From our Reporter at the Parish Council Meeting
It was very much business as usual with nothing excitingly new on the agenda.
Cuts are to be made on the ECDC budget but there is also a shaft of light with
the introduction of a "small village fund" . From this Reach is to
receive £10,000 for a community tennis court. We also learned that Peter Hart,
our footpath representative, is now officially a P3 (P3? What's this? Eds)
Man. He appeared to be rather pleased with this. We are losing our red
telephone box but you would not have known this if you hadn't read the
notice posted in the box. The PC was a bit miffed it hadn't been officially
informed. We are going to spend a sizeable chunk of money on Dog Poo Bins and
the PC certainly threw itself into this. David Almond has located all the
"hot spots" . I don't know if he is discussing these with others
because as we know men could well have different hot spots. Maybe women should
be asked about their hot spots. A bit of tweaking may be required. Before any
money is spent the PC wants it confirmed that it will not be the responsibility
of PC members to empty the bins.A lot more was going on and at times the PC
appeared to be overwhelmed by its own exuberance. "Skittish" is
possibly the best description. Karen, the Clerk, was very much in the role of
One Man and His Dog, but without any dog to help. As soon as she quietened them
down to some sort of order off they went again like new born lambs bouncing all
over the hillside. Ooo, they did make her cross.
Now to turn to a more serious matter. In December ECDC sent a letter dated the 15th to the PC. This suggested that we should find some land, plan to plant some trees and the "Woodland would then be created by selling ... carbon credits to local businesses and individuals." This is right at the bottom of the 'Cap and Trade' programme e.g. Carbon Trading. If the word "Trading" does not send out a warning it certainly should do after the recent banking fiascos. Who is going to make really big money out of carbon trading? The traders and bankers of course. Since 2005 there have been more than $300 billion carbon transactions. And it has only just started. But let's go back a bit.In Autumn 2007 Al Gore was one of the joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change." His contribution was his film An inconvenient Truth (2006). It raced up the charts and the book became a best seller. Our good friend David Milliband announced that the education ministry would be sending DVDs of the film to every secondary school in Britain. In an appeal against this decision the judgement was that Gore had been guilty of nine exaggerations and scientific errors so serious that it could only be distributed with a health warning.
But his film is still accepted as the truth because Gore knows that a good
picture is worth a thousand words. And the film has many outstanding pictures.
One example will show how Gore unscrupulously latches onto a good picture. We
are all familiar with his later famous "drowning polar bears" and
the widely publicised photograph showing two polar bears standing apparently
forlornly on what looked like the fast melting remains of an iceberg. Al Gore
has been living on this amazing image during his lectures ($100,000 or more a
time). NOW FOR THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS PHOTOGRAPH.It was taken in August 2004 just
off the Alaskan coast by Amanda Byrd, a graduate student in marine biology. The
bears were so near to land they were in no danger. Amanda has explained that
she filmed them - not because of global warming or even for the bears
themselves - but simply because the "wind-sculpted ice" had made
such a memorable image. It was such a great picture that it was syndicated on 2
February 2007. Al Gore immediately latched on to it and it became am iconic
image for man made global warming. Nearly everyone has that image implanted in
their minds. This is not science!Let's return to Carbon Trading. Who
benefits? Al Gore for one. He is chairman of GIM (London and New York), a
private investment company, specialising in all forms of "sustainability
development" . But he's not the only one. By now most of the major oil
companies are investing in "renewables" because it makes good
money. Who can blame them - they are in business. Mind you it didn't help
Lehmann Brothers which, being advised by Al Gore, invested billions of dollars
in a bid to become a global leader in the international market in 'carbon
credits' - a market forecast to be worth trillions of pounds. This
wasn't the main cause of the bank's collapse, but, as Al Gore would
say, "it didn't help any" . Meanwhile NHS hospitals have to
spend money on buying carbon credits, while giant oil and energy firms have had
a bonanza in selling them. The electricity generating companies outdo the lot
of them. In 2007 the windfall profits for them across the EU as a whole are
estimated at £13.6 billion a year. That's why banks need the very best
people. That's why fabulous bonuses need to be paid. The question is what
do ordinary people get out of this.
Now let's return to the local offer to make a couple of shillings if we plant a few trees locally. This is happening throughout the world but without any clear policy or control to decide whether the "credits" are justified or not. A newly planted Brazilian "forest" could be sold more than once to several customers. It could thenbe cut down and a claim made for some new planting.
I agree there is climate change (as there has always been), I agree we mustrecycle, we must avoid landfill, we must change our energy consumption habits, wemust be sensitive to the environment. But there is no agreed scientific evidence thatclimate change is man-made or that "we can control climate change" . How arrogantman has become. By focussing on this simplistic answer the world will suffer fromthe misdirection of funds, effort and research. But the energy companies will growricher and the bankers will have a field day.
My main source is Christopher Booker's The Real Global Warming Disaster(2009). If anyone has an interest or concern, whatever the views, this book should be required reading. But that's enough for one month.