Aaargh, aaargh, make it stop, please!
Mr Barroso called for international agreement on the types of biofuels that should be allowed but insisted that the EU targets would increase their sustainability. “The only alternative we have for biofuels today is oil. And there is no question, the impact on the environment of oil is much greater than for biofuels.”
No, you pint sized Portugee moron!
We know that biofuels lead to greater emissions than the use of fossil fuels.
You\’re insisting that we all go off to make the problem worse.
Look, please, can you not simply admit that you\’ve all made a mistake, that biofuels are only the answer to the question "how do we cook the planet faster while making everyone poorer?"
I\’ll even draft the speech for you. You know, Keynes and all that. "New scientific evidence has come to light showing that the earlier decision was based on incomplete information. As the late great Lord Keynes once said, "When the facts change I change my mind. Pray, what do you do Sir?".
Or is that too difficult?
Can we leave yet?
Having looked at biofuels, as part of my day job, I can only conclude that they are no more than an agricultural subsidy. Was CAP really not enough????
The 5% or so that can be potentially supplied by biofuels can be much more easily provided by simply using more efficient vehicles (on average) which is already happening thanks to +$100 oil.
The (famous) quote from Keynes is just another piece of con-artistry, accomplished in very much the manner of a sleight-of-hand conjurer, employing what is called “misdirection.” The essence of the technique is to divert the audience attention away from where the “trick” is being performed by drawing its focus to some other feature.
What has happened is that Keynes (and his followers everywhere) have been shown to be wrong. Predictions about future developments have failed to materialize along the lines suggested by their theories.
The starkly simple explanation for predictive failure is, lo and behold, inadequate theory (in Keyenes’ case, totally wrong-headed theory). But the audience’s attention must be diverted from such acknowledgement at all costs–or the “jig is up” and Keynes’ entire claim to expertise or understanding of any sort whatever is called into question.
Keynes trick is to divert attention from theory to “facts.” And here, a bald-faced lie serves nicely: the “facts” have changed–as brazen an untruth as could possibly be uttered. But it works, serving not only as misdirection but quite as well as witty repartee!
“New scientific evidence” – bah humbug; it always was a lousy idea and remains one.
Mr. Worstall, you are right about bio-fuels but you always make me nervous because of your implicit assumptions that we are cooking the planet. We are not. It is all a scam, bullshit, lies, smoke and mirrors. Man-made climate change is somewhere between zero and minimal.
Even if there is any significant man made climate change, there is no proof and little evidence that it is detrimental.
So at that point who cares about bio-fuels? Just another lunatic bureaucratic fad and fraud which will fade away eventually.
Blacuest;
BUT by pushing biofuels, the EU is going to drive food inflation crazy, leading to death and destruction around the world. But fuck it eh, that’s what the EU is good at…h
I back Black Jack. We are , indeed, living in an asylum where a substantial number of the wardens are just as mad as the inmates but haven’t yet been diagnosed. Drivel and lunacy of the worst sort–all intended to cloak the degree to which the previous lunacy (that of socialism) has lost about 30% of its persuasiveness for about 80% of the world’s population. It’s an awfully thin margin of sanity–both complete and partial– that keep the ol’ sphere from becoming the hell-hole to which it must surely descend upon general adherence to the prescriptions of the climate dictatorship.
Tim adds: I cheer myself up by actually reading the economic theory behind all of the proposed solutions. It says that all we have to do (really, all) is whach a carbon tax on everything. Reduce other taxes by the same amount. That’s it. That’s even if it’s all true. So, why not, let’s do it and ignore everything else the greens say.
Zorro:
You are absolutely correct. As I remind people from time to time, the economic concept of “the margin” is a very real, though invisible, physical line, which separates some, barely eking out a living, from others who are actually succumbing
to want of the material necessities of life.
When prices go down, not only do more people live better but more people actually live. And the converse is just as true.
Another fact is: biofuels cause a more adverse effect upon engine life than fossil fuels. Just as premium gas causes a less adverse effect upon engine life than regular unleaded gas, since premium burns at a lower temperature.