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Monday, December 14, 2009

Peer Reviewed Literature, Climategate, Copenhagen, Socialism And Tony Blair

With a big tip of the hat to Mr All Seeing Eye, I would like to direct the attention of fellow flat-earthers to the Popular Technology Blog, and via this link they have published links to 500 peer reviewed science papers supporting the sceptic arguments against "Man-Made" climate change. Further confirmation, not that more was needed that claims of the science being settled is a load of nonsense; propaganda for the limited thinker.

As Ed Begley Jr himself advised, with some ferocity, look for and trust the peer reviewed literature... So it would seem that the science is not settled and that more and more sceptics who have kept quiet for fear of losing grants and being shunned by the scientific community are starting to speak out and push their work to the fore. All of the money has always been for those looking to prove Global Warming and Climate Change, but it seems more than a few scientists along the way felt the evidence did not stack up.

Meanwhile in Copenhagen a merry dance is underway, with the African nations apparently not in a cooperative mood. No surprises there really; at the announcement, rather than the lack of cooperation... I think the deals are already pretty much done and have been for some time, all that is left is a moment for a little theatre. The EU is to pledge £6.5bn in money to poorer nations, I have no idea how much the US is chipping in; there is no way they the poorer nations are walking out the door before a deal is done... but after a few days of "tough negotiations" Brown, Miliband et al can come back and claim that they persevered, endeavoured and fought against all the odds and finally came back with a deal that saved the world, well with a little help but more about that nearer the end. Like I say, it is all theatre.

I got to thinking earlier today about how Government debt has doubled in the few years Brown has been PM and it got me angry to think that £1.5bn of our money has been pledged to poorer counties in the "fight against climate change"... not because I have any desire to see poor nations struggle, but because it mirrors almost exactly the kind of backwards policy that is executed and which is killing the UK. Basically poorer nations in Africa are denied the opportunity to sell us many, many products under EU regulations, most notably the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Instead of making good money by trade, they are handed welfare instead.  This is a protectionist measure that we are told keeps our food prices down, which does not really make sense because market forces demand that with greater supply that prices fall. Anyway, we deny Africa the chance to trade and the opportunity work their way out of poverty and prosperity. Then when there is some political grandstanding to be done, we dangle a few billion under the noses of the African Governments, and say dance to our tune and we will hand you a cheque.

It is very similar to how the benefits and unemployment system in the UK makes it very difficult for people to gain benefit from working should their skills or circumstances rule out anything much better than a minimum wage position. It's being paid to rely on the British State.  What possible motivation is there if you are ill educated and trapped on a sink estate to go to work, for an extra £5 or £10 a week.  Africa needs to be able to sell to Europe the fruits of it's Labour and be allowed to earn a decent and fair sum for doing so, then we would not need to cut cheques and patronise... plus the other million reasons why trade and work is better than charity and welfare.

It's Brown and the EU I am angry with, we have kept the poor in poverty with the CAP, and like the well known saying goes, aid work has become about taking money from the poor people in rich countries and handing it over to the rich people in poor countries. The world community has socialised the Third World, and through Socialism they are doomed to be poor and downtrodden forever.

But back home and on that £1.5bn, I may have missed it but I do not recall that number being debated in Parliament, and I do not recall a public debate regarding the amount and manner of our charity to poorer nations. Can there really be no law protecting the Tax Payer against such massive pledges from the Prime Minister whilst abroad?  Also, seeing as how the Environment is now a sole competence for the EU, why the hell is Brown pledging more than the other big EU nations; does he not realise yet that the 30% of voters that he polls are going to will vote for his Party or no one come polling day and that the other 70% of us will not be bought, seduced or coerced by any manner devisable and splashing cash we can ill-afford at the moment is going to cost him more voters that it could win him? Where is Mandelson through all of this? Isn’t he supposed to be babysitting the PM when he decides to make decisions?

Anyway, mark my words; the deal will be done on time in Copenhagen, though the cost may just keep going up. I have a theory that Tony Blair’s consolation prize for not getting to be EU President will be to step in at the last minute and claim to be the man who brokers the deal with whoever the rogue nation who threatens to derail the show is, probably India…Cue Noble Prize and more speaking engagements.   He is already over there as the guest of an NGO.  Whilst they are all enjoying their jolly the rest of us will keep the debate going and be thinking about ways to cut our debts so that we can get by during this recession, and furthermore because we know that we have even more Government Debt that we will need to pay off soon. And with the Bankers jetting off to low tax havens now, that leaves the rest of us to clean up and pay for the mess.

4 comments:

Tarquin said...

I can't say I'm much of a buff on the CAP - but I know that we get quite a bit of produce from north Africa and Israel

is it only certain items that are protected? or do we just stick tariffs on non-EU products?

Daniel1979 said...

Tarquin - basically (because it does get quite complicated, and I am no expert either) The EU intervenes and buys farming products when the (internal) market price falls below set target levels and initially then encourages over production of food that was then being destroyed. There are quota's now to stop over production, but that pay farmers for not growing crops and rearing animals.

Subsequently imported Food is all subject to tariffs. So the price of home grown foods cannot fall below certain regulated levels, and countries that could potentially sell into the EU cheaper are unable to because the tariffs make their imports generally uncompetitive.

Farms that export food to outside of the EU also receive subsidy, so that the Farmers can sell at lower prices external to the EU which means that EU farmers can sell abroad for less that food can be produced locally in some situations, usually where there are no farming subsidies for farmers - usually this is felt most in the developing nations.

approx. 1/3 of the EU budget is spent on the CAP and similar food quota activities, and the early member nations get the best deal because they were in first.

Tarquin said...

urgh - okay, pretty much what I thought, so I could potentially get crappy fruit from Egypt even cheaper...

Wormsnapper said...

Wealth redistribution and liberal guilt. I thoroughly agree with you about Brown:

"And what can possibly explain his joy, when we are 178 billion in dept, in declaring he’ll throw 1.5 billion at the none-problem of global warming in Africa – this incidentally on top of the IDF billion a year already being tossed down that continental toilet?"