Gordon Brown is poised to scrap a series of unpopular tax rises as part of sweeping changes to stave off a dangerous revolt over the rising cost of living which last week dealt Labour its worst electoral hammering in 40 years. Today the Prime Minister will respond to a growing suburban uprising by signalling moves to help motorists and other consumers. Last night Downing Street sources hinted the 2 per cent rise in fuel duty due in the autumn may not go ahead, in a concession to tight household budgets.
–Gaby Hinsliff and Jo Revill, The Observer, 4 May 2008
Internal polling in London found Ken Livingstone’s green policies, such as new charges for gas-guzzling cars, alienated older voters, while the environment was at best a low priority for others, suggesting that, as families’ budgets shrink, so does their willingness to pay to save the planet. ‘My colleagues will say Labour has got to be brave on green issues, but the public are really feeling the pinch,’ said one senior minister.
–Gaby Hinsliff and Jo Revill, The Observer, 4 May 2008
U.K. voters resoundingly rejected the Labour Party in local elections last week. It was no capricious shift, but a citizen revolt against trendy carbon and nanny-state taxes that empower only bad government. For Labour, it was the worst election in 40 years. Every tax and intrusion imposed by Labour in recent years was justified as being for voters’ “own good.” Ending global warming, reducing carbon footprints, lowering carbon emissions and raising public funding of renewable energy – all were excuses used to hit the voters’ pocketbook with more taxes. Yet none of these taxes improved the quality of life.
–Investor’s Business Daily, 2 May 2008
Oh dear! The inevitable is happening. The ‘global warming’ trope is unravelling on a daily basis – scientifically, economically, and politically. The wheels are coming off the hysterical bandwagon, and it is not going to be a salutary sight watching the politicians and the media junkies jumping cart and trying to throw mud in everyone’s eyes.
–Philip Stott, 3 May 2008
Global warming is a new religion and blasphemy against that religion is not a laughing matter. The high tide of unthinking adherence to this new religion has been reached and I think it may well be in the coming years the tide will gradually recede but it will be a very glacial progress.
–Nigel Lawson, The Guardian, 3 May 2008
But, of course, people aren’t interested in these kinds of facts. They want the religion. They want the sweet moralistic feeling of telling someone to stop doing something. They want to be able to rage about Chelsea Tractors and Tony Blair’s flights, and they want to give vent to their feelings of disgust at the whole triumph of Western consumerist capitalism.
–Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 11 January 2007
For the first time in years, voters seem skeptical that solar, wind, ocean waves and currents, biofuels and other so-called renewable sources of energy can replace gasoline, petroleum-based diesel, home heating oil, natural gas, and propane to any significant degree in the foreseeable future. Among ordinary middle class, working class and poor voters, global warming appears to be a non-issue. More and more hard-pressed people are more afraid of pauperization than the manmade greenhouse gases that supposedly cause climate change.
–China Confidential, 3 May 2008
Failed asylum seekers are sneaking out of Britain – because they are fed up with the poor healthcare and bad weather. Scores have been caught trying to break past border controls in recent weeks, according to immigration staff. Les Williams, a chief immigration officer for the UK Border Agency, said: “We cannot explain exactly why they are trying to go, but when some of these people were questioned they said they wanted to go to a warmer country as they are fed up with the English weather.”
–The Daily Mail, 3 May 2008
Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.
–Lao Tzu, 6th Century BC Chinese Poet
CCNet 71/2008 – 4 May 2008 — Audiatur et altera pars
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
A very large volcano has just erupted in Chile.
Assuming it proves to be of the same general size as Mt St Helens or Mt Pinatubo, this will cause a reduction in global temperature of the order of 0.4 degrees C. Combined with a quiescent sun – which the solar physicists are hoping will perk up with Cycle 24 around mid-year- this will soon give Gordon Brown and others more to think about than just opinion polls.
If the sun does not perk up soon, starvation beckons for billions.
As a professional geologist, I continue to wonder over these unpredictable volcanic eruptions, especially in the light of the falsification of Plate tectonic theory. (As an aside, reading the program for the Australian Earth Sciences Convention – 2008, things in Geoscience remain calm and normal).
While I have promised Jennifer (and Henry Thornton) an article on the Electric Universe, and I am still working on this project whenever time avails, I just wonder if we have got earth science theory gloriously wrong.
Gloriously wrong because we have been enthralled by Charles Lyell’s hugely influential texts “Principles of Geology” for well over a century. Lyell was the foremost exponent of deductive science which employs persuasive rhetoric to convince doubters of the efficacy of a particular theory purported to explain physical reality.
So also in climate science when modellers are now adjusting the parameters to “fine tune” the GCM’s to meet physical reality.
Let’s face it, the GCM’s prediction of a future global temperature rise, based on the assumption that the doubling of atmospheric CO2 will cause a 3-5 degrees Celsius rise in global mean temperature, has been contradicted by observation and measurement.
Empirical scientists, such as myself, would say “rats, theory is wrong” and go back to the drawing board.
Pseudoscience would aver that, no, the theory is still right but we have collected the wrong data.
The principal reason science has ended up in this political quagmire is because it has jumped into this quagmire. It is Lysnekoism under another name, and science is going to suffer greatly for quite some time until the mob realise that they may have to purge science of the charlatans.
That said, Paul’s opening thread about Boris Johnston’s election as major of London seems best explained as the mob finally having had a gutful of the lies, (in terms of Nigel Calder’s words in the Swindle documentary)put to us by the Greens and their socialist puppeteers.
No one willingly submits to the strictures of socialism – only under compulsion do they.
And do they also plan to remove the tax of expensive oil? Hmmm maybe that is beyond their realm of control?
Aaron – they have already postponed the extra 2.35p per litre tax on petrol/diesel that was due in April, now it may be scrapped.
2.35p/L went on in October 2007, with two more planned rises.
A note to non-UK readers – for every £1 per litre of petrol – the actual cost is about 35p at the pumps – the rest goes to our greedy, wasteful government. The petrol retailer makes about 2p if they are lucky.
The garage across the road from me is very competitive on price – unleaded petrol is currently £1.07 and diesel is £1.17.
Paul,
how about a comparison of fuel prices and government excise or taxes?
Might be revealing.
UK taxpayers have more than a vicious tax system to contend with,
they have a PM, who should hang his head in shame,
at his very own Brown Bottom.
http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2007/04/brown-bottom.html
How many billion?
HERE’S MY IDEA:
MAKE THE TAX VOLUNTARY! THEN WE’LL SEE JUST HOW MANY ARE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT STOPPING GLOBAL WARMING.
Everyone wants to be “green” unless they are asked to pay for it.
Politicians want to be “green” when voters want the politicians to appear “green”.
Now we’ll see the “green” politicians pilloried for pushing “green” initiatives. And it will turn out, in the end, that the politicians were only appeasing the well-funded Green contingent.
And the Green contingent, it will turn out, do *not* represent voters.
This mistake will educate a generation. The mistake will be repeated, of course, because, as P.T. Barnum pointed out, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
Under the pendulum swings back as voters tire of the excesses and polluted squalor caused by the right. Won’t take a generation.
“..the pendulum swings back as voters tire of the excesses and polluted squalor caused by the right”.
Environmentalism is driven by dirt. If you think the younger generations are stupid enough to be fooled indefinitely, by scare stories from aging baby-boomers about alleged pollution that they can’t see or smell, you seriously underestimate their intelligence.
Actually found this quite wise comment on Greenpeace Nordic’s site: ” Opposition Party leader states it’s ” sexy” to pay taxes , and the Foreign Minister states it’s ” sexy” to drill for oil in the Baltic Sea” . ” What’s so hot paying taxes and drilling for oil? ” ( Note the Foreign Minister has shares in Gazprom methinks , or was it some other Russian oil company).
Paul – “they have already postponed the extra 2.35p per litre tax on petrol/diesel that was due in April, now it may be scrapped.
2.35p/L went on in October 2007, with two more planned rises.”
That should make the remaining North Sea oil go even faster. He really is clever isn’t he?
I guess he will also be able to make new oil appear as well.
I thought it was North Sea Gas…………..
Ender, you and I will never agree however, why a private vehicle should weigh over 1.8 tonnnes and require an engine bigger than three litres for city driving is beyond me.
Congestion taxes are ridiculous however ” situation needs” vehicles would be more appropriate with relevant taxes.
My fuel efficient three litre vehicle five seater will propel me well over 200kmh (safely I might add) which is more than twice the speed limit. Why would you need a bigger engine than that.
North sea Oil ? (Gas) would be available for a lot longer if more suitable vehicles were used.
“Under the pendulum swings back as voters tire of the excesses and polluted squalor caused by the right. Won’t take a generation.”
As a person of the right, why would you think that I want a polluted environment. I go camping, hiking, and mountain biking. I’m in love with the beauty of the outdoors. It’s one of the main reasons that I came to live in Colorado. I have a six year old daughter and I want her to have access to the beauty of nature all of her life. The difference between the left and the right has little to do with our respect for nature. It has everything to do with alarmism and using nature as a political lever. Take the current alarmism over drilling in Anwar. The amount of land involved is miniscule. That land serves as residency for almost no people. And the idea that wildlife will be effected is equally absurd. Remember all of the wailing about the Alaskan oil pipe line and the destruction of the Caribu herds. Well, the end result is that the Caribu herds that migrate across the path of the pipeline have tripled in number since the pipeline was put in. Of course we must demand that the oil companies keep their footprint to a minimum. And we must also demand that the infastructure is removed once the oil is gone. But it is the total denial of resources that makes the left wing lunatics so obnoxious and intollerable.
Well isn’t that so nice for you. You’ve relocated to somewhere “nice”. Away from areas that are not that “nice”. Let’s all do that.
“Let’s all do that.”
Can’t be done. Someone has to stay behind and make sure that no-one else builds anything or does anything productive.
Beano – “Ender, you and I will never agree however, why a private vehicle should weigh over 1.8 tonnnes and require an engine bigger than three litres for city driving is beyond me.”
Unless you have me confused for someone else I can agree with you completely here.
Congestion taxes are a hammer blow approach however as battery electric cars are rising in use in the center of London as a result of these taxes then this may be considered effective.
Personally I would be supporting anything to get the city only 4WD menace off the roads as quickly as possible. What do these people not get about OFF ROAD???????? I was passed by a Hummer H3 this morning.