Revealed: Top Tories linked to climate change denialism report
Yesterday the European Foundation think-tank published a report, cited by both the Telegraph and the Daily Express, offering a hundred reasons why ‘global warming was natural’.
Put aside the fact it was quickly and easily debunked by the New Scientist and on LibCon. Temporarily forget the fact that if you actually went through the list you’d quickly realise how farcical it was.
Instead ask, who is behind the European Foundation? Well, Martin Robbins did and found that prominent Tories including John Bercow, David Davis, Iain Duncan-Smith and Oliver Letwin are all part of the European Foundation.
David Cameron maintains he’s a firm believer in man-made global warming and agrees that urgent action needs to be taken. He gives the impression Tory climate-change deniers constitute a small number of cranks on the fringes. How will he square that with this?
His policy on the environment now looks to be a shambles with senior Tories exposed as being part of a think-tank endorsing global warming denialism.
Con Home’s Climate Crock Rundown (88-100)
Conservative Home have published a list, in conjunction with the Daily Express, of their ‘100 Reasons why the ‘Copenhagen’ Governments and other proponents of “man-made” Global Warming theory of Climate Change are completely wrong‘.
By way of a response to Jim McConalogue’s lengthy article, we’ll be publishing our own rundown, in several parts, which we’re calling…
’100-ish Reasons why Conservative Home and Jim McConalogue are full of shit’
For part one of our rundown, which covers reasons 88 to 100, check below the fold… my responses are in italics.
continue reading… »
Supporting Yessika Hoyos Morales
It was a very great honour to meet Yessika Hoyos Morales of the Corporacion Colectivo de Abogados for lunch today.
Yessika is a deeply inspiring character and has given me the energy to pressure the government into taking a tougher line with Colombia, particularly within EU negotiations on a possible free trade agreement with the country.
I shall be asking questions of the Foreign Office about the extra-judicial killings of dozens of trades unionists in Colombia, many of which are linked to the Colombian army.
continue reading… »
New Scientist blasts the global warming list
The New Scientist magazine has posted a list debunking at least half of all claims made today in the front page of the Daily Express.
Its features editor started by pointing out the inconsistencies:
1) There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s activity.
Technically, proof exists only in mathematics, not in science. Whatever terminology you choose to use, however, there is overwhelming evidence that the current warming is caused the rise in greenhouse gases due to human activities.
2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 per cent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the Earth during geological history.
Misleading comparison. Since the industrial age began human emissions are far higher than volcanic emissions.3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.
In the past 3 million years changing levels of sunshine triggered and ended the ice ages. Carbon dioxide was a feedback that increased warming, rather than the initial cause. In the more distant past, several warming episodes were directly triggered by CO2.
After debunking 50 of the claims he he ends by saying:
There are another 50 “reasons” listed but they are even less credible than the ones we’ve already dealt with…
Some of those even more absurd claims were highlighted by Hopi Sen in a post titled ‘Tim Montgomerie and the Daily Express- Stupid and Stupider‘, since the list was also posted on to ConservativeHome.
In a related post Anton Vowl lists: 100 reasons why the Daily Express isn’t the world’s greatest newspaper
Italy begins crackdown on free speech
Millions worldwide have cheered the individual action of Massimo Tartaglia, the man who last Sunday whacked Berlusconi in the teeth. A divisive, dodgy, inflammatory right-wing Prime Minister got what he deserved, many commented online.
However, two days later, it’s important to make a cool-headed assessment as to what the blow landed on Berlusconi’s gob really means in the short to medium terms.
Until Sunday, Berlusconi’s coalition were showing their biggest cracks since their landslide election victory in April 2008. His hacking at the Italian constitution caused a series of unexpected rifts within his own coalition. By last week, one of his most senior and influential allies, Gianfranco Fini, was all but considered no longer part of Berlusconi’s coalition.
Most significantly, on Friday, Mr Casini, a former centrist partner of Berlusconi’s government, called for the formation of a broad ‘Republican front’ to finally defeat the billionaire Prime Minister.
And if you also take into account the spectacular sexual scandals that marred the Prime Minister throughout the summer, for the first time in years Silvio Berlusconi looked all but rock steady.
By Sunday evening, however, everything had changed.
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Bloggers – help beat Trafigura gag on BBC!
You can help beat Trafigura’s gag on the BBC by embedding this Youtube video on your website… …and linking to this pdf!
Here’s why…
Late last week the BBC chose to delete from its website a damning Newsnight investigation into the Trafigura scandal, following legal threats from the company and its controversial lawyers, Carter-Ruck.
….
The mainstream UK media has so far assiduously avoided reporting on the BBC’s climbdown. Yet it’s an issue that raises serious questions about the state of press freedom in Britain, at a time of unprecedented attacks on the media.
via Left Outside
Israeli minister cancels trip over arrest warrant
A British court issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s former foreign minister over war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza this year – only to withdraw it when it was discovered that she was not in the UK, it emerged today.
Tzipi Livni, a member of the war cabinet during Operation Cast Lead, had been due to address a meeting in London on Sunday but cancelled her attendance in advance.
The Guardian has established that Westminster magistrates’ court issued the warrant at the request of lawyers acting for some of the Palestinian victims of the fighting but it was later dropped.
The warrant marks the first time an Israeli minister or former minister has faced arrest in the UK and is evidence of a growing effort to pursue war crimes allegations under “universal jurisidiction”.
Miliband in disgraceful attack over torture case
The Government has launched a damaging attack on the judiciary in its increasingly desperate legal battle to stop the public from seeing evidence of Britain’s involvement in torture.
Lawyers acting for the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, yesterday accused two High Court judges of acting “irresponsibly” when they delivered a ruling in favour of disclosure of sensitive material relating to the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident, by US agents.
The case, which is supported by media groups including The Independent, has been lost by the Government in the High Court but ministers have repeatedly tried to overturn the decision.
John Rentoul vs most people
John Rentoul, chief political commentator for The Independent on Sunday, writes that “the tax on bankers’ bonuses was the final act of self-destruction” for the Labour Party, and that “Brown’s reversion to class-war politics has compounded his error. The City’s fury matters…And for what? It won’t make Labour any more popular among the voters it needs to save its marginal seats at the election.”
So according to Rentoul’s argument, we would expect opinion polls to reveal that most people oppose the government’s policies, right?
ComRes:
From what I have heard, the Government’s plans for heavier taxes on people with high incomes are fair
Agree 66%
Disagree 28%
Don’t know 5%
This illustrates: (a) The Government is right, in the eyes of most voters, to tax high earners more heavily. (b) Unsurprisingly the highest proportion who agree are DEs (71%) although even 64% of ABs agree. (c) There is also a correlation between age and agreement, with older voters the most likely to agree. (d) Although Labour voters are the voter group most likely to agree, 61% of Tories do too.
continue reading… »
War crimes and war criminals
Was the invasion of Iraq illegal? Yes, I think we have now got almost enough evidence to conclude that George Bush and Tony Blair were more concerned to effect regime-change (which has no basis in international law) than with Saddam Hussein’s supposed possession of WMD in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.
Does it matter? Yes, because if you selectively disregard international law than you weaken its framework and that makes the world a more dangerous place. Blair and Bush also unleashed a bloody maelstrom in Iraq itself which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
Are Bush and Blair war criminals? Possibly. Customary international law recognises the existence of the crime of aggression and some international criminal tribunals (Nuremburg and ICTY) have prosecuted people for this offence. But the crime is not a part of British law and the International Criminal Court has also not yet defined it or granted itself jurisdiction to hear cases. Hopefully this anomaly will be dealt with next year (although the outcome could be a fudge) but the court will not be able to hear cases retrospectively.
If we instead have to content ourselves with the ‘court of public opinion’, I would like to be clear what I do and do not consider these two leaders guilty of.
continue reading… »
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