Climate Change Act Reconsidered part I - Josh 129

A packed Committee Room 14, House of Commons, Westminster, London, UK, on Wednesday 30th Nov 2011, heard from Dr Philip Stott, Rev Philip Foster, Prof Ian Plimer, Donna Laframboise, James Dent, Ruth Lea and Matt Ridley. Josh sketched some notes...

... and we started with some verses from the Bible.

Click image for a slightly larger version. More as they are scanned in at Cartoons by Josh 

Comments

[Peter Walsh]

Josh is excelling himself, I love what I see and hope there is more of this high quality cartooning to follow.

[hro001]

Some years ago, one of the telcos on this side of the pond had a series of warm, fuzzy TV ads encouraging viewers to "call long distance ... it's the next best thing to being there".

[With a nod to the late, great Canadian humourist, Stephen Leacock] Josh's Brilliant Sketches of a Little Meeting ... are the next best thing to being there!

These are superb! Many thanks, Josh :-)

[Chris B]

Thank you Josh. :-)

I hope the Committee was receptive to the evidence provided and that the Act will be repealed or significantly watered down. But with Chris Huhne still there I doubt it. Come on CPS, charge the b*st*rd!

[richard verney]

In our present economic climate and given the hiatius to the warming since 1998, the Act should be repealled. However, unfortunately, no chance of commonsense prevailing whilst Chris Huhme is around; so we will all be forced into yet more poverty and will struggle to pay our fuel bills not to mention the loss of industry and consequential increase in the jobless putting yet more strain on the public finances.

The first thing Osbourne should have done was to suspend the Act (repeal it if necessary) which would have effectively put more money in the pockets of consumers who may then have been able to spend a bit more in the High Street promoting growth and of course reduced the expenditure for industry also assisting growth. Then he should have drastically cut back spending on overseas aid which would have cut back on government waste saving many billions without adversely impacting on domestic hardpressed working families. These two measures would have done more to reduce the budget deficit than all the other measures taken together that he has put into effect. Yalk about poor economic management.

I liked the cartoons.

[Edwin]

Well said Richard

[Pete H]

Come on CPS, charge the b*st*rd!
Dec 1, 2011 at 1:11 AM | Chris B

Hell Chris! My first job of the day (after making the cuppa!) is to stoke up the computer, hit the online newspapers and search for CPS/Huhne! One of these days my wife is going to leap out of the bed (she likes and deserves her lay in at her age!) to find out why I am screaming in joy or disgust!

[andyscrase]

Great stuff. Some of this looks like it might have been inspired by Chris Huhne and the Climate Choir

[Roger Tolson]

Sorry Josh, compared to the "climate choir" you are just not funny, don't you when to give up ? !!!

[Philip]

Very good meeting, well done to all the speakers and to Josh! Also mention Johnny Ball with some trenchant comment on the poor behaviour at the BEEB and elsewhere.

[Josh]

Roger T, you are right, I cannot compete with Climate Choir. At least we had Philip Foster's bible verses which got a lot of laughs.

;-)

[Roger Longstaff]

At the risk of repeating myself, the epetition to repeal the CCA is still there:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2035

Just over 1000 signatures to-date, although I expect that most people here have already signed it.

[Athelstan.]

Until you de-programme the brainwashed green-twins Cameron and Milibean and then there is the loon Huhne to boot, I doubt that we are having any effect whatsoever.

Underpinning and steering the ship is the EU and Cameron is a fully paid up and very dutiful member and the hated EU - they are 'not for turning' the AGW supertanker.

Still, we've gotta try, BTW, good stuff JOSH!

[Alex Cull]

I very much enjoyed listening to the presentations and thought this was a very worthwhile (and long overdue) event. It was good that we also had at least two MPs present - Andrew Tyrie and Peter Lilley - albeit ones who voted against the Climate Bill in 2008 and thus didn't need convincing!

Josh - I like the "Sorry we don't do history" mini cartoon, as IMO history is very much a neglected treasure trove when it comes to climate science.

[Viv Evans]

I do so love a Josh cartoon first thi g in the morning!

Did you know that smiling, grinning and laughing transports more blood to the brain, which therefore functions much better?

Perhaps that is the reason watermelons don't get it and never will. They demonstrably have no sense of humour, so their brains can't work as they out to ...

:))

[Viv Evans]

Gah!

It is of course "ought to", not 'out to'!!!!

iPad + aged eyes is not a good combination, alas.

[Robin Guenier]

I agree with Alex - and look forward to the next scan of Josh's amazing cartoons. I sat next to him yesterday and was most impressed by his drawing skills: we're lucky to have him on our side.

Re the unlikelihood of the repeal of the CC Act, I sent this email this morning to my MP, Peter Lilley:

Dear Mr Lilley,

I was pleased, but not surprised, that you attended the meeting in Committee Room 14 yesterday.

I'd be interested in your view of a comment I made after you had (I think) left. The discussion was largely about the inadequacies of climate change science - in my view, although obviously important, such an approach is likely to be fruitless as both sides have adopted firm and seemingly irreconcilable positions. That's why, for example, Donna Laframboise's book is so helpful as, without any focus on the science, she has comprehensively undermined the hitherto accepted authority of the IPCC and why it is valuable to have Ruth Lea's data about the economic absurdities of the UK's position. I reminded the meeting that the subject of the meeting was a reconsideration of the Climate Change Act, with a strong suggestion that we support a proposal that the Act be repealed. Although desirable, I suggested that there were many reasons why repeal was unlikely - however, there might be a more practical solution as it appeared that the Act contained the seeds of its own destruction.

I noted that, although under section 1 (1) of the Act, the Secretary of State has a duty "to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline", under section 2 (1) he/she may by order amend the percentage and/or baseline year. As the current Secretary of State is unlikely to be interested in using that power to neutralise the Act, I suggested that, rather than focus on repealing the Act, we might focus instead on changing the Secretary of State.

In a follow-up comment, I said that the above power was subject to certain (not very onerous) constraints: he/she may make changes if it “appears to” him/her that there have been “significant developments in … scientific knowledge about climate change or European or international law or policy that make it appropriate to do so …” I pointed out that the almost total lack of international action to restrict CO2 emissions since the Act was passed in 2008 (when there was wide optimism about international action) would seem to be a significant development in international policy. Moreover, I noted that the Secretary of State (even the current Secretary of State) is surely be under a duty to take note of the "Climate Change Act 2008 Impact Assessment" (dated March 2009) that observes (section S2) that "The economic case for the UK continuing to act alone where global action cannot be achieved would be weak" and, under the heading "Pathways to transition" notes (section 2.4.9) that that "the long term target and the overall objectives" of the Act are "ensuring the UK is making a full contribution to global action on climate change mitigation". It can scarcely be argued now that we are achieving that.

Do you think there is any merit in such an approach?

Best wishes

Robin Guenier

[Cassio]

Dear Mr Guenier,

Re your posting at 10.37AM

I heard you make this very interesting, and potentially very valuable, point yesterday. Well done. I do hope that you will feel able to share with us Peter Lilley's response. I now intend to make the same point to my MP, a junior minister in the Coalition government.

Making sensible adjustments to the Climate Change Act, rapidly and progressively reducing its impact to near zero, rather than abolishing it outright, could well be the better way forward politically in the short term. Then let it wither and die.

[Josh]

Robin G, your comment at the meeting yesterday was well received and very funny! I wish I could remember exactly what you said, the punchline was excellent - do share!

And it was great to meet you and Alex, and one or two others who managed to make it. We need Barry to give us a full overview... Barry?

[Robin Guenier]

Josh:

Yes, it sounded good at the time and it's hard now to remember it precisely. (And unfortunately Alex's tape recorder wasn't working.) I think it was a rather more crisp version of the end of my third paragraph above: "So ... instead of trying to get rid of the Act, we should be getting rid of the Secretary of State."

[Galane]

Hmmm, perhaps the WWF was in the right to sue the other WWF over the use of the letters "WWF". (Going WTF? Google it.) What I do know is these cartoons are even funnier if you think of the other WWF while looking at/reading them. :)