The National Climate March takes place on the 4th of December - it's the one time in the year we put as many people together as we can to say we need radical action to address the climate emergency, one simple thing we can do. This event doesn’t just happen – people work like crazy to make it happen - all you have to do is turn up, to make their work worthwhile.
Our guest writer is Anton Gijsen Phil Thornhill of the Campaign against Climate Change
Do you remember that thing called ‘climate change’? There was a bit of a fuss about it recently, wasn’t there – that Copenhagen thing – but obviously no need to worry, as its all blown over now. Last year you couldn’t move for NGOs sounding off about it but they all seem to have gone pretty quiet now.
They all said the Copenhagen thing was a failure but that obviously doesn’t matter much. And we’ve got much more important things to worry about now – REAL issues that affect my wallet or pay packet now.
There was all that rhetoric wasn’t there about it being the most important issue of our times with the lives of literally billions at risk.
True, there’s been the odd bit in the news about the warmest year ever, record low Arctic ice volume, droughts and then floods in Niger, record floods in Pakistan, record temperatures, fires and ruined crops in Russia leading to a grain embargo causing food riots in places like Mozambique – but that says it all doesn’t it: its just the poorest people in faraway places who are getting ground progressively ever further into the dust. We don’t have to worry.
I mean there are some out there claiming people will still be talking about this issue when everything else on this website will look like so much trivial babble by comparison. Well even just suppose for a minute, just for the sake of argument, that’s right; I mean just because its the greatest crisis ever doesn’t mean we actually have to make a fuss about it.
The National Climate March takes place on the 4th of December – it’s the one time in the year we put as many people together as we can to say we need radical action to address the climate emergency, one simple thing we can do. This event doesn’t just happen – people work like crazy to make it happen – all you have to do is turn up, to make their work worthwhile.
Point a way forward that doesn’t duck the biggest issue of all. Climate Jobs to build a Zero Carbon Britain. 4th December. Check it out here: www.campaigncc.org/climatemarch2010.
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17 Responses to “Don’t let climate change slip down the agenda – join the march on December 4th”
Fay Tuncay
Bye bye global warming and regressive carbon taxes
The middle class global warming alarmists such as Phil Thornhill are slowly becoming aware that they have been co-opted by the carbon traders and the nuclear industry. What fools they were to think that China and India would sign up to this loopy decarbonisation nonsense.
This agenda will wither on the vine as will the warming itself. I would just remind Philip that in the 70’s there was a consensus that the world was cooling, but because it didn’t provide an opportunity to tax the atmosphere this narrative was drop in favour of global warming. I’m afraid Philip change is what climate does and there is nothing unusual about the current rates of change. Warming and cooling come and go in natural cycles. You and your carbon trading high-risk speculator and climate change banking friends will have to dream up another way of taxing the poor to death.
Eco Houses
Don't let climate change slip down the agenda – join the march on …: Do you remember that thing called 'climat… http://bit.ly/do6gUl
Wendy Maddox
RT @leftfootfwd: Don't let climate change slip down the agenda – join the march on December 4th: http://bit.ly/bbgMeP
Phil Thornhill
Ok lets try and deal with these comments. Although its quite difficult to take a lot of them seriously I’ll try ;
1 “The only person saying this is the “greatest crisis ever” and the “climate emergency” is you.” Patently untrue. As every sceptic must know because I (aka Anton) am hardly the only person they attack for saying this kind of thing.
Nuclear power can ge good for employment although other means of power generation may be more labour intensive in fact – therefore even better for employment. Nuclear power can help to meet energy needs although it can take a long time to do so given the time it takes to build new nuclear power stations and there clearly ARE other ways of meeting energy needs, many of them on an at least as equally low carbon basis. I will not attempt to judge between them here but the main argument against nuclear power has always been about the hazardous waste and the burden this places on suceeding generations.
2.No, myself and Joss Garman are not misrepresenting the science. The overwhelming majority of peer reviewed science suggests that climate change is serious and indeed ‘alarming’. Take for instance Professor James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute who after many years of refusing to make a public stand on the issue finally came out to demand urgent action to deal with the climate crisis.
It does appear to be true that public perception of the seriousness of the threat has diminished to some degree over the last year due to a number of factors including an orchestrated campaign of disinformation and the fact that it is easier for much of the media to make money telling people what they want to hear rather than the bad news of climate destabilisation. However the verdict of the scientific community has not been affected and presents as ever an overwhelming consensus that anthropogenic climate change is happening and is serious.
3 I happen to know Rupert Reade. Not that well, but whilst he is not a saint he does not appear to me to be especially unpleasant, self serving, arrogant, dishonest or intolerant.
Some of us have ended up making a living from occupations related in some way to the climate change debate but many of us have also given much of our own money and certainly time in fighting for what we beleive in on this issue. In fact the amount of purely voluntary effort that goes into campaigning for action on climate change is very considerable indeed. And the scientists who have come to an overwhelming consensus on the issue, as i have noted above, would still get paid as scientists whatever conclusion they came up with.
4. Yes the problem with climate change as has often been noted is that the dangerous impacts can become inevitable long before they become obviously visible. Its a delayed effect. But the wolf surely comes in the end.
5. Interesting mix here. Yes I am, I suppose, middle class but I’m not quite sure in what way that is relevant. It may be true that carbon traders and the nuclear industry have taken advantage of the growing concern about climate change but it is a complete logical fallacy to suggest that there fore concern about climate change must be misguided…. whether or not you beleive carbon trading and/or the nuclear industry are valid solutions to the problem. For what its worth a majority of the campaigners for urgent action on climate change that I know are probably anti-carbon trading and anti-nuclear.
The Indian and Chinese governments have both acknowledged that climate change is real and is a serious threat to their people. The Chinese, in particular have taken some quite significant steps to mitigate their emissions. Neither country however has done enough, but neither country has a comparable level of reponsibility to Western nations like the UK and US which have a much greater per capita rate of emissions, have emitted more historically and have more money, per capita, to both mitigate and adapt to the impacts.
In the 70s there was no consenus that the world was cooling. There was nothing approaching the overwhelming scientific consensus that there now is about global warming. A few people suggested it and made a few headlines – and that was about it. That is why there was no equivalent in the 70’s of a Kyoto Protocol to ‘prevent cooling’. Had it been the case that an excess of cetain gases in the atmosphere was causing cooling then that would have presented an equal opportunity for use as an argument for something analagous to carbon trading – if that is what is meant by ‘taxing the atmosphere’.
Yes the climate does indeed change and there are natural cycles. However the overwhelming scientific consensus is that current rates of change are indeed ‘unusual’ and that the only really feasible explanation is the emission of heat trapping gases by human activity. I dont have any friends in carbon trading or in banking specifically related to climate change – that I am aware of. In general I am in favour of moving the tax burden away from the poor and more towards the wealthy. This is an important political argument but has little directly to do with with climate change. Governments, meanwhile, do not need any special excuse – like climate change – to tax people. They have been taxing people for centuries, and sometimes to excess. Nor do bankers need climate change to indulge in high risk speculation – they have been doing that for some time, too.
Billy Blofeld
@Alan W
No I hadn’t forgotten the wolf turned up in the end.
Which is why it is irresponsible to misrepresent climate science.