Read Ben’s article on the Register, about the Climate Change Bill being debated in Parliament today, and the elite who stand to gain from it.
An aristocracy is a form of government by an elite that considers itself to possess greater virtues than the hoi polloi, giving it the right to rule in its own interests. Aristocrats were referred to as ‘the nobility’, or ‘nobs’. These days we prefer decisions to be made democratically – the idea being that we can judge for ourselves which ideas serve our interests, thank you very much, ma’am.
But in recent years, politicians have sought legitimacy for their positions from outside of the democratic process. A new aristocracy is emerging from the emptiness of UK politics – and it’s considerably more virtuous than thou.
Quite so. Apart from the artistry of the con these people are forcing upon the public, it is totally dispicable.
How come there isn’t outrage in the UK over this self-serving double-dealing.
Robert. The big story of the day, across the news, was not the decision about the UK’s energy policy for the next half century, but an offensive phonecall made by DJs on BBC radio, to an actor. The Prime Minister and the opposition leader made their comments.
To answer your question then. An uncritical media, a cynical public, and a failure of the gutless, spineless, brainless MPs to reflect on what they are doing and why they are doing it.
It gets worse. I’ve just been mugging up on who the green aristocracy are by going through the Independent’s list of “Britain’s top 100 environmentalists”. (A surprising number of them live abroad, but no doubt they cycle home regularly to Britain). Eleven of them are genuine nobs, including HRH and his mum. The list further apes the House of Lords with its phoney ethno-spiritual inclusiveness (one green Moslem, one green Hindu property developer, one black activist).
But the most depressing thing is how few are actually engaged in any positive action to make the world a better place. At least 74 are Global Warmists (including a page three girl, two rock singers, a restauranteur, and an ex-busker who persuaded Angelica Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy that equal carbon footprints for all were “the fairest solution to global warming” – you couldn’t make it up).
Against them, just five campaigners against genetically modified crops, one against plastic bags, one against toxic waste, two defenders of footpaths, some animal lovers. A few token VCs for the poor bloody squaddies, while Lord Stern and the Astronomer Royal sit well behind the front line, planning the campaign against us, our way of life, and the hopes of the 90 percent of the world’s population who can only dream of a decent carbon footprint.
Only a handful of politicians appear to have opposed the Bill.
Peter Lilley (one of the dissenters) said: “Historically, the House has made its worst mistakes not when it is divided, but when it is virtually unanimous; not when it is adversarial, but when MPs switch off their critical faculties in a spasm of moral self-congratulation. My concern is that, in considering these measures, we are displaying that tendency. It is vital that we bring the House back down to earth by considering the hard costs and benefits of, and alternatives to, what is proposed and what we are doing.”
It seems amazing to me (but maybe it shouldn’t) that the question of hard costs doesn’t seem to have arisen in Parliament until the very last minute.
Absolutely nothing about this in the news, by the way. Plenty about a certain prank phone call, though.
Following Alex’s comment that there was absolutely nothing about it in the news, I’ve been trying to find a report on the climate change bill in the internet editions of the quality press. The Guardian gives it four short paragraphs in Yesterday in Parliament and an editorial comment . No mention of issues raised in the debate, in fact, no indication that there was a debate at all.
Both the Guardian and the Independent have much longer reports by their science correspondents on a new report from the University of East Anglia: “Climate change at the poles IS man-made” (Independent) and “Manmade global warming evident on every continent, polar report finds” (Guardian). The articles give no explanation of the content of the report, no reasoning, no evidence. They simply repeat the message in the headline – 15 times in the Independent, 9 times in The Guardian. Science reporting in the quality press has become about as scientific as a buddhist prayer wheel
And this spoof of Monbiot is just priceless:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/opinion/columnists/do-we-really-need-ambulances?-20070801317/
Re the uncritical reporting of the “Climate change at the poles” story, the nub of the whole thing seems to be that some computer models were recently tweaked and – is anyone surprised? – the “study indicates that humans have indeed contributed to warming…” – which the BBC then duly reports as “Polar warming ’caused by humans'”.
I enjoyed the Monbiot spoof – however, it reminded me of some sentiments expressed by Dr. Richard Nicholson (editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics) reported in a blog on Reuters, in September: “”The issue is urgent for bioethicists, he said, because the healthcare industry in the rich OECD countries is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions. It also spends vast amounts to prolong patients’ lives, about half of it in the final months before death. “The more effort we put into saving individual lives, the more likely we are to doom the human race to extinction,” he said.”
And further down the page, under “Possible changes in medicine” is “close most hospitals…”
Here’s the link – I tinyurled it, because it’s rather long: http://tinyurl.com/672lkb
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to parody these people – the Ethan Greenharts of the world are turning out to be disturbingly real…
Alex
Thanks for the link – scary stuff. Perhaps there’s a market for solar powered life support?
“Doom to extinction”, ever I can’t find that in IPPC’s TAR.