As preparations mount for the Copenhagen summit, which will be attended by more than 15,000 delegates and diplomats, The Independent reports that up to 30,000 environmental activists will be going along for ride too. The hypocrisy is astonishing. [sticks tongue in cheek] Do they not care about the planet? Do they not think about their carbon footprint? Clearly not. And they have the cheek to lecture the rest of us about how we should cut down on the number of flights we take.
It is a myth that not taking a flight is green. If I personally make a decision not to take a scheduled commercial flight is has absolutely no effect on the environment whatsoever. That flight will happen whether I am on it or not!
ReplyDeleteYou are wrong Paddy, flights have everything to do with whether you or the 30,000 activists choose to fly.
ReplyDeleteThe market works on supply and demand and if there is no longer any demand then routes will be downsized and smaller aeroplanes will be used.
The decisions are only inconsequential on a very narrow and short term perspective. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
And have they not read the UEA CCU documents ?
ReplyDeleteNo, of course they haven't ... silly me.
If they had, and they had open minds, they would all stay at home and get on with some proper science.
'Do they not care about the planet? Do they not think about their carbon footprint? Clearly not. And they have the cheek to lecture the rest of us about how we should cut down on the number of flights we take.'
ReplyDeleteflights on exes are different and don't produce a carbon footprint !
As I said last night on my bog Iain http://twe.ly/NQb
ReplyDelete'Activists need to stop there terrorist style methods. The politicization of the Global Warming dose not help the research. Let them advice the politicians of the research so they can put in place realistic policy.'
David
ReplyDeleteYou confuse the macro with the micro. I agree that if we all decided to stop flying except when absolutely necessary supply would exceed demand and market forces would eventually lead to a reduction in the number of scheduled flights. That is the macroeconomic reality. But in the short term one person’s decision either to take a scheduled flight or not to take it (for whatever reason) has zero effect on emissions. That flight will depart anyway!
I think that it is Governments’ duty to price flying at a proper economic level taking account of the damage that this transport sector does to the environment. So carbon taxes are entirely justified in this sector.
I think that it is pompous nonsense for me to be told by The Guardian that “if I want really to be a green traveller, avoid flying wherever possible” (that was in their “ethical living” supplement on Saturday. There is absolutely no way that the vast majority of travellers (me included) will choose not to fly just for environmental reasons. As I have said in the short term there is no effect on the environment by such a personal decision anyhow! If however the cost of taking a flight as a result of carbon taxes increases substantially then I would certainly think about it and over time my behaviour would change. That is the only way.
What value does the presence of 30,000 activists add? Its for their own entertainment, gives them something to do, justifies their campaign group employer paying them a salary.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as the world isn't warming, and CO2 plays no part in any of this, then they can fly all they like as far as I am concerned. They are merely fools, and as yet there's no law against being foolish.
Just think of all those polar bears falling from sky :(
ReplyDeletePaddy Briggs doesn't really get it does he?
ReplyDelete"Paddy Briggs doesn't really get it does he?"
ReplyDeleteOh, I think he does. He just hopes we don't get it...
But that cat is out of the CCU bag now, isn't it?
Philipa
ReplyDeleteI'm all ears and happy to try an "get it". Would you care to eleaborate?
How do you know they are all flying there? I was in Berlin recently and there were articles in the paper about trains being chartered around Europe to go.
ReplyDeleteThis is really a cheap point, but from past experience, you seem uninterested in the scientific basis of climate change and appear to approach it in a purely political way. I'm not sure that helps, although it does tie in with the aims of the very heavily funded denial industry.
Some one told me that the reason that more minarets were not allowed in Switzerland was that the added noise would echo through mountains and cause avalanches.
ReplyDeleteThe Swiss are taking Global warming very seriously, I suggest we do the same.
The rules they want to create apply to other not to them. They will have no changes to their life style.
ReplyDeleteThe climate change scam thats all it is.
Paddy Briggs is just a jobsworth. Picking what suits him and,what an unthought out selfish comment.
ReplyDeleteThe have seen the Hadley Centre data and know that its all nonsense
ReplyDeleteJolly hockey sticks anyone?
Well, I suspect that some of these green protestors are out to cause trouble, others are well intentioned and feel they are genuinely trying to help matters.
ReplyDeleteBut the real problem is that people are not being allowed a balanced view; we are not all scientists and certainly not all climate scientists. They are like priests of the olden days, who spoke Latin and understood the Bible, whereas no one else did, so the priest had a lot of power over the flock.
I did read the Sunday times article yesterday and from what it is saying, we have basically been lied to about the real impact of climate change (?). I didn't know that in the medieval times we could grow wine in this country, for example.
I really wish we could have or read a proper for and against or prove and disprove what the climate change scientists say. I feel that there is more politics here, than dispassionate analysis of the evidence. But according to the article yesterday, the University just destroyed the original evidence. One cannot help but think that this is convenient.
Is there anyone out there that can explain in layman’s terms if there is global warming or if it is just a myth, in which certain facts are being selected to form a theory?
Lord Lavendon, there are plenty of books out there which challenge the orthodoxy of global warming. I have tried reading a couple (Ian Plimer and Bjorn Lomborg), but I suspect like me you might find them hard going. If you want a balanced layman's view then I suggest looking up what Lord Lawson has written on the subject.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the secret plan to avoid getting arrested at the airport by using coaches and ferries is working then.
ReplyDeleteNot a word to Dale though anyone, he might call the rozzers.
I shall light a candle to my household god Siotu for them.
ReplyDeleteYour posts seem to be getting more and more obtuse.
ReplyDeleteQuite apart from the fact that at any conference, people nearby (i.e. via train) can attend in greater numbers, you willfully misstate the matter in terms of individual events.
The size of the earth's atmosphere is affected by human activity, but any single human activity is more or less irrelevant.
I do realise this may be a hard concept top grasp.
But let me put it another way.
One single tory MP or PPC avoiding tax is more or less irrelevant to the government's tax take. But the entire tax avoidance efforts of the Tory class is most certainly relevant.
What I find interesting is that, as they sniff a Tory victory (, but let's think 1992, 1992, 1992), the ur-colours of the Tories are showing themselves.
Both in the comments of lower middle class Tory oiks like yourself, and in actions of the core-Tory rich you are a running dog for.
Toryism is not about politics at all. It is about preserving the privileges of the already rich and wealthy.
It's my wedding anniversary the weekend after next and my wife has been pestering me for some time to take her to Copenhagen.
ReplyDeleteBack in July, I booked a trip to Copenhagen from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 December. At the time, I was completely unaware that the Climate Circus was coming to town from 6 - 18 December, but there was no apparent pressure for hotel accommodation and no silly prices for the air tickets.
Are all the concerned parties just staying in Copenhagen from Monday to Thursday and then flying home at the weekends?
James Bottomley November 30, 2009 10:31
ReplyDeleteAre you interested in this subject or do you only read the Guardian? State climate research funding is one thousand times greater than industry funding (yes you read that correctly, three orders of magnitude). The results of all this tax payer largesse have been revealed in the last few days (at long last after years of FOI evasion and denial).
James you are in powerful company when you say "denialists" are better funded than the eco-fascists. Paul Krugman has said the same on air.
ReplyDeleteWhile I would accept that ad hominum argument as representing the very highest standard of honesty of which anybody in the eco-fascist movement, who has not publicly disowned it, is capable I must ask for your evidence that Stephen McIntyre has received very much more than Phil Jones' £13.7 million.
If you cannot & you & Krugman do not publicly apologise it remains the absolute pinnacle of honesty of which the movement is capable but is also a disgusting & wholly corrupt Fascist lie that shows how wholly & completely separated from any remote interest in the truth your obscene & murdering movement is.
At least Nick Griffin will be there to give the proceedings some balance.
ReplyDeletePaddy Briggs, if you had no weight then getting on a plane that is going anyway would have no effect....but, by the look of your avatar you do have weight, and quite a bit of it..... extra fuel will be needed to lift that weight and transport that weight. The extra weight will put more load on the airframe, reducing its life and more wear on the brake pads when the plane lands on the runway which is subjected to more load.
ReplyDeleteIt is a great pity you are not weightless, but there it is, you are.
James Bottomley - was your journey to Berlin strictly necessary? Nothing that could be settled by phone, fax, email or Skype?
ReplyDeleteNow, as to the train business. Are there really trains to Copenhagen from the Philippines, South Africa, Japan and Argentina?
Would you concede that 30,000 delegates is rather more than enough?
Are you a vegetarian or have you given up meat eating at least?
Do you wash/shower/bath in cold water?
Do you only eat produce produced within 30 miles of your residence?
Have you flown to the Arctic and/or the Antarctic to check on the ice-melt?
From which platform does the train to Copenhagen leave London please?
ReplyDeleteYou've got to admire those who practice this new eco religion, they've got an answer for everything (and if they don't CRU can always make one up)
It seems that Bottomley, like Krugman, is maintaining his disgusting lie about McIntyre being paid more than Jones £13.7 million. He has thereby proven himself wholly corrupt scum. On precious occasions representatives of the Green Party, FoI, Greenpeace etc have posted on here. The fact that these organisations have chosen not to distance themselves form Bottomley & Krugman's lie proves that they themselves are in no slightest most miniscule degree honest or even decent.
ReplyDeleteThis movement is nothing but a collection of wholly corrupt, lying, thieving, fascist parasites who will tell any lie or attempt to besmirch anybody, who is in fact infi9nitely more worthy than any of them, just to frighten us into paying them their climate Danegeld.
"Toryism is not about politics at all. It is about preserving the privileges of the already rich and wealthy."
ReplyDeleteAnd Labourism? With the Bernie Ecclestone affair/Mandy on the yacht/peerages for cash? What's that about, then, Paul?
"The size of the earth's atmosphere is affected by human activity..." (Paul Halsall)
ReplyDeleteEr, only if we all breath out at the same time! Just hilarious.
a typo....
ReplyDelete