Alex Smith, the editor of LabourList, has unwittingly (perhaps) shone a light onto Gordon Brown's hubris.
He points out that Gordon Brown said a few days ago that Copenhagen was a "last chance", yet today it becomes a "first step". Well, which is it? For it certainly can't be both.
Why can't he and Ed Miliband admit what the rest of the country can see - that Copenhagen was a shambles and a failure by any measure you care to use - especially the measure they chose themselves.
It was the last chance to take a first step. Obviously.
ReplyDelete50 days to save the world.....oops
ReplyDeleteBy Browns own criteria the event was a total failure and by his judgement the world is doomed.
ReplyDeleteWhat a plonker.
John Selwyn Gummer from the debate on Heathrow 11th November 2008 :
ReplyDeleteI read carefully what the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change said:
"Only if Britain plays its part will a global deal in Copenhagen to cut emissions be possible, so far from retreating from our objectives, we should reaffirm our resolve."—
What does he then do? He goes to Copenhagen and says, "What I want you to do is to follow the British route. We are going to build a new coal-fired power station in Kingsnorth without any kind of carbon capture or sequestration. We are going to expand the airport at Stansted. We have already increased the number of airplanes there. What is more, to show our commitment to the battle against climate change, we are going to have a third runway at Heathrow." What kind of leadership is Britain going to be able to provide in Copenhagen if the Government fail to understand that joined-up thinking is a necessary part of fighting climate change?
Someone has a wicked sense of humour ... Copenhagen trying desperately to have binding measures to combat global warming ... and Brown and Obama return home to deep snow! ;-)
ReplyDeleteCheer up. It could have been worse. Copenhagen might have succeeded.
ReplyDeleteHi Ian
ReplyDeleteI see Labour are going down faster in the polls than West Ham are in the league.
Let's not criticise. He 'made some tough decisions' because 'it is the right thing tp do'. 'It would have been worse under the tories!', etc.
ReplyDeleteA bit late with this comment, but two things struck me about the coverage of the Copenhagen seasonal pantomime struck me as being odd.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, a remark by a bureaucrat with a comically overblown title, Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention Climate Change:
[my emphasis, my transcription in fact]
“I think the fact that the European Union, Brazil, China, India, Japan, the United States at the head of government level in a room, is I think politically incredibly significant.”
BBC 6 O’Clock news:
"In a final twist delegates agreed that countries will have to sign up to support or oppose the deal. A majority, including the European Union and many threatened states like the Maldives and Lesotho , have reluctantly accepted it. But others including Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba say they will not."
Why did Brown bother turning up when the Head of Government of our country was already going to be there anyway?
Oh, and to answer the question your last paragraph, it's obvious: Shameless Lying Mode is their default setting on startup.
Never, ever, trust a word Gordon says.
Ironically, though, you can often find the truth from one of Gordon's remarks. Listen to what he has said, then work out the exact opposite and believe that.
yes, Obama returned to over a foot of snow in a place where it snows only a bit now and then. hahahahaha! (blush... I did not vote for him!)
ReplyDeleteThe Met Office has released all of its stored temperature readings "confident that they will prove its prediction of global warming". Useful.
ReplyDeletePurely at random I chose a Midlands city - Oxford, which has recorded data going back to 1853.
The last year for which there is recorded data in full is 2008 so I looked at every 10th year from 1868 onwards. I thought it fair, since we are talking about proving global warming, to note the highest recorded temperature in June and in December. Anyone with a week to spare can look at other months and years.
The highest June days were recorded in 1858 and 1868 at 23.6C. The highest December day was 1868 with 10.4C [1898 and 1988 being 10.1C]. The lowest recorded noon temperature in June was 1888 at 16.3C.
The relative records for 1998 [the hottest year on record, we are told] are almost identical to those of 1938.
Returning to 2008 we read the June high to be 20.1C which is beaten by 6 years. December of that year had a high of 6.9C and higher December records occurred in 1858, 1868, 1888, 1898, 1918, 1938, 1948, 1958. 1978, 1988 and 1998. I could have shortened that by telling you that only on 4 occasions has the December high been lower than in 2008.
You may choose any other town or city and any other range of years. The few that I have looked at show no evidence of any warming trend at all unless you compare 2008 with 1928 or 1968, the only years in the sample of 16 which were cooler than 2008.
I am perfectly sure that the Met Office has all of these trends computerised and graphed. If they had proven the contention then those graphs would have been released, not just raw data.
Of course, I am perfectly prepared to concede that Oxford is not necessarily typical of all world spots. Neither is any other place.
Interesting that David Cameron doesnt deem it necessary to comment on Copenhagen -
ReplyDelete