The Devil waits for his own: what Burns might have penned for the Green Lords of today

This being Burns Day, I will mark it with an extract from one of his poems in which he imagines the devil (Beelzebub) looking forward to an aristocrat coming to join him in due course after a long and healthy life.  Burns was addressing some Lords, and one in particular, who objected to some poor highlanders trying to escape their poverty by emigrating to North America in 1786.  He hoped that these folks would find someone like George Washington to help them achieve their aims and escape from those Lords who would prefer to keep them under their control.  He hopes there will be no equivalents of the prominent Lords  (North, Sackville, Howe, Clinton) who fought against Washington’s cause - American independence.

Address Of Beelzebub

Long life, my Lord, an' health be yours, 

Unskaithed by hunger'd Highland boors; 

Lord grant me nae duddie, desperate beggar, 

Wi' dirk, claymore, and rusty trigger, 

May twin auld Scotland o' a life 

She likes - as lambkins like a knife. 

Faith you and Applecross were right 

To keep the Highland hounds in sight: 

I doubt na! they wad bid nae better, 

Than let them ance out owre the water, 

Then up among thae lakes and seas, 

They'll mak what rules and laws they please: 

Some daring Hancocke, or a Franklin, 

May set their Highland bluid a-ranklin; 

Some Washington again may head them, 

Or some Montgomery, fearless, lead them, 

Till God knows what may be effected 

When by such heads and hearts directed, 

Poor dunghill sons of dirt and mire 

May to Patrician rights aspire! 

Nae sage North now, nor sager Sackville, 

To watch and premier o'er the pack vile,

An' whare will ye get Howes and Clintons 

To bring them to a right repentance 

To cowe the rebel generation, 

An' save the honour o' the nation? 

They, an' be damn'd! what right hae they 

To meat, or sleep, or light o' day? 

Far less - to riches, pow'r, or freedom, 

But what your lordship likes to gie them? 

The rest of the poem, with a plain English version alongside, can be found here.

Well the ‘Lords’ nowadays are the leaders of the big green NGOs such as the WWF, with useful lords attendant such as Pachauri and Gore.  And those they would deny ‘meat, or sleep, or light o’day’ are the world’s poor, most especially those in the developing countries.    Paul Driessen tells their story. 

And, of course, nowadays, as back then, we have good and decent, and real, Lords too.  Not least Lord Lawson and Lord Monckton.  I feel sure Burns would have wanted to support the GWPF and the SPPI!  

Note added 04 June 2013  More Lords distinguishing themselves in this area.  Newly-accessioned Lord Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, and of many other powerful presentations and articles.  Lord Donoughue for sustained Parliamentary Questioning of the Met Office.  Lord Lipsey for calling the bluff and bluster of a prominent Guardian alarmist. 

For the Climate Classroom Wall: anthropogenic sustainability threatens communication catastrophe

http://xkcd.com/1007/

The rising levels of 'sustainable' are presenting a major threat to the global communications system, and could even undermine efforts to destroy industrial civilisation by the propagation of alarm about a beneficial trace gas in the atmosphere.  So many participants in these efforts rely on 'sustainable' as a powerful charm to drive away the evil spirits of adventure, optimism, honesty, and scientific rigour.  But as yet, few of them seem to be aware of this major threat to their campaigns.  97% of linguists agree that this key word is under threat of losing any meaning whatsoever, noting that it is already in a 'vague, woolly, and confusing' state.  A little cabal of UN insiders is, thank goodness, preparing a plot to preserve at least a vestige of substance for this precious word, a word so dear to so many intent on controlling our lives, crushing the spirits of the young, and rubbishing the achievements of the past.  Emissions controls will be agreed to keep usage below the safe limit of 1ppm - a level not seen since the 1980s. It may already be too late for some green sites.  Take a look at this example, merely one among the thousands where this vital word is being deployed with a fearful frequency.

(hat-tip for the cartoon link: Jane Coles, comment on 'Unthreaded' yesterday (Jan 23, 2012 at 10:47 PM) at Bishop Hill)

Update 25 Jan 12: A serious threat to the control of sustainable emissions is looming at the so-called Earth Summit in Rio this June: 'In an attempt to avoid too much confrontation, the conference will focus not on climate change but on sustainable development ...'  (source)  Hat-tip: Climate Change Dispatch
 It would seem that the fuss over AGW has served its purpose and will now be sidelined in favour of 'sustainable development'.  More here on that by Luboš Motl.

Cittadini attenti! Opera Administrators turned Climate Activists target your Children

Like something out of the old Soviet Union, where all sorts of enterprises would have been inclined to declare their dedication and support for the current 5-year plan, no matter how remote from their competences, the Opera House at Glyndebourne has taken it upon itself to teach the young a thing or two about climate:

Exhibit (1)
'Gus Christie Executive Chairman Glyndebourne Productions Ltd said:

“The wind turbine is part of an environmental ambition for Glyndebourne and is a response to the global climate threat. We are proud that the turbine will make a significant contribution towards the achievement of renewable energy targets within this region. As an internationally renowned opera house, we want to use our profile to encourage other businesses and individuals to preserve the environment. Climate change is a certainty in our lifetime and we all need to take responsibility for this.”

Exhibit (2)
'Nationally over 15,000 people participate in Glyndebourne’s annual Education Programme.  When the turbine is operating in 2010, Glyndebourne Education will undertake a project focusing on the environment and creativity, using the turbine as its foundation in primary schools within a 25 mile radius of Glyndebourne.  This project will be implemented throughout the school year and is expected to involve over 4,000 children.  For all other ongoing community projects appropriate emphasis will be given to Glyndebourne’s environmental strategy. Glyndebourne will engage its Youth Groups, with over 100 participants aged eight to 18, in making the turbine the focus of their programme in 2010. Glyndebourne will also give talks about the turbine to the 3,500 students attending its performances for schools and ensure that the turbine will form part of our Opera Experience workshops enjoyed by 2,500 primary and secondary students each year.

Both exhibits found here:  glyndebourne.com/news-article/wind-turbine-proposal-press-statement

All this will go down well enough in the upper echelons of the BBC, the Royal Society, the Labour Party, the Green Party, and no doubt quite a few other playpens for the political class.  But it will not go down well with the people and councils of Sussex who opposed the turbine and had their views squashed by Hazel Blears acting for a government 'back in the day' that did not hesitate to push climate alarmism for political advantage - even to the point of deliberately frightening children.  And it will not go down well with anyone who is familiar with the diseconomies of windpower, nor with anyone who is familiar with the profound weaknesses of the case for alarm over human impacts on climate.  Nor with anyone who does not care to see the skyline of the Downs needlessly and extravagantly industrialised at the expense of electricity consumers, raptors, bats and others at risk from the blades.

Pic credit

Much as I love opera, much as I would dearly love to go to a performance at Glyndebourne, I can only wish them maximum embarrassment from this venture.  I predict the thing will be dismantled within 5 years, and after that, if not before, I hope the Opera House will devote itself to opera, and not to being a victim of political activists nor to being a pusher of child-unfriendly and scientifically absurd alarmism over CO2.



 Melodramatic posturing around 'the global climate threat' might make for an amusing light opera, but it will not make for good education.

Climate Credulity of Operatic Proportions: a misled schoolgirl and a monument to madness at Glyndebourne

http://www.sussexdownsmen.org.uk/news/turbine.html

 A large turbine has been erected on a site 80m above sea level, owned by and overlooking the famous Opera House at Glyndebourne.  The location is on the South Downs, a particularly beautiful part of south-east England.  Naturally, the erection of such a burden on electricity consumers, and a noisy, dangerous disruption to a once-precious skyline to boot, was preceded by a lot of opposition in planning,  but the primary beneficiaries of the subsidies, Northern Energy and presumably the opera house, have welcomed it.  The Guardian newspaper gave the official opening very generous coverage (indeed only a Labour government minister intervening gave it the go-ahead against local wishes).  Hat-tip for the Guardian link and some discussion of it at Bishop Hill.

A senior pupil from a nearby school is reported as making this disturbing remark:

 

‘I don't get how anyone can object to it. In a few years' time they won't even notice it. In another few years, if we don't do something about climate change, this view won't be here anyway because we'll all be under water.’

The location of the turbine is on a hillside at about 80m above sea level, in the midst of the South Downs which go up to 270m above sea level.  The nearby village of Glynde is at about 25m above sea level, and near to a low river valley only 5 to 10m above sea level (the location is close to the south coast, near Lewes).

Even the discredited and despicably alarmist IPCC only projects global sea level rises in the range of 0.2 to 0.6m by the year 2100. Recent trends is the slow and steady sea level rise of the past 150 years suggest that even the lower end of this range may be of the high side for some locations at least.  The sinking of the SE corner of England into the sea at around 0.5 to 1mm per year might add as much as another 0.1m to the sea level rise there, but we are still dramatically short of threatening Glyndebourne.  An expert in coastal erosion in England, E.M. Lee, has noted much exaggeration in projections based on IPCC reports:

‘."perhaps we were all too keen to accept the unquestioned authority of the IPCC and their projections." Thus, he ends by stating "I am left with the feeling that a healthy skepticism of the climate change industry might not be such a bad thing," ‘

Oh that the teachers of this deluded schoolgirl had had such insight!  There is not the slightest prospect of the sea reaching Glyndebourne 'in another few years', and arguably not even in whatever may be left of the Holocene if we are close to the end of it.

Who taught what and when to this schoolgirl?  Perhaps she is exceptionally credulous and vulnerable to scare stories.  That does not forgive those who have misled her, but it does give hope that not all her classmates are in the same sorry state as she is with regard to climate change and sea-levels.

A propaganda puff for the turbine by Northern Energy and the local council may deserve part of the blame.  It confidently declares that:

 ‘There is now compelling evidence that human activity is changing the world’s climate. Temperatures are rising and so are sea levels. Extreme weather is becoming more common.’

All four of these assertions are misleading to the uninformed reader to the point of severe deception.  First, two platitudes: climate changes all the time, human activity must affect it.  All things in and around the climate system affect it.  It is immensely complex, and driven by powerful forces that make any plausible human effect look derisory in comparison.  In recent decades, the system has been acting pretty much as if the additional CO2 was having no effect at all. For rebuttals of all four assertions in this short sentence by Northern Energy, let me just direct the interested reader to the C3 web site. Scroll down to find dozens of papers, mostly peer-reviewed studies in the scientific literature, that undermine each of the scaremongering claims being exploited by Northern Energy.

Meanwhile, from  California, another playground for those driven to distraction by eco-scares, here’s some sea level history there for the past 70 years( Real Climate & Data source)

 Scary, eh?

Not the sea levels - they'e acting just as if the rising CO2 does not matter - but the alarmism.

 It is scary that so many can be fooled so easily and so deliberately by so few based on so little.  

Gilbert & Sullivan would have had a field day with this sorry fiasco at Glyndebourne.

Picture for the Climate Classroom Wall: the apparent impotence of airborne CO2 as a driver of warming

The C3 website has used the latest data published by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center to produce the above chart.


Two adjacent 50 year periods are compared side by side, for overall global temperature rise, and overall ambient CO2 rise:

1912 to 1961:   the temperature increase is 0.52C, the CO2 increase, 18ppm.
1962 to 2011:   the temperature increase is 0.41C, the CO2 increase, 74ppm. 

Whatever the overall effect of the CO2 increase is on global temperature, it is clearly not a dominating factor causing warming.  The atmosphere is behaving as if the extra CO2 does not really matter very much at all since the temperature jumps are similar, whilst the CO2 jumps are clearly not.

Note.  

Steven Goddard at Real Science describes a similar result, using the periods 1975 to 2008, and 1915 to 1944.  These periods also are believed to show a modest warming of similar size, but the former period had a far larger increase in CO2 attributed to it (54ppm compared to 9ppm).  These periods are of interest because they appear in Email 2234 of the Climategate set– as highlighted by Tom Nelson. 

(Edited 22 Jan 2012 to delete last two sentences in the original Note for being inessential)