The Bewilderness

Another set of moderns

The victories that the Green movement have won over the past three decades in policy have proved detrimental to the poor, counter-productive for the environment and blind to the economic mechanics of conversation. How many environmentalists have praised China for its 'green' policies, seduced by a decisive rhetoric and draconian population policy. They will often forgive China anything for introducing the one child policy (and killing off its products with smog). 

Now, some in America, have broken away from the romantic notions of sustainability and balance that threaten to undermine the rise in living standards. Known as the environmental modernists, they champion the acceleration of progress and specific research paths that will reduce man's footprint on the earth. As an example, they would try and attract peasants into slums as quickly as possible and then squeeze the slums into attractive high-rises, all within a few decades.

A rejection of the red tinged romanticism that disfigures green politics is overdue and welcome, but many view the space freed up as an opportunity for rewilding: the recreation of a nature without humanity. In practical terms, this is deemed a sucess if an ecosystem comes into being that supports the few large animals left in the wild. Most of the others have been killed off by the Anthropocene. Earlier attempts like wolves in Montana have proved gruesome failures. And wolves in Scotland/England does not appear to be a votewinner, especially as Great Britain's civil service has its hands full cocking up a badger cull.

The support for technological solutions is a useful tradition to adopt and set itself apart from the left-wing irrationalists guided by a reactionary adherence to unproven farming methods and an insistence upon a local community that vanished with English folk culture. Hopefully, this influence will reverse the greenwash that has disfigured our political system for twenty years.  

Arctic Circular Ices Up

On the 6th September, meteorologists released a report examining statistically significant weather phenomena and guaged whether anthropogenic global warming could be identified as a causal factor. One of those events was the Arctic ice area in 2012, much reduced, and explained as a response to global warming. This also remains the controversial response of the IPCC.

As for “the extremely low Arctic sea ice extent in summer 2012,” the report says this resulted primarily from the melting of younger, thin ice from a warmed atmosphere and ocean.

“This event cannot be explained by natural variability alone. Summer Arctic sea ice extent will continue to decrease in the future, and is expected to be largely absent by mid-century.”

Arctice ice cover was set to decrease. And now? It has increased by 60% this year after record lows. There is also the significant matter of the 'global pause'.  For some reason, we are not given a reason for the increase, except for the vague notion of variability. This programmed bias raises scepticism; its simplistic, circular arguments in the media  

CSR - Chinese Sycophancy Review?

China's investments in renewable energy and announcements of targeted reductions in CO2 emissions has flattered environmentalist NGOs. To such an extent that they have praised China for its endeavours overlooking the injustices and suffering meted out to those who oppose the CPC. They must be on a par with climate deniers!

The key word in this discourse is sustainability. China, unbeholden to argument, compromise or special interest groups, can mobilise social resources, tax its captive population, jack up investment and direct communitarian resources as appropriate, regardless of how people may feel (and those who dissent disappear).

People like Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is more optimistic. He told me that China is the only country that’s cut its energy intensity over 5 percent a year for a quarter of a century. They are the world leader in distributed renewable sources of power and the only country that has energy efficiency as its top development priority.

To be sure, implementation is at an early stage. But, Lovins said, China has better leaders than we do, and they are more highly motivated and work harder.

“For all these reasons, I think we can rely on China to lead the world out of the climate mess.”

William McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle, shares these sentiments. He told me that while “they’re not going to become an eco-paradise overnight, at the senior level, they’ve recognised the idea of closing cycles as being a critical part of any long-term plan.”

It is alarming that the corporate sustainability movement takes China's utterances and statistics at face value; admires its system of governance for long-term stability and planning; and pays lip service to the values of the West. To be watched and fought...

2052 - state capitalists everywhere?

I have just started J Randers "2052": a futurist forecast of the next forty (now thirty-nine years) from one of the academics associated with the Club of Rome. After an odd paean to nature and old-growth forests out of place in an academic work, we come to an analysis based solidly on the work of the IPCC and climate change. The future is hellish and hot, sometime after 2075.

Yet, the book jarred when I read of China's "benevolent authoritarianism". This was a powerful entry into the world of green policymaking. Randers criticises liberal democracy for its slow processes in making decisions and its need to use debate and compromise to achieve results. China is more attractive beacuse they can decide without such decadent obstacles to get things done. State capitalism in pursuit of green credentials is a preferred option.

Such preferences feed into the value sof the greens: the collective needs must override individual rights and this can be achieved more rapidly if all liberties are curtailed. (The calls for critics of climate change to suffer the same laws as holocaust denial sums this attitude up very nicely). Their arrogant belief in being right justifies the destruction of parliamentary democracy and its supplanting by a Platonic dictatorship (whether by party or by bureaucracy) to see that greening is achieved.

What a shame that the outcome of such management would be the misallocation of resources and rampant corruption (sounds like a large communist country to me). If we do face a crisis of such proportions, the political preferences of the Greens would condemn us to the prolongation and exacerbation of the crisis.

Single MP cites democratic deficit as they won't listen to her

The Greens mounted a day of reaction against the fracking industry by blockading the operations of Cuadrilla in Balcombe, London and Lichfield. The motives of the protestors became clear with the statement of Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton. She stated that a democratic deficit had forced her and fellow protestors, because their views had been rejected by the government of the day. Hmmm.

A deomcratically elected government, with members picked from the House of Commons, rejected the views of the single Green Party MP. This is Caroline Lucas's democratic deficit: the millions of voters who don't vote Green, forcing her to Balcombe and jail, because they just don't care enough about the environment (which can only be deomnstrated, of course, by voting Green).

The agenda of these rich protestors becomes clearer: they set up a small wind turbine (that well known efficient source of energy) and the Disabled People Against Cuts turned up to prevent the poor from enjoying cheaper energy.

The user of the wheelchair, 38-year-old Paddy Murphy from north London, said there was a connection between Dpac and anti-fracking activities. He said many disabled people were living in fuel poverty: "We want an energy policy devoted to the needs of people, not the needs of corporations. Fracking is all about profits."

I am not sure if he was against fracking or corporations. Perhaps if this was condoned by the Green Party and run by the National Fracking "Meet the People's Need" Corporation, then Paddy Murphy would be quite happy. The people living in fuel poverty and dying in winter: a mere detail.

That is the consequence of these unthinking, self-righteous, ideological, sanctimonious moral monopolists. Their view of the public good brooks no other view, and if opposed, they state that this is a 'democratic deficit'. If only the people really knew...whilst the poor face more expensive energy and choose to heat or eat! Bastards!

 

BBC nears climate change saturation

Drifting across the BBC website, looking for references to "independent" think tanks, I read the curious title: European forests bear 'carbon saturation point'. This title implied that European forests would no longer be able to absorb carbon. A curiosity which, at first glance, refuted the known processes by which plants feed themselves. A closer examination of the article revealed that this was a cursory summary of a science article released in Nature Climate Change. The authors warned that the European carbon sink may prove less absorbent than anticipated due to changes in human land-use increasing deforestation, an increase in wildfires and a change in tree demography with older stands predominating with a reduced ability to soak up carbon.

This may or may not be true, but some of the projections appear highly speculative. This is another article extrapolating what could be, and we all know how those tend to be disproved as the years pass. There was little or no criticism of the article included. And Mark Kinver concluded with a reference to teh proposed solution: a pan-European legally binding treaty on forest management which would force property owners to deal with forests as the state saw fit in the name of climate change. 

This does tick the boxes: climate change problem, BBC article, proposed European solution forcing everyone to obey some fiat law from on high without any real scientific evidence. Just one article: hardly a consensus - which is the cited requirement for policy, except when it doesn't suit the requirements.

The green gravy train

David Cameron tacked to the left when he was campaigning to win the general election of 2010. This included pandering to the environmentalist NGOs and the green movement. Cameron crooned to them with a husky voice and green slogans, betting that a wealthy country could bear the extra costs of bad policy based on uncertain science.

The Independent of Sunday rounds up the usual sources from the World Wildllife Fund, Greenpeace and other interested parties in the green lobby to 'assess' the government. It appears that the coialition have not fully signed up to their demands. This is a black mark!

None of the green movement considers the impact of their policies upon the economy or the poor. Their goal is to obtain subventions for their objectives, without debating the impact that such policies have upon low income families and economic growth. The green gravy train must keep running, whatever the cost.