Thursday, September 13, 2007

GreenDave's New Release

Dave 'I can't believe it's not Tony' Cameron and the boys unveil their Quality of Life proposals today, including, predictably, new green taxes. Don't they get it? As I am always pointing out, the electorate's Green concerns amount to no more than a feelgood pseudo-religion, offering mild consolation through exhortation and the performance of various easy, low-cost rituals - the drive to the bottle bank, a 'low energy' light bulb or two. As soon as it starts hitting the cost and availability of holiday flights, or the price of keeping a car on the road, Johnny Voter will tell the well intentioned crusaders against climate change exactly where they get off. The thing is that almost nobody actually believes this stuff - not to the extent that they let it impinge on what they habitually do. It's rather like the many parents I've known who profess total opposition to selective education and yet move heaven and earth to get their children into the best selective schools. Ironically, I - a climate change sceptic (as alert blog-followers might have spotted) - have a minute 'carbon footprint' compared to many fervent believers. (I don't drive and haven't flown in two years, etc.) My question to them is - if you believe in this stuff, why don't you, in any significant way, act on your beliefs? (and don't bring up carbon offset or carbon trading - these are highly dubious propositions and the believers know it, or should do).

10 comments:

  1. "I say, let's tax the plebs."
    "Topping idea, old bean. Down with Tesco! Can't have rude mechanicals preventing us from becoming world moral leaders."
    "Zac, have Gummer ready the Prius. It's time for a futile gesture."

    The Thick Party seemed to have walked right into this one. Taxes like these are a great way of giving the impression that there's one law for Dave and co and another for the rest of us, but taxes alone are not nearly enough to change the way we use energy - or, say, the way we encourage farmers in poor countries to become dependent on our food fashions. FWIW, Labour aren't really any better. These Don Politicos are so out of touch.

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  2. it makes one nostalgic for the old policies of boom and bust - they should stick with what they know, then we'll know.

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  3. You've changed your tune, Appleyard, since I last wrote to you about 'climate change' declaring I didn't believe a word of it and you replied to the effect that I should just look at the evidence, some of it is overwhelming.
    I agree with you about carbon footprints being in some way inversely proportional to the strength of the faith of the believer - or something like that.

    I grow all my own vegetables, have no heating in the house (apart from an Aga) eat meat I've either shot myself or which comes from within ten miles of where we live, hardly ever fly, haven't bought a suit in the last twelve years and so on and on, and yet I don't believe a word of this climate change/global warming carry-on.
    One liberally friend of mine declared recently that true or not (and he didn't really believe it) if the climate change propaganda got other people to stop wasting energy it was worth promulgating. That might explain why the americans whinge on about it and do next to nothing to put any of their strictures into effect.

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  4. Sorry to direct my last post to Bryan when I've just noticed that it was Nige who sent it - otherwise it stands.

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  5. 'Mr Gummer said the group was keen to be "giving to the next generation something better than we've received ourselves". Is that what he was doing when, in 1990, at the height of the BSE/Mad Cow crisis, and in front of television cameras, he practically force-fed his daughter a beef burger to prove to the World the Government's complete faith in the safety of British meat. I wonder how loudly the BSE time-bomb is currently ticking among the beef-eating population of the time? We can only hope it's dead silent.

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  6. he DID force feed her! she didn't look too keen. now she is of the age of majority, she has turned vegetarian.

    it's all coming back, but how well we forget.

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  7. We do, Ian, but I now remember what a complete tosser he was. Hasn't changed much, has he?

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  8. Hypocrisy, Nige, is not really worthy of note in this world. The religous have affairs while greenies drive a Land Rover. It's just gloriously human.

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  9. Perfectly annunciated Bryan, I notice Dave & Zac are hardly short of a private jet or two, and Gummer is --- well Gummer. These intelligent and presumably formidable politicians must occasionally harbour the notion that the whiff of hypocrisy is fast becoming a stench. Like yourself, I am not excessive (not flown for years, drive occasionally, love walking & sometimes cycle) my waste is moderate. None of this is by design, I just try to live within some sort of boundaries. As a recently retired engineer I fondly remember creating parts for machines to enable greater ones to function. Most people (intelligent or otherwise) believe man-made global warming is a highly unreasonable hypothesis, (imagine the size & scale of the universe with this grain of sand size planet brought its nemesis by occasional inhabitants) volcanic eruptions eclipse anything we can possibly do. To be fair, the followers of this new religion do not predict the demise of the planet (the sun will do that) but the end of human life. Extinctions are the very genesis of our world, only fools deny our finite status. All in all when we listen to our present-day politicians, one must conclude that BULLSHIT is the new political correctness.

    MAURICE BRADY

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