Warmists, reacting with horror to their defeat
One of my resolutions this year is to write as little as possible about global warming. Not only will it make my wife much happier but it will also free me up to talk about more important things such as monetary collapse, hyperinflation and the imminent end of Western civilisation. Oh and also there's hardly much need for my input on climate change any more. That's because, basically, my side has won.
Here's how The Financial Times recently put it:
To the relief of many of the country’s biggest manufacturers and industries, there has been a distinct shift in the government’s tone on green issues. Even Steve Hilton, Mr Cameron’s chief policy adviser, and the man credited with coining the phrase “vote blue, go green”, appears to have had some serious second thoughts. “There is a clear disintegration of the green consensus,” says Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a critic of many climate policies. “We’re still at the stage of rhetoric rather than really strong rollback of policies, but it normally starts with the rhetoric before you start with policies.”The more I learn about Steve Hilton, the more I like his style. Sure it's a pity he didn't see the light a bit earlier: before he staged that ruddy stupid husky photo op, say, and sent the Conservatives' environmental policies in such a disastrous direction. Still, joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, and all that. And though it's said that Hilton isn't nearly as influential as he was in the early days (apparently he's so sick of being dicked around by bolshie civil servants and of having to pretend that the dribbling Lib Dem loons in the cabinet are in any way to be taken seriously that he's half tempted to opt out of politics altogether), he does still very much have Cameron's ear. Perhaps, who knows, he might be able to talk some sense into it; maybe get Dave to understand that, no, Al Gore does not – as Cameron once notoriously put it – "really know his stuff about global warming."
But I digress. As you'll know by now, I'm not usually Mister Optimist. So what the hell am I doing crowing about victory in the climate wars when clearly there remains so much work to be done? We-e-ll: I think Benny Peiser nailed it in that quote above. Sure there are still heaps and heaps of really bad global-warming-related policies which remain on the statute books, notably such as the Climate Change Act in Britain, Julia Gillard's carbon suicide tax in Australia, and all those swingeing environmental laws which are wreaking such economic havoc in greentard US states like California. As far as the battle of ideas is concerned, though, the Warmists are on the run. (By way of indication: do, please, linger awhile to cherish the stupidity, malignity and desperation of the comments from the Warmist trolls who fester beneath this blog. They're bitter, hurt and angry, as of course, defeated armies always are. It's a bit like what happens to Sauron's orcish hordes after Gollum has chucked the ring into Mount Doom. Actually, not a bit like – exactly like.)
But again, I digress. Let me give you some reasons why I'm so bullish.
1. The Shale Gas miracle. I know I keep banging on about it but it cannot be stressed enough. It's called the Shale Gas miracle because it's so ruddy miraculous. What the world economy needs more than anything right now is cheap, abundant, accessible energy. Shale gas is it. I'd go so far as to say that it's our single best hope of averting a new Great Depression. One of the key tenets of the green religion is that in order to preserve "scarce resources" for "future generations" we must reduce our consumption of fossil fuels (by, inter alia, artificially raising their prices) and forcing ourselves to use more expensive, inefficient renewables. The arrival of shale gas makes this argument much less persuasive. Hardcore greens may not see it, for their commitment to renewables is theological rather than practical. But everyone else will, and that's what counts.
2. The collapse of renewables. Renewable energy – "pretend energy", "faux energy" or "alternative-to-energy", as it ought more properly to be known – is an economic, environmental and socio-political disaster. It ruins economies, destroys jobs, kills wildlife, uglifies the countryside. Some of us have been saying this for a very long time but for the message to get through to Joe Average you need something a bit more spectacular than a few snarky blog posts. Thankfully God – who hates renewables at least as much as he loathes Mother Gaia, but probably not quite as much as he despises Al Gore, is bored rigid by the Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt or is perpetually gobsmacked by George Monbiot – has come to our rescue. First He created the Solyndra disaster; then the BrightSource disaster; now, in His wisdom, it has been His pleasure to smite FirstSolar (sometimes billed as the world's biggest solar company) (H/T Paul Chesser). Perhaps one shouldn't gloat. No doubt it is a bad, sad thing when companies go under taking billions of taxpayer dollars with them. But that, in a way, is the point. The money our governments have poured into the renewable Ponzi scheme has been squandered – and seen to be squandered – on such an epic scale that even the most purblind, state-addicted, left-leaning voter can have failed to notice that something isn't quite right here; that maybe next time it might be an idea to let the market pick energy winners rather than leave it to government, which patently hasn't a clue.
3. We're on the lying liars' case. As we saw in Climategate and Climategate 2.0 the Warmist establishment – and that's everyone from the climate "scientists" at the CRU to the IPCC to the Royal Society to the EPA to the entire Obama administration – is so slippery and devious it makes Wormtongue look purer than Sir Galahad. But these days they're so discredited that their bluster, appeals to authority and outright lies just don't seem to work any more. Take this brilliant analysis by Tim Worstall of some unutterable hogwash produced by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). They're lying. He shows they're lying. Thank you Tim!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100127634/ha-ha-warmist-losers-for-you-the-war-is-over/#
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