Prince William and Sir David Attenborough have joined forces to launch what they hope will become the “Nobel Prize for environmentalism”.
They say the search is on for 50 solutions to the world’s gravest environmental problems by 2030.
With £50m to be awarded over a decade, the “Earthshot Prize” is the biggest environmental prize ever.
OK, well, we know what the solution is. From the IPCC, Stern Review, Nordhaus et al. We need globalised capitalism with a carbon tax.
So, my £1 million would be spent on proselytising that around the world. However, given the judges, don’t think I’d actually win, would I?
I don’t know why a prize is necessary to solve a nonproblem. At the end of the Little Ice Age about 1850, the Earth was emerging from the chilliest period of the whole Holocene with CO2 levels barely above that necessary to sustain plant life. We’re not anywhere near the warmth of the Holocene Optimum eight thousand years ago, nor the Minoan Warm Period, the Roman WP or even the lesser Medieval WP, all times when people and life on earth did rather well.
The St Attenborough should be asked whether he is against the current greening of the Sahel, or the return of savannah in the Sahara(absent since the Minoan WP, the increased resilience to droughts of crops due to enhanced plant food?
The modelling these catastrphists use would make Neil Ferguson blush(if he knew how to.)
Cut VAT on laptops. Dig up the rails and put down bus ways, making public transport cheaper and more efficient. Increase the VAT on fuel for homes to the correct amount (and raise benefits by a similar amount).
Won’t happen because Prince William is the sort of idiot that supports burning ivory tusks rather than dumping it on the market (which just makes killing elephants more likely).
I thought Harry was the dingbat.
The proper Nobels recognise discoveries actually made (usually some years previously) and which have stood up to rigorous scrutiny. These Earthsnots will be awarded to those who tell the already convinced nothing that will cast even a glimmer of light into the depths of their ignorance.
Don’t have more than two kids and don’t live in a fucking castle.
Where’s my prize?
@ Gamecock
I thought Harry was the dingbat.
William is out to prove he IS his father’s son
Earthshot Prize
Have they got the correct vowel?
Moonshot?
Earthshot?
Thunderbirds are Go!
Queen should switch succession to Anne and her line.
Wheat is currently trading at about 200Euro per tonne, I would suggest that this is nothing like what an environmental catastrophe would look like.
Cut VAT on laptops? No, they’re horribly inefficient. Cut VAT on desktops.
@BoM4 and jgh,
Cut VAT on anything that let’s you work from home. Incidentally, a good desktop machine lasts a lot longer than a laptop because they are repairable and upgradeable. A commute wastes money.
Excavator Man,
You’re not wrong. I was pricing up some updates for my PC to go to a Ryzen 5 machine with 32GB of RAM, Thunderbolt 3 support and it was less than £500.
“We need globalised capitalism with a carbon tax.”
Tim, here’s a great article that explains the reality of the failure of carbon taxes:
https://financialpost.com/opinion/ross-mckitrick-if-carbon-taxes-work-why-all-the-new-regulations
Carbon taxes will never replace all the controlling bullshit because people are human beings. Any system (see e.g. socialism and religious puritanism) that doesn’t take into account that people are human beings will fail.
Further to the reality of human beings, William is part of “the firm”, and the central royals are due to profit handsomely given they “own” the sea beds where all these windmills are going to be built.
Don’t forget that the climate changes naturally and that the effect of CO2 is negligible. Looking after the environment is important, but you don’t do it by trying to solve imaginary problems.
Green energy is bad for the environment
I nominate Jo, she deserves the money for her careful debunking of the loons and unicorn turd collectors:
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/10/theres-no-such-thing-as-clean-energy/
PJF the first paragraph here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate is a pretty good explanation of why you’ve got it wrong about the royals making big money out of ‘owning’ the sea beds.
Eh?
£50m split over several prizes?
That isn’t that much. If you come up with something truly revolutionary eg cold fusion, that will actually make a dent in the emissions* and provide a better solution, you’ll be a gazillionaire in short order.
*Not saying we have to or anything.
A handy chart to show what happens when you use a global average temperature to exaggerate the change in temperature of recent times. Extra marks for the unrealistic IPCC RCP scenarios to create the famous “hockey stick”.
https://xkcd.com/1732/
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that every generation of British royalty seems bent on proving that they’re the dumbest to ever wander down the pike.
Globalized capitalism, well and truly everywhere, and there would be no need for a carbon tax.
Dennis, Pointing Out The Obvious October 8, 2020 at 8:42 pm – “It’s hard to escape the conclusion that every generation of British royalty seems bent on proving that they’re the dumbest to ever wander down the pike.”
That is one of their saving virtues. The problem is that they are not content to stick with other half wits shooting grouse, but they insist on hanging out with the highly educated indeed. Those people hold not only bad ideas but dangerous ones.
Meagan did not think up her race hustling on her own. William needs Attenborough to explain the complex bits to him. We need to keep the Royals away from smarter people.
I want to know where the £50m is coming from.
PJF the first paragraph here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate is a pretty good explanation of why you’ve got it wrong about the royals making big money out of ‘owning’ the sea beds.
No it isn’t.
However, this Wikipedia article is an explanation of why I’m correct:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Grant_Act_2011
“The Sovereign Grant is paid annually by H.M. Treasury at a value indexed as a percentage of the revenues from the Crown Estate . . .”
The Royals are not as stupid as they are painted.
My wife and I like watching nature documentaries over dinner, and David Attenborough has always been a favourite, just because he’s a good narrator and the photography is always good. But lately… we’re checking the dates for “are we in sanctimonious lecturing mode with this one?”
They’ve got an eclectic bunch to act as judges for the prize:
Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah (Jordan);
Cate Blanchett – actor, producer and humanitarian (Australia);
Christiana Figueres – Former UN climate chief, responsible for the landmark Paris Agreement on Climate Change (Costa Rica);
Dani Alves – professional footballer (Brazil);
Sir David Attenborough – broadcaster and natural historian (UK);
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim – environmental activist (Chad);
Indra Nooyi – business executive and former Chairman & CEO of PepsiCo (US & India);
Jack Ma – philanthropist, entrepreneur and UNSDG Advocate (China);
Naoko Yamazaki – former astronaut onboard the International Space Station (Japan);
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – economist and international development expert (Nigeria);
Shakira – singer and philanthropist (Colombia);
Yao Ming – Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer and environmentalist (China).
With this combined brain power at work, I’m sure they’ll have cracked cold fusion any minute now. Has your invite not arrived yet, Tim?