Discussion > What do the GWPF think about the ASC 'Managing Climate Risks to Well-Being and the Economy' report?
As I write this sitting in Shanghai China the outside temp is 35C, at home my wife at home has seen 24C as a max temp in our part of Scotland so far this year. As I look around me I cannot see anyone dying, in fact they look a lot fitter than the UK with plenty of pedestrians and cyclists, yes there are air conditioning units hanging precariously out of apartments so the biggest danger is one of these falling on your head not the 35C. I have adapted by showering twice day and wearing a short sleeved shirt and keeping indoors where possible as its cooler.
Breath of Fresh Air
Much is made of the range of temperatures that we can and do experience over any time scale or distance. How about a 7 degree temperature range in your garden. Carol Klein has created the conditions in her garden to grow the wide range of plants we see on TV. It also requires quite a bit of effort but that's another thing altogether.
Alan Ogden
I’ll echo what others have said, we already have many climate/weather problems now, do we need AGW as an excuse to fix them? Hospitals are unspeakable in hot weather if they don’t have air conditioning, how many hot days a year do we have to have to trigger common sense and build hospitals for the comfort of those that use them? That means making sure they can cope with cold too. The same rules apply to homes. Why would we ever build homes that cope badly with hot or cold?
Even assuming it gets much hotter, there is an assumption that today’s heat naïve pensioners will be tomorrow’s elderly. I hate to break it to anyone reading this in ignorance, but we’re tomorrow’s pensioners (if we’re not there now, enjoying the sun). Unlike the current crop of very old people, most of us have experienced somewhere hot. Even if we haven’t, those that survive a few heat waves will learn to adapt. Those on aspirin are even forearmed for warmer conditions because one of the body’s defence mechanisms for heat is thinner blood. For those too bewildered to look after themselves in the heat, chances are they’re not being looked after properly and if the heat doesn’t get them, some other form of neglect will. Solution, look after the elderly better, not make their homes heat proof.
How do we adapt for the big stuff like sea level rise? What we can’t do is act before it’s clear what sort of problem we’re going to have. While it may be necessary to stop building in certain coastal areas or even give up places to the waves, you can’t depopulate them before you have to. The people in those areas have to be both informed and consulted. eg There had obviously been a decision to stop dredging the rivers and drains in Somerset and plans to install bigger/newer pumps were shelved if not scrapped. Whether this decision was right or wrong is beside the point, the public should have been told the land was being abandoned to the forces of nature. If all the facts point to an environmental protection measure being too expensive for existing budgets, the public should be asked if they will fund it separately either in taxes or charity donations. Where competing schemes fight for funding, the public should be given a say where the priorities lie eg the pubic might favour better pumps in Somerset rather than fund a wildlife preserve or dredge a river rather than protect fish spawning grounds.
What does need to be done is an overhaul of planning rules and that doesn’t necessarily mean no building on flood plains. It might mean that those buildings need to gain height to allow for a flood basement. We can and do build in extreme environments, we just need to allow it to be done in places locked in time by local aesthetics.
It’s time to stop frittering money on endless awareness campaigns. If governments and authorities think the public will need to adapt then they should be building money up to help it happen WHEN people can see something needs to be done. At that point it will be far clearer where to spend the money and the public will be aware at no cost.
TinyCO2
TinyCO2
Since adaptation, as pursued by Betts et al, would almost certainly mean increased air conditioning, how does this square with the demand from the eco-worriers [© Fenbeagle for that wonderful new concept!] for massive reductions in energy usage?
I make the same point about electric cars. Is there some sort of magic machine which is going to be installed on every street corner that produces a special electricity different from the 'ordinary' stuff that comes out of the socket in the wall?
As for house building, the volume builders have been throwing up dwellings that are barely fit for purpose for as long as anyone can remember. Recent changes to the Building Regulations have been aimed at the usual box-ticking exercises which are meant to convince us that we are reducing our "carbon footprint" while not making any material difference to the buildings themselves (except that they and the plots on which they are built get smaller as the price gets bigger).
It is well-understood, except by the green fanatics, that it is only the increased wealth of the last couple of centuries that has allowed us to preserve parts of the environment which we would otherwise have ransacked with a view to simply staying alive. But there is no need for bureaucratic agencies artificially to preserve environments that are not threatened and prioritise them over the well-being of people — unless of course you happen to be one of those who thinks the natterjack toad is more important than human beings.
I do disagree with you about flood plains, however. It is the destruction of the flood plain which causes problems further up and down stream. Just putting the houses on stilts doesn't solve the problem. Look around the UK and see where villages and other settlements have been built for centuries. Most of them are halfway up a hill. Commercial urban development is on rivers because they were essential transport links but the residential areas were generally on higher ground. There was no reason to change that pattern of development. At least not until the advent of "developer contributions" (aka "bribes") to local authorities to let developers build on the easy bits.
Mike Jackson
I don't like the idea we build on flood plains either but let's face it, it will happen, especially in expensive and crowded places like London. A great many homes are already on flood plains but are unable to adapt because of planning rules. Of course we could solve the problems by limiting immigration and slowly reducing our population but I won't hold my breath.
TinyCO2
Perhaps the Amazon rainforest will return being a savannah, or certain parts of it at least. It will be an unprecedented event and a harbinger of doom and death by frying, or something like that anyway.
Also put link on Unthreaded.
SandyS
More consequences of climate change bollocks. Redheads in Scotland Could Face Extinction Due to Global Warming a DNA Expert Warns.
Martin A
"More consequences of climate change bollocks. Redheads in Scotland Could Face Extinction Due to Global Warming a DNA Expert Warns."
Jul 11, 2014 at 10:36 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A
As long as Claire Grogan's voice isn't affected by global warming then I see (and hear) no need for panic.
michael hart
And watch out for the bigger fridge, you may cause it to need to be even bigger e.g. room size.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10962434/Stop-buying-big-fridges-middle-class-families-told.html
Breath of Fresh Air
The shame about this thread is that GWPF haven't deigned to engage Richard Betts on the issues and he's been left with the curmudgeons (some of them fragrant I must say) to discuss the issues with.
geronimo
geronimo
Richard also said he would be interested in the views of BH readers of which there have been plenty.
Rhoda pointed out that the quesrion was of the "have you stopped beating your wife" variety which is one very good reason for the GWPF to ignore it.
Mike Jackson
True Mike but Richard asked their position, we deprecate the warmists and scientivists reluctance to communicate, by which I mean exchange views, not the clisci meaning of "you listen and agree with us", and here we are doing the same thing ourselves.
A propos of bugger all Steve McI has just put up an analysis of the Lawson/Hoskins exchange, which I was in the course of doing for discussion here. He only covers part of it, but, as ever, is much more meticulous in his research than I am. Basically we've come to the same conclusions, there was an exchange between a scientist and a lay-person, the scientist distorted the facts, and the BBC apologised for allowing the lay -person to engage with the scientist. Just re-read 1984, very prescient.
geronimo
geronimo.
Don't worry, I agree with you.
Though I think the comparison with Orwell is slightly over-blown. Remember that cock-up trumps conspiracy 99% of the time.
The BBC problem is that it has for decades been "Guardian Radio" at least as far as its political reporting is concerned, and AGW is nothing if not political as has been from the beginning. You are going to be hard-pressed to convince the powers-that-be at Broadcasting House that:
a. a scientist speaking on his area of expertise would dream of distorting the facts;
b. that a Tory ex-Chancellor has anything worth saying on any subject let alone one in which he is patently not qualified.
Furthermore the Guardian mindset in BBC News has already taken control of the global warming argument through those scientivists and eco-activists with their own axe to grind to the point that:
c. the decision-makers are "warmists" (and by that I mean that they are in favour of the whole socio-political drive towards what I call 'unpicking the industrial revolution' regardless of whether the science supports them or not) and
d. they have the means and the moral right, in their eyes, to keep dissenting voices, especially potentially influential ones like Lawson or well-loved characters like David Bellamy or Johnny Ball, well away from a microphone.
(Just wait till David Attenborough has a Damascene conversion and see how quickly he becomes a non-person!)
Let me add that if Richard Betts wanted to know the GWPF's view on the ASC report he could easily have emailed them a copy and asked for a response. He didn't; he blazoned the request across the Bishop HIll Discussion site.
Presumably with the intention of putting them on the spot.
Mike Jackson
"I contend that this would not have been acceptable to the climate community had anyone presented it as a submission to 5AR. Was any such submission made? Do you think RB could have made such an assessment and got it past his own bosses never mind into the report."
I think you'll find that the IPCC is like the coroner at the Hillsborough inquest in that it is unable to take evidence that doesn't show that there will be no problems. It is set up to give the imprimatur of scientific authority to a Malthusian political movement's goals.