News: Conference Motion 3

SponPlague · 04-09-2008, 08:47 AM

Motion 3, Proposed by Weston-super-Mare branch
Saturday 6 September, 2.45 pm

Quote:

This conference urges UKIP not to take a dogmatic stance for or against the theory of anthropogenic (human generated) global warming and calls for practical measures to reduce carbon footprints and protect the natural environment

Raymond Finch · 04-09-2008, 08:51 AM

Supported.

With the proviso that security of energy MUST be considered vital for the long term economic, military and political safety of our nation.

Mark Croucher · 05-09-2008, 01:21 AM

What is dogmatic about opposing something which is clearly nonsense? There is no scientific consensus that the climate is changing, and only marginal agreement over supposed rises in temperatures. Even assuming this is happening, high levels of 'greenhouse gases' in the atmosphere statistically correlate not with periods of warming, but periods of cooling. Thus even assuming that climate change exists, and that the world is getting warmer, as opposed to recording slightly higher than average temperatures for a for 3 or 4 out of 100 years (hardly a geological timescale), it is perfectly feasible that reducing the carbon footprint will accelerate rather than ameliorate rising temperatures.

Protecting the natural environment is a laudable goal in itself - it doesn't need a reduction in the carbon footprint (and therefore a tacit acceptance that climate change exists) tacked on to it for it to be so. The motion as it stands implies that UKIP supports nonsense science.

M

gc · 05-09-2008, 06:42 AM

It will be interesting to see how the motion goes down at the conference.... Perhaps the debate within the party will rise above such ludicrous and petty drivel as: "why, outside this House at any rate, is there continual reference to carbon emissions? Carbon is a black solid; it is soot or graphite or diamonds..."

I think you are wrong, Mark, and that the "debate" within UKIP circles has so far largely been limited to the instinctive contrarianism of poorly informed people who are afraid of change.

SponPlague · 05-09-2008, 08:41 AM

I'd like to see all party candidates required to read at least a summary of Bjorn Lomborg's "The Sceptical Enviromentalist"...

gc · 05-09-2008, 08:47 AM

I didn't find it useful... the sort of thing one might pick up at Heathrow to read on the plane!

Lovelock is just as readable, and given his academic credentials I think he is more important to the debate. He has some controversial views, which make him interesting, his arguments in favour of nuclear power are compelling, and his thoughts on the futility of "sustainable development" are most provocative.

His explainations of the dangers of even relatively small changes in temperature are are most interesting.

(A Danish "Committee on Scientific Dishonesty" was quite scathing about Lomberg's book, declaring it to be scientifically dishonest, and finding Lomborg himself to have a "lack of expertise in the fields in question.")

Clippo · 05-09-2008, 10:12 AM

Mark Croucher wrote:-

Quote:

What is dogmatic about opposing something which is clearly nonsense? There is no scientific consensus that the climate is changing, and only marginal agreement over supposed rises in temperatures. Even assuming this is happening, high levels of 'greenhouse gases' in the atmosphere statistically correlate not with periods of warming, but periods of cooling.

A preponderance of people in UKIP with views like this only serves to illustrate to potential voters out there what nutters the party has on this issue.

You are defying the views of the vast consensus of the scientific community ALL OVER THE WORLD and the vast majority of GOVERNMENTS (including the USA).
You, & Farage, & a few others at the top of UKIP, & Sponplague have been seduced by, or are active supporters of the doubt tactics first promoted by the extreme right-wing USA Libertarian big business – (all of which now tacitly accept AGW)

The Climate Change debates in the real world have long moved on to ‘mitigation’ in case you hadn’t noticed.

The party’s attitude on Climate Change is one, major, reason why I have not joined UKIP.
If I had, and had a vote on this motion, I would vote against.
In my opinion the motion should read:-

UKIP accepts that global warming is happening, a major reason (but not the only one) being the burning of fossil fuels and causing major Climate Change. That being so, UKIP calls for practical measures to reduce carbon footprints and protect the natural environment which don’t increase the TAX burden on the British Taxpayer.

SponPlague · 05-09-2008, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clippo

You are defying the views of the vast consensus of the scientific community ALL OVER THE WORLD and the vast majority of GOVERNMENTS (including the USA).
You, & Farage, & a few others at the top of UKIP, & Sponplague have been seduced by, or are active supporters of the doubt tactics first promoted by the extreme right-wing USA Libertarian big business – (all of which now tacitly accept AGW)

30 years ago, Clippo, Newsweek was running front page stories along the lines of "To help stop the next ice age - we must paint the icecaps black!"

NASA has admitted that the hottest decade of the 20ty century was the 1930s. The "hockeystick graph" has been disproved. Get real!

gc · 05-09-2008, 10:38 AM

I found this on NASA's website....

SponPlague · 05-09-2008, 10:42 AM

Christopher Booker's notebook - Telegraph

Quote:

Inconveniently, the 1930s were the hottest decade

Recent days have brought to light four more highly "inconvenient truths" for our global warming alarmists. The first caused acute embarrassment to Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), exposing a serious flaw in its record of US surface temperatures since 1880. The error was so glaring that, on August 7, GISS had to post revised figures which show, instead of temperatures reaching their highest level in the past decade, that the hottest year of the 20th century was not 1998 but 1934. Of the 10 warmest years since 1880, it turns out that four were in the 1930s and only three in the past decade.

The significance of this is that James Hansen, the head of GISS, has been Al Gore's closest scientific ally for nearly 20 years in promoting the global warming scare. The revised figures relate only to temperatures in North America but the fact that the pre-eminent scientific champion of the orthodoxy has been promoting erroneous data has considerable implications.

The expert responsible for spotting GISS's error was Stephen McIntyre, a Canadian computer analyst who four years ago scored the greatest coup in the history of this debate by demolishing the notorious "hockey stick" - the graph which purported to show temperatures flat-lining for centuries until they suddenly began an exponential rise in the late 20th century. The "hockey stick" was adopted as the supreme icon of the global warming lobby, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which reproduced it no fewer than five times in its 2001 report. Since McIntyre exposed the mass of basic computer errors on which it was based, the IPCC in its most recent report quietly dropped it.

The new GISS graph, conceding that the last decade may not have seen the hottest years of the past century, follows the latest satellite figures from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showing that in recent years global temperatures have not continued to rise (as orthodox CO2 warming theory would suggest) but have flattened out at a level significantly lower than in 1998.

05-09-2008, 08:47 AM	#6 (permalink)
gc Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 605	I didn't find it useful... the sort of thing one might pick up at Heathrow to read on the plane! Lovelock is just as readable, and given his academic credentials I think he is more important to the debate. He has some controversial views, which make him interesting, his arguments in favour of nuclear power are compelling, and his thoughts on the futility of "sustainable development" are most provocative. His explainations of the dangers of even relatively small changes in temperature are are most interesting. (A Danish "Committee on Scientific Dishonesty" was quite scathing about Lomberg's book, declaring it to be scientifically dishonest, and finding Lomborg himself to have a "lack of expertise in the fields in question.") Last edited by gc; 05-09-2008 at 08:51 AM.

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04-09-2008, 08:51 AM	#2 (permalink)
Raymond Finch Senior Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 515	Supported. With the proviso that security of energy MUST be considered vital for the long term economic, military and political safety of our nation.

05-09-2008, 01:21 AM	#3 (permalink)
Mark Croucher Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Dartford, Kent Posts: 1,028	What is dogmatic about opposing something which is clearly nonsense? There is no scientific consensus that the climate is changing, and only marginal agreement over supposed rises in temperatures. Even assuming this is happening, high levels of 'greenhouse gases' in the atmosphere statistically correlate not with periods of warming, but periods of cooling. Thus even assuming that climate change exists, and that the world is getting warmer, as opposed to recording slightly higher than average temperatures for a for 3 or 4 out of 100 years (hardly a geological timescale), it is perfectly feasible that reducing the carbon footprint will accelerate rather than ameliorate rising temperatures. Protecting the natural environment is a laudable goal in itself - it doesn't need a reduction in the carbon footprint (and therefore a tacit acceptance that climate change exists) tacked on to it for it to be so. The motion as it stands implies that UKIP supports nonsense science. M

05-09-2008, 06:42 AM	#4 (permalink)
gc Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 605	It will be interesting to see how the motion goes down at the conference.... Perhaps the debate within the party will rise above such ludicrous and petty drivel as: "why, outside this House at any rate, is there continual reference to carbon emissions? Carbon is a black solid; it is soot or graphite or diamonds..." I think you are wrong, Mark, and that the "debate" within UKIP circles has so far largely been limited to the instinctive contrarianism of poorly informed people who are afraid of change.

05-09-2008, 08:41 AM	#5 (permalink)
SponPlague Uber Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Zurich Posts: 3,400	I'd like to see all party candidates required to read at least a summary of Bjorn Lomborg's "The Sceptical Enviromentalist"...