TinyCO2, now I think I understand. What unites sceptics is a fear of "having less stuff". Here's a few thoughts:

- car and stuff ownership is not the gate to happiness

- you can live well in a city with good public transport without a car

- if you really can't live without one you can buy a car

- but if your lungs are stunted by growing up in the smog, you can't regrow them.

He doesn’t know it, but BB is making a good point about sceptic PR. He thinks it’s sceptics that worry about having less stuff but can’t understand that the reason why his side gets nowhere is because everyone is averse to having less stuff. When Jeremy Grantham gives loads of money away to green causes he’s not having less, he’s having more. He’s got everything he needs for comfort and he’s using some of his spare money to feel like a benefactor. If he can make more money on the side then wahaay! The people who feel the cuts first are the people at the bottom, the very people BB supposedly wants to save from themselves. Gee, I bet they’ll make him a saint.

He keeps coming up with ideas why sceptics are sceptic (always insulting of course) because he can’t see the millions of sceptics around him every day. He can’t see them because they don’t even realise they’re sceptics.

A sceptic is someone who at some point thinks ‘I believe in climate change but…’ The rest might be followed by an excuse over a holiday or a business trip. It probably doesn’t even surface when it comes to new clothes or the latest gadget or a power shower. It certainly seems to include a lot of people who talk about CO2 footprints but have never worked theirs out. We need people to wake up to the reality that they’re a sceptic every time they act like one.

BBs a sceptic because he won’t see how bad his side his. He let’s his ego get in the way of being honest with himself. He’d rather be here, being annoying, than working out how to improve things. He can’t even admit that the electric car is unappealing for all but 1 of every 10,000 people in this country. How could people improve them if those connected never admit threat the cars are flawed? I don’t blame BB, it’s a lot easier being a sceptic. Far more comfortable to sit writing about cutting CO2 than actually doing something about it.

Perhaps we should have the slogan “IF YOU’RE GOING TO ACT LIKE A GLOBAL WARMING SCEPTIC YOU MIGHT AS WELL THINK LIKE ONE.”

Mike Jackson/Geoff Chambers. I read the article, as it happens I believe that gay people, should they want to do so should be able to express their love in a marriage. Having said that I don't believe the objectors should be muzzled. I mentioned it earlier on this thread, there's a new (actually not new, because they existed in the 20th century and were very keen on eugenics) breed of bien pensant, descendants many of them from the twitterers of the 20th century who've somehow come to power, not only here, but in the USA. As I said before, they believe they're right on every topic (Toynbee, Shirley Williams etc. etc and their successors) they've always been there, but now have the intoxicating experience of having become the ruling class. Ands they believe that anyone who doesn't agree with the is not just wrong, but horribly and wilfully wrong. They, none of them give a FF for the working classes,especially if they're working, but claim to represent them, while at the same time arguing volubly that resistance to unfettered immigration is racist, blithely unaware that immigration only affects the working classes. The rest of us can look askance at the welfare being doled out with abandon, but our jobs, and the jobs of our children, aren't threatened by immigrants. Our grandkids' schools aren't full of non-English speaking kids, and we don't have families waiting for social housing vacancies. Just to make it clear, my family were immigrants, my grandchildren (some of them at least) are half Indian, and I'm proud of that, I was brought up in Toxteth in a multi-ethnic society and believe a country can benefit greatly from immigration, what I'm talking about here is the hypocrites who claim they have the high ground in morality and blithely inflict suffering on the ordinary working classes to prove it.

The problem with the Webbs, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, the other eugenicists is that they have a compulsion to make the world in their own image. Richard Dawkins is an atheist, so am I, but I'd rather keep the company of religious people than an atheist who wants to destroy their beliefs just because the don't coincide with his. Additionally the bien pensants are doing for our own good, and as C.S. Lewis famously said:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

I've always thought the Toynbee persuasion have a vested interest in an underclass to handwring over, shepherd and maintain in a state of dependency. They actually despise them.

I see something similar in the CAGW phenomenon. People who don't know what's best for them, and certainly can't be trusted to know what's best for them, being cajoled and manipulated by the self-appointed wise and good. The humbug is excused as being in the service of a higher cause.

TinyCO2, in identifying climate scepticism so firmly with the, ‘I believe in climate change but…’ crowd, you confirm what many on my side think. Your 'scepticism' is merely a device to hide your pursuit of self or group interest.

Geoff, we may have gone off-topic, but it started as identifying what was in the way of sceptics getting any PR, and it is of course the bien pensants, or opinionacracy, as someone this blog has named them. I'd attribute it I could remember who it was.

See you on your blog to continue the rants.

"but if your lungs are stunted by growing up in the smog, you can't regrow them."

That may be true, but not pertinent to any country in the western industrial civilisations, every one of which has enacted clean air acts to prevent smog. There have been no problems with smog in any of these countries since the 1960s as acts have been continually introduced to make our air cleaner. I don't know where you're getting you information from, it looks to me as though you've got you hands on a 1940s version of Encyclopedia Brittanica and believe it's current and up to date.

...Things change: we have enough data to know that emissions are harmful; and the technology exists to keep cities clean. You can belch away in the countryside to your heart's content, but come into a town or city and in the future I for one expect cars to be zero emission. Zero emission cars are coming whether you like it or not, of that I have no doubt.
Apr 12, 2013 at 9:08 PM BitBucket

Mr Bucket's strange imaginings. Petrol engine cars are clean and continually getting even cleaner so no need to change to expensive and unwanted technologies.

If you go into the centre of any large city, the air is clean and pleasant these days. Any pollution you might notice is due to diesel buses and lorries. Since one diesel bus pumps out more visible toxic smoke than fifty cars, the sooner they are abolished the better. Most of them carry only a few passengers anyway - mostly car owners who can't afford the parking fees.

BB "Your 'scepticism' is merely a device to hide your pursuit of self or group interest." I don't need any devices. I'm not ashmed or embarassed about how I live, nor am I jealous of those who have more. At 3-4 tons my CO2 footprint would be considered very modest but I'm aware that my lifestyle wouldn't suit most people. eg I haven't flown in almost 5 years but I wouldn't criticise those who have. If by ''group interest' you mean people who want to enjoy the benefits of a modern society then yes, I support that whole heartedly and despise those who would try to destroy it without a very good reason. Life here is very, very good, what fool wouldn't appreciate it?

If the majority of people weren't in the ‘I believe in climate change but…’ crowd the UK CO2 footprint would be falling and when imports, exports and flying are adjusted for the average CO2 footprint hasn't fallen at all and has probably gone up since 1990. I'm not in that group, I'm in the 'I don't know what the truth is but I'm not going to approve of stupid plans just because something might happen' club. I hate waste and I support efficiency and the AGW movement is the biggest waste of money, good will and resources there's ever been.

CO2 will never fall if people continue to lie to themselves about what they really believe, as opposed to what they feel is a socially acceptable green front. The longer your side surrounds itself with the self delusion that people are largely supportive of cutting CO2 the more CO2 will pump into the atmosphere. You have to work with the public as they really are, not some fluffy idealistic version of them.

Geronimo, Social Biology, well there's another thing for you to deny. But you might first Google "traffic lung growth" or check the Lancet or Science Daily. There's an article on the subject in the Guardian that you can no doubt deny too.

TinyCO2, you made it plain that the public are 'sceptics' just like you, yet they know nothing of climate science or hockey sticks. In other words climate 'sceptics' are not what people here like to propose, scientific sceptics weighing evidence and coming to conclusions, but are simply acting in their own interest. There's nothing wrong with that; it is clearly true that individual action has no global meaning. What is wrong is dressing up "I can do nothing about it | nothing to do with me"* as high minded principle.

*not quotes, for pedants and nit-pickers

"Geronimo, Social Biology, well there's another thing for you to deny. But you might first Google "traffic lung growth" or check the Lancet or Science Daily. There's an article on the subject in the Guardian that you can no doubt deny too."

I've said this before but you appear to be an exceptionally juvenile person BB. Smog is caused by "smoke" and "fog" (get it? smo and g) and was indeed the cause of illness and death when everyone used coal fires to heat their houses. It had not been a problem since the 1960s because, (a) the ubiquitous use of coal to heat houses has stopped, and (b) legislation to stop factories pumping out smoke. It has not a thing to do with the output of fumes from car exhausts. So I'd be obliged if you stopped calling me a holocaust denier because I don't agree with your lack of knowledge of what constitutes smog. It simultaneously highlights your ignorance of the topic in hand and your desire to "win" your argument by ad hominem.

Mr Bucket - would you deny that the Met Office gets it wrong 97% of the time?

The man in the street does not need to have studied molecular physics to know they spout nonsense. It's obvious to the man in the street and it would have been obvious to you if you had not been totally indoctrinated.

Geronimo, so are you saying that there is no such thing as smog now and so it cannot be damaging lungs? Are the Lancet and Science Daily articles talking about non-existent pollution because you doubt the name is right? That is just 'sceptic' nit-picking. Although you will question its provenance, here is what Wiki has to say about 'modern' smog.

Modern smog, as found for example in Los Angeles, is a type of air pollution derived from vehicular emission from internal combustion engines and industrial fumes that react in the atmosphere with sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine with the primary emissions to form photochemical smog.

Social Biology, I have no need to deny anything that is true. I also have no idea whether the Met Office gets 'it' wrong 97% of the time, or indeed what 'it' may be.

BB, You don't know what smog is? And you like to describe those who do as "deniers"?

The lights may be on but there's nobody at home.

That's the thing about climate 'sceptics' who like to say **, "we don't care which fuel is used, its just that coal/oil/gas is the cheapest*", when it is pointed out that their measure of cheapest (etc) omits significant costs that the user doesn't bear directly, they hide behind quibbling about exact definitions of words or deny those external costs or raise apocalyptic notions of economic decay and ruin if use of their favourite fuel is challenged. That should make any true sceptic question those climate-sceptic arguments.

If sceptics were sincere, they would say**, "yes, there are parts of our country where pollution levels are too high as a result of emissions from cars and buses and lorries and yes, that does effect the health of people living and working nearby, especially children. Yes it might well be true that nearly 30 thousand people die prematurely in the UK as a result of health problems caused by such pollution and that is very sad. But they are dying and suffering for a good cause because ...", and here's where they get to show how they've considered the problem. They must be able to make that case since they all believe so strongly that the costs of moving away from fossil fuels are great enough to wreck western economies. I guess it depends upon the value they put on a an early death or on damaged health. If we said £1 million per life, then the health cost might be as high as £30 billion annually. How does that compare with subsidies for windmills and solar panels? Too high? How much is your life or health worth?

* or most efficient, best, historically important etc
** attention pedants and nit pickers, not actual quotes

BB, Your post is a great example of quoting bad science. The thing where each group claims that x million people die of y every year. If we added all of them up it would account for many 1000s of percent of the population. Some people do die because of pollution but then quite a lot die of allergies. Should we weedkill the world, make dust illegal? Life is a balance of risks. I've already told you that the worst of London's pollution is at the very centre, the bit with the least amount of car journeys and the most amount of money. Yes, it's made up of car pollution and bus pollution and train pollution and buildings and even the very fabric of the road and all warmed up by the urban heat island. Are you demanding that people stop entering the city at all? All those stupid people filtering in and out of the city or paying hundreds of thousands for a tiny flat. If only they listened to you they'd be much better off. But no, better not let them have an opinion, better we make them do as they're told.

Ask yourself which area of the UK has the highest life expectancy, those in the fresh air of Scotland or nasty polluted London? Is the 3+ years difference in death rates between geographically close Lambeth and Kensington because of a) pollution or b) wealth?

I don't need to concern myself with London pollution because it's already an agenda for Londoners and their mayor. It doesn't require a national drive towards electric cars, which was your claim. You want to pull pollution under the CO2 umbrella and they don't make good bedfellows. One of the reasons for a rise in roadside pollution is the drive towards lower CO2. People have started driving more diesal cars because they get much better mileage. People have gone back to burning wood and household rubbish to save on expensive gas and electric bills. Some of the work of the clean air act is being undone by AGW evangelism.

Imagine if we had a winter like this last one with mainly electric cars on the roads? How many people would have died in dead cars? Would they have been considered collateral damage? No doubt the coroner would have commented on how clean their lungs were. As it is, a thousand extra deaths a week have happened since mid December because it's colder than normal. That on top of the normal winter rise. Oh, my bad. I forgot this cold winter was caused by global warming.

There you go, proving my point. You cannot accept the figures and justify them, you have to dispute them, which indicates to me that your justification is not very strong. There are nearly half a million deaths per year in England and Wales. The main causes of death are cancers, and circulatory and respiratory diseases; pollution has an influence on each of these. Is it really so unlikely that of 500,000 annual deaths, 30,000 might be premature because of a factor that influences all three primary causes of death? The Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants thinks the figure is around 29,000 (though with wide error margins, 5,000 to 60,000) but you seem to know better - the report quoted is "bad science" and can be denied.

I don't see this as being tied to CO2 reduction. Reducing fossil fuel consumption is sensible whether you take CO2 seriously or not. The benefits are smaller import bills, cleaner air and longer lives (average 6 months apparently). The "price" we have to pay for this is not at all proven to be economy-breaking and may even be negative.

"certainly we cannot, in principle or in practice, identify a group of people whose death was caused solely by exposure to particulate air pollution. This leads to difficulties in interpreting numbers of deaths postponed following reduced air pollution. "

"The result needs to be taken in the spirit of giving a general feel for the size of the problem rather than a precise prediction."