Monday
May042015
by 
Josh
Josh Turning our backs on the poor - Josh 325
;)
It is extraordinary to think that Bjorn Lomborg first published The Sceptical Environmentalist in 1998 - that's as long as The Pause!
However there has been no pause in some people ignoring his message as we have, rather depressingly, read on this very blog over the weekend.
It is really simple: the money we spend on Climate Change mitigation can be better spent on health, education and cheap energy. Why is this hard to understand? Do they think climate science is done in a moral vacuum? Can they not see that divesting from fossil fuels hurts the poor the most?
Incredible.
Click the image for a larger version
Reader Comments (35)
There's a dog collar missing - and a short-arse with a very Stern face.
Green Luvvies can afford not to see the poor, and as they pay to a Green company to get only Green electricity out of the plug sockets, what else can they do?
The argument that the choice is between spending money fighting climate change and money fighting poverty in LDCs is misleading. First, I am not sure that the money that is finding CAGW related programs would flow into poverty and health related programs. Second, I think that the more pernicious aspects of the CAGW crusade (and its accompanying anti-free market propaganda) are its direct impact on the development policies and investment decisions of the various development banks. The loading on to development loans of irrelevant first world criteria and constraints is totally counterproductive.
Catastrophe, instead of benefice, is the precious conceit of a Western elite. It could not have been more wrong.
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Bernie1815, there is always the poverty in the UK: using the most efficient generating plants (CCGT) and scrapping all "renewables" subsidies would go a long way to halving electricity costs here. This would result in helping many of the 2.4million currently in fuel poverty (2012 DECC figures, LIHC) better able to afford to heat and cook - effectively a boost to poor people's incomes. This is a direct exchange: subsidise green ideology, or help poor people in the UK.
Budgie: I agree that where the CAGW inspired policies distort and cause energy prices to rise, there is a direct and more or less immediate impact on the poor. However, in less developed countries the greater impact is on the strings that are tied to energy related capital projects not the funds themselves.
From IceAgeNow
http://iceagenow.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Global-hypocricy.jpg
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/world/551203/nepal-to-seek-funds-from-aiib-to-rebuild
Nepal to seek funds from AIIB to rebuild
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Nepal traditionally leans toward India, though the relationship is a bit complicated. The AIIB (of which India is not a part) is changing more than one equation.
-This is Christiana Figueres, quoted in the Guardian (aka tinkerbell, cf. Hilary)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/04/un-climate-chief-says-the-science-is-clear-there-is-no-space-for-new-coal
Saying things like there is "no space for new coal" sounds almost criminal to me. Crazy.
I think the divesting from fossil fuels bit is simply an attempt at market manipulation and barely worth a mention. The greenpiece certainly understand a bit of marketing/advertising/threats/intimidation. But they can't really affect the market any more than Norman Lamont or James Callaghan could talk up the Pound.
also, typo ? Was "Why is this not hard to understand?" supposed to have the "not" in it?
[J: ta, fixed]
The UNFCCC, UNEP, IPCC et al. together now with the various 'Christian' churches are engaged in the moral crusade of an eco-marxist nightmare doomed to an excruciatingly painful failure, wrought by economic collapse, unsustainable debt, and a mass of unemployed, cold, sick, distressed people who have had quite enough of new age moral theology with its age old message of deprivation.
May 4, 2015 at 7:52 PM SandyS
The link to the Ice Age Now picture is 403 Forbidden for me. Is it now dead?
shub, I think what Figueres meant was there was no space in her mind for an alternative thought process.
Great cartoon. Totally agree.
Is that Richard betts throwing the bottled water?
Otter, yes, Richard mentioned clean water on the Tamsin article thread. He is joined by Nicolas Stern holding forth and Alan 'Divest' Rusbridger.
I don't think greenies would be dishing out bottled water anymore than they would cheap energy.
While the west bows to the green blob ant pretends to be very moral, China provides what is needed to lift the poor nations out of poverty - coal fired power stations, clean water (not just a stand pipe but pressure feed system to all dwellings), roads, machinery for agriculture and so on. If push comes to shove who are going to side with the west and who are going to side with China?
Can we in the west afford to sit back and let the green blob get on with the genocide of the poor nations in accordance with their Agenda 21?
You forget the nazi base of green philosophy. Neo-Malthusian ideas and a self selected "master race" that expects to dominate all survivors. As Europe cools over the next 20-30 years, there will be much regret at the squandering of goodwill, respect and money wasted on the green utopia.
As Ivan notes the Chinese will have first pick of resources from currently undeveloped countries, and they in turn will buy goods from China.
In that time Europe will have returned to a squabbling group of much poorer countries. Nuclear energy will be not only desirable, it may be the only way to keep the lights on. Coal mines rarely get re-opened, depleted gas reserves will force use of frakking, and wind turbines will become scrap metal. If you are still alive huddle around the fire while you slowly roast a greenie.
et tu, Josh?
I've never mentioned divestment.
Nor have I said anything about energy in developing countries, until this evening when I posted about India in response to Ruth's question.
As has been pointed out Bjorn Lomborgs $4MAus would provide water wells for about 900,000 Africans or a nice landing place for Bjorn Lomborg.
Graeme No.3
The base of the green movement is blatantly post Nazi organisations like the WWF (princes Phillip and Bernhardt) and the Club of Rome. It's basically a hatred of smelly peasants destroying their pristine environment, forcing them back into their hovels.
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Sir Crispin Tickell, member of the eugenics Huxley clan, mentor to George Monbiot.
He is also a patron of population concern charity Population Matters, (formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust), and told Radio 4's Today programme that the ideal population for Britain could be around 20 million. As a member of Lord Rogers' Urban Task Force, Tickell counselled against spreading cities saying that we need denser living, that young adults should not expect to leave home straight away, and that older relatives could live in 'granny flats'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispin_Tickell#Public_Impact
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sealed/monbiot/history.xhtml
Wholeheartedly, do I concur with your clearly drawn sentiments Josh.
Wholeheartedly, do I wish your graphic insight was reaching a far wider audience than just these 'pages', though, I know other sites will 'publish' too [and thank you Bish'].
POLITICIANS masquerading as farsighted philanthropists.
I curse and scoff at the sanctimony of the arch priests who mendaciously peddle the dogmas, emanations of the green blob.
I despise the liars - the UK political claque who again and again pull the wool over the eyes of a public who will not see them for what they are: charlatans - the 'progressives' who purloin and impose endless debt on the taxpayer indeed through secondary and 'sin taxes' plunder most - the poorest in UK society......how do we allow them to get away with it?
While at international level; the UN, WHO and the World bank continued to waffle on about such nebulous idiocies - global warming - when people were dying in their thousands of the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea - where's the common humanity in that, Ban Ki Moon be damned.
What do we do?
Well lets see here, in the EU, we raise tariff barriers so that they cannot trade, we trawl the waters of fish making the sea's barren, we then tell them about the 'green agenda' to deny them access to cheap power! Alas, then via the madness of growing crops to harvest and then distill ethanol - to burn in cars [FFS] - it distorts world food commodity prices making basic foodstuffs unavailable thus causing starvation.................
Who can tell how many deaths have been caused by the GREEN death, certainly uncounted, unaccounted but most grievously in Africa and the knock on effects are felt across the globe though particularly in our backyard here in the EU , it's a tragedy and we see the consequences daily as they drift across Mare Dolorum.
Incidentally, this is nothing to do with climate change, but on the subject of helping the poor…..
One of the members of the advisory board for my HELIX project (discussed on another thread) lives in Kathmandu. He survived the earthquake, and he and his wife are now working to help others in their country. They have set up their own relief operation operating locally, through which they can make a real, immediate difference on the ground. If anyone here is interested in supporting them, the details are here.
Again, for the avoidance of any doubt, this is nothing at all to do with climate change. The only connection is someone I know through work who happens to be from Nepal - the twin discussion topics of HELIX and helping people in developing countries made me think of posting about it here.
Eli, desperate times call for desperate comparisons. If you are offering $4m Aus as Lombergs funding, for 900, 000 Africans having drinking water, how many Africans having drinking water are you offering for Tim Flannery's unnecessary Australian seawater desalination plants?
How long would $4m Aus pay IPCC air tickets and hotel bills, let alone salaries, rent and utility bills?
How many Africans could have drinking water for the costs being incurred for the *climate conference* in Paris?
The space race may have produced satellite communication and non stick frying pans, climate science has produced ice that doesn't melt, polar bears that have not died, and scientists always wanting to stick the blame on everybody else.
How much in legal fees has the Hockey Stick Graph cost? Do you want to express that in Africans having drinking water, or simply as deaths?
4 lucky rabbit feet are only lucky for so long, when jumping up and down on thin ice, but don't let me stop you, if you are having fun.
*[amended. BH]
GC: would we be able to, you will have an awful lot of thumbs-ups for that, many of them from me - count your words, then count my thumbs-ups. Dividing one by the other would result in 1.
et tu, Josh?
I've never mentioned divestment.
Nor have I said anything about energy in developing countries, until this evening when I posted about India in response to Ruth's question.
May 5, 2015 at 12:35 AM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts
When you promote spending in one area, as in the real world investment resources are finite you must be also fighting against investment in an other alternative area. So when asking for another £60M for a bigger faster computer the £60M will come from either the tax payer who then has less to spend in the private economy or other Govt spending areas. You could say its HS2 or you could say its disabled benefits or say nothing and hope someone else makes the descision for you but it comes from somewhere else regardless. The Money Tree does not exist.
BH, thank you for amending!
Breath of Fresh Air:
I am less concerned about the demand for faster computers than the uncertainties and prohibitions created around the production of cheap electricity. As I said earlier, the pros and cons around a request for research funding should be assessed on their own merits. However, the elimination of existing functioning coal plants and prohibitions on new coal plants and the huge distortions in energy markets to subsidize renewable power generation are the big issues.
Bernie, only reason I mentioned the Computer was that the Met Office would have had to go and justify the expenditure so it was a close example of spending in one area affecting spend in other areas. As Richard works for the Met he should be closer to what was needed to justify this expenditure.
...and models that walk off the runway.
Breathe, of course Eli understands that the massive Copenhagen Climate Center is underinvesting in everything not yet Bjorn.
Still, some, not Eli to be sure, might wonder about the CCC's position on Abbott reducing aid to the developing world by 11 Billion AU$, that's enough to build wells for all Africans. C'mon Bjorn, speak up for the poor.
What is missing from this cartoon is the Android man pissing on Apple, or in this case the rich pissing on the poor.
Well, given Bjporn's income, Eli is not surprised to see him not helping the poor and claiming it is good for them.
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