As a result of the IPCC debacle, the climate debate is primed like an avalanche where the merest sound could bring it all crashing down.
Then today I read that …
Speaking at an event yesterday to mark last week’s landmark climate science report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Energy and Climate Change Secretary launched a thinly veiled attack on Chancellor George Osborne who last weekend suggested the UK should not be at the forefront of tackling climate change. (Business Green)
One arm of the lib-con alliance is now attacking the other. Following close on the heals of Labour’s disastrous return to state control or as the economist titles it: “Tilting at windmills .. Ed Miliband’s proposals to cut energy bills seem likely to do the opposite “, it seems clear that this issue is going to heat up.
If the Tories come out fighting, which seems very likely as they have nothing at all to lose from such a strategy,
… this will** bring the house down.
**95% confident … based on a scientific assessment of the number of fingers and toes I am not putting up to this IPCC claim.
There’s a strange attitude that pervades our politics, that the UK somehow has to be ‘better’ morally than other countries. It’s not reflected in the public who are fed up with paying for impossible standards. I suspect the BBC is largely responsible for it given their inherent smugness and nanny knows best attitude. Ironically it’s a very racist viewpoint as it sets us above those Johnny Foreigners. It’s also highly ludicrous that if we set the example, the rest of the world will be shamed into copying our behaviour. A good number of countries would do the exact opposite on principle.
AGW action is a good example of this form of snobbery and it’s a sign of how it pervades Westminster that the issue got cross the party support. We saw the same thing for the landfill rules. We weren’t going to do what the rest of Europe plumped for – incinerate, no we were going to do it properly by sorting largely unrecyclable tat and shipping out to China at huge cost, both finacially and environmentally… where they bury it in landfill.
There is a mileage for a political party to stop this gold plating and realise that the public don’t want to be the planet’s goody goodies. I fear Osbourne is only balking because he realises we can’t afford it. There’s still little evidence from the Conservative cabinet that they doubt AGW. It might have to be the public that makes the first move.
As an industrialist I am very aware that whatever you can say of the BBC and sceptics, it is far worse with industry in general. The BBC has had its day. It needs to be cut down to size so that it no longer dominates political debate. In particular Radio 4 needs to be turned over to a commercial company as I cannot see any other way to stop the BBC in its hatred of industry, sceptics or anyone else who might get in the way of their PC cotton wool world where everyone lives in love & harmony at public expense.