As the vultures circle above Glasgow for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference a.k.a. Cop26, here is a flashback to Cop15 which took place in Copenhagen in 2009:
Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China’s negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity (“equal rights to the atmosphere”) in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.
– Mark Lynas writing in the Guardian on 22 December 2009: “How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room”
The majestic cycle continues: “Biden heads to crucial climate talks as wary allies wonder if US will deliver”. He won’t. China will wreck the deal. Developing countries will grandstand, led by the Maldives. Doom will be imminent if we do not get a Green New Deal within a timeframe just longer than one electoral cycle. Preparations will begin for Cop27.
Two questions.
1) How much have global temperatures increased since 1998?
2) Which cities have had to be abandoned because of rising sea levels?
If true, thank you China.
…
At some point someone needs to say “If China won’t commit to real changes then there’s no point the UK doing anything beyond what we’ve done already”.
Won’t be BoJo though…
Schrodinger’s Dog – those questions (like many other questions) are, de facto, forbidden questions, if (for example) someone asked them in a council meeting, things would not go well for that person.
The media today is keen to present to us the news that Mr Biden has met with Pope Francis – and, the media CLAIM, that Pope Francis has endorsed Mr Biden (the supporter of industrial scale abortion, “Trans Rights” for YOUNG CHLDREN, and-so-on) as a Catholic-in-good-standing. There is, of course, no mention of Mr Biden’s many crimes, and his long record of personal alliance (and financial gain) with the vicious dictatorship that controls China (persecuting real Christians, seeking to destroy Muslims, and denying the basic liberties of the general population regardless of their religion or non religion), and threatens the world. The media may well be telling the truth about this – I certainly have no information which contradicts it.
What matters, we are told, is not traditional morality – but rather “SDIs” (Social Development Goals) and of these Social Development Goals the most important is reducing C02 emissions (apart from those of China – which does not have to reduce C02 emissions NOW, just promise to do so at some future time).
Some people have doubts about all this – but that is what the Behaviour Modification Teams (so called “Nudge Units”) are for. Teams of highly educated men and women who advice modern governments on how to get rid of “wrong think” – not by refuting the ideas of dissenters in open debate, but by influencing the minds of people indirectly, by a process of conditioning (what the vulgar call “brainwashing”) – so that people have the “correct” attitudes which lead to the “correct” behaviour. According to their compatibilist philosophy (from such thinkers as Cass Sunstein), there is nothing evil in what they do.
Time shows that the predictions of catastrophe never come to pass. So they unashamedly just make new ones. For example:
2009: 100 months to act on climate, warns Charles
2021: Prince Charles says “dangerously narrow window” to accelerate climate action
British readers (“of a certain age”) may be reminded of “The Federation” from the 1970s Science Fiction series “Blake’s Seven”. The show is still broadcast on “Forces T.V.” (whose main audience is British military people).
This does appear to be the sort of society that the international establishment have as their aim. Behaviour modification conditioning, and so on.
I should remind people that the Federation was NOT a military dictatorship (that came much later – when the show, at least in my view, became rather cruder than it had been), on the contrary the Federation had a President, Council, and so on..
I do not remember if there were elections – but there would have been no problem with elections. Even with the President and the Council being DENOUNCED by mass demonstrations. As long as the demonstrations were saying “they are not doing anything!”, “it is all a cop out!”, “they are just concerned with getting money for themselves and their rich mates – not in controlling society as they SHOULD!”
That sort of “dissent” and “opposition” would not have been opposed by the Behaviour Modification teams – on the contrary, the government machine (and allied intellections) would seek to CREATE such “dissent” and “opposition”.
Please note that the arch “enemies” of Western government machines agree with the government machine on the key points – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Agenda, Climate Change Emergency, and so on. It is mass demonstrations from this sort of “dissent” and “opposition” that we see – “they are not serious about these policies, they are not doing anything, they just want money for themselves and their rich friends, Tory Scum!” – that sort of “dissent” and “opposition” is not crushed – on the contrary it is encouraged, carefully nurtured by the education system, media, and so on.
Compatibilism in practice.
British readers (again “of a certain age”) may also remember a television series called called (if memory serves) “1990”.
The Britain of this series was most certainly a democracy (the opening of the show contains a voice over of a Parliamentary debate with the Prime Minister dedicating himself to the defence of liberty) – with its Department of Public Control, or Public Control Department. I certainly mean no offence to the staff of the Department – who are, no doubt, highly educated and dedicated Public Servants.
Again, Compatibilism in practice.
Natalie: Preparations will begin for Cop27.
Why of course! This is the only prediction that matters:
“Paris Agreement
We hereby commit to being uncommitted, but promise to be very good, to help each other and to meet every year, forever.”
Originally from the GWPF I think.
Quit your moaning please all of you, and sit back and admire a great, glorious and perfectly executed scam.
It is immoral to let a sucker keep his money.
COP26 will result in a decision that no decisions can be made at this time, but countries will decide to seek decisions on whether future decision making conferences will take place, once they have decided where that will be.
The issue isn’t China “wrecking the deal”.
There is no deal. No matter what they say and what they commit to, and no matter what China does – there is no technically feasible way to reduce emissions. It’s utterly and totally impossible.
All what happened in the last 25 COPs and in the next 100 COPs is empty, lunatic, talk, They just talk nonsense.
There is no “transition” to renewables – because there are no renewables that can deliver the quantity of energy mankind needs and uses.
It’s all illusions and empty talk about things that do not exist. They live in a kuku world.
Good and pious intentions and promises and declarations don’t produce energy. It’s all empty, unhinged talk.
Time shows that the predictions of catastrophe never come to pass. So they unashamedly just make new ones. For example:
2009: 100 months to act on climate, warns Charles https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/mar/08/prince-charles-monarchy
2021: Prince Charles says “dangerously narrow window” to accelerate climate action
Apologies. Second link should have pointed to https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/prince-charles-says-dangerously-narrow-window-accelerate-climate-action-2021-10-23/
Paul Marks, people need to be confronted and these questions need to be asked, before we are all pauperised by the Paris Accords – both their consequences and their costs.
The British Government has stated the decarbonising the British economy will cost £1 trillion. (As an aside, I think we’re getting far too comfortable bandying around the term “trillion”. To put it into perspective, a trillion seconds is about 31,500 years!) £1 trillion is about £15,000 for every man, woman and child in the UK or, given that a lot of people pay no tax, about £30,000 per taxpayer. And that’s just the official estimate. This being British Government budgeting, it is safe to assume the final tally will be at least three times higher. Then there’s the world we’ll be in once this transition has been completed. It will be a world with no central effective heating, functionally inferior electric cars – if we’re lucky – and no flying for the masses.
And for what? I’m an absolute climate skeptic. The Earth’s climate has varied in the past, often dramatically, without any help from man, and will doubtless continue to do so in the future. By contrast, Bjorn Lomborg, the environmentalist, does believe in climate change, but claims the Paris Accords, even if no-one cheats and they are fully implemented, will only lower global temperatures by 0.05ºC (0.09ºF) by 2100.
So much sacrifice for so little.
PS. Paul, I clearly remember watching both Blake’s Seven and 1990, when I was a teenager. They, particularly the latter, helped turn me into a libertarian.
Front cover of the Economist magazine today – “Cop Out”, on the Glasgow event. What Britain and the other Western countries will do is important (says the Economist magazine), but they should go much further – after all it is possible that there is some productive industry left in the West, and it must be wiped out. Fake “opposition”, fake “dissent” – as predicted.
The Economist magazine also urges that to expand the American Welfare State (yes there is one – indeed spending on it is now cripplingly high – and there are MORE, not less, people on the streets than before it was created in the 1960s) “the argument for higher taxes must be won”.
Let that sink in – the Economist magazine does not think the Western powers are going far enough with their “Green” taxes and regulations, and it wants HIGHER (not lower) Welfare State spending and taxation.
Yet the Economist magazine is sitting in the entrance area of the Institute of Economic Affairs – even though the magazine represents what the IEA should be fighting against (on Covid 19, Climate Change Emergency, Welfare State, Credit Bubble banking and fiat money bailoutism, and-so-on).
Nor is this recent – not only did the Economist magazine support the ultra Collectivist Biden-Harris campaign in 2020, it also supported Barack Obama (who had the most Collectivist voting record in the United States Senate), and before Mr Obama, in 2004, it supported John Kerry – who had, at that time the most Collectivist voting record in the United States Senate before Mr Obama became a Senator.
Still I must not be unfair. Some people at the IEA know quite well what the Economist magazine is (what it represents) in due time it will go – I have to learn to be more patient.
Decarbonising our economy is the Greenies’ equivalent of the Soviet collectivisation of agriculture, or the Great Leap Forward.
With similar effects.
Fen Tiger
October 30, 2021 at 2:19 pm
Decarbonising our economy is the Greenies’ equivalent of the Soviet collectivization of agriculture, or the Great Leap Forward.
With similar effects.
Absolutely … the same nonsense exactly, by the same ideology…
The British Government has stated the decarbonising the British economy will cost £1 trillion.
There will be no decarbonization… it’s not possible… so you’ll have a trillion spent for nothing.
How apt! 🙂
You can watch it in real time.
“Vultures” = private jets.
https://www.flightradar24.com/OOPCN/29b13060
Latest arrival was a charter flight from Paris, operated by European Aircraft Private Club. But they must be late-comers who are slumming it, as a Pilatus PC-12/47E is a turboprop, not a proper jet aircraft.
Those with more class arrive in Edinburgh, and get rides to Cop26 in special eJags, powered by electricity from diesel generators (running on chip-fat-oil) because there are not enough charging points for electric vehicles in Scotland)
But … but … the climate catastrophe is definitely going to kick in within the next fifty years, or likely within the next 100 years or even in the next 1000 years …
Their predictions have been so spot on over the last 50 years, how can you doubt them now?
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/
Note that their predictions are always so far into the future that no one alive and able to vote will still be alive when they are due to doom the entire planet.
It’s all so pointless and tiresome.
Eventually Elon will sell you an electric car that is better or at least comparable to a petrol engine in all regards, and people will avoid ICE cars for the same reason we don’t use steam engines in cars – because they are worse. Rolls Royce’s micro nuke plants will be poured into every mineshaft in the land. Maybe someone will get a tokamak working.
And then it’ll be fixed. Not before. Zealotry won’t remove a single CO2 molecule from the atmosphere. Engineering will.
For a comprehensive list of failed predictions about the climate with both those that have failed and those that will fail, I recommend Extinction Clock Nothing to do with those Extinction Rebellion idiots…
Fen Tiger wrote (Oct. 30th, 2:19pm: “Decarbonising our economy is the Greenies’ equivalent of the Soviet collectivisation of agriculture, or the Great Leap Forward.”
I nominate that for the Samizdata Quote of the Day.
Schrodinger’s Dog.
I am sorry I missed one of your comments. Yes we have a lot of old shared experiences – without, as far as I know, ever having met.
Who knows – perhaps we will meet before the end.
As for the destruction of the British economy, or at least its terrible decline….. With or without the extra “Green” taxes and regulations, that is baked-into-the-cake now. Even such mainstream newspapers as the Telegraph and the Daily Mail point out that the present government has spent money “like a drunken sailor” *(their words not mine – “Central Office” please note), and that the future of the British economy will be grim indeed, because of this choice.
When talking with other ordinary Conservatives over the years things have gone from “things can not be as bad as that Paul” to “Paul – we already know that, you do have a habit of stating the bleeding-obvious”.
That is true enough, I have become a bore – which is why I do not “bang on” about these matters in conversations as much as I once did. The decisions have been made, nothing can be done about it now, so we just have to try and get through the hard times that are coming.
I would point out that the opposition parties would have been worse in the United Kingdom (“you would say that Paul” – perhaps, but I do mean it), and I think what is going to happen to the United States economy may be even worse than what is going to happen to our own.
[…] – Fen Tiger […]
If you are weary in advance of the mass media being in stenographer/amplifier mode over COP26, you might enjoy a fresher take on each day’s events at the COP26 House of Horror, Credulity, Connivance and Destructive Opportunism to be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp_35q4FK2E . The first report will be this evening at 7pm.
‘The FLOP26 livestream is a daily, 1 hour show for each day of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, offering a wide range of guests, countering the single-sided story being heard there, and on the news media.
The first FLO26 Livestream will kick off the series tonight at 7pm (EST 2pm; CST 1pm; MST 12pm; PST 11am).
Net Zero Watch director, Benny Peiser will join Ben Pile to talk about the prospects for Britain’s presidency of COP26 and the UK’s Net Zero agenda — both of which look decidedly unstable.’
It must be a great day for plane spotters at Glasgow and Edinburgh.
My favourite this morning on https://www.flightradar24.com was a Gulfstream G550 that had just flown non-stop all the way from Kigali, Rwanda.
The Bolivian Air Force has flown in, in FAB-001. What a great callsign 🙂
Meanwhile, over at Edinburgh, the Republique du Niger’s 737 has just flown non-stop from Niamey, Niger.
Breaking news, a Gulfstream G650ER is just arriving from Rome. Could be LG Brandon after his audience with the Pope? Rumours that JB had a brown-trousers moment while in the Vatican have yet to be sustantiated.
The cognative dissonance is strong in these ones. Imagine how stressful it would be (for an honest person) trying to rationalise why all their air-miles are good for the planet, instead of using online conferences. You might conclude these are not honest people, I could not possibly comment.
Yes Rudolph Hucker – nothing says “concern about C02 emissions” like jetting in tens of thousands of people thousands of miles to a vast conference full of commercial lobbyists for subsidies, and endless “activists”.
As for the public – there will indeed be mass demonstrations, but NOT against the terrible costs of the taxes and regulations pushed. No – the demonstrations will be shouting “cop out” (Economist magazine – people must be edgy “rebels” if they are echoing Corporate mouthpieces such as the Economist magazine), “you are not really doing anything” (which is the sort of thing that someone who has never paid an electricity or gas bill in their lives, would say), “Tory Scum!” (chanted at all protests – regardless of the alleged subject), and-so-on.
So there will be plenty of “opposition” and “dissent” – but all of it fake. As there will be no real difference between the people inside the conference events and their supposed enemies (baying for their blood) outside the conference events.
Such is the result of the education system and the media – and the failure of some people to free their minds from the agit-prop of approved opinions.
I remember when an extreme leftist could not turn up for a television event – and was replaced by Stanley Johnson (the father of Prime Minister Johnson).
The leftist “rebel” was very angry – how could this evil straight-white-male replace her, a noble women-of-colour?
Except that there was no real difference between the two. They both support the Chinese dictatorship (“how can anyone be against it?” asks Stanley Johnson, I manage to be against it Sir), they both support endless taxes, government regulations and spending, and they both support the Green agenda, and they were both pro European Union.
Essentially the far leftist and the “Tory Scum” were interchangeable – which is why the television programme could exchange one for the other, knowing they would get much the same opinions on the key matters.
Of the two I rather prefer Stanley Johnson – he has a sense of humour (indeed a roguish charm) and almost winks at the camera as he delivers the expected “liberal” elite opinions (almost as if to say – “I do not really believe this c…”). But in terms of policy – no real difference.
The West is doomed to terrible times, either way.
Still Japan may (may) be an exception to this – after all its election results mean that after “Cop 26” Japan can (if the government wishes) chant another course.
Of course Japan may just continue to drown in government spending – we shall have to see.