In the meantime, you may be interested to read an article in the Sunday Telegraph from the Director of the Great Global Warming Swindle in which he respinds to critics of the film, and asks why they have been so feeble.
This letter from the Sunday Telegraph illustrates the dangers for the Conservatives of this issue. At the moment people believe that the Conservative want to tax EVERYONE off planes. That is clearly not correct, but this person believes it.
My wife and I have just returned from visiting our son and his family in
New Zealand. If the Tories believe we would vote for a party which plans to make
such trips unaffordable then they do not live on the same planet as us, nor, I
suspect, as many other other voters.
33 comments:
"An Inconvenient Truth " is that the Tories are as likly to ever pursue real 'green' policies as John Reid is to win 'haircut of the year'. Have you seen that infra-red pic of Zac Goldsmith's house? Perhaps he warms it up with extacurricular activity?
Here's an idea, Iain. Get Curbs to sign-up the Desperate Housewives for his first team. must be cheaper than paying linesmen!
"If the Tories believe we would vote for a party which plans to make
such trips unaffordable then they do not livr on the same planet as us"
Said Telegraf reader has lost the plot. The point is that Bluey-green Dave SAYS he believes (when he's not doing short-hops in private planes that is) that if the reader is allowed to carry on, like he and others have been doing, then they (or their kids)will be dead (lot living) on the same planet.
I wasn't aware that the response had been 'feeble'. Maybe it was in the Telegraph, which insists Global Warming is poppycock, but elsewhere the response was vociferous. Iain, if you want to waste your afternoon, watch these two films, but they just show the crazier ends of the spectrum and you won't learn a lot. It's like speaking to Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley in order to get an accurate picture of Northern Ireland. If you really want to know the ins and outs of the global warming 'debate', why not read a decent book or two instead of watching biased, hysterical films?
Iain, the gentleman visting New Zealand WOULD be hit by Tory plans as he regularly flys out there to visit his son's family. He's a frequent flyer and would therefore suffer under your policy just for wanting to visit his son.
The Tories should take a strong stand against the socialists who are using the environment as an excuse to take us back to the stone age and cripple businesses.
If you would like to listen to a short interview with Durkin:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/03/interview-with-martin-durkin.html
Iain, you will become totally confused and may need a reboot.
I suggest you look at junkscience.com to see several articles on 'global warming' from which you might deduce that there is a lot of complex science involved and not all the essential data has been extrapolated to produce a proper predictive model for the future. Meanwhile politicians and polemicists are using the issue to their own advantage.
Politicians should stop funding the 'global warming' industry as if it an established fact, and fund all research into factors which might effect future weather patterns; meanwhile they should accept Attlee's request to Laski, "a period of silence on your part would be welcome."
The 20th century was blighted by failed large scale experiments by politicians using millions as guinea pigs; isn't it time to end this nonsense?
The Tories have no one to blame but themselves if this daft policy is misunderstood. They missed a great opportunity of keeping their mouths shut.
That pic on your front page...is your heed really that massive?
Iain, You appear to be attracting muppets and too many "Anonymouses" on your site. Can I suggest a stronger form of comment moderation.
Back to Cameron. If I were a card carrying Conservative, I would be encouraging the party to start talking about "low-taxes, smaller government, less red tape for businesses and son on".
Rather than tax people off planes, governments should use the tax system to improve planes. Turboprops much more efficient, and fuel concious, than pure jets should be encouraged by giving manufacturers and operators tax incentives. Would an extra hour or so on a journey be really that bad?
Excellent idea, Iain. Please take your time to get your thoughts in order before posting.
I watched Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" along with "Fahrenhype 911", the night before the presidential elections.
Doing so influenced my vote, conclusively.
If you are man enough to go beyond the cognitive dissonance, as was I, you will be better for having done it.
"The point is that Bluey-green Dave SAYS he believes (when he's not doing short-hops in private planes that is) that if the reader is allowed to carry on, like he and others have been doing, then they (or their kids)will be dead (lot living) on the same planet."
If Dave had ever said that would be an idiot. Even the IPCC Report (Summary for Policymakers), the high council of alarmism have reduced their projection to a 3 C temperature rise & 15 inches of sea level. Hardly megadeaths.
Jeremy is exactly right about what the Tories should be saying. The SNP in Scotland are saying much of this (though the Tories aren't) & it seems likely that "socialist" Scotland will vote for it.
Ridiculous that Iain Dale remains in the Conservative party. Tackling global warming is a central plank of the Tory party now and rightly so.
How can anyone believe Jeremy Corbyn's eccentric brother who says the climate right now is just part of a 22 year cycle and nothing to be alarmed about?
Do you remember a winter as warm as this one? Do you remember animals being with no eyes or no food because they were born out of season?
And their basis for rubbishing man-made global warming is sun activity by looking at what people said hundreds of years ago about the weather and about sun activity.
These people are the new flat earth society. There will always be people who go against the grain, just to feel important. They have no right to put the planet at risk to feed their egos.
Ian, you're surely not going to study the evidence before making a decision are you? Don't waste your time be green and believe it. Evidence is no substitute for fervour.
D.
Michael O'Leary seems to have the sanest view on this new religion.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/17/noleary17.xml
The character you quote on air travel taxes is Tim Wells. He wrote the same letter to The Daily Mail earlier in the week and was featured in a knocking piece on Cameron.
I'm wondering whether he's a NuLab astro-turfer or just another ConHome whinger.
"Do you remember a winter as warm as this one? (Anon at 4.27)
No, I don't - but from research apparently the winter of 1868 was even warmer - so what's the excuse for that then? Wasn't flying or driving, was it?
This green stuff has become a new religion that no one is allowed to question. If Al Bore was that worried about global warming he wouldn't be using giant gas guzzling cars to travel 400 yards, as he did recently in London. Surely, that's the inconvenient truth - hypocrisy rules!
Richard Gray's article in the Sunday Telegraph is also worth a read as it attempts to summarise the overall position we are now in..
I think the measure of the the C4 documentaries success is the warning issued by leading scientists not to exaggerate the projected impacts of global warming. And the fact it is still getting press coverage and blog interest.
The political dangers, to project Cameron, here are massive and some of us have been shouting about this in the hope of being heard before it is too late. Perhaps if the Conservative party had some high placed Scientists and Engineers it might understand the nature of scientific argument and its attached risks better. ( If I'm wrong on this please let me know. )
I'm also about to rewatch the C4 documentary with a more critical eye. It will of course take much more information to form a half decent view. I'm not convinced either way - yet.
However politically I think the party is on the verge of committing green suicide.
This issue, whether its true or not, has been the perfect stealth issue for the fascist left to have a chance at regaining control over everyone's lives. Its the Conservative Party's job to stop that happening - not to organise it.
Man in The Shed - I'm with you 100%. "Climate change" is indeed the perfect, perfect, perfect stealth issue to grotesquely gain absolute control over people's lives. And to drive us back to the Stone Age.
Already, those new lightbulbs give off approximately the amount of light that gaslight used to give out in Victorian times. It's a start.
What is the point of trying to destroy human progress,I wonder? What is the end game?
Those new lightbulbs are a perfect example of the kind of silly bandwagon jumping being done.
1. They're not suitable for a lot of purposes.
2. They take more energy to make and their life isn't that long if they are constantly switched on and off, or used in fittings where they can overheat.
3. There will be a huge cost in installing new fittings because a lot of the existing ones aren't suitable.
4. They contain mercury, so should have special disposal arrangements.
Adding up all the costs and CO2 burden, they're great in the right places, but that's not everywhere.
The Tories, and in particular Cameron are making a huge mistake by going in for this Green stuff to the extent they have.
If the Tories don't dump Cameron, he is going to lose the next election for them.
He doesn't seem to have any of the values middle England Conservatives live by.
Life on Mars fan eh. Has to be said Iain that, aside from your politics, you are a man of good taste
"the high council of alarmism have reduced their projection to a 3 C temperature rise & 15 inches of sea level. Hardly megadeaths."
"You sound like a very domestic sort of scientist Neil Craig.
A sustained 3 degrees celcius increase in global temperatures will create monstrous extensions of deserts both into tropical forests and temperate zones. Another 15 inches of oceanic expansion will flood vast areas of bangladesh, for example. Not that I'd imagine you'd care much about that.
And his football, paulburging, do not forget his football!
Anonymous 10:27 - incursion of deserts into rain forests! Whoaaah! How many millennia would that take, or is it going to happen by Christmas?
You know what? With all this global warming, why aren't my mangoes ripe yet? They are still green and I demand an explanation. I mean, why does nothing ever work out for me?
Towcestrian: "Michael O'Leary seems to have the sanest view on this new religion."
I don't need to quote Mandy Rice-Davies on that. O'Leary's opinion is clearly biased towards his business, and fair enough, its his busines, but that doesn't mean that his argument isn't nonsense.
He complains that he shouldn't be penalised because his industry isn't the biggest emitter of CO2. He says that's the electricity industry. Well have a look at your electricity bill, there's VAT applied. And the electricity companies pay VAT on their fuel.
The next biggest emitter are cars. Well we pay VAT on our cars and on the fuel for our cars, and duty on the fuel, and VAT on the duty.
Yet air travel is completely free from VAt and duty (apart from APD). Airlines pay no duty or VAt on their fuel, tickets are zero-rated for VAT, and they don't even pay VAT on their third party bills for maintenance.
No wonder he is against equalising the tax with cars because that would undermine his entire business. The reason it can be cheaper to be flown by a professional pilot in a $30 million plane with the costs of air crew and ground staff rather than driving to the same destination in your car is because car travel is more heavily taxed. Remove that difference and the cheap airline business would probably collapse.
On sea levels and deserts and rainforests.
If --IF-- the new IPCC is making correct forecast, As i understand it sea levels will rise by 2100 by between about 8 and 12 inches.
Sea Levels:
(1) This is in fact just the usual sea level rise the world have been handling perfectly fine since the end of the last Ice Age some 18,000 years ago.
(2) Although some places are flatter and some are steeper than others, the average gradient of land climbing away from sea shores is about 10%. This means that if sea level goes up about 8 and 12 inches, the average HORIZONTAL encroachemnt by the sea onto what is now land will be between 7 feet and 10 feet. Ideed,even if it rises by 15 inches, the encroachment will only be about 13 or 14 feet.
Panic Over!
Deserts and Rainforests
If the word warms up, more water will evaporate off the oceans to form rainclouds... it's the deserts that will shrink and the rainforests that will grow.
Panic Over!
Also, who gives a crap? It will be over a long period of time, as it always is (not a Gore-year)and our old Earth will adjust to it. They'll still be singing Chinese opera in Singapore a hundred years from now. It's OK.
It's really not important to the main players in this game if Global Warming is man-made or not. The central point is that we are running out of cheap energy in the US and the UK - US Oil production peaked in the 1970s and UK North Sea Oil will be finished in 10-15 yrs.
Plan Part A - invading Iraq (for their oil) and Afghanistan (to build a pipeline) is working to an extent but it is not the only answer.
Plan Part B - A vast reduction in consumption and stimulation of alternative energy (non fossil fuel based) innovation is the point of all this global warming stuff. i.e. to persuade public opinion of the need to change..
That is the point..
Can't wait to hear Cameron's campaign against the "evil" Sun. He claims he wants to get to grips with the problem of climate change. Well the Sun is the problem so will he be taking a trip to go have a look?
"A sustained 3 degrees celcius increase in global temperatures will create monstrous extensions of deserts both into tropical forests and temperate zones. Another 15 inches of oceanic expansion will flood vast areas of bangladesh,"
Says who?
During the Late Roman warming, when it was warmer than now North Africa was the breadbasket of the Empire. Increased temperature means more water in the air & thus more rain. Increased CO2 means faster growing plants.
On another site I was informed that 15 inches would drown virtually all of Bangladesh - I suspect all the alarmists using this figure are equally ignorant of the actuality. In any case the Dutch came up with a solution some time ago.
I'm pleased someone has pointed out the issues of overheating and of mercury in the new light bulbs.
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