Thirty minutes or so until P2. Must admit, not following it too closely at this stage.
Edited extra bit: for those wondering about Miss Plato's Shelter comments, I remember it distinctly. Not going to re-enact the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but my bedroom was on the small side. Child abuse/homelessness it was not.
'UKIP's Suzanne Evans facing the sack after Farage comments' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33190940 Oh dear, UKIP's best asset is getting the push for daring to question the Cult of Nigel, and stating the bloody obvious! I'm beginning to this UKIP actually want to lose this referendum. Farage is a joke.
As with the SNP, the UKIP/BOO brigade will never be pleased no matter what the result of the referendum. A vote OUT will not stop the demands, probably only start them. The next question will be what kind of out is OUT? Their real issue is 'Stop the World I want to get off'.
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
There's a risk that that's precisely the conclusion the EU will draw. These numbers are absolutely awful for the prospect of achieving a decent renegotiation.
The public should be conspiring to lie to pollsters that they'd vote NO even when they'd probably vote YES.
Not only could it lock us into a bad deal with the EU for decades to come, but it could end up causing problems for any future negotiations and opt-outs in the future.
That is way out of line with every other poll on the issue. Of course, Ipsos Mori may be right, and everyone else may be wrong, but I wouldn't count on it.
Looking at the series, it does look as though Ipsos Mori have only shown Out ahead once in the past 15 years.
The above are all pretty much at the base of the pyramid as scientific fact goes, so to say there is no CO2/human-caused global warming you actually have to either disbelieve many of the very basics of known science since biblical times, or, more likely, you have to come up with something specific that either disrupts or swamps, totally, the scale-up of the basic thermodynamics to global level.
And more, because thermodynamics line up behind AGW, a lot of the scientific onus is on sceptics themselves to prove the disrupting factors.
If it were the case that global warming was chiefly caused by human CO2 emissions, then there should have been none before the industrial age, and continuous warming since. To find that either was not the case would call the hypothesis into doubt.
In fact neither is the case, and what disturbs me about an otherwise neat theory is that the scientific establishment's response to this kind of challenge has been to fiddle the data to try to make the past colder, and to slander those who raise it.
Another problem with the GW conjecture is that, as has been noted above, it tends to assume there are benefits but no risks from the activists' preferred course of action. Making fuel more expensive kills old, poor and sick people right now, but may or may not spare people in the future.
Finally, consider that to know the level of atmospheric CO2 in 100 years' time requires you to know, at least,
1/ the world's population over the next 100 years, 2/ the price of energy over the next 100 years, and 3/ the nature of significant technology development over the next 100 years
since all are terms in any mathematical expression of future CO2. So far as I know, nobody has ever successfully predicted any of the above over a 100-year period, ever. But people like Malthus have a dismal record of attempting to do something similar, and being abjectly wrong.
For comparison, what are the chances of a meteor landing on a major city over the next 100 years? What should we do about it? Build mile-thick domes over all our cities? Establish a laser satellite shield? Nothing, because the actual risk is unknowable?
Incidentally, AIUI the "consensus" was based originally on a deeply flawed survey that would have included pretty well all sceptics in the consensus, which is a useful lesson in why one shouldn't vote on science.
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
There's a risk that that's precisely the conclusion the EU will draw. These numbers are absolutely awful for the prospect of achieving a decent renegotiation.
The public should be conspiring to lie to pollsters that they'd vote NO even when they'd probably vote YES.
Not only could it lock us into a bad deal with the EU for decades to come, but it could end up causing problems for any future negotiations and opt-outs in the future.
'Give me what I want or I'll leave' is a card you can only play once and it's not the strongest card at that.
Power and influence doesn't come from maintaining a permanent grudging disapproval of what's happening.
It doesn't come from maintaining a permanent grudging approval either. Blair tried that throughout his term of office. It got us nowhere.
If it were me, I wouldn't have called a referendum without being confident NO would win it. As Lord Trimble said, the worst thing for eurosceptics would be to hold such a vote and lose it. It'd kill of negotiations on powers for a long long time.
I'd have preferred ongoing negotiations on powers, depending on our interests, and an open statement that we'd call such an in/out vote with a recommendation to leave if we didn't get the relationship we want.
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
There's a risk that that's precisely the conclusion the EU will draw. These numbers are absolutely awful for the prospect of achieving a decent renegotiation.
The public should be conspiring to lie to pollsters that they'd vote NO even when they'd probably vote YES.
Not only could it lock us into a bad deal with the EU for decades to come, but it could end up causing problems for any future negotiations and opt-outs in the future.
That is way out of line with every other poll on the issue. Of course, Ipsos Mori may be right, and everyone else may be wrong, but I wouldn't count on it.
Looking at the series, it does look as though Ipsos Mori have only shown Out ahead once in the past 15 years.
I know you may disagree, but I fear that Farage has totally toxified Out. And I'm really not very happy about that.
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
There's a risk that that's precisely the conclusion the EU will draw. These numbers are absolutely awful for the prospect of achieving a decent renegotiation.
The public should be conspiring to lie to pollsters that they'd vote NO even when they'd probably vote YES.
Not only could it lock us into a bad deal with the EU for decades to come, but it could end up causing problems for any future negotiations and opt-outs in the future.
That is way out of line with every other poll on the issue. Of course, Ipsos Mori may be right, and everyone else may be wrong, but I wouldn't count on it.
Looking at the series, it does look as though Ipsos Mori have only shown Out ahead once in the past 15 years.
I think we're going to see some fluctuations as the extent of Cameron's renogiation goes up and down with the political winds across Europe.
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
Why? It would be support for the status quo plus whatever concessions Cameron managed to get out of the EU.
Correct. Mr 'notonfire's' assertion is ludicrous. The whole point of agreeing to the negotiations would be the success of them in preventing more integration with the EU/Eurozone. The Danish right wing block (have they won?) are another which oppose a greater 'social' union.
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
There's a risk that that's precisely the conclusion the EU will draw. These numbers are absolutely awful for the prospect of achieving a decent renegotiation.
The public should be conspiring to lie to pollsters that they'd vote NO even when they'd probably vote YES.
Not only could it lock us into a bad deal with the EU for decades to come, but it could end up causing problems for any future negotiations and opt-outs in the future.
'Give me what I want or I'll leave' is a card you can only play once and it's not the strongest card at that.
Power and influence doesn't come from maintaining a permanent grudging disapproval of what's happening.
It doesn't come from maintaining a permanent grudging approval either. Blair tried that throughout his term of office. It got us nowhere.
If it were me, I wouldn't have called a referendum without being confident NO would win it. As Lord Trimble said, the worst thing for eurosceptics would be to hold such a vote and lose it. It'd kill of negotiations on powers for a long long time.
I'd have preferred ongoing negotiations on powers, depending on our interests, and an open statement that we'd call such an in/out vote with a recommendation to leave if we didn't get the relationship we want.
I don't understand why this wasn't done - logically Cameron should call a referendum, campaign for a No, get one, then go to Europe and say Right, either we alter the terms, or this goes into effect. He then alters the terms and campaign for an In, and gets it. Absent this he has simply mullered his own negotiating position.
The only thing I can think of that would explain is if he envisaged that it would preoccupy his entire second term.
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
There's a risk that that's precisely the conclusion the EU will draw. These numbers are absolutely awful for the prospect of achieving a decent renegotiation.
The public should be conspiring to lie to pollsters that they'd vote NO even when they'd probably vote YES.
Not only could it lock us into a bad deal with the EU for decades to come, but it could end up causing problems for any future negotiations and opt-outs in the future.
That is way out of line with every other poll on the issue. Of course, Ipsos Mori may be right, and everyone else may be wrong, but I wouldn't count on it.
Looking at the series, it does look as though Ipsos Mori have only shown Out ahead once in the past 15 years.
I know you may disagree, but I fear that Farage has totally toxified Out. And I'm really not very happy about that.
Farage is a man of destiny. And his destiny is to spend his later years watching YouTube videos of himself while thinking, "I could've been a contender. I could've been somebody..."
FWIW, here is my ground up view of Global Warming.
Firstly, some fundamentals:
(1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas [snip a whole pile of bollocks] The nature of the bet on the table for sceptics, even on just the science, is of the 'How lucky do you feel, punk?' variety.
I don't understand why this wasn't done - logically Cameron should call a referendum, campaign for a No, get one, then go to Europe and say Right, either we alter the terms, or this goes into effect.
And to think people call what's happening now a betrayal! Do you really think there's political logic in defying the will of the people expressed in a binding referendum?
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
There's a risk that that's precisely the conclusion the EU will draw. These numbers are absolutely awful for the prospect of achieving a decent renegotiation.
The public should be conspiring to lie to pollsters that they'd vote NO even when they'd probably vote YES.
Not only could it lock us into a bad deal with the EU for decades to come, but it could end up causing problems for any future negotiations and opt-outs in the future.
'Give me what I want or I'll leave' is a card you can only play once and it's not the strongest card at that.
Power and influence doesn't come from maintaining a permanent grudging disapproval of what's happening.
It doesn't come from maintaining a permanent grudging approval either. Blair tried that throughout his term of office. It got us nowhere.
If it were me, I wouldn't have called a referendum without being confident NO would win it. As Lord Trimble said, the worst thing for eurosceptics would be to hold such a vote and lose it. It'd kill of negotiations on powers for a long long time.
I'd have preferred ongoing negotiations on powers, depending on our interests, and an open statement that we'd call such an in/out vote with a recommendation to leave if we didn't get the relationship we want.
I don't understand why this wasn't done - logically Cameron should call a referendum, campaign for a No, get one, then go to Europe and say Right, either we alter the terms, or this goes into effect. He then alters the terms and campaign for an In, and gets it. Absent this he has simply mullered his own negotiating position.
The only thing I can think of that would explain is if he envisaged that it would preoccupy his entire second term.
The EU know (1) Cameron will recommend IN, no matter what (2) would rather not be doing it and (3) that he isn't exactly the world's most accomplished negotiator (4) doesn't mind too much what he gets as long as it can be sold as success, to a British public who will probably give him the benefit of the doubt
It's not exactly a strong starting point for getting what we need.
I'm beginning to this UKIP actually want to lose this referendum. Farage is a joke.
Of course they do. What will be their raison d'être outside Europe?
Follow the money - who's pays their salaries and 'allowances'. Oh yes, the EU!
Nigel Farage is the right's Arthur Scargill - so batshit off-the-scale crazy he's ended up in a party pretty much all on his own. Unlike Scargill he is tapping into a protest vote, but it's not and never will be a coherent demographic. Across the country there are probably thousands of people who do road rage or shout at the TV, and if they all voted for the Road Rage Shouting At The TV Party, they might well get a few million votes. But there would zero prospect of their winning any seats, because there just aren't enough actual angry people nor any who want to become so in critical numbers in any seat.
David Cameron’s referendum gamble today looked set to succeed as an exclusive Ipsos MORI poll revealed that Britons want to stay in the European Union — by an overwhelming three to one.
If the historic in-out referendum were to be staged now, 66 per cent say they would vote to remain members and 22 per cent would vote to quit. Excluding the don’t knows, at 12 per cent, the result is an emphatic 75 to 25.
Only 12% are don't knows? That strikes me as a suspiciously high level of certainty amongst the electorate....
Surely the pollsters can't be getting the referendum wrong too?
I think in a binary choice election, it is hard to get it that wrong. Where the pollsters will mess it up, is on turnout, because more people will say they will turn out than actually will.
Well I am a 'don't know'. I do not believe in undermining the only party that could deliver a referendum, which is one reason I am anti UKIP (especially the way it has swing virulently swing to angry nativism'). Much will depend on how the Eurozone goes and how the EU proposes to respond and how its closer fiscal as well as monetary union goes. What I am quite sure about is that leaving the EU will not simply of itself make us better. Leaving the EU would I believe have to involve joining the EEA and as such it will make very little difference to us in any real or meaningful way. I can see that leaving the EU but staying in the EEA (hopefully we would be able to simply stay in) would be better for us but equally staying in the EU with appropriate votes and suitable concessions might be a better option. It is quite possible that Cameron can act as a catalyst to force the issue and speed up the choices.
So I would think that objective and sanguine people, of whom there must be quite a lot, would sensibly say 'don't know'.
Some interesting crosstabs here, Burnham leads with men, AB, C1, C2 voters, Tories, Labour and UKIP supporters, public sector workers and in the north and midlands. Cooper with women, DEs and LDs and private sector workers and in London and the South and Scotland. Kendall does best with LDs, in London and with private sector workers, Corbyn best
I don't understand why this wasn't done - logically Cameron should call a referendum, campaign for a No, get one, then go to Europe and say Right, either we alter the terms, or this goes into effect.
And to think people call what's happening now a betrayal! Do you really think there's political logic in defying the will of the people expressed in a binding referendum?
No, you just pitch it openly upfront as to what you're doing. You explain that if we want change, we need to be prepared to leave. So you have a referendum on "Should we leave the EU if we cannot obtain significant change? - Yes or No?"
You get a Yes, so you renegotiate. You take the results of that home, then do another referendum and this time the question is, "Is this significant enough? - Yes or No?"
Yes = stay, No = go.
Repeating the vote until you get the answer you want is not exactly something the EU can argue credibly against.
IIRC, I mentioned that my bedroom was actually a curtained off bit of our landing, and my bed was one of those camp thingies with the end propped up by a black vinyl pouffee [very 70s] as one of the legs had snapped off.
It was probably the most amusing discussion we've had on PB re childhood and absurd *charity* reports.
Thirty minutes or so until P2. Must admit, not following it too closely at this stage.
Edited extra bit: for those wondering about Miss Plato's Shelter comments, I remember it distinctly. Not going to re-enact the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but my bedroom was on the small side. Child abuse/homelessness it was not.
It doesn't come from maintaining a permanent grudging approval either. Blair tried that throughout his term of office. It got us nowhere. .
Correct.
"British Influence" is an organization that describes itself as "…the umbrella campaign to keep Britain in Europe and to push for British-led reform of the EU. We are a cross-party organisation who believes that Britain is better off in a better Europe."
They published their second annual survey of British influence in the EU in January 2015
A quote from the report: A long-standing issue for the UK is the declining number of British officials throughout the European institutions. The proportion of British nationals employed in policy-influencing roles has fallen from 9.6 per cent in 2004 to 5.3 per cent in 2014.3
This is especially worrying considering that many British nationals currently working in the EU institutions are nearing retirement age and will be leaving their current high-ranking positions. This is compounded by the low number of British nationals taking the EU civil service entrance exam; in the past three years, British nationals comprised just 2.4 per cent of candidates taking the test.
Within important European Commission departments that draft financial services legislation, such as the Internal Market and Services Directorate-General, British representation constitutes as little as three per cent of the staff.
FWIW, here is my ground up view of Global Warming.
Unfortunately your 'ground up view' shows a serious lack of understanding of the basic scientific argument and reinforces the principle that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
No one disputes the basic scientific principles of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas under laboratory conditions. I certainly wouldn't given it was John Tyndall, my own Great (a few more greats) Uncle who actually showed it and I have his original papers and books on the subject.
But that has never been the basis of the argument between AGW Advocates and the Sceptics. CO2 on its own accounts for a very small amount of the predicted warming. That is accepted by both sides.
The argument is over the use of feedback mechanisms - what are known in the business as 'forcings' and whether these are positive (causing more warming and hence validating the AGW hypothesis) or neutral/negative (causing no further warming or actually countering the small amount of warming from CO2 emissions). In the big wide world (outside of the laboratory experiments conducted by John Tyndall) these forcings are so fiendishly complicated as to make realistic modelling practically impossible. In addition natural forcings unrelated to CO2 emissions are causing further changes and no one has yet been able to adequately quantify the effects of either positive and negative feedbacks nor natural forcings.
As it stands the real world measurements are not matching the models even at their most benign/optimistic which lends credence to the idea that the catastrophic AGW advocates really do have something seriously wrong with their ideas.
I don't understand why this wasn't done - logically Cameron should call a referendum, campaign for a No, get one, then go to Europe and say Right, either we alter the terms, or this goes into effect.
And to think people call what's happening now a betrayal! Do you really think there's political logic in defying the will of the people expressed in a binding referendum?
No, you just pitch it openly upfront as to what you're doing. You explain that if we want change, we need to be prepared to leave. So you have a referendum on "Should we leave the EU if we cannot obtain significant change? - Yes or No?"
You get a Yes, so you renegotiate. You take the results of that home, then do another referendum and this time the question is, "Is this significant enough? - Yes or No?"
Yes = stay, No = go.
Repeating the vote until you get the answer you want is not exactly something the EU can argue credibly against.
Pure fantasy. Your mistake is in defining 'we' to mean people who share your particular political view.
If the first referendum were held it would descend into farce as different camps disagreed about the changes they want and people would vote No in favour of the status quo, much as Australia voted to keep the monarchy.
It might be vaguely possible to contemplate such an approach in a country like Switzerland with a tradition of direct democracy but most realistic course here is exactly what's happened: the election of a majority government with a manifesto commitment to hold an in/out referendum.
Many people, probably including Cameron, earnestly believe that what 'we' need is to remove the issue from British party politics for the next few decades and anchor Britain outside the Eurozone but in the EU.
If the result really is 75-25 in, surely the Conservatives must interpret that as a signal for MORE integration with Europe (and transfers of powers)?
There's a risk that that's precisely the conclusion the EU will draw. These numbers are absolutely awful for the prospect of achieving a decent renegotiation.
The public should be conspiring to lie to pollsters that they'd vote NO even when they'd probably vote YES.
Not only could it lock us into a bad deal with the EU for decades to come, but it could end up causing problems for any future negotiations and opt-outs in the future.
That is way out of line with every other poll on the issue. Of course, Ipsos Mori may be right, and everyone else may be wrong, but I wouldn't count on it.
Looking at the series, it does look as though Ipsos Mori have only shown Out ahead once in the past 15 years.
I know you may disagree, but I fear that Farage has totally toxified Out. And I'm really not very happy about that.
Britain can work if it remains in, or heads out. But a one sided pushover campaign and vote for either side (In realistically) will not do anyone any favours. I think the same is true of the UK parliament - a strong opposition is needed, even if the Conservatives are the best bet in party terms for running the shop right now.
It doesn't come from maintaining a permanent grudging approval either. Blair tried that throughout his term of office. It got us nowhere. .
Correct.
"British Influence" is an organization that describes itself as "…the umbrella campaign to keep Britain in Europe and to push for British-led reform of the EU. We are a cross-party organisation who believes that Britain is better off in a better Europe."
They published their second annual survey of British influence in the EU in January 2015
A quote from the report: A long-standing issue for the UK is the declining number of British officials throughout the European institutions. The proportion of British nationals employed in policy-influencing roles has fallen from 9.6 per cent in 2004 to 5.3 per cent in 2014.3
This is especially worrying considering that many British nationals currently working in the EU institutions are nearing retirement age and will be leaving their current high-ranking positions. This is compounded by the low number of British nationals taking the EU civil service entrance exam; in the past three years, British nationals comprised just 2.4 per cent of candidates taking the test.
Within important European Commission departments that draft financial services legislation, such as the Internal Market and Services Directorate-General, British representation constitutes as little as three per cent of the staff.
I would be wary of quoting anything from British Influence. They are effectively another iteration of Britain in Europe or the European Movement who have always advocated ever closer union and were at the forefront of attempts to get Britain to join the single currency.
They are led by the most extreme Europhiles like Ken Clarke - the man who wrote that "I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a Council Chamber in Europe."
A Debt/GDP ratio of 80% is not high in historical terms. When Macmillan told us in 1957 that 'we have never had it so good' the ratio was 120% - but he did not feel the need to follow a policy of austerity abandoned five years earlier when the same ratio was over 200%. Morever, throughout the Industrial Revolution period the ratio was far higher than what we are told is unbearable today.
Thirty minutes or so until P2. Must admit, not following it too closely at this stage.
Edited extra bit: for those wondering about Miss Plato's Shelter comments, I remember it distinctly. Not going to re-enact the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but my bedroom was on the small side. Child abuse/homelessness it was not.
I will go Four Yorkshireman on this - When I go my own bedroom (at around 10), I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be an antechamber/babyroom for the master bedroom, as you literally couldn't get to the master bedroom without passing through my room, which had room for a single bed, chest of drawers at the foot of that, and a wardrode on the opposte walll, leaving 2-3 feet gap between bed and wardrobe for people to move from landing to master bedroom.
The horror.
P.s Very small chest of drawers and wardrobe I should say, dont want to give impression it was super luxurious.
IIRC, I mentioned that my bedroom was actually a curtained off bit of our landing, and my bed was one of those camp thingies with the end propped up by a black vinyl pouffee [very 70s] as one of the legs had snapped off.
It was probably the most amusing discussion we've had on PB re childhood and absurd *charity* reports.
Thirty minutes or so until P2. Must admit, not following it too closely at this stage.
Edited extra bit: for those wondering about Miss Plato's Shelter comments, I remember it distinctly. Not going to re-enact the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but my bedroom was on the small side. Child abuse/homelessness it was not.
Miss Plato, I had a relation who was widowed, with three children at 30 odd. Brought up her three daughters alone, but successfully. One married at 20 or so, the others went to Uni. While there the youngest of the three was involved, innocently, in some student high jinks. The woman who ran the Hall said that she could not understand the guilty party being so, but my relation's daughter came for a "broken home" so little could be expected of her. My relation was very, very cross. The "broken home girll" got an excellent degree and is now a reasonably senior civil servant!
A Debt/GDP ratio of 80% is not high in historical terms. When Macmillan told us in 1957 that 'we have never had it so good' the ratio was 120% - but he did not feel the need to follow a policy of austerity abandoned five years earlier when the same ratio was over 200%. Morever, throughout the Industrial Revolution period the ratio was far higher than what we are told is unbearable today.
It's almost like the situation when Britain was running an Empire and the situation today are different and incomparable things.
Or the situation when the structural deficit was absent - but we were still paying off huge war debts - and the situation today are different and incomparable things.
Thanks for the summary. But science works by testing the hypothesis not by being Sherlock Holmes who said something like - "Whatever is left, however unlikely, must be the truth."
And there's a good reason for this.
Lord Kelvin made a famous quote over a hundred years ago ... "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement."
Then came relativity, quantum mechanics and the discovery that baryonic matter (all that we see or are) represents less than 5% of the total stuff in the Universe.
We don't know the unknown unknowns and never will.
Hence we keep the hypothesis and test it. We don't test some possible alternatives and call the original proved.
Fair points, I'm not suggesting for a minute that concensus climate scientists pack up, go home and leave the sceptics to get on with it. But I certainly think they need not go back in too much detail over any prediction of temperature rise from basic thermodynamic calculations, as any "new relativity" that overturns rather than supplements such calculations is a huge long-shot. Rather, they should focus their efforts on the scale-up complexities - measuring and estimating historical temperatures, teasing out the faults and errors in these, honing the first order temperature rise predictions, getting a better grip on second order predictions such as glacier melt, sea level rise, acidification, all the while keeping a close eye on what the real data is feeding back on the predictions. As indeed they are doing.
And while that goes on, the challenge to direct at the sceptics in testing their hypotheses remains to explain how, in scale up, the thermodynamic laws become secondary to something else.
So, as things stand, the sceptics have fundamentals to address, whilst the concensus science drills into the details. And in truth, the concensus science community have as good a chance to find the actual holes and limitations in the AGW hypothesis amongst their details as the sceptics do!
FWIW, here is my ground up view of Global Warming.
Firstly, some fundamentals:
(1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas [snip a whole pile of bollocks] The nature of the bet on the table for sceptics, even on just the science, is of the 'How lucky do you feel, punk?' variety.
I would be wary of quoting anything from British Influence. They are effectively another iteration of Britain in Europe or the European Movement who have always advocated ever closer union and were at the forefront of attempts to get Britain to join the single currency.
They are led by the most extreme Europhiles like Ken Clarke - the man who wrote that "I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a Council Chamber in Europe."
Yes they are pro-EU, which helps to reinforce the point that there is a serious problem there when EVEN THEY admit it in their annual "influence" (1) report.
Which is nothing of the sort - its just a survey of where the outcome just happens to match what the UK wanted.
A Debt/GDP ratio of 80% is not high in historical terms. When Macmillan told us in 1957 that 'we have never had it so good' the ratio was 120% - but he did not feel the need to follow a policy of austerity abandoned five years earlier when the same ratio was over 200%. Morever, throughout the Industrial Revolution period the ratio was far higher than what we are told is unbearable today.
Actually there was a huge amount of austerity in the 1940s and 1950s as we scaled back defence spending and withdrew from Empire. The problem is we can't balance our books doing that now because we have already cut defence spending to threadbare levels.
FWIW, here is my ground up view of Global Warming.
Unfortunately your 'ground up view' shows a serious lack of understanding of the basic scientific argument and reinforces the principle that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
No one disputes the basic scientific principles of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas under laboratory conditions. I certainly wouldn't given it was John Tyndall, my own Great (a few more greats) Uncle who actually showed it and I have his original papers and books on the subject.
But that has never been the basis of the argument between AGW Advocates and the Sceptics. CO2 on its own accounts for a very small amount of the predicted warming. That is accepted by both sides.
The argument is over the use of feedback mechanisms - what are known in the business as 'forcings' and whether these are positive (causing more warming and hence validating the AGW hypothesis) or neutral/negative (causing no further warming or actually countering the small amount of warming from CO2 emissions). In the big wide world (outside of the laboratory experiments conducted by John Tyndall) these forcings are so fiendishly complicated as to make realistic modelling practically impossible. In addition natural forcings unrelated to CO2 emissions are causing further changes and no one has yet been able to adequately quantify the effects of either positive and negative feedbacks nor natural forcings.
As it stands the real world measurements are not matching the models even at their most benign/optimistic which lends credence to the idea that the catastrophic AGW advocates really do have something seriously wrong with their ideas.
This is one of the most reasonable sceptic accounts I have heard. Would you mind listing what the main forcings are, and which are the ones that are disputed?
A Debt/GDP ratio of 80% is not high in historical terms. When Macmillan told us in 1957 that 'we have never had it so good' the ratio was 120% - but he did not feel the need to follow a policy of austerity abandoned five years earlier when the same ratio was over 200%. Morever, throughout the Industrial Revolution period the ratio was far higher than what we are told is unbearable today.
It's almost like the situation when Britain was running an Empire and the situation today are different and incomparable things.
Or the situation when the structural deficit was absent - but we were still paying off huge war debts - and the situation today are different and incomparable things.
How very, very odd.
Running an empire was expensive - yet we were able to bear the burden The fact that much of the Debt post-1945 related to the World Wars did not make them any less real or affect our ability to bear them. What we are seeing today is the state seeking to reduce its own debt by allowing personal debt to explode despite the fact that the latter will find it so much more difficult to bear the burden. Not sensible.
The Kippers are going to be filleted and grilled if that Ipsos Mori is anywhere near the final result.
I'm interested in the right settlement for Britain, not achieving a party political advantage.
Country before party.
It is just felicitous happenstance that as usual, the interests of the country and the Tory party are alligned
I think, in this case, we'll be locked into an unsatisfactory deal for at least the next 20 years. And it'll be a running sore within the Tory party.
The EU just don't dance until they have no alternative.
I would hope the Eurosceptics are democrats and accept the will of the voters and not act like the Scot Nats, and whinge and moan like whores.
The only way that will happen is a fair and free referendum. Right now the pro-EU side of the debate is stacking the deck in a way that ensures the eurosceptics won't accept it. First on the question, second on the elimination of purdah for no good reason.
A Debt/GDP ratio of 80% is not high in historical terms. When Macmillan told us in 1957 that 'we have never had it so good' the ratio was 120% - but he did not feel the need to follow a policy of austerity abandoned five years earlier when the same ratio was over 200%. Morever, throughout the Industrial Revolution period the ratio was far higher than what we are told is unbearable today.
It's almost like the situation when Britain was running an Empire and the situation today are different and incomparable things.
Or the situation when the structural deficit was absent - but we were still paying off huge war debts - and the situation today are different and incomparable things.
How very, very odd.
Running an empire was expensive - yet we were able to bear the burden The fact that much of the Debt post-1945 related to the World Wars did not make them any less real or affect our ability to bear them. What we are seeing today is the state seeking to reduce its own debt by allowing personal debt to explode despite the fact that the latter will find it so much more difficult to bear the burden. Not sensible.
The only reason we could bear that debt was because the markets could see we were rapidly paying them down - and had capacity to pay them down further. Personal debts don't explode because the government pays its way. We can see this because they exploded just fine while Labour was borrowing every year from the mid-2000s onwards.
A Debt/GDP ratio of 80% is not high in historical terms. When Macmillan told us in 1957 that 'we have never had it so good' the ratio was 120% - but he did not feel the need to follow a policy of austerity abandoned five years earlier when the same ratio was over 200%. Morever, throughout the Industrial Revolution period the ratio was far higher than what we are told is unbearable today.
These comparisons are very deceptive.
Firstly, do you think we spent the bulk of the nineteenth century running budget deficits of the size we have in the past few years? (Hint: Look how tiny spending was then as a % of GDP. Things after 1900 changed very quickly fiscally.)
Secondly, quintupling the population turns out to be a very good way of cutting the relative scale of debt (you are quoting a ratio, not an absolute value, after all). Having an industrial revolution helps too. I wouldn't bet the house on either of those being replicated, even if G Osborne were an economic miracle maker and notwithstanding the fact the Tories aren't actually very good at all this "slashing immigration" guff.
It's true one can run a small deficit and still cut Debt As % Of GDP - one of the stronger arguments against the obligatory "surplus in normal times" proposal. But it does require growth to make it work, and a good number of economists seem skeptical that we can revert to averaging 3 to 3.5% long term growth... If it is more like 2% then the debt load becomes unsustainable even with moderate deficits in the long run. If - big if, but the possibility is there - we are headed for secular stagnation then that is an even glummer picture.
A Debt/GDP ratio of 80% is not high in historical terms. When Macmillan told us in 1957 that 'we have never had it so good' the ratio was 120% - but he did not feel the need to follow a policy of austerity abandoned five years earlier when the same ratio was over 200%. Morever, throughout the Industrial Revolution period the ratio was far higher than what we are told is unbearable today.
You do write the most extraordinary nonsense. That would have been forgivable in the pre-internet days. Nowadays a few seconds searching on Google will find you this:
I suggest you study it. You will find that in 1957/8 the public sector borrowing requirement was zero. Zilch. The Conservative government of the time was indeed 'balancing the books', and national debt as a percentage of GDP was falling rapidly.
The Kippers are going to be filleted and grilled if that Ipsos Mori is anywhere near the final result.
I'm interested in the right settlement for Britain, not achieving a party political advantage.
Country before party.
It is just felicitous happenstance that as usual, the interests of the country and the Tory party are alligned
I think, in this case, we'll be locked into an unsatisfactory deal for at least the next 20 years. And it'll be a running sore within the Tory party.
The EU just don't dance until they have no alternative.
I would hope the Eurosceptics are democrats and accept the will of the voters and not act like the Scot Nats, and whinge and moan like whores.
The only way that will happen is a fair and free referendum. Right now the pro-EU side of the debate is stacking the deck in a way that ensures the eurosceptics won't accept it. First on the question, second on the elimination of purdah for no good reason.
Many eurosceptics would never have accepted any debate as having been fair, they would find something about it they saw as unfair and not to be accepted. There is not a doubt in my mind that would have been the case, if it wasn't this it would have been something else.
And I'm intending to vote Out. (An incredibly successful renegotiation might get me to rethinkm but that is not being aimed for as far as I can tell, and in any case is impossible to achieve even if it was)
A Debt/GDP ratio of 80% is not high in historical terms. When Macmillan told us in 1957 that 'we have never had it so good' the ratio was 120% - but he did not feel the need to follow a policy of austerity abandoned five years earlier when the same ratio was over 200%. Morever, throughout the Industrial Revolution period the ratio was far higher than what we are told is unbearable today.
You do write the most extraordinary nonsense. That would have been forgivable in the pre-internet days. Nowadays a few seconds searching on Google will find you this:
FWIW, here is my ground up view of Global Warming.
Unfortunately your 'ground up view' shows a serious lack of understanding of the basic scientific argument and reinforces the principle that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
No one disputes the basic scientific principles of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas under laboratory conditions. I certainly wouldn't given it was John Tyndall, my own Great (a few more greats) Uncle who actually showed it and I have his original papers and books on the subject.
But that has never been the basis of the argument between AGW Advocates and the Sceptics. CO2 on its own accounts for a very small amount of the predicted warming. That is accepted by both sides.
The argument is over the use of feedback mechanisms - what are known in the business as 'forcings' and whether these are positive (causing more warming and hence validating the AGW hypothesis) or neutral/negative (causing no further warming or actually countering the small amount of warming from CO2 emissions). In the big wide world (outside of the laboratory experiments conducted by John Tyndall) these forcings are so fiendishly complicated as to make realistic modelling practically impossible. In addition natural forcings unrelated to CO2 emissions are causing further changes and no one has yet been able to adequately quantify the effects of either positive and negative feedbacks nor natural forcings.
As it stands the real world measurements are not matching the models even at their most benign/optimistic which lends credence to the idea that the catastrophic AGW advocates really do have something seriously wrong with their ideas.
This is one of the most reasonable sceptic accounts I have heard. Would you mind listing what the main forcings are, and which are the ones that are disputed?
Thank you!
In terms of mitigation or accentuation of CO2 effects (so ignoring external natural forcings unrelated to increases in CO2) the areas of dispute are absorption of CO2 by the oceans, absorption of heat by the oceans, increased or decreased cloud cover, increase in biomass with a consequent increase in CO2 absorption, changes in localised climate affecting albedo (either in a positive or negative way), permaforst and/or ocean floor hydrate melting releasing methane, changes to the main global ocean currents and weather patterns such as the El Nino/La Nina pairing or the PDO/AMO.
There are plenty more on a more local level but as I say no one is clear on the extent of any of these forcings and both sides are effectively guessing as to whether or not the overall effect is positive or negative or balances out (the old Gaia homeostasis principle).
Not that it matters as much now he's gone, but it is indicative confirmation of Labour's mindset regarding the press.
What is it about Ed and Hampstead Heath?
The former Labour leader was furious over allegations that he had made offensive remarks to Desmond about Israeli action against Palestinians. The Daily Express owner had told the Jewish Telegraph that Miliband had verbally attacked Israel during a chance encounter on London’s Hampstead Heath.
'Chance encounter on Hampstead Heath': that used to be code for something. What exactly is the nature of their relationship? I think we should be told.
Indeed, Given the number of political encounters then when they finally decide to renovate Westminster they can hold Parliament Al fresco on Hampstead Heath. Maybe even save travel time and a few expenses claims as well?
I hope that MPs stay at HoP - it'll make sure that the renovations move onwards faster than letting the contractors stretch it out/not feel customer pressure.
Not that it matters as much now he's gone, but it is indicative confirmation of Labour's mindset regarding the press.
What is it about Ed and Hampstead Heath?
The former Labour leader was furious over allegations that he had made offensive remarks to Desmond about Israeli action against Palestinians. The Daily Express owner had told the Jewish Telegraph that Miliband had verbally attacked Israel during a chance encounter on London’s Hampstead Heath.
'Chance encounter on Hampstead Heath': that used to be code for something. What exactly is the nature of their relationship? I think we should be told.
Indeed, Given the number of political encounters then when they finally decide to renovate Westminster they can hold Parliament Al fresco on Hampstead Heath. Maybe even save travel time and a few expenses claims as well?
FWIW, here is my ground up view of Global Warming.
snip
In terms of mitigation or accentuation of CO2 effects (so ignoring external natural forcings unrelated to increases in CO2) the areas of dispute are absorption of CO2 by the oceans, absorption of heat by the oceans, increased or decreased cloud cover, increase in biomass with a consequent increase in CO2 absorption, changes in localised climate affecting albedo (either in a positive or negative way), permaforst and/or ocean floor hydrate melting releasing methane, changes to the main global ocean currents and weather patterns such as the El Nino/La Nina pairing or the PDO/AMO.
There are plenty more on a more local level but as I say no one is clear on the extent of any of these forcings and both sides are effectively guessing as to whether or not the overall effect is positive or negative or balances out (the old Gaia homeostasis principle).
The Kippers are going to be filleted and grilled if that Ipsos Mori is anywhere near the final result.
I'm interested in the right settlement for Britain, not achieving a party political advantage.
Country before party.
It is just felicitous happenstance that as usual, the interests of the country and the Tory party are alligned
I think, in this case, we'll be locked into an unsatisfactory deal for at least the next 20 years. And it'll be a running sore within the Tory party.
The EU just don't dance until they have no alternative.
I would hope the Eurosceptics are democrats and accept the will of the voters and not act like the Scot Nats, and whinge and moan like whores.
The only way that will happen is a fair and free referendum. Right now the pro-EU side of the debate is stacking the deck in a way that ensures the eurosceptics won't accept it. First on the question, second on the elimination of purdah for no good reason.
Many eurosceptics would never have accepted any debate as having been fair, they would find something about it they saw as unfair and not to be accepted. There is not a doubt in my mind that would have been the case, if it wasn't this it would have been something else.
And I'm intending to vote Out. (An incredibly successful renegotiation might get me to rethinkm but that is not being aimed for as far as I can tell, and in any case is impossible to achieve even if it was)
Yes, but that's only the extreme eurosceptics. The moderates ones would have probably accepted the will of the people. I find the current referendum setup to be very unfair, and I'm currently on the fence about which way to vote. (Although the current messing about by the governments means I'm going to put a lot less weight on their summary of the negotiation result.)
Ah Plato. I know you are trying to help but you have been a badun and quoted from a blog.
Golden rule. Don't use blogs as sources for either side of the argument. They do way too much subtle (or not so subtle) adjustment to support their own views.
Edit: Besides it would take about 30 seconds to completely destroy that particular correlation above given how much health care and central heating have improved since the 1950s
I hope that MPs stay at HoP - it'll make sure that the renovations move onwards faster than letting the contractors stretch it out/not feel customer pressure.
Not that it matters as much now he's gone, but it is indicative confirmation of Labour's mindset regarding the press.
What is it about Ed and Hampstead Heath?
The former Labour leader was furious over allegations that he had made offensive remarks to Desmond about Israeli action against Palestinians. The Daily Express owner had told the Jewish Telegraph that Miliband had verbally attacked Israel during a chance encounter on London’s Hampstead Heath.
'Chance encounter on Hampstead Heath': that used to be code for something. What exactly is the nature of their relationship? I think we should be told.
Indeed, Given the number of political encounters then when they finally decide to renovate Westminster they can hold Parliament Al fresco on Hampstead Heath. Maybe even save travel time and a few expenses claims as well?
Hmm The works will be faster and cheaper if the premises are vacated. I won't be happy if they end up costing another 3 billion just so the likes of Alan Duncan can grandstand about.
I hope that MPs stay at HoP - it'll make sure that the renovations move onwards faster than letting the contractors stretch it out/not feel customer pressure.
Not that it matters as much now he's gone, but it is indicative confirmation of Labour's mindset regarding the press.
What is it about Ed and Hampstead Heath?
The former Labour leader was furious over allegations that he had made offensive remarks to Desmond about Israeli action against Palestinians. The Daily Express owner had told the Jewish Telegraph that Miliband had verbally attacked Israel during a chance encounter on London’s Hampstead Heath.
'Chance encounter on Hampstead Heath': that used to be code for something. What exactly is the nature of their relationship? I think we should be told.
Indeed, Given the number of political encounters then when they finally decide to renovate Westminster they can hold Parliament Al fresco on Hampstead Heath. Maybe even save travel time and a few expenses claims as well?
Hmm The works will be faster and cheaper if the premises are vacated. I won't be happy if they end up costing another 3 billion just so the likes of Alan Duncan can grandstand about.
Plenty of seats just across the road, in the Abbey. Not like anyone goes to church, these days.
I hope that MPs stay at HoP - it'll make sure that the renovations move onwards faster than letting the contractors stretch it out/not feel customer pressure.
Not that it matters as much now he's gone, but it is indicative confirmation of Labour's mindset regarding the press.
What is it about Ed and Hampstead Heath?
The former Labour leader was furious over allegations that he had made offensive remarks to Desmond about Israeli action against Palestinians. The Daily Express owner had told the Jewish Telegraph that Miliband had verbally attacked Israel during a chance encounter on London’s Hampstead Heath.
'Chance encounter on Hampstead Heath': that used to be code for something. What exactly is the nature of their relationship? I think we should be told.
Indeed, Given the number of political encounters then when they finally decide to renovate Westminster they can hold Parliament Al fresco on Hampstead Heath. Maybe even save travel time and a few expenses claims as well?
Hmm The works will be faster and cheaper if the premises are vacated. I won't be happy if they end up costing another 3 billion just so the likes of Alan Duncan can grandstand about.
Agreed. I don't know why they don't just appropriate the nearby QEII centre for the duration.
CO2 on its own accounts for a very small amount of the predicted warming. That is accepted by both sides.
The argument is over the use of feedback mechanisms - what are known in the business as 'forcings' and whether these are positive (causing more warming and hence validating the AGW hypothesis) or neutral/negative (causing no further warming or actually countering the small amount of warming from CO2 emissions). In the big wide world (outside of the laboratory experiments conducted by John Tyndall) these forcings are so fiendishly complicated as to make realistic modelling practically impossible. In addition natural forcings unrelated to CO2 emissions are causing further changes and no one has yet been able to adequately quantify the effects of either positive and negative feedbacks nor natural forcings.
As I understand, CO2 by itself at current levels accounts for around 8 degrees of greenhouse warming and water vapour somewhere above the 20 degree mark, from a below freezing start point. As I also understand, best guess is that increasing CO2 from 270ppm to 900ppm in isolation would give somewhere around the 6 degree mark before forcings, so not so small.
Also, although we can't measure what all the forcings were and don't know the order of events and the full cause and effect, don't we know that CO2 dipped sharply at the front-end of all recent ice ages and even more sharply at the front end of the carboniferous ice-age where what we are burning now was put into the ground in potentially an act of arboreal global cooling?
That CO2 correlates, even without the smoking gun of causation, seems not wholly irrelevant when considering what the net sum of these forcings might be. And even without that, assuming the forcings uniformly oppose warming across the range of the very large change in CO2 concentrations is very optimistic.
As I understand, CO2 by itself at current levels accounts for around 8 degrees of greenhouse warming and water vapour somewhere above the 20 degree mark, from a below freezing start point. As I also understand, best guess is that increasing CO2 from 270ppm to 900ppm in isolation would give somewhere around the 6 degree mark before forcings, so not so small.
Also, although we can't measure what all the forcings were and don't know the order of events and the full cause and effect, don't we know that CO2 dipped sharply at the front-end of all recent ice ages and even more sharply at the front end of the carboniferous ice-age where what we are burning now was put into the ground in potentially an act of arboreal global cooling?
That CO2 correlates, even without the smoking gun of causation, seems not wholly irrelevant when considering what the net sum of these forcings might be. And even without that, assuming the forcings uniformly oppose warming across the range of the very large change in CO2 concentrations is very optimistic.
You understand incorrectly. Palaeoclimate studies show that elevated levels of CO2 do not produce anywhere near the increases in warming you are claiming.
And no, CO2 did not dip ahead of previous ice age events. The end Carboniferous CO2/temperature correlation only works if you believe there is a 20 - 30 million year lagged correlation between the drop in CO2 and the drop in temperature. If that is the case then I am not really sure what you are worried about today.
At the beginning of the Cretaceous CO2 levels were around 2000ppm in the atmosphere. By the end of the Cretaceous they had dropped to less than 1000ppm but the temperature over the same period rose by at least 5 degrees. These correlations simply don't exist in the geological record.
In many cases for more recent ice ages there is an increase in CO2 ahead of and into the ice age.
And of course CO2 does correlate in the modern era either. The models have all so far proved completely unreliable when it comes to predicting current and future temperature changes and are diverting wildly from the satellite record for global temperature change.
Thank you Richard_Tyndall for the mature discussion today. Given the sum of my prior reading and discussion around this, I remain for the moment of the opinion that AGW is likely to produce enough warming to be a matter of proper concern for policy makers, but the points you have made today will direct my future reading.
Which, I am sure you will agree, is as it should be.
Comments
Thirty minutes or so until P2. Must admit, not following it too closely at this stage.
Edited extra bit: for those wondering about Miss Plato's Shelter comments, I remember it distinctly. Not going to re-enact the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but my bedroom was on the small side. Child abuse/homelessness it was not.
Follow the money - who's pays their salaries and 'allowances'. Oh yes, the EU!
Looking at the series, it does look as though Ipsos Mori have only shown Out ahead once in the past 15 years.
In fact neither is the case, and what disturbs me about an otherwise neat theory is that the scientific establishment's response to this kind of challenge has been to fiddle the data to try to make the past colder, and to slander those who raise it.
Another problem with the GW conjecture is that, as has been noted above, it tends to assume there are benefits but no risks from the activists' preferred course of action. Making fuel more expensive kills old, poor and sick people right now, but may or may not spare people in the future.
Finally, consider that to know the level of atmospheric CO2 in 100 years' time requires you to know, at least,
1/ the world's population over the next 100 years,
2/ the price of energy over the next 100 years, and
3/ the nature of significant technology development over the next 100 years
since all are terms in any mathematical expression of future CO2. So far as I know, nobody has ever successfully predicted any of the above over a 100-year period, ever. But people like Malthus have a dismal record of attempting to do something similar, and being abjectly wrong.
For comparison, what are the chances of a meteor landing on a major city over the next 100 years? What should we do about it? Build mile-thick domes over all our cities? Establish a laser satellite shield? Nothing, because the actual risk is unknowable?
Incidentally, AIUI the "consensus" was based originally on a deeply flawed survey that would have included pretty well all sceptics in the consensus, which is a useful lesson in why one shouldn't vote on science.
If it were me, I wouldn't have called a referendum without being confident NO would win it. As Lord Trimble said, the worst thing for eurosceptics would be to hold such a vote and lose it. It'd kill of negotiations on powers for a long long time.
I'd have preferred ongoing negotiations on powers, depending on our interests, and an open statement that we'd call such an in/out vote with a recommendation to leave if we didn't get the relationship we want.
When the session was over, I'd be all like "I'm that good, you should be paying me"
Then her pimp turns up to rearrange my face
The only thing I can think of that would explain is if he envisaged that it would preoccupy his entire second term.
It's not exactly a strong starting point for getting what we need.
Much will depend on how the Eurozone goes and how the EU proposes to respond and how its closer fiscal as well as monetary union goes. What I am quite sure about is that leaving the EU will not simply of itself make us better. Leaving the EU would I believe have to involve joining the EEA and as such it will make very little difference to us in any real or meaningful way. I can see that leaving the EU but staying in the EEA (hopefully we would be able to simply stay in) would be better for us but equally staying in the EU with appropriate votes and suitable concessions might be a better option. It is quite possible that Cameron can act as a catalyst to force the issue and speed up the choices.
So I would think that objective and sanguine people, of whom there must be quite a lot, would sensibly say 'don't know'.
You get a Yes, so you renegotiate. You take the results of that home, then do another referendum and this time the question is, "Is this significant enough? - Yes or No?"
Yes = stay, No = go.
Repeating the vote until you get the answer you want is not exactly something the EU can argue credibly against.
It was probably the most amusing discussion we've had on PB re childhood and absurd *charity* reports.
"British Influence" is an organization that describes itself as
"…the umbrella campaign to keep Britain in Europe and to push for British-led reform of the EU. We are a cross-party organisation who believes that Britain is better off in a better Europe."
They published their second annual survey of British influence in the EU in January 2015
A quote from the report:
A long-standing issue for the UK is the declining number of British officials throughout the European institutions. The proportion of British nationals employed in policy-influencing roles has fallen from 9.6 per cent in 2004 to 5.3 per cent in 2014.3
This is especially worrying considering that many British nationals currently working in the EU institutions are nearing retirement age and will be leaving their current high-ranking positions. This is compounded by the low number of British nationals taking the EU civil service entrance exam; in the past three years, British nationals comprised just 2.4 per cent of candidates taking the test.
Within important European Commission departments that draft financial services legislation, such as the Internal Market and Services Directorate-General, British representation constitutes as little as three per cent of the staff.
No one disputes the basic scientific principles of CO2 as a Greenhouse gas under laboratory conditions. I certainly wouldn't given it was John Tyndall, my own Great (a few more greats) Uncle who actually showed it and I have his original papers and books on the subject.
But that has never been the basis of the argument between AGW Advocates and the Sceptics. CO2 on its own accounts for a very small amount of the predicted warming. That is accepted by both sides.
The argument is over the use of feedback mechanisms - what are known in the business as 'forcings' and whether these are positive (causing more warming and hence validating the AGW hypothesis) or neutral/negative (causing no further warming or actually countering the small amount of warming from CO2 emissions). In the big wide world (outside of the laboratory experiments conducted by John Tyndall) these forcings are so fiendishly complicated as to make realistic modelling practically impossible. In addition natural forcings unrelated to CO2 emissions are causing further changes and no one has yet been able to adequately quantify the effects of either positive and negative feedbacks nor natural forcings.
As it stands the real world measurements are not matching the models even at their most benign/optimistic which lends credence to the idea that the catastrophic AGW advocates really do have something seriously wrong with their ideas.
If the first referendum were held it would descend into farce as different camps disagreed about the changes they want and people would vote No in favour of the status quo, much as Australia voted to keep the monarchy.
It might be vaguely possible to contemplate such an approach in a country like Switzerland with a tradition of direct democracy but most realistic course here is exactly what's happened: the election of a majority government with a manifesto commitment to hold an in/out referendum.
Many people, probably including Cameron, earnestly believe that what 'we' need is to remove the issue from British party politics for the next few decades and anchor Britain outside the Eurozone but in the EU.
Lots of people seem barking mad.
They are led by the most extreme Europhiles like Ken Clarke - the man who wrote that "I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a Council Chamber in Europe."
The horror.
P.s Very small chest of drawers and wardrobe I should say, dont want to give impression it was super luxurious.
My relation was very, very cross. The "broken home girll" got an excellent degree and is now a reasonably senior civil servant!
Or the situation when the structural deficit was absent - but we were still paying off huge war debts - and the situation today are different and incomparable things.
How very, very odd.
And while that goes on, the challenge to direct at the sceptics in testing their hypotheses remains to explain how, in scale up, the thermodynamic laws become secondary to something else.
So, as things stand, the sceptics have fundamentals to address, whilst the concensus science drills into the details. And in truth, the concensus science community have as good a chance to find the actual holes and limitations in the AGW hypothesis amongst their details as the sceptics do!
Which is nothing of the sort - its just a survey of where the outcome just happens to match what the UK wanted.
Thank you!
The fact that much of the Debt post-1945 related to the World Wars did not make them any less real or affect our ability to bear them. What we are seeing today is the state seeking to reduce its own debt by allowing personal debt to explode despite the fact that the latter will find it so much more difficult to bear the burden. Not sensible.
Firstly, do you think we spent the bulk of the nineteenth century running budget deficits of the size we have in the past few years? (Hint: Look how tiny spending was then as a % of GDP. Things after 1900 changed very quickly fiscally.)
Secondly, quintupling the population turns out to be a very good way of cutting the relative scale of debt (you are quoting a ratio, not an absolute value, after all). Having an industrial revolution helps too. I wouldn't bet the house on either of those being replicated, even if G Osborne were an economic miracle maker and notwithstanding the fact the Tories aren't actually very good at all this "slashing immigration" guff.
It's true one can run a small deficit and still cut Debt As % Of GDP - one of the stronger arguments against the obligatory "surplus in normal times" proposal. But it does require growth to make it work, and a good number of economists seem skeptical that we can revert to averaging 3 to 3.5% long term growth... If it is more like 2% then the debt load becomes unsustainable even with moderate deficits in the long run. If - big if, but the possibility is there - we are headed for secular stagnation then that is an even glummer picture.
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05745/SN05745.pdf
I suggest you study it. You will find that in 1957/8 the public sector borrowing requirement was zero. Zilch. The Conservative government of the time was indeed 'balancing the books', and national debt as a percentage of GDP was falling rapidly.
And I'm intending to vote Out. (An incredibly successful renegotiation might get me to rethinkm but that is not being aimed for as far as I can tell, and in any case is impossible to achieve even if it was)
Now we can argue about sources or stats - but just typing an opinion is destined to get you whacked.
There are plenty more on a more local level but as I say no one is clear on the extent of any of these forcings and both sides are effectively guessing as to whether or not the overall effect is positive or negative or balances out (the old Gaia homeostasis principle).
Golden rule. Don't use blogs as sources for either side of the argument. They do way too much subtle (or not so subtle) adjustment to support their own views.
Edit: Besides it would take about 30 seconds to completely destroy that particular correlation above given how much health care and central heating have improved since the 1950s
https://twitter.com/NCPoliticsUK/status/611882199705649156
*Face palm*
New Thread
Also, although we can't measure what all the forcings were and don't know the order of events and the full cause and effect, don't we know that CO2 dipped sharply at the front-end of all recent ice ages and even more sharply at the front end of the carboniferous ice-age where what we are burning now was put into the ground in potentially an act of arboreal global cooling?
That CO2 correlates, even without the smoking gun of causation, seems not wholly irrelevant when considering what the net sum of these forcings might be. And even without that, assuming the forcings uniformly oppose warming across the range of the very large change in CO2 concentrations is very optimistic.
And no, CO2 did not dip ahead of previous ice age events. The end Carboniferous CO2/temperature correlation only works if you believe there is a 20 - 30 million year lagged correlation between the drop in CO2 and the drop in temperature. If that is the case then I am not really sure what you are worried about today.
At the beginning of the Cretaceous CO2 levels were around 2000ppm in the atmosphere. By the end of the Cretaceous they had dropped to less than 1000ppm but the temperature over the same period rose by at least 5 degrees. These correlations simply don't exist in the geological record.
In many cases for more recent ice ages there is an increase in CO2 ahead of and into the ice age.
And of course CO2 does correlate in the modern era either. The models have all so far proved completely unreliable when it comes to predicting current and future temperature changes and are diverting wildly from the satellite record for global temperature change.
Which, I am sure you will agree, is as it should be.
Now, who said something about a new thread?