Climate Change: Avaaz, you're not helping !

A friend has asked me to sign an Avaaz petition supposed to influence decisions of the European Commission about action to fight climate change. Here was my response:

I have signed Avaaz petitions before but will not sign this one because of the misleading information they supply.  They seem to assume that all politicians are corrupt and in the pockets of lobbyists and the industries they represent.   As you know, I was a lobbyist in Brussels for an environmental NGO and can assure you that this caricature is wrong.   There are many hard-working and honest people in the European institutions.   In addition, Avaaz either does not understand EU decision-making or chooses to misrepresent it.   The decisions they describe are in the hands of the European Parliament elected by you and me and the Council of Ministers representing national governments.   The European Commission can only make proposals.  By so describing what happens in Brussels, Avaaz are feeding the widespread deception about the EU which is responsible for public attitudes in Britain today.   They completely fail to point out the role the EU has played in pushing member-states to act on climate change and its crucial role in global negotiations in the UNFCCC.   They are thus playing UKIP's and the Tory Eurosceptics' game, which may well lead to the UK leaving the EU.   How the hell do they expect to get international co-operation to fight climate change if they undermine the one supranational, democratic body trying to tackle it ?

Misinformation from the Murdoch press and the Daily Mail I am used to but I expect better from environmental campaigners.   

This is so Daily Mail: the spy in the fridge !

The Daily Mail has found a story that combines all its fear and hate and sheer bonkers fantasy in one go : the spy in the fridge.     The rant with pictures is about devices which would shut off domestic appliances automatically to avoid power cuts.  Here's how the Mail sees it and the true picture:

1) Daily Mail: EU Conspiracy
An " EU-wide body of energy regulators" has suggested it to the European Commission -oooooh, scary !  Foreigners telling us what to do !
True Picture
The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) is the network of operators "cooperating for reliable operation, optimal management and sound technical evolution of the European electricity transmission system."  UK and European partners co-operating.

2) Daily Mail: Bloody green nutters and their wind farms
"...the European Union’s most influential energy bodies...are pushing for the move as green energy sources such as wind farms are less predictable than traditional power stations"
True picture
The problem isn't wind farms, it's sudden peaks in demand.  You can't ramp up supply quickly.  As the text says, in the last resort this would prevent large scale blackouts.   So obviously the Mail would prefer all electricity shut down rather than selected appliances

3) Daily Mail: They can stop you watching royal weddings !   
It's just not British.   They worked in a picture of the Duchess of Cambridge but even the Mail couldn't find a way to show her in a bikini this time.
True picture
Royal weddings don't cause sudden, unpredictable peaks.  That's what "outside sources" as the Mail calls them, i.e. Transmission System Operators plan for.

4) Daily Mail: Big brother to switch off your fridge
 (No, not the Bazalgette bollocks - I suspect the Mail rather likes that)
David Davis said: "There is a Big Brother element to this – and it also shows the energy suppliers passing down their incompetence to the customers. They should be supplying energy as customers need it, not the when they want to give it."
True picture
Ah, the old "predict and supply" policy.  The assumption that we are all entitled to all the energy we ever want, whatever the consequences for global warming and resource depletion. Oh I forgot, the Mail doesn't really believe in climate change.  It's a liberal conspiracy. Let Marcus deal with that.

(By the way, I don't read the Mail but thanks to Donnachadh McCarthy for the link.   For any one who hasn't seen it yet, the final word on the Mail is here.)

Changing the world takes a little longer

I came across the campaign Climate Rush when a member of my family (nearly) took part in singing re-written carols in Central Lobby in the Palace of Westminster at Christmas to highlight climate change. Searching I found the campaign had done many good things which I do admire. Here comes the but. They are, however, a little too please with themselves. The film "Deeds not words" tells the story of a few weeks of preparation for a rush on parliament 100 years after the suffragettes did it. Climate Rush mobilised a 1,000 people to demonstrate. Their motivation and organisation were excellent but the result was NOT historic as they seem to think. Many of us have found that it takes years and years of activity to change almost anything in society. It's called politics and, yes, it can be boring, it can be disheartening but as Bernard Crick wrote "Politics and love are the only forms of constraint possible between free people".

I too demonstrate. Sometimes you just have to. You have to bear witness. You have to show your disgust, your anger, your demand for change. Yet I cannot honestly say that any demonstration I have taken part in has changed the world. The minor changes I have contributed to in environmental policy I did by the old-fashioned ways of politics and lobbying. So, yes, let's demonstrate when we must but let's do the long-term grind as well.

Is God determined to stop a deal in Cancún ?

George Monbiot reminds us that weather is NOT climate. Did you know that 2010 is likely to be one of the three warmest years on record ?

(the map is from NASA)

Feedback: 1. Water

Barry Molyneaux has left comments on two earlier posts, but I'm responding here because I want to make the discussion more visible. Firstly on water and Barbara Young.

Barry said, "Who is Barbara Young and why do you think she is in a position to know? And why do you not see that it is a disgrace to be making an excuse that the flooding was caused by climate change and hence was not in anyway something for which the EA was responsible. Well the rainfall was unexpectedly severe and this is due to climate change but the flooding was severe because of building in flood plains, inadequate flood defence, built in most cases to withstand nothing more than a 1 in 50 flood. There is no programme of flood prevention nor of sea defences. That is the responsibility of the Environment Agency and they have failed. And all we get is excuses from Barbara Young. The time is overdue, axe the EA, send Barbara Young off to do whatever it is that she is qualified to do, which is what exactly? and bring the functions of the EA under a directly elected Regional Assembly and fund it properly. If you want to be founder member of the Barbara Young society forget it."

Well, Barry, perhaps it is naive to think that the Head of the Environment Agency would know anything about flooding, but I don't think so. My point was to emphasise the need for politicians to take the opportunity to remind people about climate change, not to defend the shortcomings of the government or the agency. I have met Barbara Young when she ran RSPB. She seemed a professional and efficient manager with no special expertise in environment matters but quite close to the New Labour camp. My criticism of the EA wouldn't be to do with personalities but with the agency's dependence on central government. I like your idea of putting some of their functions under elected regional control, but we might need an independent, national voice that could scrutinise and recommend free from the control of those who run the relevant services.

Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink

In all the coverage of widespread flooding, I have only heard one person suggest the role of climate change - Barbara Young, Head of the Environment Agency. If the government or any politicians including Liberal Democrats want the public to be ready to accept taxes or controls on carbon emissions, we have to make the link with the consequences of carrying on as we are.