I'm sorry, I can't let this - In denial - pass unremarked.Actually a pretty decent article, and the comments in reply will be interesting (not that I can make any, as I seem to have been 'de-listed' as a verified respondent, which is frustrating).
But...
Look at the ad panel at the top. It's for Land Rover. Now I don't have as big an issue as some about 4x4s, but this is about a journey from 3 separate sources in Europe, and I very much doubt most will require four wheel drive.
So who is in denial? The public? Or the media or claim to be promoting good environmental practice whilst unable to resist making a buck or two in any way they can? I have sympathy for such as ourselves, currently subject to an automated system, but this is a major medium well able to decide it can no longer reconcile deeds that do not match words.
At least, if they wish to remain credible in my eyes.
ADDENDUM - I am now back in their good books. Apparently I got 'deleted' from the system because of bouncing emails. Sounds painful.
The delay was worth it, if only for a very interesting insight from a poster about the way the stats were interpreted. Well worth reading to see how what is published can get re-published in a different way entirely.
ADDENDUM 2 - Having been, possibly with reason, ignored for trying to raise the issue of media hypocrisy, I have decided to try a new tack to see if I can tweak a scientist to reply:
Some smart cookies here. So I'll ask a question I asked at the Venturefest in Harwell, with another bunch of very smart cookies (boffin and banker variety) all trying to figure out how to make money from climate change (there didn't seem much doubt it was happening, or that meddling with man's contribution was going to be BIG!).
What about deforestation?
A wee while ago I saw a small piece on Newsnight that had the loss of carbon sink from this as being in excess of the output of CO2 from the US.
Now it seems to me that, if we are worried about timescales and immediate enviROIs, sweating the trivia (plastic bags and 4x4s and even budget flights) pales into insignificance in importance to simply stopping the erosion of a mature, active and operational mitigation system.
Now I know the UK is but an acorn the great 'may contain nuts' collection of intolerances that make up our global Caesar's salad. But surely, with the power and influence of our City and high powered diplomats like Air Blair and David Miliband, we can devote some effort, with some degree of success, in tackling an immediate and real issue as a matter of priority? As opposed to, say, offsetting tomorrow's concert by paying for a fir being whacked in the firmament, hoping it doesn't croak and gets to do its job in a decade. Or trading some family's holiday allowance with a German construction company to help fund the subsidy for them to plant a wind farm that may not be quite as efficient, as often as the press release claims.
Ok, you can now all go back to squabbling over whether anything is happening or not.
1 comment:
Peter,
Yes, the statistics look to have been somewhat 'massaged' to get the message across - excellent ripostes from several posters make this crystal clear.
I'm still amazed by the number of vitriolic anti AGW (or should we start using ACC [Anthropogenic Climate Change]?) posts though.
I don't care if I'm taken to task for repeating this, but the post from 'HerrEMott' [who obviously studied at the Flat Earth School of Philosophy - Sardonics Dept.] had me in stitches; whilst at the same time making a very important point that is often overlooked in many discussions.
"Global warming must be a hoax. A lot of the evidence seems to come from these so-called "satellites", which some claim are orbiting a spherical earth.
Well, we're not alll so credulous that we'll be taken in by this "round-earth" stuff I'll have you know.
Just because millions upon millions of years worth of fossilised carbon has been burned in the last 200 years in the form of oil, gas and coal, releasing millions upon millions of tonnes of CO2 among other gases into the atmosphere at a rate far exceeding that which can be attained by the natural feedback loops which will allow the CO2 to be re-absorbed seems no reason to expect any impact on climate. Does it?"
Sometimes the best way to get an important point across is to inject some humour into it. I wonder how many of the vitriol pouring anti's even noticed it?
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