Bishop Hill Climate policy is harming the poor
Jan 22, 2015 Climate: Parliament Greens Roger Pielke Jr's post on the PhD thesis of Eija-Riitta Korhola is a must-read. Korhola is the wife of Atte Korhola, some of whose thoughts on climate science form the epigraph to Chapter 15 of The Hockey Stick Illusion.
As an MEP, Dr (as I assume we must call her now) Korhola has an insider's view on mainstream climate policy, which she views as a failure so monumental that it is actively harmful.
I agree with those who regard the UN’s strategy – and the EU’s follow-up strategy – not only as ineffective but also harmful.
And the greens must carry much of the blame.
The environmental movement regards economic growth as an enemy of the environment although practice has proven that in precisely those quarters of the world where economic well-being prevails and basic needs are satisfied, people are more interested in taking care of their environment. Poverty, in its turn, is the biggest environmental threat,although it has been romanticised in environmentalist rhetoric.
[I note that The Hockey Stick Illusion is cited in the thesis]
Reader Comments (26)
For Malthusians such as Paul Erhlich, avoidable deaths, through lack of food, water, medicine, power etc, are necessary to prove them right. Under the guise of Green, the Luvvies support it. The EU is full of genocidal Green Love.
Not surprisingly, I ran into the attitude that development was bad early in my architectural career in the sixties. The rigors of permitting expanded exponentially starting about then. The effect was that projects could require permits from several agencies. I found myself confronted, particularly in Wisconsin, with protectors of natural resources who would actually agree when it was suggested that their objective was to prevent development. And of course no-one expects the inquisition. I certainly hadn't.
Permitting became the bane of my existence. I often spent more time contending with these people than designing. I became so oppressed by this insidious aspect of my life, that when i was getting off a plane in Mexico City in 1980, stairs not tube, and sniffed the astonishing smell of "No G-Damned Permitting" I cheered.
I suspect that we may be within 25 years of eliminating abject poverty in the world but if it happens it will not be thanks to the Greens.
Unfortunately Korhola is not a MEP any longer. It's really too bad as the EU badly needs good people like her.
If ignorance is bliss, no wonder, the Green Luvvies appear so happy.
Except of course when they are demonising anyone who dares to point out the holes in their pink and green, fluffy, fantasy bubble view of the world.
"The environmental movement regards economic growth as an enemy of the environment"
Which is precisely why all politicians are misguided if they think any policy will ever be enough to appease the greens. They should have the backbone to ignore the anti-human, anti-industry, anti-growth hypocrites.
@Vieras That is sooo disappointing to learn:-( But she does have a blog: http://www.korhola.com/en/
I started reading her paper earlier today - and I must say, it is a joy to read!
Not only that but she knows how to convert from (whatever) to pdf, so that one can easily navigate via bookmarks in sidebar ... Something the folks who produce UN generated docs really should learn to do *consistently*!
I seem to recall offering to teach 'em how to do this, once upon a time; but for some reason they never got back to me ;-)
@Hilary Ostrov, I can't find words to describe how disappointing it is that she's not a MEP any more. Her party is the "conservative", "pro-business" party of Finland. Instead of her in the European Parliament, we have to endure another woman from the same party: Sirpa Pietikäinen. Mrs. Pietikäinen always votes with the greens and environmentalists and is as far from the ideology of the party as possible. It's a disgrace that the party lets her represent them.
Korhola did a lot of good during her years in the European Parliament. If all the politicians were like her, Europe would not face the deep problems we're facing now.
My favourite quote from her piece: "Climate change is a problem that we would not even know of without climate science."
Another quote from the Afterword:
Everybody with a bit of common sense has been saying that for 20 years or more.
Are there many such problems? For example, imminent destruction by asteroid, imminent pandemic flu ...
Poverty and the environment is the theme of Willis Eschenbach's recent post on WUWT.
Title: Four Stories, Two Worlds – 18 JAN
“Finally, since the biggest threat to the environment is poverty, that means that the biggest friend of the environment is development … strange, but true.” [W. E., 2015]
Recommended reading.
Miracles have been known to occur in Scandinavia....
It looks like a very interesting thesis, though I've only started looking at it, focussing on the more personal bits at the beginning and the end. The aspect that's of interest to me is that she's another 'convert'. She says in the preface that she was one of the first politicians in Finland to push the climate issue, back in 1994, and wrote articles for a green magazine. But at the back of the thesis there is a series of blog posts, ending with Confessions of a climate agnostic that wouldn't be out of place here at BH.
So I've updated my converts blog post and renamed it Converts to scepticism / agnosticism.
If only all those who have any influence, or finger in the climate policy pie could read and reflect on this incredible paper!
steveta.... We are told that climate change is REAL and it is happening NOW. I think we would all know about it (without the aid of an "ology") if an asteroid strike or a flu pandemic was happening NOW.
The point is that unless we had climate science to tell us.....we would all be blissfully unaware that we are now undergoing a MAN MADE CATASTROPHE.
'Climate change is a problem that we would not even know of without climate science.'
Ain't that the Truth!
If there weren't hordes of climatologists ever eager to predict our imminent demise because the temperature has changed by 1/000th of a degree Kelvin in a decade - or whatever the latest ridiculous scare story may be - what physical effects would we actually have observed over the last 50 years that would indicate to us that climate is changing at all?
Quote "Climate change for its part is a problem, which we would not even be aware of
without climate science modelling."
If the models are wrong as they continue to demonstrate where does this leave us? The Catastrophe in CAGW is the political catastrophe that is unfolding in the EU as they solve an effectively non problem with a sledge hammer rather than a tack hammer.
This is one of the defining papers of the era and needs wide circulation.
These notions need to coalesce into a coherent ideology that differs clearly from conservative ones. Until then, the political pendulum will continue to swing between two ultimately identical pressure groups, the conservatives and the socialists, when (not without irony) most human beings agree or want with neither one.
Atmospheric CO2 is identified as a climate change forcing with units of J sec-1 m-2 by the ‘consensus’ and the IPCC. Energy, in units J M-2 divided by the effective thermal capacitance equals average global temperature (AGT). Thus the time-integral of the atmospheric CO2 level times a scale factor equals the AGT change.
For 8000+ years the temperature trend has been flat while the CO2 level has been in the range 260-280 ppmv. This mandates that the scale factor be zero.
Since 2001 the temperature trend has been flat while the CO2 level has been in the range 380-400 ppmv. This also mandates that the scale factor be zero.
Together these observations lead to the expectation that ‘climate sensitivity’ to a doubling of CO2 level will also be zero.
The two factors that do explain the temperature rise since the depths of the Little Ice Age and the flat trend since 2001(95% correlation since before 1900) are identified at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
O/T but apology to The Bishop for using his name in fun.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/ A CHRISTMAS CAROL OR WHAT THE DICKENS?
The crucial chapter to read is 2:" Climate change as a political process". This is succinct summary of 25 years of action (and lack of it) from an insider to the process. It explains why "science" is actually irrelevant to the issue and has been since 1995 (it was indeed settled then by political agreement). As long as the IPPC delivers its allotted task of (at least superficially - the Summary for policymakers), confirming the core relationship between CO2 and global temperature, thus keeping any scientific argument out of the Conference of Parties the circus will continue.
The pertinent quote is " climate change is not an environmental issue but one of energy and economics".
Keep that in mind and you will begin to make sense of this miasma.
People know that planet only has 5 minutes left, there's practically no ice left , half the species in the world have died out, the sea levels and all the other key indicators are rising than ever ....They've seen on the BBC, Guardian & NASA press conferences.
.... It's just you evil denialists that live in a fantasyworld
Ah up Yesterday they moved the Doomsday Clock, video : It is now 3 minutes to midnight.
Ooh scary scary ..I noticed of course the ABCoz & Guardian both hype that Doomsday Clock PR stunt, but the BBC news has not mentioned it
..perhaps they are busy preparing a 1 Hour "End is Nigh" Special
"The poor"?
Whats that?
Ah, Stewgreen, I booked my table at Milliways a long time past (or perhaps future - I get confused). The menu will be (has been?) found in Joanna Southcott's box.
With that thought I need to lay down for a bit.
Korhola lost her MEP seat in the latest elections.