Tory MP Tim Yeo has surely been the victim of a cruel practical joke. Yeo, a
former environment minister, is well known for his campaign against climate
change. He wants domestic flights to be scrapped and his website boasts of his
commitment to the planet. Yet what do we find in the latest Bentley magazine?
Somebody calling themselves Tim Yeo, MP for South Suffolk, has been test driving
the Bentley Continental Flying Spur. He sinks into the warm embrace of its
leather seats and takes it on a golfing jolly. The Bentley does about 16mpg and
has carbon emissions that rival those of a jumbo jet. Surely the real Tim Yeo
would have mentioned this?
I assume Mr Yeo will be donating his fat fee from Bentley to erasing his carbon footprint. What gets me though is why Bentley think that getting Tim Yeo to test drivce one of their cars would encoruage anyone to buy one!
The Bentley market is very small, some might say 'exclusive'.
ReplyDeletePresumably the Bentley motor company feel that it is only people like Tim Yeo who would buy one of their vehicles.
They are probably right.
Spare a thought, please. On his rare visits to this country, the poor chap has to get to the golf club somehow.
ReplyDeleteWhat troubles the Hitch is just how Dubya whould have greeted Tim yeo if he had become prime minister of the UK
ReplyDelete"Yo Yeo"?
Do as I say, not as I do?
ReplyDeleteWe all hate Bentley drivers, but the fact is the annual carbon footprint of a 16 mpg car is about the same as 2 economy class transatlantic flights.
ReplyDeleteWhy the Tim Yeo obsession, Iain?
ReplyDeleteI have brought one entirely on his say so - was this wrong?
ReplyDeleteIt won't stop the Boy Cameron of keeping on, or the Tory blues of South Suffolk for that matter.
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of your criticisms of Tim Yeo, Iain, but it does rather seem, having read your comments on climate change generally, that you're one of the Deniers. Is this true? Are you really rejecting the mass of evidence and the weight of opinion in the vast majority of the scientific establishment?
ReplyDeleteOr, dare I suggest, are you just happy to let the planet burn in the sure knowledge that by the time the air runs out, you'll be long buried?
We should be told.
Machiavelli, your last comment is not worthy. First of all let's cut the language of the left. I am no more a climate change denier than I am a holocause denier. I do not deny climate change is taking place but I am sceptical that it is all man made. Climate change has existed for since the creation of the planet so I do not fall for the line that it is all man made. I have covered this subject extensively elsewhere on the blog so won't repeat it all here.
ReplyDeleteTim Yeo 's motto is "Do what I say, not what I do".
ReplyDeleteWhy the fuss?
99% of all MPs appear to have the same principle... which is one of the many reasons why we don't trust them..
They are all the same the way they want US to reduce our carbon but dont want it applied to THEM.
ReplyDeleteMachiavelli
ReplyDeleteThe reasons why Tim Yeo is shown up every now and again in this blog are
1. Not everyone believes it is right for an MP to travel the world playing golf when taxpayers give him a full time salary to work on behalf of his constituents.
2. It is hypocritical to chair a Select Committee that regularly calls for air travel to be restricted while brazenly writing in the FT about all the golfing trips one takes around the world.
Iain isn't denying climate change; he and the others posting on this thread are simply highlighting the inconsistency of a politician who talks green but acts otherwise.
But as we know Iain a Bentley is a VW under the skin and VW will soon be a family coompany owned by Ferdinand Piech through his Porsche family business.......so Yeo can claim he was simply driving a VW with Japanese tyres
ReplyDeleteMilibellend taken apart by Ainsworth on eco-babble this afternoon. Utterly ridiculed the budget measures, even Ed Balls mangaged to make an idiot of himself, Milinellend was woeful.
ReplyDeleteIf he is the second best to Brown then my conviction that NuLab will disintegrate after a massive election humiliation is strengthen further.
He was completely ineffectual and pathetic. Shows what an utter scam the climate-change issue has become when the loudest cheerleaders are exposed as the utter frauds it appears they are.
Not a green tax in the budget worth its salt.
I loved the exposing of the "carbon-neutral houses exemption from stamp duty" that Gordo included in his budget. Turns out taht in the small print was a line that resricted this to the next 5 years. How many carbon neutral houses are there? How many will be on the market in 5 years?
Another complete fabrication by Brown. Hope all those guardian writers are going to mention that tomorrow.
Fair enough Iain, but I'm just curious to know why you reject the case made by the great majority of scientists and accept the case made by a small minority of mavericks?
ReplyDeleteI just don't understand your call on this one, given your usually sound judgement.
You're quite right to say that climate changes naturally. However what you've failed to point out is that it's never changed so much so fast, and there has to be a reason for that.
Personally it's not something I'd want to take a chance on. You're comfortable doing so though...?
Well it will probably have less negative effect on sales than hiring Jeremy Clarkson
ReplyDeletemachiavelli you are just wrong. The case is total bogus. i.e. atmospheric carbon = warmer temps, or warmer temps = more carbon.
ReplyDeleteOr to put it another way, chicken = egg, egg = chicken. BUT which came or comes first. Ask your wonderful scientists. They will know, as they know everything, don't they?
Bentley - an excellent car, I hope to get one soon. 16 mpg is about what most 4x4s do anyway in reality.
ReplyDeleteAs for climate change - Science has little to do with it now, it is an exercise in politics (show me a politician who knows enough about science to be able to judge the evidence critically)
Mr Dale's animus against Mr Yeo may of course be entirely related to Mr Yeo's contradictory stances on global warming and the behaviour which is claimed to cause it.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't, however, explain some of the material which has turned up on other sites associated with Mr Dale:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iaindale/159923308/in/set-72057594052099262
What is it that has caused Nearly North Norfolk to fall out with Suffolk South?
I'm confused on climate change.
ReplyDeleteTotally confused because there is evidence either way (manmade or natural?) but an awful lot of people (some here) are 100% convinced they are 100% right (and they can't all be right and there are not that many experts surely?)
Anyone who makes statements on the subject with ringing certainty is a raving nutter imo and should be treated as such.. or a conman/woman...
You can fool some of the people etc.... ( refers to either side in the argument )
One of the difficulties here is that almost nobody under forty years old has had a science education at school that equips them even to understand the principles of the argument. Nowhere has the dumbing-down of educational standards over the past 30 or so years been more obvious than among the science subjects.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a climate scientist (I read Chemistry) but I know this..... if I had been standing here in the English midlands 10,000 years ago, I would have been standing on an icefield up to two miles thick.
Something happened about eight and a half thousand years ago that caused all the accumulated ice to disappear over the course of just a few years.
Whatever it was, it was nothing to do with mankind, and nothing to do with CO2. Most likely, it was the result of a variation in the Sun's climate (nobody really understands how it works), or a slight tilt in the earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles).
So it is, at the very least, possible that violent climate changes happen from time to time which are not only nothing to do with humankind, but there is damn-all we can do about them.
Most likely the present variation in temperature will prove to be just a little wobble. Research the holocene max, medieval warming, and the little ice-age, it's all happened before.
So there's no need to panic. The earth has been a lot warmer (and a lot colder) before than it is now, and will be again. That's an inescapable fact. And there is nothing we can do about it.
Yeo is just another reason not to vote Tory.
ReplyDeleteHow come you've got such a problem with Tim Yeo? Is it a David
ReplyDeleteDavis thing?
Good common sense, Rush is Right.
ReplyDeleteGuess Yeo knows what is wrong but likes badboy toys anyway.
Topics of global warming, POLLUTION and energy can be complex, lengthy and tiresome for many readers, so I pledge to keep it simple.
To summarize then. . .
CO2, at .02%, forget it or restore the Amazon rain forest.
E85, sweet corn and grains, make work project, starves the very poor. inefficient.
Nuclear, final safe waste storage problem remains a nightmare. Most leathal poison.
Ballard fuel cell, Laughable, except for heavy fleet use with a central depot, financed by public funding.
Coal use is popular and new generating plants are coming on stream in unstoppable numbers.
Sadly, clean coal tech is priority one, expensive, and AGW is divirting our focus from this pollution emergency.
======= Solutions. . .
High efficiency solar cells.
Wind generation.
Large format NiMH battery. EV automotive.
======== Lower demand with . . .
LED lighting
Demand switch water tanks
Microwave ovens
70* - 66* program thermostats.
===========
This basic list is open to your professional editing and improvement.
TonyGuitar.blogspot.com
or google SmallDeadAnimals
Keep it simple. = TG
How much longer do we have to contend with this arrogant preaching clown? Send him to the Lib Dems where he belongs.
ReplyDelete"Or, dare I suggest, are you just happy to let the planet burn in the sure knowledge that by the time the air runs out, you'll be long buried?"
ReplyDeleteIf the alternative is for mankind to return to the stone age then I'd prefer to burn. What is cooler? Hanging out in a car or a cave?
rush is right at 8:55 PM
ReplyDeleteYep, absolutely correct - and, with a hard-science background, I've spent a few years researching the topic.
The claims of (papal?) infallability made by the Milibrain and his ilk at DEFRA that anybody who does not sign up to his ideas is a heretic - reminds me more of the Spanish Inquisition than a rational man.
Maybe Tim has a negative carbon footprint, so he ought to donate the money to, er, Bentley.
ReplyDeleteOr cut down a tree or two.
I'm thinking of forming a company to help people with negative carbon footprints trade their unused energy surplus, build more oil-fuelled power stations, give each minister a gas-guzzler, leave the lights on in all government buildings.
Oops, they already do that, don't they.
Macch 4:40pm
ReplyDelete"it does rather seem, having read your comments on climate change generally, that you're one of the Deniers. Is this true?"
For me the word 'Denier' produces the positive associative image of stocking-tops.
Which I suppose rather gives my age away.