This is from IPSOS Mori today:
Seventy-seven per cent of people in this country think climate change is a serious threat.
At the same time, our politicians are treating it as a minor inconvenience.
In a very real sense, it is appropriate to ask what planet they are on.
I really hope that the public does no longer tolerate them.
Climate change and central bankers are the biggest threats to our economy right now, with politicians coming in a short head behind.
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The bit of the planet they are on is one where shale gas is banned. Heck it wasn’t even allowed to operate up to the same seismic limits as geothermal when it wasn’t banned.
But importing shale gas is permitted.
It’s a bit of the planet where you can get a carbon offset for planting trees to the full value of the carbon captured, without subtracting the carbon that would have been captured anyway by leaving it as un-grazed grassland.
Unless you’re planting a tree on a car park or other hard-standing land where nothing would otherwise grow you cannot do this.
In short we’ve got a set of miscounting rules and bans that favour spivs
Something is going very wrong and it needs exposing urgently.
We know politicians in charge still take advice from mainstream economists.
We also now know the utter nonsense economists churn out on climate.
For example, todays report from Carbon Tracker exposes the ridiculously trivialised impacts economic consultants feed to pension funds.
I wonder how far beyond pension funds they’ve managed to spread this bullshit? Everywhere I expect.
https://carbontracker.org/reports/loading-the-dice-against-pensions/
It’s a good report
Steve Keen has been working on it, I know
Mr Farbrother,
I agree with your points but suggest that the situation is somewhat worse. Extract from Carbon tracker:
“This report reveals that many pension funds use investment models that predict global warming of 2 to 4.3°C will have only a minimal impact on member portfolios,”
But we face a climate disaster that is asymmetric in terms of temp change. For example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-019-0011-3
(I have the full paper for those that want to read it). In summary, if the AMOC takes a walk, two things will happen to the UK: much colder (3C) and much drier & all this within the lifespan of those now paying into a pension fund. The maps are interesting, one wonders where the South East will get its water from? Wales? Really?
The other paper on AMOC is here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w.pdf. The most worrying part of the paper is encapsulated in one word: hysterisis, extract:
“Numerous climate model studies show a hysteresis behavior, where changing a control parameter, typically the freshwater input into the Northern Atlantic, makes the AMOC bifurcate through a set of co-dimension one saddle-node bifurcations”.
Regarding hysterisis, Europe went through a “mini-ice age” from roughly 1570s until circa late 19th century. Jury is still out on causes but it looks like jungle grow-back in the Amazon following the collapse of towns/cities in the region (excavations have confirmed the existence of towns/cities). Arguably, the industrial revolution eventually countered the Aamazon grow back.
We face a diverging, accelerating, multi-faceted disaster. But don’t worry, there are lots of people with PPEs, they will sort it all out, meanwhile the pension funds have collectievly corssed their fingers. Bless..
I will have more to sy on this…
I would argue that certainly the two main political parties Conservative and Labour use a biased market fundamentalist paradigm for analysing how the country’s financial system works and it’s this that paralyses their ability to offer serious spending solutions, especially by the state, to tackle climate change. In other words they’re financial system dinosaurs!
Here’s the dinosaur paradigm they’re working on:-
https://www.dmo.gov.uk/media/ofgpmxsr/report95.pdf
Thanks for posting this Schofield – the document drips with anti-statist rhetoric and that somehow the state’s involvement is causing distortions, whereas the record will show that it’s the markets own increasingly under-regulated behaviour where the real distortions are.
Evidence again as to why policy change is almost impossible – it’s all rigged – the market’s sentiment is embedded in government.
It’s all to do with money – surely? Corruption, back handers, party funding – with menaces.
Political behaviour on this issue (and others) has all the hallmarks fellow readers and contributors of ‘leverage’ to me.
It’s all to do with money – surely? Corruption, back handers, party funding – with menaces.
Political behaviour on this issue (and others) has all the hallmarks fellow readers and contributors of some form of ‘leverage’ to me.
So……..
75% of the population are concerned about climate change and 25% are very concerned.
So, assuming we dont find The Green Party in power at the next election what will they do?
Bear in mind that these are people concerned about their and their childrens future
We could have more people demonstrating, we could also start to get not just placard waving but attacks on places like Petrol Stations etc? Look at whats already happening to SUV’s, at the moment they are getting their tyres let down there could be more of that or worse.
Big Houses, Private Swimming Pools (Isnt there one in Yorkshire!) Patio Heaters etc all might start to be in the firing line.
Interesting times
I’m hoping Sunak has been generous enough to open that pool up to all the locals as their own pool has been closed for repairs since June to September.
Re: Greens in power. The rigged FPTP referendum made sure that anti-democratic FPTP remains for the foreseeable future. That was the purpose of the referendum. (As it was for Brexit and Scottish referendums). Ain’t it odd that the two countries spouting the most garbage about ‘protecting democracy’ – the UK and US – use FPTP.
And of course that’s why the Greens, Liberals and other minorities will never be significant contributors to Parliament and why we will never have a true democracy. The Establishment will never allow other than an elective dictatorship with two Establishment parties arguing like school kids in a chamber designed for the purpose.
It may become more and more obvious to the populace at large that there is an Establishment minority who control our politics and economics and who apparently only care about their monetary wealth and privilege. And that these short-sighted fools are leading us all into climate suicide/murder. Then the climate protests thus far may seem mild by comparison with what will come. The bankers/politicians/fossil fuel companies who are literally killing the world and us with it, may find that extreme self-preservative/defensive measures will be considered by some to be legitimate.
“Why are the politicos pandering..,.?”
Go where the money is. Your views, my views, all the commentators on this blog, we don’t count. The money men (mostly men) count, followed by the corporate interests, followed by the meeja (mostly owned/influenced by the 1st two). Two interesting papers on AMOC failure this week, even the Guardian covered it. Hope you have your woolly jumpers. The point has passed where we can “do something about it” (i.e. slow down/stop the climate catastrophe) – only way forward is resilience.
As for what planet the politicos………planet money. Take a look at Sunak, ex-Goldman, look at the guy that ran the BBC, ex-Goldman, take a look at the mea-culpa by Ronson in the Guardian today – the trail is littered with ££££ or $$$, that is what counts. The only element in doubt is what was said to whom, when.
This exchange is worth listening to from 1972 (gosh how time flies):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFUKV5_EwdA
The description by Devlin on how the state “adjust” laws (often at high speed) to prevent the populace showing their collective displeasure is outlined, elegantly and cogently. I do hope this sounds familiar, given recent legislation against, no it can’t be: demonstrations. I can recommend the whole hour, it is nice to hear a politician talking sense. Obviously, Buckley Jnr always was a small mind (his exchange with Chomsky is worth a watch), ditto the claque wheeled on to “question” Devlin. They were pathetic, but entertaining. One hopes they read this blog.
Even on political questions, amenable to political answers, the video showed that politicos were functionally capable of listening (or did not want to). In the case of the climate disaster, WE ARE NOT DEALING WITH SOMETHING THAT HAS THE CAPACITY FOR DISCOURSE. I’m so glad that’s clear, which leaves the open question, what do we do, cos on current evidence, the polit-sickos are functionally capable of only nada.
The trouble is I can see no new party working
It’s a global problem and we don’t seem close to even imagining a global solution that’s workable
It’s gonna take a new level of geopolitical consciousness that doesn’t fetishise or ignore technology
In the UK it’s our work to hold our supposed leaders to their supposed enlightenment values while submitting to the wisdom our culture sought to exterminate.
Its the same 7% who want to scrap the NHS
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/How_NHS_compare_2023.pdf see p91
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7:84
What if it is the end of any capacity for conventional representative “democracy” [RD] to effect the changes needed? Most people are no longer represented by RD. It’s been weaponised against the very people supposedly represented. Have we been colonised by the governing class?
Here’s Jonathan Cook’s analysis of the rightward shift in Labour since Starmer and Reeves took over – woo Tory donors to plug the hole in Labour’s finances.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-labour-starmer-selling-party-tory-donors-pulling-strings
In Iceland and Europe, there is now a technology available that will remove CO2 from the atmosphere. When it will be deployed wasn’t discussed in the program in which it was mentioned.
I was told some time ago that this technology was coming. Apparently, it is now here, and avavailable for use. When will it be used? I have no idea.
I should perhaps mention that these Icelandic and European technologies are not identical.
If it’s the same programme I watched it said the CO2 would be stored underground. Didn’t say where, I don’t think. Old mines? Where gas and oil have been removed from the North Sea?
They haven’t actually sorted that bit out yet, have they?
I am extrmely dubious of all the claims that this is a solution
It does not work, as yet
After all the years of effort I wonder if it ever will
As a mining engineer I can guarantee that the rock surrounding a mine, if not fractured before mining, will definitely be highly fractured afterwards. Old oil wells are a better bet, but the oil companies are not renowned for capping the wells properly on close down.
If we leave aside the enormous distortions to political decision making that stem from fossil fuel lobbying, RW think tanks, dark money, media disinterest, and stupefying levels of ignorance, we are left with what you might call the ULEZ problem. In essence, expression of concern is not matched by a commitment to do anything. At the micro level people act strongly out of self interest. In the corrupt, desperate landscape of UK politics, that fits nicely with populist appeals to the minority of voters needed in a first past the past election. Both Sunak and Starmer have adopted this planet destroying logic.
Great question and one that I’m always asking. Hypocrisy and the fact that the media still portrays activists trying to stop the destruction of our planet as the enemy, then telling us about the huge profits of the energy companies. Even my 16 year old laughed with unbelievability at how the BBC news reporting on the Yemen crisis, which the Saudis have much culpability for, was followed by the crazy offer they have given for Mbappe, and not even an eye brow or acknowledgement of the madness the juxtaposition of these stories clearly states how money can be used to cover up such state monstrosity.
So yes, Money is the answer to the question posed, but we cannot put our hopes with those that make the money to have any humanitarian solutions.
PR could be an answer and I also think more community power especially in food production and energy and creating a circular economy.
I feel impotent, but try everyday to feed the narrative against such a world, it’s all I can seem to do,
Stay safe