challenge to Labour in Norwich, Lewisham, Brighton and Hove and Oxford. PR would make them realistic contenders in many other areas.
Much of the Green appeal is emotional. I’d be surprised if the well-dressed lady I saw last Thursday leaping from her Chelsea Tractor at a polling station, breathlessly declaring that she was going to vote Green, has any idea about the bulk of Green party policy. On close reading the Green manifesto is anti-capitalist, high tax, contradictory, uncosted and at times downright bizarre. They don’t talk about it much on their election leaflets.
Labour’s 12 years in power haven’t been glitteringly green but recent initiatives (such as Ed Milliband’s UK Low Carbon Transition Plan) are part of a positive green story we need to start telling. Labour policies will never be enough for die-hard environmentalists but traditional Labour instincts can lead us to being a green party. When we combine sound economics, our passion for public services and green credentials, we’ll not just beat the Greens but we’ll be stronger against the Liberals and Conservatives too.
Labour must become a green party. It’s time to start socking it to the Greens. We can, and should, become more conscious and cogent about the environment and climate change. If we let Lucas’s party become the default progressive party in areas disaffected by Labour, we’ll rue that in the years to come. Red must be green too.
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Pathetic. Really is.
I'm 90% certain God exists for example, so prove to me that they do not?
First, south of 30 Latitude, the satellite observation of temperature has observed a trend of the troposphere not heating but cooling and that includes the amplification impact of water vapour; the most abundant greenhouse gas of all.
To support an increase of greenhouse gases responsible for increasing global temperatures then this would be observed everywhere on the planet. It is not. It is observed only north of 30 Latitude.
Secondly, global temperatures have not even tracked Hansen's C-model curve (the lowest impact of CO2 on temperature) presented in the late 80s. The actual man-made CO2 levels are much higher than Hansen's original expectation.
Lastly, the UK Hadley Centre (based at the UK Met office) has presented evidence of 2.3 fold increase in solar magnetic flux activity since 1901 to the IPCC. This was not included in any of the IPCC's models despite a very strong correlation to rising temperatures from some of the world's most eminent meteorologists. That fact alone makes me deeply suspicious of the motives of the IPCC. Factor in also that CO2 concentration in atmosphere is only included in the models from 1970 when ice core information is available going back 30,000 years is also a major bone of contention with meterologists.
Observationally, it is has been noted that our planetary neighbour, Mars, has also seen an increase in surface temperatures over the same time period. Find the papers on the net; again; it has not been explained by anyone in the 'climate change' camp; why would that be?
I mentioned African desertification (or lack of it), I did work on a major meteorological exercise in the Sahel region during the 1990s to install the networks for many remote climate monitoring stations in Nigeria as a private contractor on the back of NOAA/International Fund for Agriculture research money. These were combined with satellite temperature observations.
The conclusions were something I took an interest in over the coming years; you can imagine alarm bells began to ring in my mind when hearing some of the more alarmist climate change speculation.
This chart always stuck with me and sparked my curiosity on many claims being made to do with man-made climate change as they fly in the face of 'logical conclusions'.
Sahel Greening
Care to comment on that? Massive greening on a continental scale makes some of the claims of the climate change fanatics all the more questionnable.
Man-made CO2 is heating up the planet is not a fact in my eyes; considering it accounts for 0.27% of all greenhouse gases. Sure, there are many arguments to pursue economic development along the lines of not polluting the planet, however, I feel there are factors not within man's control that are heating the planet.
Which would make any actions on our part rather pointless.
"0.27% of all greenhouse gases" (carbon dioxide, that is).
Something doesn't quite add up here : if CO2 = 0.27 per cent of greenhouse gases (gg) the other gg must equal 99.73 per cent = 369 x the CO2 contribution.
If CO2 = 374 ppm, then the other gg must = (374 x 369) = 138,000 ppm : getting on for 14 per cent.
From memory, nitrogen accounts for 78 per cent (volume) and oxygen 21 per cent (volume again). I don't think that there is a helluva lot difference in the 'by volume' and 'by mass' proportions. It seems a bit difficult to squeeze 14 per cent of other gg into the one per cent remaining ....
The only explanation can be that the other greenhouse gases are not uniformly dispersed throughout the atmosphere. Is this the case? Are they sat in a layer maybe 70 miles up?
By efficacy, the most potent gas is water vapour; clouds.
Man is responsible for - 0.001%. Nature: 99.999%
Next; methane, mankind's contribution: 18% of all occurring methane; 82% in nature.
Next carbon dioxide, mankind's contribution: 3.23% of all CO2; 96.77% naturally occuring
Next Nitrogen Dioxide: mankind's contribution: 5%; nature 95%
In terms of man-made greenhouse gases with all greenhouse gases combined by volume: 0.27% naturally occuring gases: 99.73%
The figure you quoted Peter was all CO2.
Oh, and the CO2; half of it is absorbed by the world's ocean's.
Source: US Department of Energy, 2000.
These figures are .......figures.
The assertion about man being responsible for only 3.23% of carbon dioxide is utter garbage (whether it came from the US Department of Energy or not) unless it means the actual CO2 that we breathe out....? But you've not provided the link so we can't test the assertion. The proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third over the last century. Presumably, this is caused by a century of increasing animal flatulence? Or magic cosmic carbon dust from Mars? Or Atlantis rising again?
But don't take my word for it, here is the Royal Society:
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=6777:
"Before industrialization carbon dioxide made up about 0.03 per cent of the atmosphere or 280ppm (parts per million). Today, due to human influence it is about 380ppm. Even these tiny quantities have resulted in an increase in global temperatures of 0.75ºC (see misleading argument 1). "
The Royal Society and the vast majority of the world's scientists, climatologists, geologists, or Mike Thomas? Your choice.
I notice you have dropped the GISS temperature claims then? Like I say, be careful what you post as evidence. I take it that you also noticed how they had to downgrade their US temperature readings due to errors in their models.
Increases in CO2 output (which we have established is largely a natural occurrence of the Carbon Cycle) is proven to lag about 600-800 years from a rise in temperatures; so a greenification (which probably occurred during the Medieval Warm period) would account for much of the increase in CO2.
And that's something the IPCC have never really explained; why did the climate in the 12th and 13th centuries rapidly warm? Conversely during the Little Ice Age (15th and 16th century) why did temperature drastically cool? Also; why does Mann's hockey stick chart (now widely discredited) fail to account for these warming and cooling periods in history?
Perhaps because they do not fit the theory; that is bad science.
The argument here is what is man's contribution. I gave the US Department of Energy figures; look anywhere it will say the same thing. Most CO2 is naturally occurring and the biggest most powerful greenhouse gases of all is water vapour; then methane and then carbon dioxide.
The proportion of CO2 has increased from about 280ppm (at the start of the industrial revolution) to 380ppm now. Incidentally, 380ppm is half the amount speculated in the late 1980s from the Hansen models. Of that 380ppm; using the DOE figures then man is responsible for about 12ppm. Twelve parts per million.
I am not alone either; the skeptics are growing in number and eminence.
"I am a skeptic. Global warming has become a new religion." - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever
"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain sceptical."
"The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system" Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, formerly of NASA and has authored more than 190 studies; she has been called “among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years".
...there are another 650 climate scientists and meteorologists that went on the record in a 2008 Senate minority report to cast their doubts on current climate change causes.
I could also list many ex-IPCC members as eminent climate scientists that are now dismissive of the IPCC climate change consensus.
I'm not denying the planet has gone through a period of warming; what I am very sceptical about is man's influence which I think is so negligible that trying to reverse it would be inconsequential.
I am having trouble understanding why you are not linking to the report from which you are quoting data....
Incidentally, the point is about climate change so just continually quoting what the earth's biosphere is made up of is completely irrelevant (we can get that in Key Stage 3 textbooks, thank you.) It is changes that are important.
You are right - I missed your 'man made' qualification.
Thank you for the time that you took to supply the information.
Over to your opponents, who I am sure will have an 'equal and opposite' battery of numbers. Looks interesting.
Where's Guy M? As I recall, he's dead opposite to you on climate change/global warming.
I am a grad in this field and know the difference between dogma and science. So here you are, use your irrefutable evidence and prove the nay-sayers wrong...or it dogma you are preaching?
You know Ralph, rereading what he's written, I think he might be clubbing me into the denier bracket because I challenged his statements on events caused by climate change.
Truely bizarre.
If you're aware of the coastal issues around the UK, then you will know that the coastal defences put in place half a century ago have been neglected. They have not been maintained sufficiently and have led to the damage caused to the coastline. Again, nothing to do with climate change.
The rising level of the seas is happening so slowly (at the moment) that it isn't climate change causing the problem, it is the fact we are an island between two violent seas. The issue of coastal defences plays second fiddle to the CO2 argument, which in my opinion is a mistake. Rebuilding the coastal defences and maintaining them is a challenge not taken seriously by politicians because if they do take the issue seriously, they then have to explain why they have neglected the issue for so long and why it has taken a climate change debate to make them sit up and listen.
By exiting any debate ffinlo and simply posting up a link, you are doing more damage than good to the arguments of climate change. Whether the world leaders are taking notice of the issue or not, it is the actions of the population that will make the key difference, and unfortunately using the poor argument and badly put across examples is alienating people from what really matters. If that is your idea of fighting for a cause, please do the environment a favour and stay out of an argument that you are damaging rather than helping.
"Apologies that I'm not prepared to get into a detailed discussion with you all about why the earth isn't flat."
A shame, had it not been argued it would never have been accepted that the world wasn't flat, if you can't debate on a debating site, what is the point?
I bet Galileo and Newton would have given thier left arms for a fair and open debate. It was dogma that prevented them from doing so in a similar manner to you asking people to accept your assumptions.
I worked on the North norfolk Coast and studied the coastal erosion and sediment deposition as well, it has occured for millions of years, how do you measure the specific amount caused by climate change as opposed to natural erosion, and how do you quantify and justify it's root effect. How do you show linkage from CO2 to the local impact? What data do you have, does the data stand up? Was it statistically tested?
Environmental degradation will cost us far more than money and nobody has slagged you off, they just questioned you in a democracy.
It is the sound of a billion Chinese laughing as we make our dismal, globally insignificant manufacturing sector less competitive whilst they continue to commission a new coal-fired power station every week.
Yes, I know I'm "off message" but what's the point of having green policies if they cripple our economy and put more people out of work?
While we cling to an old manufacturing dogma we fail to see the opportunities slapping us the face. There's a massive opportunity to develop new technologies, from clean coal to new wind, to tidal, to biomass.
The Chinese are opening new coal fired stations (so lets develop and patent the technologies for clean coal) - they're also developing renewables at the rate of knots (so let's become expert manufacturers and flog them parts). We're the Labour party for goodness sake - let's help create the manufacturing capacity of the future, rather than just moaning that the car industry's moving somewhere else. By promoting new industries we can protect jobs; by saving energy we can save money and help protect low income families; by penalising waste we can build the revenues necessary to continue delivering services.
Or we could wait until it's too late; until we're forced to act because climate circumstances insist, at which point the cost and suffering will be greater - as Stern made clear in 2006, and has made clearer since.
The opportunities to renew our economy are in the environmental sector. The Government has started to realise this - hopefully you will too.
Government is about looking ahead and creating strategies to succeed, as well as delivering short term gain in the present. This is the Labour tradition I'm proud of.
If you have a better set of suggestions for adapting to climate change and ensuring growth I'd love to hear them.
The future's bright - the future's green.
We are already delivering the greenest government Britain's ever had - but we should be doing more, and doing it more quickly. Dan mentions the Low Carbon Plan, but remember also: the Stern Report, the world's first green budget, massive investments in wind and renewables, councils now recycle, investments in insulation, and recently the eco-towns announcement - to name but a few policies that are delivering change. This gives us real moral weight when negotiating a deal at Copenhagen later this year.
BUT - climate change is urgent.
Government knows this but is too scared of the electoral impact of doing more than they are. Personally I'm more scared for the planet and my kids and grandkids.
Government models fail to factor in global tipping points (presumably because they're too variable), and yet when you consider the impact of, for example, total rainforest destruction, methane and CO2 release from under the ice sheet etc then frankly it's time to start panicing. We have around a generation (and a short one at that - 10-15 years) to save humanity from catastrophic climate change. (More tipping points and rainforest info at www.ffinlo.org)
For me, PR will be a welcome change in the country, not least because it will help to deliver cross party agreements on changing Britain into a properly low carbon country. If one party takes radical action it will suffer at the polls - but together we'll be stronger (in this at least).
Having said that, Dan is absolutely right that the party has woken up to environmentalism rather late. It's telling that many in the older generation still regard action on CO2 as something similar to changing footpaths legislation. The younger generation (and Ed should be commended) understands the urgency.
Sadly the government is also schizophrenic on the issue. We know climate change is huge. Yet we allow the police to abuse the rights and liberties of people who're actually getting off their backsides and trying to make a difference. Anti-terror laws were always going to be misused - and they have been at Kingsnorth (amongst other places). (Allowing the police and council to shut down the Big Green Gathering on spurious health and saftey grounds is ridiculous and counterproductive). Our addiction to flying and driving should be challenged, but we need to find ways of growing and stimulating a low carbon economy.
10 years ago very few people had heard of climate change - now everyone understands that there's a danger (even if levels of understanding vary). It is extremely likely that within 5 to 10 years people will start to feel or see very significant impacts. We've already seen increased desertification of Africa and Australia, rampant floods in New Orleans, crazy fires in Oz and California, and disastrous flooding in home around Britain (nowhere worse than Boscastle, Corwall.) These sorts of events will become frequent.
Being 'green' will become increasingly important from a tactical electoral point of view under a PR system as Dan says.
But beyond that: while elections are still won on education, health, economy, and law and order today - I believe that within 10 years action on climate change will become an increasingly important fifth element for voters in elections (I already know many people who factor environmentalism into their voting choices).
Within 10 years.
Within 15 it might be as important as education.
Within 25 it might be pretty much the only thing that matters. Because if you ain't got a planet, you've got nowhere to stick the schools.
We need to start that change now.
Nuclear and clean coal are important (I never thought I'd say that - but climate change is that immediate and that urgent now that we have to make the best of a bad job).
BUT MOST IMPORTANT is building/empowering low carbon communities, emphasising microgeneration, introducing personal carbon quotas, increasing the cost of carbon tonnes, and generally putting the tools to make a difference into the hands of local people and local communities (so they can see the impacts of their lifestyles and make changes). This will all happen - the question is when.
Many young people today (young socially and politically active people) have seen Labour in power for 12 years; they can only remember Labour in power. They have prioritised climate change already, and have decided we are failing to act quickly enough.
We need to listen to them, enage with their ideas - and make changes within our policies. (And stop letting the police beat them up.)
Care to comment that all the data points to a plateau of temperature increases since 1998 from satellite observation and also that the planet has entered a cooling climate phase?
This flies in the face of even the most mild of the IPCC climate models, the observed concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and also the theoretical contribution mankind is making to that CO2 concentration.
Africa, the Sahal region, is currently in the 10th year of greening. Sea levels around the world are not rising despite the predictions. Temperatures south of 20 Latitude are still cooling (and never actually increased at all throughout the 1980s and 1990s). The increasing body of evidence that the sun's influence on global temperatures has been grossly underestimated and is gaining more weight with meteorologists as the explanation for the uneven and localised increase in global temperatures.
Observations have shown that solar radiance is also attributing to an increase in Martian surface temperatures despite no increase of greenhouse gases in the Martian atmosphere.
A increasing incidence of a greenhouse gas is not a localised event; global temperature would show a uniform increase.
Climate Change science cannot unequivocally point so far and relies on a 'de facto' cause of recent temperature increases; let alone determine man's contribution. Whilst pollution controls and moving away from oil dependency are valid arguments from an economic viewpoint - the 'low carbon' solution is one that is looking increasingly fragile.
Lastly any schoolchild at GCSE level would tell you that the carbon sublimates in the ice sheets would be held as? Carbonates because CO2 dissolves in water. Seeing as these carbonates are heavier than water; their suspension in ice would result in?
Those sinking to the ocean floor where most of the prehistoric carbonate actually are. Unless a lot of heat or oxidation agent (like a strong acid) is supplied to free to the CO2 from the Carbonate itself. Seeing as the oceans are fairly cold and also heavily alkali; this is unlikely to happen.
I'll just take one of your claims. The solar activity myth (solar activity does affect earth's temperatures- of course it does!- there's just no evidence of continually increasing activity). Here is an article in the New Scientist that contains a link to actual research.
Solar myth
To quote:
"there is no correlation between solar activity and the strong warming during the past 40 years. Claims that this is the case have not stood up to scrutiny (pdf document).
Direct measurements of solar output since 1978 show a steady rise and fall over the 11-year sunspot cycle, but no upwards or downward trend .
Similarly, there is no trend in direct measurements of the Sun's ultraviolet output and in cosmic rays. So for the period for which we have direct, reliable records, the Earth has warmed dramatically even though there has been no corresponding rise in any kind of solar activity."
Now, I'd love to have links to the research- not Daily Telegraph or Spectator articles- for the other claims you make. I'll put them on my blog over the next few weeks with great pleasure.
ps I love your assertion that temperature rises (which you deny exist but then go on to explain....) would be uniform if climate change was occurring. Actually, the science predicts the biggest impacts will be at the poles and guess what....the observations back that up.
Funny how NASA data- yes, NASA, i.e. really clever people with the best equipment available- doesn't suggest that we have entered a 'global cooling period'. Although 2008 was the coolest year since..........2000, it was still one of the warmest years on record and the 'cooling' was absolutely in line with natural oscillations of the earth's temperatures (El Nina and El Nino.)
Again, here's a paper from these scientist guys analysing NASA data.
This is the original Hadley Centre research.
Solar Magnetic Flux
Incidentally, sunspot activity follows a 22 year cycle; 11 which is from trough to peak. Due the Earth wobbling on its axis (known as procession) in an uneven manner and the fluid variants in the Earth's magnetosphere; this is a very important consideration.
Seeing as the IPCC models only include Northern Hemisphere temperatures and only include CO2 from the 1970s; this research was not included. They also mysteriously downgraded solar variation from 40% to 20%.
As for NASA; these would be the people that due to an error in their calculations said that the hottest recorded temperature were from the last 10 years; in fact they were not. 1934 being the hottest on record.
"Really? Your article also states that CO2 is an effect of warming not a cause. Careful with that evidence you post up."
The article says:
"Analysis of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica shows a very strong correlation between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and temperatures. But what causes what? Proponents of solar influence point out that that temperatures sometimes change first. This, they say, suggest that warming causes rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, not vice versa. What is actually happening is a far more complicated interaction."
It is merely describing a viewpoint- that of proponents of solar radiation as an explanation of the temperature rises of the last thirty years- which it goes on to forcibly rebut. That you are willing to so brazenly misrepresent an article shoots your credibility I'm afraid.
And as for your point about NASA, it's just silly. And fine, good to have the Hadley data. What does it prove exactly? It almost the same as the NASA data. So what?
My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it.
"They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”
and...
"Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress."
John Theon: Former Head of NASA GISS, eminent atmospheric scientist and Hanson's boss.
Full Details here
If you are going to use NASA data might I recommend satellite temperature data and also their solar observatory work? Hansen has pretty much been shown to be nothing more than an alarmist and has done more damage than good to the 'cause'.
Also many more NASA climate scientists have recently gone on the public record to voice their dissent of current climate science. I can provide a list of eminent climate scientists if needs must.
I could also dig out Stern's blasting of the opaque behaviour of the IPCC as well if you feel the need to switch to their behaviour and their 'findings'.
Looking at the first NASA graph (1880 - 2008) on temperature anomalies, it appears there was fluctuation in a range between 1880 and 1910, then a strong rise to 1942, a slight decline to 1976 and then sustained growth to 2008.
Is there anything to which these different trends - all of which occupy a period of around 30 years each - can be attributed?
The Great Global Warming Swindle- crock of the week. It is in the last minute or so of the video but I really recommend watching the whole thing and all of greenman3610's other videos......
Incidentally ,the paper I linked to analysing the NASA data does not say that solar activity does not influence the earth's climate. It says that solar activity alone cannot explain the temperature rises we have been seeing since the 1970s. There's an important difference. The video also covers this point.
Just guessing what you are getting at......but the same junk science recurs over and over....apologies if I make too great an assumption of the angle you are coming from.....
I wasn't actually 'coming from anywhere' - I noticed that there were four 'phases', if you like, between 1880 and 2008, and it was an innocent enquiry because I thought that you may have an idea of the cause/correlation of the phases.
I have a personal code : if I don't know something, I don't say it and, conversely, if I think that there are prima facie grounds for challenging a statement, I'll say so and state what the evidence appears to me to be. I certainly would not hide between an innocent enquiry and then 'pounce', if you see what I mean. That's tricks, dirty.
You may care, if you have the time, to look at my comment on Mike Thomas' CO2 = 0.27 per cent of greenhouse gases statement.
Climate change has nothing to do with the recent floods around Britain and has more to do with poor planning and people concreting over their driveways.
Forest fires in both Australia and California are part of a natural cycle, certain trees require forest fires to enable them to spread their seed and survive. You might want to do a bit of reading up before you start banding round that as a climate change argument.
Increased desertification has more to do with deforestation and natural changes, which is why Egypt used to be lush fields and is now virtually all desert.
The floods in New Orleans? That area has been flooding naturally for thousands of years, but in their wisdom the US government thought they could hold back nature. Its a natural flood plain and the flood barriers failed - nothing to do with climate change.
If those really are the best examples of climate change you can come up with, I'd suggest you need more education on the subject because climate change isn't causing fires and floods. How many people died last year as a result of climate change btw? Be very interested in your answer.
And we have to prepare for climate change effecting the shores of Britain, rather than Milliband's mental ideas of building wind farms and building non-environmentally friendly eco towns, maybe we should be concentrating on what will actually happen. Sea levels have risen 120m in the past 20,000 years (an average of 6mm a year) and are currently rising at around 4mm a year, an increase of 2mm since the mid 90's. Over the next 50 years, even if the eustatic changes double, it isn't going to raise the level of the sea enough to break through coastal defences, but that relies on their being coastal defences.
Getting priorities right in the first instance might not be a bad idea, and what is a bad idea is this article, turning the environmental issues that surround us at the moment into a political issue to try and win votes.
http://www.labourlist.org/government_arguing_voting_reform_right_not_expedient
It's all a con to extract money, a bit like speeding fines, if we wanted to stop speeding, drop the fine and double it to a minimum of 6 points and keep the same system of 12 points and you get a ban. Overnight speeding would disappear, but it's not about the speeding it's about the money, greent ax is the same.
At the moment everything regarding the future of the party is looking distinctly blue.
Third Runway, London Airport
Ring any bells. One of the chief cheerleaders for this project is former New Labour Blairite toady Clive (now "lord" for services to grovelling) Soley.
I rest my case