Cookie manages to get very confused indeed over climate change:
They may reasonably feel
that we were given plenty of warning signs of the stress which our
lifestyle was putting on the ecosystem, one of which is almost within
sight of the Docklands home of much of the British press. When it was
first constructed the Thames Barrier was closed only once every two
years, but rising sea levels have required it to be deployed six times
on average in the past five years.
Really? And there was me, silly billy that I am, thinking that the East of England had been sinking into the North Sea/ Channel for millenia…ever since there was a land bridge which people walked over to populate these isles. That is why it was built some decades ago, rather before we had heard of climate change.
In the case of Britain,
the switch that may get flipped could be the Gulf Stream, which
delivers as much heat to our land in winter as the sun. Its
disappearance would leave us with the same climate as Hudson Bay, with
which we share the same latitude.
Umm, no, the idea that the entire Thermo Haline Circulation system is going to close down is not on the agenda.
Even the CIA has warned
that climate change will stimulate an increase in conflicts over
diminishing water and food supplies and proposed seven steps in
response which, oddly, did not include a single measure to halt climate
change.
Now, me, I thought that was a report from some consultants to the Pentagon but perhaps there has been another one. There is of course one reason why those who study such matters do not advocate heavy restrictions on carbon emissions….because dealing with the change, if it does actually happen, will be cheaper than preventing the change.
In any case Kyoto is too
modest a benchmark. The threshold was kept low, ironically, to get on
board the US, but the net result was a set of targets that only delay
the rate at which matters get worse. To stop climate change we must cut
emissions by 60%, which is the government’s target for 2050. The beauty
of the government’s interim target of a cut of 20% by 2010 was that it
promised to get us a third of the way within a third of the time from
the base year of 1990.
A neat summation of the stupidity of theway the targets were set. Technological change will reduce emissions anyway by 2050. Look at Lomborg for examples. As it happens, I think L was being a pessimist, for in my professional work I need to keep up with various developments in fuel cell and solar power. In the 2020/2030 timespan I am 100% convinced that we will see solar being cheaper than fossil fuel for electricity generation. Why spend fortunes now when the wholething will resolves itself in a couple of decades?
His real point is here:
The solution to climate
change will be collective and the result of democratic intervention. It
will require investment in public transport. It will need common
regulation and state subsidy to enforce good standards of energy
efficiency and a higher proportion of renewables. It will demand the
use of taxes to reflect the real cost to society and its environment of
individual consumption. And it brings the bonus of an added argument
for equality as extravagant consumption by a few imposes not just a
financial cost on themselves but an environmental burden on everyone
else.
Yes, politicians should have more power. What a surprise.
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