A British peer hectors the American and Canadian democracies about their responsibilities to “the poor”:
Lord Prescott told Radio 4′s Today programme the clock should be stopped on the Kyoto provisions and a “reassessment” made in 2015 – or a new deal would “wither on the vine”.
“That is what Canada and America want, and one or two other countries,” he said.
“It is a conspiracy against the poor. It is appalling. I am ashamed of such countries not recognising their responsibilities.”
Lord Prescott – the Council of Europe’s rapporteur on climate change – said politicians should not use the global financial crisis as an excuse for putting off action on climate change.
It is vulgar, the sight of these upstart bourgeois attempting to keep hold of their sad, materialistic accoutrements. What they ought to do is get back down where they belong, rather than take on airs above their stations.
To be certain, the scientists involved have acted shabbily, and the climate may change – as it has before – with our without human intervention, but the really important thing is to normalize the quality of life between the little people in North America, and the wogs in Bangladesh.
Reminding them of that is the sad duty of the ruling classes, but one does what one must.
Noblesse oblige, and so on.
I admit to being something of an Anglophile but this kind of comment is, as Winston Churchill memorably said, the kind of ill-informed snobbery up with which I will not put. In the first place, climate does change, and will keep on changing. As Jules Crittenden said a few years ago, “the world gets warmer, the world gets colder, and nobody quite knows why.”
Well, let’s take a guess here. The world, bless it, is a living organism and things change on it and in it all the time. I know we’ve got a problem with liberals in this country. They want to feel important so they decide that it’s humans’ fault when it gets warmer than it was. Just as they do with politics in other ways, they invent a crisis so they, the Busybody Brigade, can offer to solve it. They did it with health care, which most of us were guardedly satisfied with, and now look at the mess they’ve made.
So now they’ve superimposed a set of insanely expensive rules which we, the poor overburdened taxpayers, are supposed to follow in order not to be gassed out of existence by — gasp — carbon dioxide, which, by the way, is not a “pollutant” as the Busybodies claim. It’s an essential gas, like oxygen, and is a crucially important universal fertilizer for all green growing things. Every green growing thing, from redwoods to grasses, to crops to flowers needs Carbon Dioxide to grow. Eliminate carbon dioxide and the rest of our short lives will be spent living in a sandbox. And we can ask our military just how much fun that’s been.
Sooo, I suggest that the Busybodies realize that every time they breathe, they are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
So, you guys, if you are so terrified of carbon dioxide, stop breathing. You go first.
Marianne
I read somewhere once (and now wish that I had saved the reference) that the total carbon dioxide produced by man’s endeavors is nowhere near as much as that produced by all the ants in the world.
That in itself sounds plausible to me. Perhaps we all need to get our magnifying glasses out and go to work saving the planet…
Yes. We need to start an ant eradication program. Genocide for Ants, as it were. My wife would have no trouble with such a program. But, then, she hates Roaches too, so go figure.
Lord Prescott might well remember that were it not for those bloody Yanks, and the damn Canadians, (and let’s not ignore the Aussies and the Kiwis) he, and all those other blithering idiots like Prince Charles, would be speaking German.
Of course, when one is to the manor born, looking down one’s nose at the lower classes and telling them how to behave seems to come naturally.
It’s probably a good thing that our ancestors didn’t take too kindly to that kind of attitude or we all might be speaking German these days.
Lord Prescott, being undoubtedly of the “I got mine, Jack!” crowd with plenty of “personal property,” (ala butch: “my stuff you’re to keep your mitts off”), is one of those MOST deserving–along w. ALGORE–of Marianne’s request, i.e., YOU GO FIRST! (ala butch’s “gimme all your stuff”) i.e.,”private” property that’s fair game for all; your “personal property” being in my eyes hated “privileged” “private property” subject to confiscation )
I bought a load of 100 watt bulbs today. The old eyes aren’t what they used to be. I do the bulk of my reading in winter and need good strong light to prevent eye strain.
They took my high flush toilet away and I said nothing. (Well, actually I did say something after the third time the boy’s bathroom flooded but it is not fit to print). They took my shower head away and I said nothing. They added $400 to the cost of my most recent car because I am too stupid to check the tire pressure on a regular basis (or so they suppose).
I WILL NOT let go of my light bulbs.
CO2 makes up about 390 +/- parts per million (ppm) of all greenhouse gas. Of that 390ppm around 28 +/- is man-made.
The idea that CO2 drives climate is nonsense.
http://goo.gl/mDttJ
Agreements like Kyoto require the following three questions to be answered “yes”:
1) Is the climate changing?
2) Can we do anything about it? (Note, this doesn’t mean we necessarily know the cause, though it is easier to fix something when you know what broke it)
3) Will halting climate change cost less than dealing with its effects? If it costs us $10 Trillion to stop climate change but only $1 Trillion to relocate everyone whose homes get flooded out we’re better off picking up some moving boxes.
As for Johnny boy, he’s a life-long class warrior, quite probably complicit in the murder of British industry, and is just carrying on in the habits of a lifetime. Though it must be said it rewarded him nicely. A title like “Lord” might even fool a few idiots into thinking he has something intelligent to say. The minute I start taking advice from him is the minute I start looking for a tall structure to throw myself off of.
Jeff, you are talking like an Engineer and all that fact driven stuff just isn’t acceptable in polite company. You need to slink back into your corner (take your slide rule with, if you don’t mind), and be quiet until we call you.
That will, of course, after the fuzzies have made a veritable hash of the world and they are screaming for rescue. Us Engineers then need to extract a very high fee for said rescue. I know that I will try.
Quartermaster:
I just hope that there is something left to rescue.
Paul
I’ve never used a slide rule, though my grandfather has a couple of his on his wall of old tools.
I’ve also never been particularly good at keeping quiet, especially when stupidity is involved. I pretty much killed my naval career when I told an O-4 that he was an brain-dead incompetent just because he was a brain dead incompetent.
Heh, all the subtly of a train-wreck, eh, Jeff? I did pretty much the same thing as an O-3 to our O-6 Wing DCO during a 3rd AF Tac Eval in front of the better part of of 2 Squadrons and my Sq O-5 XO (who was hoping to make O-6 and remained silent) when the DCO was dumping all over our Squadron for a mistake he had made–and I called him out on it since no one else seemed willing to do so. (FYI the guy later was Joint Commander for the botched Desert Eagle Iran rescue attempt msn. If only they had asked me for my opinion..)
Get thee to an antique store (or buy a new one for $10 at http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/be12/) and get yourself a slide rule. Learn to use it, at least for multiplication, division, and trig functions.
Chicks will dig you. Actually, they won’t, but if you tell yourself that it makes learning more fun.
I keep one around at home and in the office just so I can see the look on the kids’ faces. I also have a prized one made of ivory that I keep in the gun safe and take out only for special occasions.
– Max
I use my Dear Dead Mom’s 6″ one to convert from Centigrade to fahrenheit, seeing that the only thermometer we have here is graduated French-style.
Oh God I miss my expensive yeller Pickett slide rule, with the hyperbolic trig scales I never learned how to use. It was my high-school graduation present.
I went to a wonderful finishing school working for the best people on the planet and getting written up by the worst people on the planet. For some reason the XO never tired of seeing me and the boss at XOI. The O4 who kept on writing me up was a mere 03 when I learned his given name and used it ever after, even after he reached exalted rank of O4. Tim and his Bosun the meanest man alive both let me cloud their judgement.
Babs … A note on lovely and benign incandescent light bulbs. I’ve been hoarding mine and was delighted to find that you can buy them through Amazon and, mirabile dictu, they deliver! A handsome young man in the cutest brown shorts will bustle onto your front porch with a cardboard box full of bulbs any time you order them.
I do so hope that Congress will get around to cancelling that stupid mandate soon. But if they don’t, I have great faith that Mexico will set up a nice black market in them which we can order or purchase from.
I read on the Internet an ingenious idea. If 100 watt incandescents are outlawed, the black markets will make 98 watt bulbs. Or maybe 110 watt bulbs. And since Nancy Pelosi, who got us into this mess, is no longer Squeaker of the House, better minds will prevail and keep Congress’s minds off further changes and adaptations.
Marianne
The problem is that they didn’t ban 100W bulbs, they banned bulbs that don’t meet certain efficiency requirements. Next year the requirements eliminate 100W incandescents. The year after (I believe) sees the ban of 75W, then 60W and so on. 98W bulbs almost certainly wouldn’t meet the standard, and even if they did they wouldn’t last a year.
The solution is for Congress to recognize that there is already a mechanism in place to encourage consumer efficiency: Electricity costs money. I know I’m not smart enough to beat the market, there’s no way the paint-by-number failures that make up the federal bureaucracy are up to the task.
How about 100w space heaters that just happen to produce light as a by product…
I was going to say you might be on to something with Easy Bake oven heaters, but Hasbro recently redesigned the thing with a heating element. And they nearly doubled the price.
Oh, yeah, Jeff. I live in Flarduh, so for most of the year the incandescents put an extra load on the HVAC. I would be happy to go with LEDs if I could afford the first cost, but I have a passionate hatred for the flickery fluorescents and their incomplete spectrum. I correspond with some people who are much more autistic than I am, who can see the individual flickers of the fluorescents, and they all say that it just drives them nuts.
Hell, fluorescents are unpleasance, even if yer perfectly normal.
Maybe we could claim to be autistic and get medical waivers!
Glenn Reynolds linked to some fool the other day that said that turning off lights when leaving a room would have virtually no impact on your electric bill. Rather, it is an act of “piety”. Now that is sick.
Joe vs the Volcano. He worked in the flickering hell and wasn’t whossname beautiful in all 5 guises? Sometimes, in the middle east I used to just say her name aloud to cheer up. Meg Ryan. I felt like cheering up.
Marianne, I don’t know if the traditions are the same back East, but here in the northern plains the Official First Day of Spring is declared when we spot the UPS guy wearing shorts.
– Max
Operation Bulb Walker?
I limit my Europe stuff to Nigel Farage.
On Climategate & AGW the Telegraphs’ James Delingpole is pretty much the go-to anti-AGW expose’ journalist guy, wouldn’t you agree, Curtis?
I don’t limit myself. The world is turning out to spank those lying losers. It has taken them a little while but then there are still zillions of people that thought the khmer rouge and communists were right thinking critters. Vietnamese Boat People never genuflected at their doors in Hollywood or DC.
It used to be that European nobility demonstrated noblesse oblige by risking their necks in wars, expeditions, and administrative service in disease-laded parts of the world.
The current bunch are not all up to the old standard.
In a marginally related comment- I just finished reading a lengthy essay about what Germany may have been up to in the past couple of decades.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/toward-a-gentler-kinder-german-reich
I would be most intrigued to see what those of you who have more knowledge/experience in this area than I do ( I should think that would be all of you ) think about what the author says.
Lex, I don’t mean to try to highjack your blog; I just don’t have anywhere else to find the numbers of people whose opinions I respect. If you have the time, I am particularly interested in your thoughts on this article.
Paul
Paul , here is an alternate theory.
Thank you. On this, as with many things, I guess we’ll just have to wait to see how it plays out.
Paul
Having lived in Germany for six years, I don’t think the current crop has any desire to dominate, or lead the EU. Nor do I think the German voter wants anything like a kind gentle Anschluss.
OTOH, I don’t think they are going to avoid the position of economic hegemon. When the DM existed, they were pretty much at the center of the common market and could pretty much dictate terms. France and the UK have tried to keep Germany at arms length, with the UK managing the task, but only because they kept their own currency. If they adopt the Euro, they will fall into Germany’s waiting arms.
This does not mean that France will simply become, as the author describes it “A maritime Bavaria.” But France’s historical weakness will go against her, while German discipline will submerge her.
I’m English. Please refrain from mentioning Lord Prescott again – to do so lowers the tone of the site!
Lard Prescott is a gobby socialist cretin who defrauded the taxpayer over many years (re the expenses scandal), he even claimed for a number of loo seats in one year, the fat b’stard.
At one point he was even deputy Prime Minister, but they never let him anywhere near anything important, one reason why they shipped him out of the country to these useless junketts.
To make a few things clearer, Lord Prescott is not a blue-blooded Eton and Oxford polo playing and grouse-shooting sort of Lord. He is a fat, braindead Marxist hack politician who was given a life peerage for services to Tony Blair government. That is to say, he was a minister in the UK House of Commons but was kicked upstairs to the House of Lords when his adulterous affairs, expense-fiddling and general incompetence became too embarrassing. Like many other leftwing Labour MPs, his opposition to aristocracy disappeared when he was offered his own title.
I wish to protest at the comments of Squawkbox and Swiss Bob above – they were way too generous.
`Prescott` (you’ll find that in between `Pr1ck` and `Pillock` in the Oxford English Dictionary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdmoDLuLh44
A pom is a pom is a pom, or so I have heard Auzzies tell.