What would be the appropriate thing to say about a government that pours a monstrously disproportionate amount of money into an issue no one really cares about, and does so at the huge expense of the very issues that people really do care about? Hat-tip: Die kalte Sonne and newnostradamusofthenorth.blogspot.
I’d say it’s just a question of time before serious economic and social instability erupts. It’s a socio-political disaster waiting to happen.
This is precisely the case in Europe. Hundreds of billions of euros are being pumped into environment and “climate protection” which a recent survey clearly shows is not at all the main concern of EU citizens. The survey tells us in no uncertain terms that the essential issues of economics and jobs are being seriously neglected and that the stability of the continent is at serious risk. People are genuinely worried about their jobs and the economy.
In a comprehensive European survey on issues that matter to citizens, climate and environment finished almost dead last, not even making the top 10.
The chart above compares sentiment from last spring to last autumn. Note that despite the IPCC’s dramatized and hyped release of its 5th assessment report last autumn, concern for climate and environment climbed only a mere 1 percent. Even dead cats have much more bounce.
Clearly, economics jobs and prices are far more important for European citizens, as the challenge for citizens to make ends meet are far more real than the abstract computer-generated “climate catastrophe”, which is allegedly due 100 years from now.
Only in the very rich countries do environment and climate have any meaning.
So why does the EU pour so many billions into a non-relevant issue when in some countries, like Greece, societies are on the verge of uprising because of economic hardship? On the surface it makes no sense. But closer examination shows us what happens to a society when its government becomes so irrationally obsessed with an irrelevant issue that it literally puts its existence at risk. Ideology and dogmatism are blind.
More astonishing is that despite the 2-decades long multi-multi billion euro climate campaign and persistent mass media blitz, climate still remains an irrelevant fringe issue. Unless you find yourself in North Korea, it goes to show that brainwashing is not easy to do in today’s decentralized multi-media environment. Mainstream media has lost its influence. The Internet media is playing a more important role then ever.
Another point the survey reveals is that climate is an issue, and only a moderate one at that, in mainly very rich countries where people have nothing better to worry about, e.g. Sweden and Germany. It’s about soothing guilt.
Of course everyone agrees environment is an essential issue. But pouring literally tens of billions into fictitious “climate protection” year after year while neglecting the real, pressing issues is becoming a dangerous game. The observed data do really tell us: the climate catastrophe is nothing more than a computer model-generated hallucination.
Hopefully eurocrats will quickly take the survey results very seriously and acknowledge that their economic problems are truly pressing and that neglecting them further will only increase the risk of serious social consequences and civic instability. The EU is keeping its socioeconomic powder kegs tinder dry.
Source of graphics: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/en.pdf.
I see you have an opinion poll; I’m missing the bit where you demonstrate “But Costs Hundreds Of Billions!” Could you point out your reference, or does “everyone know that”?
Please don’t be silly, William. Every grwon-up indeed knows that. Last year subsidies for wind and solar in Germany amounted to 20 bn EUR; in ONE year in ONE country.
Everyone knows it. Don’t you read the papers?
In Germany alone, former Environment Minister Peter Altmaier said it’ll cost the country 1 trillion euros by the year 2030. That’s only one country!
And for what? To combat the hallucinations from climate models.
There is no need to be wilfully stupid you know!
Also, William, thanks for bringing it up as I noticed a couple of sentences were not optimally formulated. Now the text is clear. The figure is not “hundreds of billions annually”, rather it’s hundreds of billions over the years and a couple of decades.
William, here is your reference. The number is a Billion Dollars a DAY.
http://climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/global-landscape-of-climate-finance-2013/
Your blind spots are showing.
William Connolley? Just wondering – is this the real Billy Connolly hiding under an assumed name? I know the real one is a good comedian, the imposter just make me laugh…………….
It’s the grouping of environment, climate and energy that puts it next to last. It would be last if not.
I see the climate nutter has appeared.
Right you are!
Pierre: “environment and “climate protection”…..
Can you imagine the ignorance? Why would a country spend gazillion’s of dollars on clean energy that is renewable…..when they can spend gazillions of dollars on DIRTY ENERGY THAT WE WILL RUN OUT OF AND IS NOT RENEWABLE?
Totally agree with you…:)
Very simple: coal, gas, and oil can be burned very cleanly today, are much cheaper and offer a far superior and reliable supply. As far as running out, there’s enough left for centuries, if not thousands of years – which means we will find an alternative long before they run out.
Buddy, did you know that despite production, world oil reserves have doubled since 1980?
http://gswindell.com/temp5.gif
In the US, oil reserves versus production has stayed around 10 years since at least 1945. Technology and exploration keeps at least ten years ahead of production. The oil companies don’t hire Green/Progressives.
“Why would a country spend gazillion’s of dollars on clean energy that is renewable…..when they can spend gazillions of dollars on DIRTY ENERGY THAT WE WILL RUN OUT OF AND IS NOT RENEWABLE?”
Buddy, stay here and you might eventually learn something. Our lesson today: The law of supply and demand. As a resource becomes more scarce, its price rises. So, as soon as coal becomes so expensive that solar power plus batteries becomes cheaper than coal produced electricity, consumers will shift to solar power.
That moment is not now. Given the price curve of solar power and batteries, it is at least 20 years in the future. The switch will not be induced by a price rise of coal but by dropping cost of solar.
Before that moment arrives, a subsidized mass rollout of solar is uneconomic; reduces the standard of living, increases cost, increases unemployment, reduces tax receipts, increases public debt, and is in general comparable to the costs of an unnecessary war.
They also lumped the environment and climate in with energy. I suspect that will have inflated its importance – look at the 3 countries on 15%: Gemany, Denmark and Malta.
Germany and Denmark have some of the highest energy prices in the world, and ordinary people have been hurting. And Malta has had lots of problems with blackouts due to poor generation infrastructure and maintenance.
I don’t know why Sweden comes in at 21%, but Denmark’s wind sector heavily relies on Swedish hydro energy for load levelling, and there’s been a long running argument about nuclear power in Sweden.
So take out energy and the climate/environment issue could well be dead last.
Do not take this Connolley seriously. He only wants to aggravate and stir you up. Best to ignore him.
Personally I don’t answer warmist trolls to convince them; they already know where their bread is buttered (Connolley is a Green Party member and worked in the climate industrial complex).
I do it so unsuspecting passers-by see my answer. It’s like filling potholes. Intellectual potholes.
LOL!
The real reason it’s all a waste of money is that the “science” is wrong.
Models that are based on the completely false physics that radiation from a colder atmosphere can actually help the Sun in raising the temperature of Earth’s surface are a complete fiction. It cannot do so. Physicists will tell you (if you even bother to ask a specialist in thermodynamics like myself) that such radiation undergoes what they call “pseudo scattering” in which it is immediately re-emitted in a resonating process, without any of its electro-magnetic energy being converted to thermal energy. This provides some of the electro-magnetic energy in the SB calculation for the warmer surface, and thus slows radiative cooling, but it can have no effect on molecules colliding at the interface and transferring thermal energy by conduction and evaporative cooling.
But none of this is what really determines planetary surface temperatures anyway. The base of the Uranus nominal troposphere is hotter than Earth, and yet it receives no direct solar radiation worth mentioning.
Valid physics can be used to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that a gravitationally-induced temperature gradient will always evolve spontaneously in a vertical plane in any solid, liquid or gas that is exposed to a gravitational field. This happens at the molecular level where molecules swap kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy when in free flight between collisions. No one has correctly rebutted this, and wires outside cylinders also develop thermal gradients so no perpetual motion can occur.
There is a predetermined thermal profile in Earth’s atmosphere caused by gravity which, without water vapour or greenhouse gases, would intersect the surface in the vicinity of 25C, but then water vapour reduces the gradient (due to inter-molecular radiation, not the release of latent heat) and we end up with a mean of about 15C.
It is natural cycles, probably regulated by planetary orbits, which are the primary determinants of climate. That’s why it’s not carbon dioxide after all.
Pierre, it’s actually worse than you think. The poll says
What if energy issues was kept as a separate choice? Climate would have dropped down further. You can want energy from oil and coal and not be concerned about CAGW. You can also be concerned about the environment without giving a damned about the trace rise of the trace gas co2. In fact that is me. 🙂 The survey actually puts Climate Change higher up than it deserves. It should be last.
Further to my last point, a lot of people in Germany are very concerned about the cost of energy. Many of those don’t care about global warming (since many have been paying higher fuel bills during recent freezing winter.) I hope you get my line of thinking here. The survey gives too much weight to ‘climate change’ than it deserves. It may not even be important enough to appear last. 😉
Currently a comedy is played in Germany, where the “heroic” SPD minister Gabriel, vice chancellor as boss of the minority partner in the great coalition with CDU, and energy minister, “desperately” fights for the interests of the small consumer, “against” the EU commission with their “evil” CO2 reduction rules and the “evil” industry interest, to get the costs down; but it’s such a hard job, and maybe he’ll get the cost INCREASE down to another billion this year, up from ca. 24 to 25 bn; and that will be a “triumph” for the small guy.
That’s how our media are framing it.
Yes, climate gets here the profit of a hitch hiker. Energy issues are probably interpreted by many as energy prizes because the top items concern people’s wallet. Moreover, the environment is a traditional concept in the sense of clean air, water and soil. I guess that climate alone would earn about zero procent. It is mainly hysteria in MSM and politics. Although people I know are not a representative sample, with the exception of one person who is mentally not quite OK, all the others consider the climate issue as something belonging to a weird sect, we have learned to tolerate in our tradition.
The 2 bars, yellow and blue had me thinking this was a Swedish survey. But I found this thing called the “Standard Eurobarometer” with Spring 2013 having in the title the number 79. So, EB79. That seems to be the source of the yellow. The fall survey would be EB80, and a new one will be soon underway. If I’ve not got this right, please correct.
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William and Buddy might want to check out the Australian manufacturing landscape. Companies that use energy are shutting the doors, Alcoa being the most recent to announce the closure of a factory (Port Henry, Geelong) here: -38.1401, 144.4248
This might be relevant:
The United Nations estimates it would cost $30 billion a year to end world hunger.
According to the Reuters analysis of the Summary for Policymakers of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, due to be released this April, the UN is calling on the world to invest an extra $147 billion a year in wind, solar, and nuclear power from 2010 to 2029.
If we add that figure to CPI’s measure, the UN wants us to spend approximately $506 billion a year to mitigate global warming,
According to the UN, this amount would end world hunger for nearly 20 years.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/yearly-climate-spending-10x-more-than-un-estimate-for-ending-world-hunger/
I am really surprised that the source of most of government’s ability to pursue their various vacuous ideologies does not find itself to be higher on these lists.
It’s only a little word, but for me, it is the single most important subject, and if we folk took more interest, we could begin to control government more effectively…
That word/subject is TAX.
Only 3 countries in that list put tax at over 20%, and at the level of the most wasteful and ideologically corrupt level (EU), it only registers at 11%.
Pourquoi?
because of progressive income tax. Small earners have no reason to complain. And they think they profit from it through the high tax payments of the high earners.
Possibly Dirk but, even small earners would probably be surprised at just how much of their small income ends up in the hands of government wastrels.
For instance, low earners often drink or smoke to blot out the horror, if they use a vehicle either their own or a public one, they are paying fuel taxes, and insurance taxes.
If they buy something that is imported… there are often tariffs paid by the importer, that are passed on.
I accept that higher earners pay most of the tax, but as a percentage of income small earners are still being crippled…
Oh, and what is a higher earner… in the UK a “higher earner” is not far above a small earner, our higher earners are the most compromised, poorly rewarded, and discriminated against of all the income strata… I understand that on average, it is around 70% of wasted effort.
Dirk, got it in one!
There is also the boiled frog effect.
It is only a matter of time before the entire scam of climate change and global warming , renewables and wind energy will come home to roost
All of the latter the stuff of charlatans (n Al Gore variety) carpetbaggers and geezers such as wind energy developers who are mopping up ssubsidies for the renewables sector from stupid EU governments.
It is the green taliban that are driving these crazy policies and of ncourse aided and abetted by fawning sycophantic politicans who dont know their arese from their elbows but only interested in garnering votes – the sort of folk who would sell their grannies to a brothel if there was money to be made
I put in an access to information request to the European Investment Bank. They did no assessment of renewable energy before giving millions in grants to build wind farms in Ireland. They suggested I enquire from the developers themselves.
They have given huge grants to build wind farms in Mexico. Its on their web site.
I did not get time to examine the rest of Europe,
Once its green, in goes our money
Hi Pierre,
Your neighbours are talking about you. See the reference to your article by Hans Labohm:-
http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2014/02/john-kerry-klimaatverandering-massavernietigingswapen?utm_source=Dagelijkse+Standaard+List&utm_campaign=d44b0b7d96-nb&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ec416e99c9-d44b0b7d96-287990333
Good.