Stuck in the middle of a long recession, that may turn out to be a Depression (with a capital ‘D’) after all, what is the best thing the Western world can do to make life easier for citizens?
According to ‘scientists’ at the Cancun climate summit, it is to halt economic growth in the rich world for the next twenty years or so.
I kid you not.
From the Telegraph, with emphasis added by me:
In a series of papers published by the Royal Society, physicists and chemists from some of world’s most respected scientific institutions, including Oxford University and the Met Office, agreed that current plans to tackle global warming are not enough.
Unless emissions are reduced dramatically in the next ten years the world is set to see temperatures rise by more than 4C (7.2F) by as early as the 2060s, causing floods, droughts and mass migration. (…)
In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.
This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars.
Prof Anderson admitted it “would not be easy” to persuade people to reduce their consumption of goods
He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s.
This could mean a limit on electricity so people are forced to turn the heating down, turn off the lights and replace old electrical goods like huge fridges with more efficient models. Food that has travelled from abroad may be limited and goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.
“The Second World War and the concept of rationing is something we need to seriously consider if we are to address the scale of the problem we face,” he said.
Prof Anderson insisted that halting growth in the rich world does not necessarily mean a recession or a worse lifestyle, it just means making adjustments in everyday life such as using public transport and wearing a sweater rather than turning on the heating.
“I am not saying we have to go back to living in caves,” he said. “Our emissions were a lot less ten years ago and we got by ok then.”
Of particular note is the turn of phrase that such rationing would change the lifestyle ‘for many people in countries like Britain’. So, not all, then? Like climate activist to-ing and fro-ing around the globe in first class seats on big airliners to tell us we should ration our travelling?
Such proposals have nothing to do with science. I haven’t seen the paper yet. From the reporting you get a sense it’ll be dressed up all sciency, with math and tables and stuff. But when you look closer all you see is more conjecture based on false premises and presuppositions. Science is not about setting policy, that is politics. There is another, more apt word to describe what Anderson is engaged in: activism.
A year after Climategate, desperation over losing the ‘narrative’ is evidently turning into insanity. They are utterly deranged. Are they still taken seriously by anybody?
(via WUWT)
[UPDATE001] The Anderson and Bow paper can be found here (pdf; h/t Bishop Hill). The relevant bit in on page 23 of the file, where it states (emphasis mine – KV):
Only if Annex 1 nations reduce emissions immediately [35] at rates far beyond those typically countenanced and only then if non-Annex 1 emissions peak between 2020 and 2025 before reducing at unprecedented rates, do global emissions peak by 2020. Consequently, the 2010 global peak central to many integrated assessment model scenarios as well as the 2015–2016 date enshrined in the CCC, Stern and ADAM analyses, do not reflect any orthodox ‘feasibility’. By contrast, the logic of such studies suggests (extremely) dangerous climate change can only be avoided if economic growth is exchanged, at least temporarily, for a period of planned austerity within Annex 1 nations[36] and a rapid transition away from fossil-fuelled development within non-Annex 1 nations.
With note [36] reading:
In essence, a planned economic contraction to bring about the almost immediate and radical reductions necessary to avoid the 2◦C characterization of dangerous climate change whilst allowing time for the almost complete penetration of all economic sectors with zero or very low carbon technologies.
Remember Hayek: A planned economy equals a totalitarian regime. Not just deranged, but (extremely) dangerous to boot.
[UPDATE002] I should search my own blog a bit more often. This fool Kevin Anderson has been banging on about a planned economic recession for some time now. About a year ago he was the reason we started the ‘cat’s out of the bag’ series of posts.
Klein Verzet 
The corruption of education and science is now so widespread that even the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is not immune.
The basis for the CO2 scam is that there is fixed amount of CO2 space in the atmosphere of the earth. The West, according to these activists, uses far more then its fair share of this global CO2 space, and thus has to compensate the poorer nations by transferring vast amounts of wealth to them, minus of course the handling fee of governments, UN, banks, governments again, lawyers, corrupt contractors and dictators – essentially a gravy train based on an artificially created commodity.To the consternation of the scammers, the scam came to light before it really had a chance to take off, that is why they are so ANGRY.What do they do now? They are now pushing “Diversity” – no, not the multicultural one, but “diversity” in flora and fauna. This is the new scam under development – with the active support of the WWF, the BBC, and all those whose lips are forever clamped on the public teat.To the scammers, here is another suggestion if the “Diversity” scam does not come off.There is a fixed amount of water in the earths atmosphere, which of course is owned by all the people of the earth. By a quirk of nature, or heaven forbid, Western manipulation of climate, this valuable resource (and this one is valuable, unlike CO2), the Western world gets most of the water in the atmosphere. In the interest of justice and fairness, therefore, the West must transfer vast amounts of money to the poor parts of the world, minus of course handling fee by governments, UN etc etc.
KV I have just perused the paper by Anderson etal. If this is supposed to be a science paper, then I would have rejected it without much difficulty. In addition, I would have sent a letter to the editor to stop wasting the time of referees (would have put it nicely), who have a lot of genuine research papers to read, apart from their own work as well refereeing etc. This paper is just a case of activism dressed up as science, and not even on its own "merit" of 'junk' science, but by citing the work of others. If this were not activism, I would have put it down to a reprehensible case of increasing research paper output. This incidence is actually much worse.
One can start saving CO2 by closing down all these fraudulent so called Climate Change institutes, as they are just a government front for giving government an ostensibly valid reason to tax us to death.The so called scientists are just activists who are desperate to stay employed.
Yes, I was more then a little disappointed to see that kind of paper published in a journal I used to have a high regard for. Sic transit… etc, I guess.