Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of people.

I’m sure David Davis still has unfulfilled ambitions.

Remember the Liberal Party were in power for a long time. There’s something about long stretches of power that seems guaranteed to cause a party to implode in opposition.

It strikes me as being a *spectacularly* stupid thing to tear yourself apart over. Perhaps even worse than the pointless infighting that wracked the Tories over Europe post-Maastricht.

I guess it just goes to show that if a party wants to tear itself apart, it will find a way.

Implosions tend to occur once kicked out, not when on (apparent) point of victory.

Still, we’ll see.

I know there’s an upside to this and everything but isn’t the big picture that Rudd’s just had his climate change legislation voted down in the weeks before the Copenhagen conference and every climate sceptic in Australia has just felt legitimised by the ousting of a Liberal leader because he wasn’t irresponsible enough to question whether climate change is real or not.

I genuinely don’t understand why some people seem to think this is a good thing. Is the Liberals making an error that should cost them votes really more important than the fact that this sets back the fight against climate change?

The majority of British people must be wingnuts when it comes to AGW if that latest Times poll is to be believed. I fear terms like wingnut and moonbat no longer mean extremist but “people who I disagree with very strongly”.

It’s always entertaining to watch formerly dominant right-wing political parties get taken over by their wingnuts, whether in Australia or in the USA

amusing until you look at Obama poll ratings and think about Palin getting voted in the Limbaugh as veep.

When Thatcher was elected leader of the Tory party the left*celebrated* because they thought someone so dogmatic and vile could not possibly lead the Tories to an election victory. 18 years later her ideas were so dominant that even the Labour Party had adopted them… not something to look forward to is it?

Hi jimjay,

“I genuinely don’t understand why some people seem to think this is a good thing. Is the Liberals making an error that should cost them votes really more important than the fact that this sets back the fight against climate change?”

Rudd’s climate change legislation failed because the Libs and the Greens combined forces to vote it down (the Greens because it was not progressive enough).

I think that if the Liberal Party makes itself completely unelectable by splitting over climate change, then in the medium term it creates more political space in Australia to introduce policies to tackle climate change.

It will also be a warning to other centre-right parties about the dangers of opposing legislation to tackle climate change.

The big picture, I think, is that establishing that denying climate change=political suicide is a much bigger deal than a specific piece of legislation which was heavily influenced by lobbying from polluters.

@7:

I think your memories of 1975 are cloudy. The ideology we know as Thatcherism didn’t really emerge until 1983 under Keith Joseph nearly eight years after she became leader.

“When Thatcher was elected leader of the Tory party the left*celebrated* because they thought someone so dogmatic and vile could not possibly lead the Tories to an election victory. 18 years later her ideas were so dominant that even the Labour Party had adopted them… not something to look forward to is it?”

Really? I thought that Thatcher pretended to be relatively moderate when she first stood as leader.

This is much more like lefties celebrating when Iain Duncan Smith got elected as Tory leader, or Tories celebrating the election of Michael Foot.

The majority of British people must be wingnuts when it comes to AGW if that latest Times poll is to be believed.

any chance that climate change activists might consider the possibility that their melodramatic rhetoric might have backfired?

It is within the bounds of possibility that the majority of the public will turn against climate change, having been putt off by hysteria and sanctimonious hectoring.

(brought to you by largely the same species of idiot whose version of radical left politics has proved such a roaring success with the electorate).

“Any chance that climate change activists might consider the possibility that their melodramatic rhetoric might have backfired?

It is within the bounds of possibility that the majority of the public will turn against climate change, having been putt off by hysteria and sanctimonious hectoring.

(brought to you by largely the same species of idiot whose version of radical left politics has proved such a roaring success with the electorate).”

Now usually I’m all for any criticism of David Cameron, but I don’t think it is fair to criticise his politics as ‘radical left’.

I like the idea, though, that climate change is one of those things which you can just ‘turn against’ and then it will go away.

’83 is much too late to date the start of Thatcherism. The Ridley plan – upon which her first two terms were largely based – was written in 1974 not long before she was elected leader. She certainly set out on its recommendations from day one of her government.

As to whether she was regarded as a moderate – I guess this is open to dispute but she was certainly far more controversial than her predecessor and her nick name of ‘milk snatcher’ was not given to her for her calming influence and love of humanity.

Don,

I didn’t mean that* – I meant that the public support for costly efforts to alleviate climate change may not be there, perhaps because climate activists have got up everybody’s noses.

Personally, I’m an ardent environmentalist and sustainable energy advocate, which is why I am so disappointed with the typical environmental “activist” and worried about a backlash.

* I didn’t actually look at the Times poll, I just presumed from context that it says climate skepticism is popular

Hi Luis,

Fair enough.

It’s right to worry about a backlash (though I am not sure how much this is because of environmental activists). I think enthusiasm for a backlash, though, will be diminished if centre right parties start electing wingnuts and getting defeated heavily in elections.

Don,

maybe … but not if the wingnuts are climate change skeptics and climate change skepticism is actually popular. Likewise, not if the wingnuts are anti-government, and anti-government-ism is popular etc.

I can see the argument that having political parties move to extremes is good if it clears the floor for the party you favour …. but compared to the scenario of having a sane mainstream Conservative or Republican party, it also raises the risk of a party of nutters getting elected… and the Conservatives are going to get elected and Obama could easily be a one term president. Personally I want the Republicans to regain their sanity asap.

I still can’t get over the fact that these idiots have elected Abbott as their leader. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear… not that I have any objections to the Liberals shooting themselves in the foot. Repeatedly.

Btw, someone mentioned that the Liberals were in power for a while. This is true – but is also the norm for governments in Australia. The only postwar government that didn’t stay around for quite a while was Whitlam’s and the less said about the manner of its dismissal the better, obviously.

Obama could easily be a one term president

C’mon, srsly? His approval rating is currently hovering around 50%, despite the lack of positive on-the-ground news abroad, at home or in the economy; that’s where GWB’s rating was from 2000-01 and from 2003-2006 (then going on to fall to new lows).

Given that everything is certain to be better in three years’ time than it is today, the chances of Obama losing are low even if the Republicans get a serious contender on board – and absolutely 0 in the event of a Palin/Limbaugh comedyfest.

If healthcare reform fails (I don’t think it will do, but it is possible) and the Afghanistan fudge blows up in Obama’s face, (eg he cannot withdraw by the deadline, in which case he could even face a primary challenge) he could be a one-term president.

I don’t think he will be, but I’m not complacent about it.

It is within the bounds of possibility that the majority of the public will turn against climate change, having been putt off by hysteria and sanctimonious hectoring.

I think the real danger is that people are being persuaded, or at least thrown in to doubt, by the totally disproportionate amount of space given in the media to those who dispute AGW. According to the Times

The poll, undertaken last weekend, found that only two in five people in Britain accept as an established scientific fact that global warming is largely man-made.

which shows a pretty huge gulf between public understanding and the established science. The media, and those who actually work in climate science themselves, have been pretty poor in putting forward the scientific arguments in favour of AGW and it has allowed the Melanie Phillips, James Delingpoles, Ian Plimers etc. to substantially muddy the waters.

And people who complain that advocates of action on AGW are being unduly alarmist should remember that the potential outcome of climate change could be very very bad indeed. We shouldn’t panic, but complacency is very dangerous.

@18

OK, I may have let the little panicking pessimist inside my head off his leash a little there.

“And people who complain that advocates of action on AGW are being unduly alarmist should remember that the potential outcome of climate change could be very very bad indeed. We shouldn’t panic, but complacency is very dangerous.”

Name one very very bad outcome.

And people who complain that advocates of action on AGW are being unduly alarmist should remember that the potential outcome of climate change could be very very bad indeed. We shouldn’t panic, but complacency is very dangerous.

yes, so it’s all the more important that advocates of action on AGW don’t blow it by delivering their message in a way that just alienates people. I agree the potential outcomes are very very bad indeed, but the tactic of “trying to get people to see how terribly terribly bad things are and how they must stop doing what they’re doing right now!” is incredibly clumsy to the point of being counterproductive.

I think activists need to recognise the negative emotional reaction most people have to things like Climate Camp and Planestupid. Activists also need to acknowledge how few people are actually doing anything like limiting their flying, limiting their consumption, buying green electricity etc. and come up with a better plan than “shout even louder”.

The option of believing that climate change is a load of nonsense is very appealing and very easy to do, given the absurdly unrealistic positions of most activists and off-putting preachy manner.

For example, many activists promote the line that we will simply need to consumer less. How do they expect this to happen? Are they hoping that after being exposed to enough advocacy, people are going to voluntarily turn off the heating and wear scarves indoors, darns their socks, stop traveling to see friends, stop buying kitchenware, stop eating meat etc. etc. Is there any sign of that happening? Perhaps more preaching will do it … or maybe they think people will vote in a government that imposes policies to achieve it. It’s because climate change is so important that advocacy needs to be better than that.

Hello…is anyone there?

All I asked for is one very very bad outcome of not doing anything about so called climate change.

One.

The production of environmental refugees on a scale unseen before? Even a relatively modest increase in sea levels will do the Maldives and a slightly larger one will displace millions in Bangladesh.

It was like 30 minutes and some of have jobs to go to!

Take glass

Fill with ice cubes

Top up with water

Let ice cubes melt

Observe water level DROP

Water EXPANDS when it freezes.

NEXT!

26: True as far as the Arctic goes (though I imagine there are knock-on effects of the shrinkage of Arctic ice). Totally irrelevant for Antarctica though, as the ice there is (partly) on land.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/revealed-antarctic-ice-growing/story-e6frg6no-1225700046908

NEXT!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=atJRfSKS0cOA

*shrug*

Short of getting out there myself I’m not sure of how I’ll ever be convinced about what’s going on, when reports are so blatantly contradictory. That said, the world-wide trend does seem to point to warming and glacial retreat. Of course, we’ve had such warmings before with no long-term dire consequences, so perhaps it will all end up OK. I’m not sure whether you’re saying that warming isn’t happening, or that it is happening but as a result of natural cycles, or that it’s happening because of human intervention but is basically benign.

The reason we are at the top of the food chain is that we adapt (apart from stupid Bangladeshis who have always lived on floodplains and always get drowned whenever a hurricane occurs or Ethiopians who prefer to spend aid on AK47s and rocket propelled grenades instead of irrigation)

Taxing us trillions is not going to change a damn thing, except give governments an endless supply of money to waste. It is a scam to keep India and China in the third world and starving, “where they belong”

So much for humanity, eh?

http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/12/greenpeace-destroyed.html

Gerd Leipold, the outgoing leader of Greenpeace, admitted that his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.” Greenpeace said in a July 15 press release that there will be an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming. …

I think what OH is trying to say is “Poo willy bum bum! Please look at me!”

@28: “Most of” is not “all off”. Antarctica as a whole is showing negative mass balance. You can always rely on The Australian get this stuff wrong.

Then, of course, there’s the Greenland icecap (see ref #1). Also, melting of the Arctic sea ice, whilst not directly contributing to SLR, does result in a positive albedo feedback.

Refs:
Greenland and Antarctic mass balance from GRACE [I Velicogna et al - American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008]
Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling [E Rignot et al - Nature Geoscience, 2008]
Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance from ICESat (2003-2007) [HJ Zwally et al - AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2008]

OH,

I hesitate to put any sort of argument in front of somebody who fails to understand how a policy passed by popular vote can nonetheless be the antithesis of libertarianism ….

Consequences of climatological change are likely to be unpredictable (ocean currents, ocean levels, rainfall patterns, temperature patterns etc.) but ever so unlikely to be zero. If you think that melting ice and ice displacement is going to magical net out to zero change in sea levels, fine – bit hard to believe that every possible change in every other dimension will also turn out to be immaterial.

Some changes we might think of as good (greening Siberia?) and some bad. Only an idiot would think we’re going to get no bad and all good.

People have made fixed investments – cities are in certain places, agricultural investments in certain places, and species have evolved to suit their environs. So even if you think ‘bad’ changes are balanced by ‘good’ changes, there are big costs to any changes and as is well known, billions of people are not in a very good position to bear costs. We are also loss averse – the loss of Venice, the loss of particular animal species in particular habitats or whatever are not fully counter balanced by establishing new cities and by species flourishing, in the newly temperate former Siberian wastes.

I’m sure that campaigners have made exaggerated claims and that some of the bad thing foretold won’t turn out to be so bad. That’s a long way from saying we have nothing to worry about.

And Copenhagen changes any of that HOW exactly?

I believe our glorious leader proposes that we spend £100 Billion of MY money somehow “off setting” the damage done by Victorians to the M’Bkukwe tribe in Africa who have always lived where no one in their right mind would live anyway.

Hey, have as many meetings as you want, see if I care. Demand one penny from me to support your new Religion and this athiest will declare war

I demand one penny from you to support my new Religion

OH @ 37

“I believe our glorious leader proposes that we spend £100 Billion of MY money somehow “off setting” the damage”

That’s because it is your behaviour that is causing other, innocent people to suffer. Why should other people modify their behaviour, just because you are too feckless to modify yours? We expect you to take responsibility for your own fuck ups. That goes against everything the Libertarian stands for, but their you go.

Careful, Luis – remember, he has £100 billion to spend…

Luis, re #22

I agree that it is important to put the message in the right way, in a manner that won’t alienate people, but how many nice ways are there of saying that there is a serious problem and if we are going to do something about it then there is likely to be a real cost both in material terms and in changes to people’s lifestyles? OK, people don’t like to be hectored but they do need to be told the truth.
And I’m not sure how much damage groups like “Climate Camp” and “Plane Stupid” do – they seem to generate a bizarre amount of loathing in some people, others pay little attention or admire them for actually trying to do someting. I think, as I said above that far more damage is done by those who persuade people there is not a problem in the first place.

All I asked for is one very very bad outcome of not doing anything about so called climate change.

Well I was going to answer, but given that you seemingly don’t consider millions of dead or displaced Bangladeshis to be a bad thing it seems a bit pointless.

I believe our glorious leader proposes that we spend £100 Billion of MY money somehow “off setting” the damage done by Victorians to the M’Bkukwe tribe in Africa who have always lived where no one in their right mind would live anyway.

Presumably you’d have no objection if they instead went to live somewhere where sensible people do want to live. Like the UK for instance.

Andrew

“And I’m not sure how much damage groups like “Climate Camp” and “Plane Stupid” do – they seem to generate a bizarre amount of loathing in some people”

If these organizations are just being widely ignored, then they are failures under their own terms aren’t they? Their goal is to attract attention. They do get in the evening news fairly often. Once they have attracted attention, I agree loathing would be a bizarre reaction. I’d have thought they most common reaction was “a bunch of clowns that can be safely ignored”, or “stupid fucking hippies”, like, say, the general feeling about anti-capitalist protesters. I’d hope people took climate activists seriously and didn’t associate the the topic with “some shit that bunch of tossers keep crapping on about that I want nothing to do with”.

Actually, these are just my impressions/prejudices. I could be wrong, and maybe the most common reaction is neutral or positive. It would be interesting to see a poll of a large random sample of the population and find out how most people react to climate change activism.

ah – I see in his latest post, Sunny makes exactly the opposite argument!

Let me see.

Millions of Bangladeshi idiots living on houses on stilts on a known flood plain that regularly floods and kills thousands (every ten years for the last 4 billion years).

Er…don’t live there, dumbass.

Bangladesh, situated at the confluence of several of South Asia’s major rivers, suffers from floods almost every year. Major portions of the country are part of the Ganges Delta, the largest flood plain in the world. The floods have caused havoc in Bangladesh throughout history, especially during the years 1987, 1988, and 1998. The 2007 South Asian floods affected a large portion of Bangladesh.

In the 19th century 6 major floods were recorded: 1842, 1858, 1871, 1875, 1885 and 1892. 18 major floods occurred in the 20th century among which those of 1987, 1988 and 1998 were of catastrophic consequence. In the 2007 South Asian floods all the six divisions of Bangladesh were affected resulting in the displacement of five million people and a death toll of 500 [1].

MOVE, IDIOTS

Move where, you knobhead?