The Politics of Climate Change

The big topic, especially in the media and the “Guardianista chattering classes,” is climate change and how all those wicked people are destroying the planet. It should be noticed that it is always other people, who are doing the assumed damage to planet earth. Climate change conferences are organised at resorts around the world. Thousands of delegates fly to them and stay in luxury accommodation, while castigating the ordinary people, because they drive cars or turn their heating on. Tons of paper and mega kilowatts of electricity are consumed by demands that we stop climate change, it is always claimed that is can be done by stopping people living their normal life.

As always, politics and global business money are involved. So it is a logical question to ask, how many politicians actually know and understand the complexities of climate? How many are persuaded by lobby groups, that this is a popular band wagon to be on? How much money is spent on these conferences? Who gets paid? Who pays them? Who gains from these demands that we change our lives?

Take a very brief look at one tiny aspect of this ecological bandwagon. The promotion of electric powered cars, as the saviour of the world. How much of the publicity in favour of everyone being forced to use electric powered vehicles, is actually logical and evidenced backed truth? Electric vehicles, those being promoted now, need energy storage systems. The energy store needs Lithium. Lithium is a finite resource. It is not a ecologically clean material to extract and refine. Lithium is used in most modern appliances that store electrical energy. At some time in the future it will be in short supply. Do you ever wonder who will profit from this? The batteries in the types of electric cars that are being forced on us have a very limited life span. Most will have to be replaced within 5 years. How many facilities are there for dealing with the millions of worn out batteries? Will anyone buy a secondhand electric vehicle if it is going to cost large amounts of money to replace these batteries? Or are these cars to be disposable, and if so, what is the annual carbon foot print of an electric car with a 5 year life, compared to a petrol engined car with 20 year life?

A wider area for consideration concerns the assumptions and demands of the lobbyists and activists. These, some of whom are ardent believers, while others are very well paid to demand that we all change our lives. Global climate is not and never has been, a static situation. The fossilised records indicate that long before humans had evolved, the climate was subject to change. It is possible that modern human activity alters the rate at which the change occurs. That does not mean stopping human activity will stop climate change. Much of the publicity focuses on global warming. The different sides in this debate use politics rather than science, to back their arguments. Politics is the art of persuasion to a specific point of view. Science deals with reproducible evidence, proven by historical honest record, that is factual and indisputable. The real causes and effects of global climate change are certainly not evidence based and indisputable. A great deal of the stuff being seen, on any form of the media, is opinion dressed up as fact. A great deal of what is claimed to be evidence, is actually interpretation of selected data. This is not science. This is marketing. Picking out bits of information that can be used and then interpreting and adjusting them, to sell an idea, is marketing and sales advertising, it is not science.

There are many things that influence our atmosphere and the movement of that atmosphere. Changes in solar activity, the shifting of the magnetic field of earth itself, changes to very deep ocean bed activity, volcanic eruptions, the constant movement of tectonic plates; these and many other naturally occurring events, all affect our weather. Human activity has nothing to do with these. The cycles of activity that form the nature of our planet, can last for millions of years. We know that ice ages have come and gone. We know that what are now deserts, were once the beds of seas. The changes, that relatively recent human activity are making to localised air conditions, must be having some effect. Pollution of any and all kinds, is going to cause damage to something. These are facts. It does not follow that forcing changes to peoples life style, will stop global climate change. This is simply illogical propaganda. If every one on planet earth suddenly reverted to a pre-industrialised way of living it will cause millions to die of starvation and still climate change will continue, may be at a slower rate but it will still continue.

So what is the political motive that sustains this strident call to change our way of living? Demands to reduce pollution can be understandable, but selecting only some forms of pollution and ignoring others, is a marketing ploy, not a sound basis for political reform. It is certain that some businesses and those who own them, will profit from forced “green” changes. Environmental improvement has become a way of convincing people to accept that paying more tax is necessary. This leads to the thought that those politicians who believe in state control, those who believe that each persons material well-being should be controlled by the government; specifically a government that they are part of; are the ones with most to gain. They gain from any level of acceptance that raising taxes and ever greater enforced government control, will stop climate change.

If it is truly believed that global destruction will occur, unless we vote in a government formed by a political party that claims it can prevent this. If we allow them to completely dictate the way we live, in the name of ecological preservation; then those politicians who form that government, have a free hand to enforce any policy they choose. It is a reasonable assumption that by the time the majority discover they have been led astray, they will live in a one party state with no way out.