ThunderDragon Blog

Climate change is one of those things that no-one* really understands. So much is written about it, on whether or not the ice caps are melting, whether the earth is heating up by a degree each year, whether their is a “scientific consensus” on it or not. And it all just goes right over my head. So I have decided something: I don’t care.

I don’t care if the earth is heating up by one degree or more, or less, or not at all per year.

I don’t care whether or not the ice caps are melting.

I don’t care if there is a scientific consensus on climate change.

I don’t care whether climate change is being caused solely, mainly, partly, or only a little bit by us.

I just don’t care.

And why? Because we should do the same thing regardless. We should all try to reduce our so-called “carbon footprint” anyway. We should walk or cycle rather than drive when possible; we should turn the TV off rather than leave it on stand-by [after all, how hard is it to stand up and push a button?!]; we should recycle everything that we can, from aluminium cans to plastic bottles to garden waste. And so on.

Whether or not climate change is happening and whether or not it is us who is causing it - to whatever extent. We should conserve our planet’s resources and reduce the amount to which we pollute our own environment. We should not go back to the Stone Age, but try and produce our electricity in more renewable and less polluting ways, where and when possible and feasible. It is just common sense.

These things should happen and be attempted by everyone, regardless of climate change. Because even if climate change is a myth or turns out to have nowhere near the effect often predicted, our own personal environment will be cleaner and we will all be better off.

* At least anyone who doesn’t claim to be a climate change scientist, anyway.

This is an unadulterated Good Thing. “Green” taxes are a bad idea, and don’t even serve any real purpose except as a means for government to take more of our hard-earned money away from us. Being “green” isn’t about paying extra taxes on “polluting” things, since taxes are already paid on them. And taxing them more will only hurt those lower down on the economic scale anyway.

Carrots work better than sticks in these situations. Any party who is serious about reducing Britain’s carbon emissions, for whatever reason, must accept that taxing “bad” things like this isn’t the way forward, and I am very glad that the Conservative Party has realised this, even if belatedly.

Greenpeace have decided to name a whale, and have an on-line poll to decide what to call it. The name that just has to win, for the sheer hilarity of making a rabid green activist say it, has to be Mister Splashy Pants.

Go here to vote!

via ASI

This is bansturbation, pure and simple.

I’ll expand on this later.

UPDATE: Plastic bags are the end of the life for plastic. The plastic used to make them can be used for nothing else. Hence to ban plastic bags would leave us with tons of plastic that can be used for nothing else.

However, this does not mean that incentives not to use plastic bags shouldn’t be promoted. Instead of banning them or charging for their use, provide incentives for re-using or recycling plastic bags - schemes which most supermarkets already have in place.

Banning them is never going to work, and really works against the green principle in the end. Plastic bags are used by many people for many things - bin-liners and the like - and thus many do get re-used. The plastic used to make plastic bags is at the end of it’s lifespan. It cannot be used for making anything else any more, so they make bags from it - and plastic bags can only be made into other plastic bags.

It is more the other plastic waste that needs to be reduced rather than plastic bags, so that we don’t end up with so much plastic that is only fit to become plastic bags. Don’t just go into bansturbation mode.

Who is surprised? Just like Live Earth and Al Gore, high profile “celebrity” environmentalists [and many non celebrity versions] are hypocrites of the highest order. They all are, and always have been. “Do as I say and not as I do” has always been their mantra - and always will be. After all, they are far more important than us “little people” who exist merely to worship the ground they walk on.

This just has to be right at the top my list of the most idiotic thing I have ever heard anyone ever say:

Erm, WTF? How on earth can climate change [it's lucky that they stopped using the term "global warming" because it's bloody freezing at the moment] be the greatest threat to global equality? Surely dictatorship, totalitarian government and PC extremism [as well as the culture of state dependency - on the development of which Theo Spark has a great parable] is a greater threat?

Equality is not prevented by global warming in the slightest. If anything it will do the opposite - if the doomsday claims by eco-fascists is correct - by reducing us all to the same level? If anything under their conditions, us in the developed world would be far more screwed than third world countries.

Climate change is not - and cannot - itself threaten global equality. It might have some impact on it, in a roundabout way, but to claim that it is the “greatest long-term threat” to achieving global equality is utter rubbish, and gives the issue far far more importance than it deserves.

Source: BBC

Drive in a green way!

Lessons in “eco-driving”? What the hell is “eco-driving”? And why should the government give people lessons in it anyway?

Why won’t they just leave us all alone? Trying to force us to drive in a “green” way, though driving lessons, has just got to be counter-productive in terms of carbon-output anyway, since the amount generated taking these lessons is bound to more than that saved by “eco-driving” itself. Not to mention that the Commission for Integrated Transport probably used more carbon in researching and making their report than will ever be saved by it. We’d probably all be environmentally better off if they hadn’t done anything at all. We’d certainly be better off in every other way.

Source: The Times