When passing through the kitchen this evening I heard the familiar tones of the BBC’s climate editor floating out of the radio. Naturally I stopped to listen, perhaps putting the odd bit of washing up away as I did so.

Once Rowlatt’s piece for the six o’clock news was finished, the next item…

…was another climate item.

So was the next item.

And the one after that.

In fact, the fifth item after I began listening was the first to be non-climate related; it was about Russia. Four climate stories back to back seemed overkill, even for the BBC. Later, I listened to the programme again, and offer a potted summary of the Climate News at Six below.

It turned out that the first item was in fact about Coutts and Farage. Together with the headlines, this took us to 18.02. Then:

First Climate Item

The government accused of a lackadaisical approach to climate change & increasingly seen as a laggard in tackling global warming. Criticism from 15 experts involved in COP26; their letter to Rishi; doubts about achieving the 1.5°C target; the news comes as extreme heatwaves, wildfires and floods effect millions of people across Europe, the US and Asia.

Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt reports; brings on Prof. Sir Bob Watson, who says we are on for 2.5°C.

Lord Stern says that at 2.5 and 3°C we are talking about hundreds of millions, possibly billions of people moving, southern Europe like the Sahara, much of Bangladesh, Florida and so on underwater; deplores the coal mine permission, the gas licenses, the lack of urgency on insulation.

Lord Deben urges the government to come clean – to stop saying they are leading when they aren’t; they can pull the position back before the general election; asks for a recommitment to Glasgow.

Spokesperson for DESNZ says UK is leading the way on Net Zero.

Second Climate Item

Norfolk Boreas cancelled; Vattenfall says it’s too expensive.

Environment Correspondent Jonah Fisher reports: the price of leccy generated by wind has fallen dramatically; now much cheaper than using fossil fuels like gas.

Boreas obtained a contract last year for up to 1.4 GW of electricity, =Manchester equivalent.

Claims costs have risen by 40% since: supplier cost, labour cost, cost of borrowing. [No mention that the contract obtained is index-linked.]

Third Climate Item

Dundee battery factory about to go bankrupt; asks for investment.

Fourth Climate Item

CO2 levels could be significantly lowered [sic] removing the equivalent of 8 million cars from the UK’s roads, if less meat was eaten. Oxford U survey of 55,000 people.

Science Correspondent Pallab Ghosh reports: those who eat >100 g of meat a day generate 10 kg/CO2/d, while those who eat 50 g of meat a day generate 5 kg/CO2/d. [See what they did there?]

Prof. Peter Scarborough: The study shows the benefits of big meat eaters cutting back.

Nick Allen, UK Meat Industry Assoc: Get off my lawn. [Note: this seems to be the first occasion that any contrary voice has been heard throughout the programme.]

Ghosh: Britain has some of the most sustainable meat production in the world, 100,000 jobs, etc; Gov’ts National Food Strategy says we all need to eat 30% less meat within ten years to meet our targets for reducing carbon emissions.

[18:09]

Jit: Get off my lawn, National Food Strategy. I’ve been a vegetarian for 30 years.

So there we have it: my summary of the BBC’s Climate News at Six. You may listen to it yourself here.

Featured image:

A tree, by the author.

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37 Comments

  1. Genuine question: I can’t understand the obsession about farm animals. Sure cows etc emit lots of CO2 and methane (which quickly (decades) oxidises to CO2 and water). But all that CO2 can only have come from carbohydrates in vegetation, which make them by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere – it’s a closed carbon cycle, as we learnt in school (if we weren’t away on climate strike). If all these animals vanished overnight, the vegetation would still be there and would eventually die, to be decomposed by fungi and bacteria, quite similar to those that live in the guts of ruminants, which produce CH4 and CO2.

    In other words, any increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from farm animals can (at worst) be only a second order effect. But nobody ever seems to make this point – what am I missing?

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Chris, you’re missing the fact that farm animals feed us; they are THE most efficient means of converting plant proteins and carbohydrates into highly nutritious and healthy animal proteins for human consumption. It’s not about ‘climate change,’ it’s about hunger games.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Another news item.

    2:58am

    Ultra-low emission zone policy lost Labour by-election, says winning Tory

    Labour lost the by-election in Uxbridge because of the controversial ULEZ policy in the capital, the winning Tory candidate has said.

    Speaking after the results of the election were declared, Steve Tuckwell said: “This message from the Uxbridge and South Ruislip residents is clear.

    “Sadiq Khan has lost Labour this election, and we know that it was his damaging and costly ULEZ policy which lost them this election.”

    ULEZ, or Ultra Low Emission Zone, is a scheme under which the most polluting vehicles are charged a fee for driving in certain areas of London.

    A recent expansion of the scheme into parts of outer London has faced widespread opposition.

    Maybe this points to the reason for all the earlier ones.

    Panic.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. I suppose once I’ve given the car up I wont be able to go to get my meat anyway so a win win for the alarmists!
    Although I could get it delivered by diesel van from the various people plying such offerings.

    Like

  5. The barrage (and it is a barrage of climate change propaganda at the moment reminds me all too forcefully of the barrage of propaganda around Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction. That took us to war on a false prospectus, when it turned out that they didn’t exist. Sound familiar?

    Liked by 1 person

  6. ‘Maybe this points to the reason for all the earlier ones.‘

    That’s a most interesting observation Richard. See my recent post on the ‘note to Bim’ thread.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Yes, thanks Robin. When I suggested ‘Panic’ as the reason for the BBC’s overkill yesterday (and more generally) I didn’t mean merely about the prospective ‘sore thumb’ of a result last night as the Tories otherwise got thrashed. But that this will surely add fuel to the fire of the internal Consevative debate, giving succour to those like Kemi who (I assume and hope) are arguing for a much stronger line against Net Zero generally. This the activists at the BBC wish to head off at the pass – through the normal manic misdirection. They want this ‘local issue’ of ULEZ in Uxbridge to be seen as such. But the temptation for Sunak to use this as a lever against Tory alarmists, leading to a real choice being given to ordinary voters, is something they really fear.

    It may take a couple of general elections to turn the Tories to something resembling common sense, with Badenoch taking over as the leader in opposition, but it can surely happen.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. There can be little doubt that the BBC is in full propaganda mode at the moment. When visiting its website this morning, the top story to greet me on its news page was this:

    “Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66229065

    Oh my word. Some new records must have been broken since last the BBC reported on all this. Nope. Not one. It’s simply a re-hash of the stories they’ve been churning out over the last few weeks.

    A series of climate records on temperature, ocean heat, and Antarctic sea ice have alarmed some scientists who say their speed and timing is “unprecedented”….

    As for the south European heatwave, the BBC’s dream of a new record still eludes them, but it doesn’t stop them hoping:

    Dangerous heatwaves in Europe could break further records, the UN says.

    Ah yes, the UN – those climate experts.

    And what’s the cause of all this climate chaos?

    It is hard to immediately link these events to climate change because weather – and oceans – are so complex.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Of course (and utterly predictably – what else does the Guardian exist for, these days?) the Guardian is at it too. They don’t even need record temperatures any more to insert the word “hottest” in their headlines:

    “Greece faces hottest July weekend in 50 years, forecaster says, as scores of wildfires rage”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/22/greece-faces-hottest-july-weekend-in-50-years-forecaster-says-as-scores-of-wildfires-rage

    Headlines now in advance of the event, based on a forecast (and we all know how unreliable they are).

    Liked by 1 person

  11. A small point but it might be a bit unfair if the BBC or the Guardian use quotations from elsewhere to push their climate catastrophism for the BBC or Guardian to be blamed for those quotations. I often see this being done here. Of course, if we discover quotations from other sources that can be used to counter those used by BBC/Guardian we can use those and criticise the biased selection of the BBC/Guardian. This, of course is much more difficult.

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  12. The thing is Alan, the Beeb and the Graun go out of their way to search for these quotations so they can report them to their readers as ‘science’ and ‘expert opinion’. It is also the case that these statements are often tailor-made for the Guardian or BBC, appearing in those publications first. Activist climate scientists often give ‘exclusive interviews’ to journalists at the BBC and Guardian. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

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  13. Mark, that BBC article is laughably poor. Even the consulted experts do not seem to know what they are talking about.

    The article states:

    The world experienced its hottest day ever recorded in July, breaking the global average temperature record set in 2016.

    Not much equivocation there. The climate reanalyser page has this disclaimer about the “record”:

    The mean global temperature increases in early July 2023, estimated from the Climate Forecast System, should NOT be taken as “official” observational records. It is important to note that much of the elevated global mean temperature signal was associated with weather patterns in the Southern Hemisphere that brought warmer-than-usual air over portions of the Antarctic.

    Says the article,

    This is exactly what was forecast to happen in a world warmed by more greenhouse gases, says climate scientist Dr Friederike Otto, from Imperial College London.

    “Humans are 100% behind the upward trend,” she says.

    Very scientific, Dr. O. There is no natural variability to speak of.

    Regarding the ocean heatwave,

    Directly attributing this heatwave to climate change is complex, but that work is ongoing, Prof Schmidt says.

    What is clear is that the world has warmed and the oceans have absorbed most of that heat from the atmosphere, she explains.

    “Our models have natural variability in them, and there are still things appearing that we had not envisaged, or at least not yet,” she adds.

    Right, so the oceans did not absorb sunlight, they absorbed energy from the atmosphere by conduction. Thanks Professor, we’ll take it from here. I’ll skip over her comments about the effect of the “marine heatwave” on the feeding requirements of animals, except to note that the “heatwave” must refer solely to the surface water only, because in summer the ocean will be stratified.

    Then we have the record lows in Antarctic Ice – well, record lows for the time of year, at any rate. Not much to panic about there.

    Overall, it seems like an effort to keep us afraid.

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  14. Alan, funny you should say that. Take this quote from the article:

    We can certainly expect more and more of these records to break as the year goes on and we enter 2024, scientists say.

    But it would be wrong to call what is happening a “climate collapse” or “runaway warming”, cautions Dr Otto.

    We are in a new era, but “we still have time to secure a liveable future for many”, she explains.

    Leave aside the risible “liveable future for many” – damning climate action with faint praise here – what about “wrong to call what is happening a “climate collapse”…”

    Why would even Dr. O say such a thing? I interpret this as the reporter asking her directly, “Dr. Otto, is this climate collapse?” In other words, as Jaime says, it seems that the reporters are mining the experts for injudicious alarmist comments.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Nevertheless Jaime the source of the quotations are not those of the BBC or Guardian, even if they have been solicited or specially selected as you assert.. If they have been selected this could be made apparent by seeking out the alternatives, if solicited one would require evidence for this assertion.

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  16. Jit,

    “What is clear is that the world has warmed and the oceans have absorbed most of that heat from the atmosphere, she explains.”

    Haha, well spotted. I doubt that Schmidt actually believes that or even said it because it’s so preposterous. The Beeb journalist probably misquoted her. Very sloppy journalism.

    Alan, the evidence can be found quite easily by using search engines. If you can’t find an earlier source for the quote which is not the Beeb or the Graun, then it is very likely that those media outlets were the original source of the quote, which implies that they interviewed the scientist concerned.

    Like

  17. JIT. In the case where the Guardian/BBC quote someone then the blame/credit is rightfully transferred to the scientist and the Guardian/BBC is correctly attributed as reporter. If you are arguing that they are behaving more than a reporter then some evidence for this is, I believe, required. All I am trying to say is that sometimes here we fail to give this evidence.

    If anything I believe the Guardian, in particular, is showing even more climate bias in recent months. Nevertheless I continue purchasing it, because in other areas it’s biases are similar to mine and in some areas (television criticism for example) I consider it without parallel. On matters climatique I read with despair or skip.

    Like

  18. Alan, the Guardian is certainly not blameless and in fact, they almost certainly colluded with activist scientists in order to get a paper retracted which questioned the scientific validity of a ‘climate crisis’ (popularised by the Guardian in 2019 as part of a change in their editorial ‘style guide’). Here is an email sent to the authors of that study, by the publisher, Springer:

    Dear Prof. Alimoti,

    “We are contacting you today regarding your article

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-02243-9

    A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming

    in our journal EPJ Plus, and where you are the corresponding author.

    We are sure you and your co-authors are already aware of the public dispute this has generated,

    see e.g.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/22/sky-and-the-australian-find-no-evidence-of-a-climate-emergency-they-werent-looking-hard-enough

    https://phys.org/news/2022-09-scientists-urge-publisher-faulty-climate.html

    Included in these reports are numerous concerns of scientists who are considered highly expert in this subject.”

    The Guardian article was published a week before phys.org. The Guardian either actively solicited these concerns of ‘experts’ (Michael Mann being one of them) or they were offered via its Temperature Check column (a climate ‘fact checking’ service for readers). Either way, there is clear evidence of collusion between scientists and the Guardian to get an inconvenient study censored.

    https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/think-of-the-implications-of-publishing

    They are not just innocently quoting scientists, they are engaged in a ruthless intellectual marketing campaign, aided and abetted by those scientists.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. I said this yesterday morning:

    When I suggested ‘Panic’ as the reason for the BBC’s overkill yesterday (and more generally) I didn’t mean merely about the prospective ‘sore thumb’ of a result last night as the Tories otherwise got thrashed. But that this will surely add fuel to the fire of the internal Consevative debate, giving succour to those like Kemi who (I assume and hope) are arguing for a much stronger line against Net Zero generally. This the activists at the BBC wish to head off at the pass – through the normal manic misdirection. They want this ‘local issue’ of ULEZ in Uxbridge to be seen as such. But the temptation for Sunak to use this as a lever against Tory alarmists, leading to a real choice being given to ordinary voters, is something they really fear.

    On that internal debate here’s the Telegraph last night:

    Cabinet members urge Rishi Sunak to abandon eco policies

    Tories defy expectations to hold Boris Johnson’s former Uxbridge seat amid row over Ulez expansion

    Rishi Sunak should consider abandoning key net zero pledges in the wake of the Tories’ shock Uxbridge by-election win, Cabinet ministers have said.

    Senior Conservatives want the Prime Minister to better protect households from the cost of phasing out new gas boilers by 2035 and delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol cars by 2030.

    The Tories defied expectations to hold Boris Johnson’s former Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat amid a row over Sadiq Khan’s expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez).

    Ministers looking for a path to Tory victory at the general election next year are now examining other green “wedge issues” to peel voters away from Labour.

    On Friday, the Labour leadership were forced to distance themselves from Ulez, a flagship policy of the capital’s Labour mayor, after admitting that the voter backlash appeared to hand the Conservatives victory in Uxbridge.

    Tory critics of the speed at which the Government is encouraging the transition to make the UK a net zero carbon emitter by 2050 said on Friday that policies such as encouraging the use of heat pumps needed to be rethought.

    The Telegraph can reveal that concerns are shared around the Cabinet table, with ministers considering making green policies dividing lines against Labour at the election.

    Senior government figures believe a pragmatic approach that sees families protected financially over net zero as much as possible could be a vote-winner compared to Labour’s more ideological position.

    One Cabinet minister told The Telegraph: “It is about pace and practicality. This isn’t the area for pure ideology, it is an area for balance. I don’t deny the need for net zero, but making that the biggest priority means you end up as a green no growth group.”

    A second said that Ulez, which levies a £12.50 daily charge on polluting cars entering London, was “hated” and “very strongly” opposed among Uxbridge voters, adding: “There probably is a broader lesson that the Conservatives should stand for sensible approaches to net zero.”

    Despite the upbeat public message from senior Tories after the surprise Uxbridge win, there was private acknowledgement from many that the results in the two other by-elections were dire.

    The Times meanwhile quotes GWPF stalwart David Frost:

    Sunak faced calls from the right of his party to respond to the by-elections by moving away from green policies.

    The former Brexit secretary Lord Frost said Uxbridge showed “just how unpopular . . . net-zero policies can be”, adding that to win the next election Sunak should “junk” them.

    and has some interesting material on Labour’s reaction to boot: Sadiq Khan must ‘reflect’ on Ulez, Starmer says after Uxbridge loss.

    (All links via archive.today so you don’t need a subscription to read.)

    This for me explains the BBC panic in its ‘effort to keep us afraid’ as Jit puts it. A real choice at the next general election on Net Zero (and transgenderism, come to that) is what makes them afraid.

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  22. Richard,

    One Cabinet minister told The Telegraph: “It is about pace and practicality. This isn’t the area for pure ideology, it is an area for balance. I don’t deny the need for net zero, but making that the biggest priority means you end up as a green no growth group.”

    Net Zero IS pure ideology. Reduction of CO2 emissions MIGHT not be, but the UK has already done more than its fair share as regards that, so it could be reasonably argued that we should maintain the current status quo until (if ever) other major polluting nations catch up. But whatever the case, Net Zero 2050, an ideological/political fantasy written into law by Theresa May, needs to be scrapped because the ‘pace’ is explicitly dictated to by that deeply flawed legislation and ‘practicality’ barely gets a look in.

    Liked by 1 person

  23. It’s interesting: my ‘note to Bim’ which he received a day before the by-election results were published and all the above comments were made was I suppose quite prescient. But, as it turns out, probably redundant.

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  25. Agree with Mark there. Actually we’ll never know which domino knocked which other one over.

    Jaime: “Net Zero IS pure ideology.”

    Let me explain exactly how two-faced I am. Here on Cliscep I would (and do) loudly agree with you on that.

    But if I was sitting around that cabinet table I would bang the table and say “Hear, hear” to Kemi Badenoch or whoever else said that inaccurate thing. She (or possible he) was saying it’s time to back off the ideology. Which actually means the end of Net Zero, because what you say is right. But some constructive ambiguity (with allied hypocrisy) is the stuff of real political change.

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  26. I get your point Richard but I could be very argumentative here and say that “constructive ambiguity” (and hypocrisy) is the stuff of the old politics, which we desperately need to reject if we are going to seriously address the current demise of our democracies.

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  27. If she wasn’t being argumentative I would think that Jaime Jessop had become a victim of identity theft 😉

    Look at two idealistic things the UK has done politically: abolishing slavery (and the slave trade) and fighting on against Hitler rather than suing for peace after Dunkirk. There were massive compromises involved. The reparations paid not to the poor slaves but their owners. Forming an alliance with Stalin leading to the dreadful deal at Yalta.

    I look at history and expect more of the same. The world is better after we made these great decisions. Yet compromises aka dirty deals were also present. So it is, for example, with crony capitalists on the Tory side at the moment. How are they going to be paid off? The Reclaim or Reform parties may have little say in the matter. Bridgen’s courage may never mean another stint in the Commons.

    On my domino theory, though, I thought it would be interesting to see who the first Cliscep commenter to mention ULEZ was. It was Stewgreen of course, in Nov 2021

    “Furious South London couple
    ‘have to pay £12.50 every time they turn left out their driveway’
    after ULEZ expansion ”
    https://twitter.com/i/events/1462761536141811722

    But I never clicked on the link Stew provided. Here are the first two tweets still associated with the Twitter ‘event’ concerned.

    And I know that road in Eltham so well! Thanks Stew.

    Liked by 1 person

  28. The latest from the BBC, four hours ago as I type: Uxbridge: Keir Starmer says Labour must learn lessons of by-election defeat. More balanced than prior to the by-election, which isn’t saying much!

    First, on the Labour side:

    The Labour leader had blamed the loss on London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plans to expand the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) – a tax on polluting vehicles.
    …
    Addressing Labour’s national forum, Sir Keir said there was “something very wrong” when a Labour policy was on “each and every Tory leaflet”.
    …
    Sir Keir said that while the by-election win in North Yorkshire should give Labour “every reason to be confident”, the loss in Uxbridge showed there was “still a long way to go”.
    …
    Sir Keir told the BBC the Ulez plan had cost Labour victory – but Mr Khan has defended the measure as the “right one”.

    Speaking during a visit to Shefford in Nadine Dorries’ constituency of Mid Bedfordshire, the Labour leader told journalists: “I don’t think there is any doubt that Ulez was the reason that we lost the election in Uxbridge.”

    Sir Keir said he had spoken to the London mayor, adding: “But we’re not sitting back, we’re not looking over our shoulder. We’re pressing forward.”

    Sources close to Mr Khan told the BBC he was in “constructive listening mode” but added that he had no plans to delay the scheme’s expansion at the end of August.

    Asked whether Labour needs to rethink its climate polices, Sir Keir said: “When it comes to green commitments, it’s not a question of whether they should be done, of course it needs to be done – it’s how they’re done.

    “So there’s a discussion to be had about that.”
    …
    On Friday, Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said the Uxbridge result showed that “when you don’t listen to voters, you don’t win elections”.

    Cities need clean air, she said, but she warned that people who needed new vehicles must get “proper compensation and support” so that the policy does not come “at the cost of working families”.

    Some wriggle room there but, as Robin has said on the other Cliscep thread currently discussing post-Uxbridge reality, Sir Keir is surely going to find it harder to make changes than Sunak, because of the Labour activist base. So, onto the Tory side:

    Mr Tuckwell, the winning candidate in Uxbridge, said the “damaging and costly Ulez policy” had cost Labour the chance of winning the seat.
    …
    Some on the right of the Conservative party say that pulling back from some green policies would prove popular with voters, at a time when families are feeling cost-of-living pressures.

    Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, has suggested delaying the ban on new diesel and petrol cars, pushing it back “at least” five years to 2035.

    Downing Street sources say there are no plans to change climate targets – but that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will try to set his party apart from Labour in the coming months.

    As the major parties digest the by-election results, ex-climate minister Lord Ian Duncan, a Conservative, warned that if Sir Keir and Rishi Sunak do not put politics aside and agree a common approach to climate change, people will face “serious challenges”.

    Lord Duncan, who was the parliamentary under secretary for climate change from July 2019 to February 2020, said a “bipartisan approach” was needed from both parties to “get behind” common climate policies.

    The UK government’s net zero tsar, Chris Skidmore, said it would be an “abdication” of responsibility if ministers “play politics” with environmental policies.

    Mr Skidmore, the Conservative MP for Kingswood, said: “The net zero review I chaired demonstrated that net zero isn’t just an environmental policy, but a key economic driver of future growth and investment that can transform Britain for the better, but this requires all political parties not to play politics with safeguarding our futures.”

    He urged politicians to prioritise “the lives and health of the public and the opportunity for economic growth” ahead of “gamesmanship”.

    “It is also really bad politics, given that the environment and taking action on climate change consistently polls third in the issues that voters care about,” he added.

    So, Craig Mackinlay is the only Tory actually proposing a policy change – that the BBC is reporting, anyway. Small beer? Maybe, but a tiny snowball can become an avalanche in the right conditions. Chris Skidmore’s take is highly predictable. And Ian Duncan’s contribution is rather intriguing. ‘People will face “serious challenges”‘ is exactly right, unless policies are changed. But is the necessary change going to come from Sunak and Starmer finding common ground? With an election coming up? I think we can file that too in needless waffle in support of Net Zero Inc.

    The most important bit being “Downing Street sources say there are no plans to change climate targets – but that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will try to set his party apart from Labour in the coming months.” I take ‘no plans to change climate targets’ to mean no repeal of the Climate Change Act (sorry Jaime). But there are surely lots of potential watering downs that are possible.

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  29. And this I find striking from the BBC too. The lead story around 23:25pm is Greece fires: Thousands flee homes and hotels on Rhodes as fires spread. I have no objection to that – it sounds nasty. But in the report there is no mention of climate change at all, let alone Otto-attribution and the rest. Am I reading too much into that fact? Or is the BBC now on notice not to show imbalance in a matter of crucial political debate? Wouldn’t that be nice.

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  30. Richard,

    Interesting analysis – thanks.

    I think this is going to come down to whose beliefs are correct, and where the political leaders land with regard to that calculation. Many true believers have convinced themselves that net zero is popular. We here have convinced ourselves that it isn’t, or at least that it won’t be when it butts up against hard financial and lifestyle realities. I still think that we’re right, and that Uxbridge shows that. The political elites still suspect that they’re right, but Uxbridge has shaken their faith badly.

    If either of the main party leaders calculates that net zero is a vote loser, rather than a vote winner, then the stampede away from it (covered of course by lots of disingenuous language to blur the issue) could become a reality. But it does first need one of them to make that calculation. Keir Starmer seems to be desperate to do nothing to jeopardise his chances at the next election, an election which he isn’t taking for granted. Sunak isn’t stupid. He knows he’s facing electoral annihilation, but also that Uxbridge might just have shown him the way to avoid that.

    There’s going to be a lot of thinking – and a lot of lobbying – going on over the next days and weeks.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. The BBC’s summary of today’s papers makes for interesting reading.

    The Sunday Telegraph welcomes a warning by Housing Secretary Michael Gove of a possible voter backlash unless some net zero measures are relaxed.

    The paper’s leader suggests opposition to a larger Ultra-Low Emission Zone (Ulez) in London, which is blamed for Labour’s defeat in the Uxbridge by-election, is in its words the “tip of the iceberg”. The Telegraph recommends holding a referendum on the goal of reaching net zero by 2050.

    And

    Allies of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tell the Sunday Times that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has promised to review his expansion of the Ulez zone.

    But the Observer’s editorial warns against what it calls weaponising green policies for political gain. It says the climate emergency, obvious in this summer of “freak heatwaves”, cries out for a non-partisan approach.

    Here, may be a time-sensitive link.

    One might presume that when cracks have appeared, they will only ever widen. I would call this hopeful news, and I’m a rational pessimist on this topic.

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  32. Here, may be a time-sensitive link.

    It isn’t. The BBC is pretty good at avoiding Bit Rot. Not perfect but better than most.

    I would call this hopeful news…

    Yep, really quite an advance.

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  33. I am becoming more and more worried as information is relayed to the public about current heatwaves and wildfIres and their supposed links to climate change (or as it is more often termed the climate crisis). Everyone seems to adding their belief that the climate crisis is to blame and that there can be no other explanation. This morning I find that even Dragon’s Den’s Deborah Meadon is offering her two-penneth. I judge that forces of climate reason have lost ground significantly.

    On the other hand my “she who must be listened to” seems to be even more critical of those attributing the wildfires to climate. This I take to be an encouraging sign. If she is more critical then perhaps other neutrals will also be. She quotes the Guardian (of all possible sources) reporting that “fires occur every year in Greece” but this year funding of fire-fighting has been suppressed.

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  34. Blaming climate change is easy, and it’s politically useful for a range of reasons, including for Greek PMs who seem to have adopted a habit of doing it. Unfortunately most of our media are seemingly unaware that blaming climate change might just be a good way to deflect attention away from the failure of domestic policies – e.g. funding for the fire service, or refusing to permit controlled burns, or permitting development in at-risk areas, etc.

    As to the dragon, I doubt whether she has investigated the topic in detail. Lots of folk just pick up an opinion and run with it without thinking, and this seems particularly prevalent re: the imminent End of Everything via climate “collapse.”

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  35. Oh I agree JIT but this doesn’t lessen the worry I have that we “deniers” are significantly loosing ground this week. Couple this with your finding of hints that conveyers of “misinformation” may be dealt with and the bleakness grows.

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  36. I don’t think we’re losing ground. I think the sudden, maybe fleeting, threat that the Tories might actually do something sensible about the net zero ‘religious crusade’, as Michael Gove put it, has made us aware of people who were alarmist already. Two other female examples, on top of business entrepreneur Meadon, come from gender critical journalism and fundamental physics.

    Suzanne Moore has been a stalwart ally of those of us trying to noppose transactivist madness in the last few years. Chucked out of the Guardian for services to sanity, here’s her latest in the Telegraph: The world is burning – stop pretending everything is fine. Well, one can’t have everything.

    Even sadder, for me is Sabine:

    Well that’s ok but the next two go like this:

    Anyway. I don’t think these three intelligent ladies have changed their minds recently.

    Thanks to Ian Woolley for those two examples, last night and this morning.

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