I found myself utterly bemused by this tweet:
https://twitter.com/telegraph/status/1692055830911177209?s=66&t=fQEnD35XLiGihXLT1M1wyA
I know that Brexit was used to give the elderly the chance to well and truly destroy hope for younger people but to try to do it again by asking the elderly to this time vote to pretend that we do not even live on planet Earth was a quite extraordinarily mad idea.
And yes, this is the political silly season where remarkably little happens, but at the same time, the fact that this permitted this idea to surface and be written about is telling. That is precisely because someone in the Tories thought this was an idea worth promoting. They did so knowing full well that the elderly were the most likely to turn out in a referendum and that they might just get a vote through when by 2050, many of those voting (me included) are unlikely, actuarially, to be here.
As a measure of the indifference of the Tories, this idea takes some beating. It has not, and I am sure, will not happen. But that is not the point. There are people stupid enough, indifferent enough and frankly uncaring enough to promote such madness. And that does matter.
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The gov’s energy ministry (BEIS – now called DESNZ) already run public attitude surveys -they know what public attitudes are:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/beis-public-attitudes-tracker-winter-2022
The attitudes are fairly stable – very/fairly concerned climate disaster: 82%
Net Zero knowledge +/- 50%
If Sunak & his goons run a net-zero referendum – whilst it is possible the old might skew the result, so might the young – in the opposite direction.
I sense grasping at straws by vile-tory imbeciles.
Where’s the Tories’ demographic coming from? Certainly not from the elderly it would seem from polling:-
“The proportion of those very concerned about climate change was highest among those aged over 65 (48% very concerned).”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1140683/BEIS_PAT_Winter_2022_Net_Zero_and_Climate_Change.pdf
If their demographic is to be the young then surely it’s slim pickings given they tend to vote less for self-greed.
It doesn’t feel like the Greedy Clowns have thought this one through yet again!
The scientifically literate should endorse the repeal of net zero.
It’s a territorial not a consumption based target and currently the incentives are stacked towards offshoring emissions and pretending that aviation and shipping emissions don’t harm.
Repealing the performative declaration would free the mind of the politicians and let them look at the evidence again as to the best approach, which is probably something along the lines of Stern and Nordhaus.
Continue on our current path and on current logic we will have to ban new solar (6gCO2 per MWh) and wind (4g CO2 per MWh) if any of the projects are expected to have a lifetime beyond 2050, but we can import biomass.
People who support ‘net zero’ support that, they don’t realise it, but that’s what they insist on under analysis.
Nordhaus?
I have wondered if you were trolling. Now I know.
Steve Keen (2021) The appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change, Globalizations, 18:7, 1149-1177, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2020.1807856
Forecasts by economists of the economic damage from climate change have been notably sanguine, compared to warnings by scientists about damage to the biosphere. This is because economists made their own predictions of damages, using three spurious methods: assuming that about 90% of GDP will be unaffected by climate change, because it happens indoors; using the relationship between temperature and GDP today as a proxy for the impact of global warming over time; and using surveys that diluted extreme warnings from scientists with optimistic expectations from economists. Nordhaus has misrepresented the scientific literature to justify the using a smooth function to describe the damage to GDP from climate change. Correcting for these errors makes it feasible that the economic damages from climate change are at least an order of magnitude worse than forecast by economists, and may be so great as to threaten the survival of human civilization.
video discussion on this topic with Steve Keen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4CTPmC50p0
Precisely….
As far as I know, it’s not possible to negotiate with physics, but perhaps I’m mistaken. Perhaps the invisible hand of the market can even adjust the temperature of the earth, just to make sure that profit making enterprise can continue. It’s really amazing what these markets are capable of.
From a cybernetic point of view many British people have lost the plot. Indeed many have probably never heard of the word let alone understand it’s a fundamental operating principle of life – the constant monitoring and gathering of information in order to take action or not to maintain homeostasis. Climate change is an obvious issue to want to gather information on because of its threat potential but so many not wanting to make that effort and simply take the stance of blaming others who have for selecting the wrong information. Achieve homeostasis by blaming until you no longer can a very prevalent British mindset!
Here’s the Tories in action wanting to be “Not Zero”:-
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/17/uk-new-offshore-windfarms-treasury-rules-bills-analysis
https://eciu.net/analysis/reports/2023/offshore-wind-all-at-sea
A similar example of the malevolent machinations of the Tory party is the current prosecution of a peaceful demonstrator for holding up a placard outside a courtroom reminding jurors that they have a right to vote according to their conscience.
As many of you may know it is part of the ongoing attempt to take away the right to speak in their own defence of Climate change protestors charged with protesting.
This appears to be the work of the thuggish and frequently criminal gang known as the Just-Keep-Oil-Going mob.
Agreed
It may be that not even the Tories would be mad enough to go for a referndum on Net Zero. But I am afraid that it is an idea that might have its attraction for Keir Starmer.
@ Mike G
Indeed Starmer appears to do pick and mix on his policies based on the premise most people are greedy. So not much chance that Starmer would have a policy for reducing private sector consumption even if it concentrated on “high-end” consumption. Such a policy of course has to be put in place to achieve Net Zero since the government needs selective taxation to increase its access to resources. Of course it can also recycle savings to Net Zero purposes also. So all told a vote for either the Tories or Labour isn’t going to do as much good for the planet as possible.
I wonder if a No result could cause civil disorder
It signals to conservative voters that there are MPs who are against the party line of net 0 by 2050. It signals that Rushi is a strong leader. It signals that the conservative party policy is net 0.
So why then all the noise? Who precisely are those calling for the referendum. It is all very vague. And I think that is the intention behind it. They are trying to create an aura of chaos around Rushi in order make him look somewhat dependable and reassuring.
Rushi isnt a leader. He can only look like one by sabotaging his own parties image.
In my opinion it is not an old versus young split. It’s whether whole families, three different generations, discuss the problem or not.
All the elderly people I know are as concerned as I am about whether their grandchildren have a world to grow up in. As Chris Packham says, the planet will still be here, with or without humanity.
Back in the early 2000s there was a meeting about climate change in York with our then labour MP. That was the first time I’d heard 2050 mentioned as the turning point.
I asked who had decided on 2050, as most people who could have done would be dead by then, as would probably most people in the room.
Absolute silence after a sharp intake of breath in the room. The question wasn’t answered, and it was obvious that nobody was prepared to contemplate that.
One thing I have noticed is that geography GCSE is more like the environmental science that I studied for my degree in the 70s.
I don’t know who’s doing the PR for the tories at the moment but they’re really not getting good value for money.
I suppose it might be deliberate – there might be some saboteurs at work? So many of Sunak’s statements are so easily lightly rephrased to become criticism of the government – that surely can’t be accidental?
Of course the material they have to work with is pretty low-grade, but even so, it’s hard to see the thinking behind it. The “5 pledges” for example – they were a hostage to fortune that’s gone horribly wrong.
Changing the colour of leaflets & using Green party fonts as a technique seems to be fading, replaced by faux “local papers”. I seem to recall the Lib Dems sending out a regular “spotlight” newsletter in some constituencies, and now the tories are producing complete fake newspapers & claiming it’s no different.
And each “big announcement” – like the one on climate change – produces another minor reduction in Tory poll scores, which must be really close to rock bottom already.
They really do need more emphasis on maths education in our top public schools, don’t they?
Received a leaflet yesterday from the local tory councillors. It was green. Durham tories must be behind the times!
In fact thinking about it would a No to Net Zero campaign provoke riots never mind the outcome of any referendum
@ John Boxall
Good question. I’d say no. The tolerance for the appalling behaviour of this Tory government for thirteen years has been extensive but then they’ve spent a great deal of time telling lies to people! They stick as well because very often those lies get thrown back at you when you talk about serious issues with others!
Stupid?
Maybe.
But how about ‘crafty’?
Definitely. And that means that they are not be trusted at all – EVER.
I think a referendum on Net Zero is a great idea… “should we keep the 2050 target, or bring it forward to 2035?”
True, but that was never going to be the question, was it?
Richard,
Having screwed the UK with Brexit, not surprisingly the same idiots want to screw with any UK response to climate and related injustice. The idea of a NZ referendum, I came across a few wks ago on R4 Any Questions response phone-in when a caller from the NE insisted a referendum on NZ should happen.
Reading climate science papers on a weekly basis, ‘was struck by a recent one on the Antarctic. The dynamical trends there have shocked the scientists who know. Basically, the changes are consistent with a worst-case scenario when, in emissions terms, we’re not quite tracking that scenario. Changes are kicking-in sooner than expected; remembering trends will likely accelerate while emissions continue and global resource consumption rises exponentially, which diminishes natural mitigation capacity.
For a Welsh consultation re public engagement, my organisation made a review of public opinion polls, which included the ref’d by Mr Parr; there’s another I saw this week, similar gist:
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/peritia-climate-change%E2%80%8B.pdf
Crudely, I would characterise the present situation of awareness as:
20% really do not care. 70% have some concern, or deep concern.
And of that 70% subset- perhaps 20-25% are very clued up and grasp major societal changes are needed.
Overall, at least 60% of the public are not ready to entertain that any major change in lifestyle is needed/acceptable. And yes, activists are more likely to be over 50 yrs old.
As you’ve amply demonstrated Richard, about MMT and economics, MSMedia talking heads seem to rely on a false paradigm & weak understanding. With climate, it is the ‘magic wand’ of carbon capture & storage (B*ll*cks solution championed by Oil & gas).
I suggest, at current levels of public understanding timely major changes for the transition we need in the next 10 years are politically impossible. Far greater community engagement (Example Transition Towns) could change that picture. Meetings? !!
The Tories are vile, having done worse than nothing in the last 13 yrs. Amber Rudd cancelled retrofit programmes in run to Paris’. We could have so easily had 18 million homes insulated by now (on the 2012 rate of retrofit). Austerity!
But as the Starmer/Reeves prospect affirms, with their ‘Green-Deal-if-we-can afford-it’, we cannot make the many changes with alacrity without shifting the economic understanding. That is so important.
‘Net Zero’ (In so far as people perceive its meaning) by 2050 is too late.
And Stern and Nordhaus are probably not the people the scientifically literate should be taking their cue from; especially given the latter’s impact through inappropriate IAMs (economic modelling).
Please, please keep on doing what you do Richard Murphy.
To put it crudely what’s needed is and end to “Greedy Gammon Pandering” which certainly the two main parties Tory and Labour appear to be doing. Of course the right-wing media aid and abet this pandering in the name of market fundamentalist dogma which is a gammon-like hoist by your own petard outlook on life. What price market fundamentalism when your planet becomes uninhabitable?
“ I know that Brexit was used to give the elderly the chance to well and truly destroy hope for younger people but to try to do it again by asking the elderly to this time vote to pretend that we do not even live on planet Earth ”
Come on Richard you are 60, surely this ageism is both simplistic and wrong…a generation contains a cross section of views, the therefore largest generation the largest number of any particularly view…Basingstoke and Stoke were different in Brexit.
I’m a bit ahead if you, but even as a as a privileged white male I still have to cope with becoming invisible. I have been repeatedly told “we don’t do operations for people of your age”. I have encountered “you did well to get up here” (hiking in the Dales) and “is it confusing shall I do it for you” (trying to pay for parking).
If in doubt substitute another characterisation in the sentence and see how it plays…I know Brexit was run to to give ….. people the opportunity to destroy hope for …. people. Brexit was an ideological project based on a a wish for liberty and control (ignoring the reality of power relationships) – it appealed to different groups for different reasons because the EU is not an inherently lovable institution.
Ok, it’s a generality.
Unfortunately one backed by data in this case.
For some Tories I think it is part of the Culture Wars agenda. Misguided and considering that at the recent local elections in many parts of Tory middle England the Green Party did well, Tories really are mad if they think this is what their core vote wants. Some probably do, but it would alienate many.
Still, they will stir it up and here is an example of what it can lead to.
More than 300 cameras installed for London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) were vandalised or stolen between April and August, the BBC can reveal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66535086
https://www.stopcambo.org.uk/updates/uk-set-to-make-a-huge-loss-if-rosebank-is-approved
I wonder how many tories would back Sunak if they realised that the Norwegian government is going to benefit more from the oil field approvals than they are? Sunak wouldn’t dare tell the population this, so perhaps we ought to spread it far and wide.
Maybe tories would be more swayed by the financial aspects rather than the environmental ones.
“ Net zero refers to a state in which the greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere are balanced by removal out of the atmosphere. The term net zero is important because – for CO2 at least – this is the state at which global warming stops. The Paris Agreement underlines the need for net zero. It requires states to ‘achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century. “
Surely net zero is not enough…
Let’s get there, earlier, and use carbon capture and reforestation ( bio diversity) to REDUCE carbon in the atmosphere. Hydrogen manufacturing is a red herring (except for niche uses?).
IMHO, electrification is the major workhorse going forward.
https://www.stopcambo.org.uk/updates/explained-greenwashed-plans-to-power-rosebank-with-renewables
Electrification of oil fields? So the people of Shetland get no benefit?
To JENW
What benefit?
“Shetland’s fortunes were bound up in North Sea oil and gas. Now it’s at the start of a green new chapter just as the energy crisis bites.”
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/03/02/the-remote-shetland-islands-are-a-surprising-leader-in-the-race-to-net-zero
Nobody gets the benefit if new exploration occurs and climate changes accelerate. What it seems to me is that there is a phased decline of most oil production (can’t suddenly turn off the tap, too disruptive).