I rather hope that is an exaggeration. I do not know whether it is. What I do know is that any party that now ignores the climate issues, alongside any party that ignores the water issue, is not fit to take office.
The first, and overwhelming, duty of any government is to protect the people for whom they are responsible from risk. The obligation is to provide freedom from fear.
Climate change is the biggest threat this planet faces.
This country faces a risk of not having clean water available to meet our needs.
Spud’s just released a report stating that the water companies are environmentally insolvent. Therefore they can – and should – be nationalised without compensation. Or summat.
So, therefore, the rhetoric must now be continually upped. It’s gone from some sewage overflow (hey, maybe too much, who knows?) to not enough clean water to meet our needs.
What does, however, seem clear is that Labour is running away from both issues. The green programme is acknowledged to be at risk because we, supposedly, cannot afford it. The water crisis cannot be addressed for the same reason. Meeting the need for clean water supply is not, apparently, worth increasing the national debt for, even when we get new assets of real worth as a result.
Even Spud’s own report doesn’t say there’s not enough clean water. It’s that there’s too much sewage overflow which is a very different point. Also, if we really did have a shortage of clean water then we’d have to build more reservoirs, right? Try getting that through planning.
And the green programme? No, it’s not that we cannot afford it. It’s that it’s not worth doing. It’s not affordable in the sense that the benefit we gain from it will be less than the cost of doing it. A corollary of which is, of course, that those new assets built over and above economic needs would not have economic value, would they?
But, you know. Spud.
“And the green programme? No, it’s not that we cannot afford it.
No it is precisely because we cannot afford it. Tax is the highest since WW2, the debt burden and interest on it is through the roof, inflation is in double digits for many goods and services and the government are spending billions of pounds more then have every year. Where TF is this money going to come from? (perhaps we should just carry on printing more sponduliks…..I mean what could possibly go wrong)?
It’s that it’s not worth doing.
So we can tell Stern to fuck off then Tim?
Entirely incorrect. The first duty of the government is to protect the freedom of the people. It’s the failure to uphold this cardinal principle that has given rise to our authoritarian socialist state and the dreary and incompetent apparatchiks who control us and it.
I am reassured to learn that a 1.5C rise in temperature over a century is the greatest threat facing mankind.
Truly things have never been better in all human history.
is not, apparently, worth increasing the national debt for,
As usual, there’s something he really does not get. Money is a reflection of the goods & services in an economy. Note: Assets have no real value. They are priced in those tokens of value – money – reflecting the goods & services. So the sale/purchase of assets just changes who those tokens belong to. As does creation of assets. Which consumes goods & services. Again, the tokens change hands.
Creation of debt does not, in itself, change the amount of goods & services in the economy. Just who has access to them.
You can’t get something for nothing. Where does he suggest the goods & services are taken away from?
Exactly, what resources would be used to clean up sewage and what work would be stopped to allow those resources to be diverted? How many unemployed construction workers and engineers are there out there?
So we can tell Stern to fuck off then Tim?
Didn’t Stern suggest a carbon tax rather than a “green programme”.
– What does, however, seem clear is that Labour is running away from both issues.
Silly man. The Labour Party will hose billions crushing us with climate bollocks, and love every minute of it. But they need to get in power in order to do so and they’ve recognised that it’s electorally unpopular. So they’re lying. Spud can’t see beyond five minutes.
@Diogenes
His idea is you can spend tomorrow’s money today. But you can’t. Tomorrow’s money is an entitlement to tomorrow goods & services . They don’t exist today.
PJF @ 12.22, yes Stern did, but it is just another solution to the same imagined hobgoblin but one which, for some reason, our esteemed host chooses to support without question.
The green programme is not orchids because it is economically suicidal, it is orchids because the problem it is designed to solve does not exist. Ditto Sterns carbon tax…..
@ PJF
Stern’s Carbon Tax is indistinguishable from a “green program”.(As opposed to a BBC Climate Change documentary) There is actually no relationship between any carbon tax, the cost of the carbon emissions deterred or the cost of the emissions in terms of climate change. It’s all just fraudulent economist hand-waving.
The green programme is not orchids because it is economically suicidal, it is orchids because the problem it is designed to solve does not exist.
I’m much more worried about the economic suicide than I am about the validity of the belief. We do all sorts of things based on fantasy, some harmful and some beneficial. Even if anthropogenic climate change were real it would not make sense to destroy ourselves to prevent it.
PJF @ 1.11, the eco nutters have no such worry. They are mad and are quite willing to take us all in a handcart to hell because they know they are right.
Stern’s just your usual, run of the mill, shyster. He got well paid for producing the nonsense required.* He’s not even known for overly protesting when his fake projection figures are fraudulently employed.
*Did anyone ever look into his ‘workings out’? That must have an expedition into uncharted territory. There’d be dragons & lost tribes of Indians in there.
Nothing quite says I’m terminally stupid as suggesting that the planet is at risk from climate change:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-Temperature-and-CO2-levels-over-600-million-years-Source-MacRae-2008_fig1_280548391
The planet actually prefers warmer temperatures and higher CO2 levels.
One can have a separate debate about the impact on humans, but, as a species that lives through harsh Siberian winters and hot Middle East summers, and has the capability to modify its immediate environment, I back humans.
As per usual the great potato smashes away at his keyboard, attempts a report and works himself in to a self righteous rage. He sees himself as the only one who has seen the light, the one true messiah, and it his is calling to save us all and no one can stand is way. Anyone who disagrees is a fascist or wants us all to die and suffer.
Stern’s Carbon Tax is indistinguishable from a “green program”.
I think Stern’s carbon tax was in opposition to green programmes (just tax fossil fuels at source and let the market sort it, rather than have the government insist you buy an expensive home heater that doesn’t work even when it gets some rationed electricity). Of course we’ll never get that ideological whimsy; any carbon tax will be complementary to government greenery. Empirical proof: every actual carbon tax imposed or proposed. Reason: politicians / statists.
Addolff @ 1:22, we are in agreement. Full on religious nutters.
Oh that’s just the implementation problem, PJF. Any carbon tax will just be a reflection of government revenue desires.
But the figures Stern’s methodology depend on don’t stand up to inspection. It’s not known even if the cost of “climate change” is a negative or positive number. Let alone the degree of anthropomorphic climate variance. Again, it’s all hand waving by “climate scientists’.
He must have known this when he went into it. Although I wouldn’t discount him being terminally stupid. Enough economists are. But if the former, accepting the commission just makes him a shyster.
If all sewage overflow is as clean as tap water, presumably the clean water shortage is co-solved. Unless there’s a step in the cleaning process I’ve missed
. . . accepting the commission just makes him a shyster.
Is that still a good thing?
I can’t begin to describe how much poverty and misery results from the state not allowing its population to take or face risks.
Never mind, Paul. The government allows the people to take many risks. After all, they own the lottery, run maternity hospitals, sanction and mandate experimental drugs, to name but a few risky things they’re involved in.
Is that still a good thing?
Hardly bad for him, is it?
The whole climate change boondoggle has been riddled from the start with people gaining personal advantage out of it. Right back to before an ex US VP building a lucrative second career based around a scifi fantasy disaster movie (The Day After Tomorrow). Something that’s become true of the entirety of ‘environmentalism’. It’s become impossible to separate genuine science from political axegrinding & outright moneygrabbing. If you wanted to compile a list of people built lucrative careers out it, you’d have a job for life. The names are multiplying faster than you could type them.
@BiS. Yes, lots of people have looked in great detail at Stern’s workings. Both Nordhaus (Nobel Laureate) and Weitzman (should have been Nobel Laureate) published 2007 reviews in the Journal of Economic Literature (vol 45, issue 3). There are plenty of others – Thomas Sterner’s “Even Sterner Review” for example. Nordhaus says “The Review takes the lofty vantage point of the world social planner, perhaps stoking the dying embers of the British Empire, in determining the way the world should combat the dangers of global warming” (p.691), while Weitzman says “While I am (along with most other economist/critics) skeptical of Stern’s formal analysis, I believe that the Review’s informal emphasis on climate-change uncertainty can be recast into sound analytical arguments that might justify some of its conclusions” (p.705). And then everyone else in the related academic world piled in.
“Any party that believes Jesus should be the focus of Christianity as opposed to his Mum is not fit to hold office!”
Same effect, same logic…
This is a pearler and there’s 4 more posts in the same vein. I’m sure Starmer will be losing sleep….
The first, and overwhelming, duty of any government is to protect the people for whom they are responsible from risk.
I’m reminded of the late, great Bill Hicks and this comment (Or something akin to this – apologies if the details are sketchy):
‘Guy, high on PCP, falls out of the window and dies – what a tragedy’
‘No – it’s not a tragedy. He’s an idiot. He’s dead – calm down and move the f%^& on’
The very notion that all risk could or should be eliminated is arguably the single most pernicious idea extant in the modern world. Anyone espousing such a belief needs sectioning for the good of themselves as well as the wider community.
The obligation is to provide freedom from fear.
That’s a statement so utterly moronic I’d assume Chat GPT had developed a bug if it came up with it. What’s he planning on doing? Banning Dressing up in scary costumes? Censoring any Horror Films? The mind boggles…
Climate change is the biggest threat this planet faces.
I’m far from convinced it’s real as the people proposing it to be such an overwhelming issue tend to be people who are a byword for pure evil and are among the most misanthropic individuals ever extant in public life. I’d lock up Roger Hallam and throw away the key.
This country faces a risk of not having clean water available to meet our needs.
I’d agree with that – so it’s probably not a good idea to import a city the size of Birmingham every year. I’d also be investing in desalination plants on the coast and removing the burden of bullshit like the ‘DIE’ Framework that appears to take up much of the time of these companies’ senior management. Clamping down hard on Big Trans as well would help. Of course you won’t find this imbecile proposing any such measures.
Good post though, Tim – he’s getting even more delusional in his dotage.
@DocBud – “The planet actually prefers warmer temperatures and higher CO2 levels.”
No. It doesn’t. The planet is not alive and has no preferences at all.
The problem of climate change is merely one of human convenience. If a city is built on a coast and sea levels rise, some (or all) may need to be abandoned and re-built elsewhere at great expense. If a regain gets warmer, wetter, drier, or has any other long term change in the weather, then it may no longer be suitable for the farming currently done there, so farms will need to grow different crops or raise different animals, again requiring a change at possible great expense. No sensible person would maintain that the people living in such a city would simply continue going about their business until they get swapt out to sea and drown.
If a city is built on a coast and sea levels rise, some (or all) may need to be abandoned and re-built elsewhere at great expense.
Much of human prehistory (not cities but likely many settlements) will have occurred around the coastlines, coasts that 20,000 years ago were 120 metres lower than today. There’ll be a lot of archaeology at various depths under the waters, mostly lost forever.
. . . then it may no longer be suitable for the farming currently done there, so farms will need to grow different crops or raise different animals, again requiring a change at possible great expense.
There are remains of bronze age farming settlements up on some of the moors in the Peak District; 4000 years ago it was much warmer than today. Those had to be abandoned because it got colder.
So yes, climate change is a bugger for human settlements. All our cities, with their histories and monuments, will drown, be left high and dry, or shoved aside by ice sheets.
Whether we go Net Zero or not.
@ Grist
That only applies in Italy andbits of Spain. In England we used to have the Test Acts which said precisely the opposite.