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Listed below are comments made by threnodio between Saturday, 31st October 2009 and Sunday, 1st November 2009.

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Copenhagen's climate change battle 10:04pm on 01 Nov 2009 #50 - WebAliceinwonderland
#47 - Jukka_Rohila

Well yes and no, Alice. Jukka is quite right about the relative cost of nuclear energy once the power stations are built. He does not address the question of where the money is coming from to build them but let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the return on invested capital justifies the sums involved and still produce affordable energy.

Now what has been going on at this summit in planning what the EU are going to take to Copenhagen? Everyone agrees that the EU must be a lead player in setting an example by cutting it's own emissions. There is also an understanding that there is no point in us and the other developed nations doing all this if the developing world is going to carry on increasing omissions. Some of the EU nations, notably Britain are saying we must put hard cash on the table to invest in clean energy technologies in the developing world.

Three problems with this:

1. There are growing economies in the developing world, some of them very large indeed - Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines for example - who are demanding western finance for new technologies while continuing to turn a blind eye to deforestation on a grand scale. It is merely gesture politics to invest in their projects all the time they are allowing practices in other sectors of their economy which mitigate against the benefits.

2. Some of these countries have a very obvious case for pursuing the nuclear option. Iran is one of these but we flatly refuse to believe them when they claim their program is entirely peaceful - probably rightly so. But what do we do? Do we tell every nation for whom nuclear technology would be useful that they must comply with our western standards before they can have it? They are only going to shop in China, India or Russian instead anyway.

3. It is all hot air anyway if we fail to face up to the biggest offenders in our own societies - ordinary people. You are never going to persuade people not to use the car unless you provide them with affordable and reliable public transport, you will not get them to use LPG, electric power or other technologies unless it is available and cheap. You will not get parents to send their kids to school on foot or by bicycle if they don't think their kids are safe on the street on their own.

So yes, we do need to cut greenhouse gas emissions but we fool ourselves if we think we can simply throw money at it and everything will be fine. A government that wants its people to lead by example and is willing to put cash on the table to help developing countries but insists that public transport is a business, not a service and must operate in profit is living in cloud cuckoo land. It is time for some hard headed realism before we start throwing cash about.
Copenhagen's climate change battle 8:31pm on 01 Nov 2009 #45 - Jukka_Rohila

Very nice Jukka. Now all you have to do now is to create a whole new economic world order and persuade all the guys that were planning on getting rich on the back of this technology that they have a clear duty to give it away. And I do not see Tesco doing a 'buy one, get one free' on nuclear power stations this week.

Wake up, Jukka - this is going to cost mega-billions. Where is it coming from - taxation?
Copenhagen's climate change battle 8:12pm on 01 Nov 2009 I see Russo-American dialogue is back and up to its usual standard.
Another fine mess 6:00pm on 01 Nov 2009 #8 - MagicKirin

A disaster for who? For you, or the free world or the planet as a whole? How much longer are we in the west going spending billions of cash and thousands of lives telling people half a world away how to organise their lives?

When the Cold War finally ended, hardly a shot was fired. It was the triumph of an idea and the death of another which had run it's course. You cannot deliver democracy at the end of a gun barrel. If you are doing it for other reasons, fair enough but please don't cloak it in the language of the greater good.
Another fine mess 4:56pm on 01 Nov 2009 The Taliban, however much you may dislike their fundamentalist philosophy, are ambitious regionally only. They want their system in Afghanistan and western Pakistan - that's all. It is Al Quaia you were really after - the international terrorists who made nobody feel safe - and they are long gone into the mountains of the North West Frontier, Whajiristan, Chechya or lord knows where. Their tactical organisation is devolved to local groups as far a part west Africa and the Philippines. And what are you left with? Nation building. Well it's not your nation and it's not your job. It is simply your taxpayer dollars and the cream of your young people. Is it really worth the price?
Copenhagen's climate change battle 09:37am on 01 Nov 2009 #28 - democracythreat

Now we are on common ground. The idea that a handful of experts can lead the entire global population by the hand onto the moral high ground where nobody cuts down trees, burns fossil fuels or uses anything that can't be renewed is living in a complete fantasy world. And yes you are right, I am going to die, probably quite soon given my age (I prefer not to think about the painful bit thank you) so I personally am unlikely to experience the expected catastrophe.

I do, however, think there is an economic investment argument here. Given that we are also expecting a world food crisis, it must be a solid investment to bring non productive land into use by irrigating it so as to increase food production and oxygen output. There has to be a case for trying to reverse the trend of population flow from the country to cities, many of which are low lying coastal locations which will become very vulnerable (Catrina, anyone?). If you are concerned about the cost of prevention now,just reflect for a moment on the cost of recue and rehabilitation after a disaster has struck.

Pricing mechanisms may be useful to forcing or persuading people to take on greener modes of transport shifting from gasoline to lpg and electic power This can be relatively cheap using high gasoline prices to drive people to other sources and the nuclear option should e firmly back on the equation.

I argue with the fatalists who tell us it is not happen regardless and the ostriches who say there is nothing to done. The world needs cleaning up anyway so why not start now? It may not reduce emissions overnight but it is a move in the right diection.
Copenhagen's climate change battle 9:48pm on 31 Oct 2009 #26 - democracythreat

I am beginning to wonder if everyone is going completely mad on this thread. There are a whole host of theories about why the climate is warming up including your own not entirely unreasonable one that we are simply in that stage of the earth's cycle of cooling and warming up. What is unquestionably true, even if you want to rule out that the current warming phase is not directly caused by emissions of the so called greenhouse gases, is that these emissions are seriously exacerbating the situation.

Now of course one can be deeply cynical about this and argue that there is no point in simply throwing money at the problem and imaging that it will go away, especially if you are one of those who believe that most of it is going to end up in someone's Swiss bank account - as one contributor suggested recently. However, the facts are staring you in the face. The earth is warming at a fairly alarming rate and only a completely naive person would dismiss the idea that greenhouse gas emissions are not contributing to the problem. Given this to be the case, would you not agree that it would be more fruitful to have an open discussion about what should be done about it rather than retreating into denial.

I don't want to take anything away from your very amusing post but the point about inherited expenditure remains the case even if you take away all of the proposed spending on climate related matters. The simple truth is that government cannot continue to escalate taxation to fund everything it wants to do and stand a hope of remaining in office so prioritisation is an essential part of the budgetary process. Can we at least have this discussion on the basis of the facts and not indulge in ostrich like behaviour.

At the risk of being referred yet again,I have no idea why my last post was referred except possibly on the grounds of relevance but I would like to point out that the purpose of it was to dispute what I regarded as a dangerous piece of scaremongering by an earlier contributor. I would like to add that there are a number of other posts in this thread which are not relevant to climate change and, furthermore, it was not uncommon in Mark Mardell's time, for threads to wander way off topic when the central subject matter had appeared to have run its course. Whoever it is who has decided to be trigger happy with the referral button does nobody any favours and a disservice to open dialogue. If you disagree with me, please have the courtesy to discuss in open forum rather than appointing yourself censor.
Copenhagen's climate change battle 7:38pm on 31 Oct 2009 #22 - Necropyro

We should be clear - for the benefit of anyone who believes otherwise - that the 'plague' that has apparently struck western Ukraine is being reported by the legitimate media as an outbreak of H1N1. The phrase 'pneumonic plague' has only been used in fringe media.

While no one would pretend it is not serious, it is not unexpected and here in neighbouring Hungary, immunisation is available. We should not be panicked into the mistaken belief that this is something other than a known strain unless and until someone comes forward with authoritative and scientifically reliable information to the contrary.
Copenhagen's climate change battle 09:41am on 31 Oct 2009 #13 - SuffolkBoy2

So do you and I but nobody's approached us - have they? :-)))
Sarkozy's teaser 00:20am on 31 Oct 2009 #22 - Jukka_Rohila

As somebody who is rapidly running out of patience with the UK's position on the EU, I have a lot of sympathy with what you say but your position has two problems. Firstly, it supposes that there is only one satisfactory model for the EU and that is the course on which the main player at set. I do not accept this. If you are going to reject out of hand that there may be alternative views, you may as throw away any pretence at democracy. You don't need it in a single scenario situation.

There is also a more pragmatic reason. The upcoming UK election seems to have focused the Labour leadership's mind somewhat while throwing the Tories into some confusion. If you think the UK is a problem child now, just wait until after June. So perhaps there is a case for going easy on Britain for the moment and letting them get as far down the line as they can before the election.

And if you think I am being difficult now, try to imagine what it feels like being an EU enthusiast who can't wait to see the back of Gordon Brown. Heaven help us all.

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