Sandbrook Lecture (Jonathon Porritt)

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« Ashden Awards | Main | Looking back on nine years at the SDC »

Sandbrook Lecture

I’ve just finished reading Oxfam’s new report on climate change and poverty, Suffering the Science, prepared especially for the G8 meeting now underway in Italy. Gloomy, but hugely powerful stuff:

"Climate change's most savage impact on humanity in the near future is likely to be in the increase in hunger. The countries with existing problems in feeding their people are those most at risk from climate change. Millions of farmers will have to give up traditional crops as they experience changes in the seasons that they and their ancestors have depended on. Climate-related hunger may become the defining human tragedy of this century."

It's not all doom and gloom. The Report replays a lot of Oxfam’s excellent proposals on sustainable agriculture, with a new emphasis on adaptation to climate change. There's just so much that could be happening right now.

Coming hot on the heels of the equally impactful report from the Global Humanitarian Forum, The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the development/poverty/equity end of the spectrum of NGOs involved in this area is playing a massive part in civil society’s efforts to spur politicians on.

And that brought to mind, yet again, my old friend Richard Sandbrook – a former Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, and Trustee of both Forum for the Future and The Eden Project for many years before his untimely death. He’s been in my thoughts a lot lately (having just given the second Richard Sandbrook Memorial Lecture a couple of weeks ago), wondering how he would be responding to the growing levels of activity in the run up to the Copenhagen Conference.

Although Richard was himself an NGO-man through and through, he spent a disproportionate amount of time giving them a very hard time for their negativity, territoriality and all-round lack of creativity in bringing forward new ideas to accelerate the solutions agenda – particularly as regards their inability to work properly with business.

Most NGOs took it all in good heart ("don’t worry, it’s just Richard off on another bout of NGO-bashing"), but others used to get quite grumpy about it, even accusing him of having ‘sold out’ to big corporates like Rio Tinto, big forestry companies and so on.

Forum for the Future gets more than its fair share of the 'selling out' critique, and we just put up with that as part and parcel of operating in this high risk area. But we too were a bit mystified at Richard’s anti NGO tirades.

And I wonder if he would still be taking that line today? So many NGOs now work in one way or another with the private sector, including quite radical NGOs like the Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade. Even Oxfam is deepening its relationship with some of the biggest companies in the world.

And on a macro-scale, in terms of the balance between government, business and civil society, as agents of change in their respective spheres, I would also argue that the continuing failure of governments to drive a completely different model of wealth creation leaves even the most progressive companies struggling to do much more than mitigating the worst effects of business-as-usual economic growth. Which means, logically, that the onus is even more on NGOs (as embodiments of civil society) to make it possible for governments to do what they are absolutely going to have to do – sooner or later.

So I ended up using my Memorial Lecture to suggest that Richard's deep frustration with NGOs might, by now, have moved into a rather different place. But it would, no doubt, have been equally challenging!

Posted by JP on July 8, 2009 5:08 PM | Permalink

Comments (8)

Ah yes, “Suffering the Science: Climate change, people, and poverty” by Alex Renton. Am I correct in thinking that this is the same Alex Renton who:
- was arts editor, features editor and chief feature writer for the London Evening Standard back in 2001,
- lost in a Press Complaints Commission investigation after lying his way into Salusbury Primary School, London NW6
- then went to work for Oxfam in southeast Asia,
- earns his living writing books and news articles as a freelance, e.g. for the Times and Observer newspapers (Note 5),
- is keen to see significant world-wide expansion of (perhaps even universal) male circumcision.

I see lots of articles by Alex Renton are available for purchase (Note 1 at £12 per article). Scare-mongering news sells so well, doesn’t it! Alex Renton comes across as claiming to know lots and lots about food, wine, sex in Thailand, fish in the oceans. etc. etc. etc. but can he be depended on to make a knowledgeable, honest and non-partisan presentation of the facts? There may be some who would argue to the contrary.

So, with all of this apparent knowledge over such a wide range of subjects, what are his credentials with respect to climate science? I can find no record of any worthwhile science qualification. I can find no record of any peer-reviewed scientific publications. He appears to have no substantial scientific qualifications whatever, just like Jonathan. Can we trust what he, other journalists and politicians say about climate change? According to Ray Dickenson’s “Perceptions” web-site (Note 3), a survey in May found that these are the two most despised professions.

I suggest that linking the actual global food shortages with the hypothesised global climate change (and with the use of fossil fuels0 has little if any scientific validity. This link is made not for scientific reasons but for reasons of other vested interests.

What is the truth about the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis and the computer models which are based upon it? The truth is that they both remain to be validated. Supporters of the hypothesis defend their position with anything they can turn to, including insults and vilification, but, as A Schopenhauer (1788-1860) said "Truth will first be ridiculed, then violently opposed, and finally accepted as self-evident". The truth about the hypothesis is that it is reaching the stage where it is becoming more and more self-evident.

NOTEs:
1) see http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/list.php?author=12
2) see http://www.pcc.org.uk/cases/adjudicated.html?article=MjAzNw==
3) see http://www.perceptions.couk.com/mediauk.html
4) http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article3856580.ece
5) http://www.journalisted.com/alex-renton

Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global climate change agnostic

Posted by Pete Ridley | July 10, 2009 3:39 PM

Well said Pete. The climate change scam is rapidly coming to an end as it is evident to all to see that the world is cooling, even as CO2 continues to increase. A food shortage is most likely to be caused by reduced temperatures and because of all the global warming nonsense, nobody is preparing for it. We'd better keep on pumping out CO2, because plants will survive the cold better.

Posted by Phillip Bratby | July 12, 2009 4:55 PM

Dear readers, as I commented on Jonathan’s “Ashden Awards” blog, I’d like to remind you of the nonsense in the Times on 30th April at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6196286.ece and the consequences of this nonsense in today’s (11th July) Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6684912.ece. If this nonsense continues then intensifies as a result of Copenhagen in December we will all be in for a terrible economic reckoning thereafter. This economic downturn will pale into insignificance by comparison, with most of us suffering the consequences. That is, of course, excepting the few like the politicians, the Al Gores, the heads of quangos and NGOs, these “special cases” who’ll continue their privileged lifestyles as before.

Now, back to the main topic of this blog, the suffering underprivileged, the hungry, the dying millions world-wide. As is to be expected from dedicated environmentalists like Jonathan, there has to be a link with the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis.

The cover of “The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis” has a picture of “Elderly woman looking after her cow on top of a large dyke.’ Sea-level rise and changing monsoon patterns have changed the landscape where she grew up. District of Satkhira, ‘Bangladesh: ”. This is the usual ploy when startingoff a propaganda bulletin. Slap a picture of something frightening up front, like the Thames flooding to a level that submerges the Houses of Parliament, or the centre of New Orleans under water. That gets people worried immediately.

The report starts with an introduction by past General Secretary of the UN??????????? and now Global Humanitarian Forum President Kofi Annan saying “This report tries to document the impact of climate change on human life globally. Science is only beginning to address the human impact of climate change. However, dozens of research organizations and experts contributing to this report can agree on the widespread damage it causes. We feel it is the most plausible account of the current impact of climate change today”. No argument with that.

Annan goes on to say “Polls already show that people worldwide are concerned about climate change. Communities on the climate frontlines already see and feel the change. .. Australia is witnessing a full decade of drought. Large tracts of the United States are exposed to stronger storms and severe water shortages — leading to crop loss, job loss, fires, and death”. No agreement here, because, as the supporters of the hypothesis insist on reminding us, climate has to be assessed over decades, not a few years, to determine climate trends. The problems experienced in Australia and the US are as a result of weather events, not climate change.

He goes on to point out how the world’s poorest are hit worst by the ravages of climate change and the world’s wealthy are not doing enough to help . All highly plausible and unjust, but unfortunately he spoils his message by throwing in “The effects of pollution driven by economic growth in some parts of the world are now driving millions of people into poverty elsewhere”, the implication being that climate change is caused by the world’s wealthy nations. There is no worthwhile evidence to support such a suggestion.

Annan then gets around to what he’s really promoting, Copenhagen 2009 and international climate agreements to control global warming through reducing our CO2 emissions by reducing our of fossil fuels. “If we do not reverse current trends by close to 2020, however, we may have failed. Global warming will pass the widely acknowledged danger level of two degrees, since there is an approximately 20 year delay between emission reductions and the halting of their warming effect.
This report clearly demonstrates that climate change is already highly dangerous at well below one degree of warming. Two degrees would be catastrophic.”

Kofi Annan has no significant qualifications in physical sciences, having trained as an economist then worked for the UN for most of his carrer. For him, climate science is all settled. There is no argument, all of those climate science IFs, MIGHTs, MAYBEs and COULDs have gone. There is no more scientific uncertainty:
- our use of fossil fuels IS causing significant global warming,
- warming WILL pass 2 degrees (centigrade?),
- we are all doomed unless we decimate our use of fossil fuels.

I have news for Mr Annan. Even the climate scientist who support the hypothesis acknowledge that there are still many uncertainties in climate science and climate processes and driver are very poorly understood. That is why billions are still being spent on climate science research. There is no justification whatsoever for curtailing our clean use of fossil fuels, restricting the growth of global economies and subjecting deprived people in underdeveloped nations around the world to further deprivation. Any climate changes that are occurring are almost certainly natural and what we have to do is adapt, as humans always have done. There is no point in wasting valuable resources in trying to control global climates. We cannot control nature. Use those resources to mitigate against what nature intends to throw at us.

Places like Satkhira have always been vulnerable to flooding. Satkhira is near the Mouth of the Ganges, where ground level is close to sea level, it very flat and every year during the monsoons rainwater pours along the 2500km length of the Ganges on its way to the sea, hence the dykes. All that can be done for places like Satkhira is to improve defences against flooding. The developed world has vast experience of this, The Netherlands being a prime example (60% is below mean sea level). Food shortages in Africa mainly arise from inadequate irrigation and unsustainable farming methods. As was said at the G8 in Italy, Africa has enough arable land to feed its entire population, if only politicians (including Africa’s own) had the motivation to make it happen. Crops go to waste in the field because there is inadequate infrastructure for proper distribution. But politicians have one driving interest, self interest.

Anyone wishing to better understand the arguments of sceptical scientists should take a look at The Great Global Warming Swindle (Note 1) which helps to balance the debate. Another article worth reading is “Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About 'Global Governance'” (Note 2). It’s the “global governance” bit that I find most frightening – far more than any imagined threat forecast by those un-validated computer models derived from the flawed “human-made global climate change change” hypothesis.

Notes:
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMA6sszChwQ
2) http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1893/Gore-US-Climate-Bill-Will-Help-Bring-About-Global-Governance

Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made global climate change agnostic

PS: I hope no-one thinks that I’m unsympathetic towards any human anywhere on this globe who is affected in any way by serious deprivation that is not self-imposed. My entire argument really is about rejecting the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis and putting all of those valuable resources that are being wasted in the name of the hypothesis into doing what is really needed. That is to remove as much as possible of such deprivation by helping those affected to help themselves towards a better way of life through sustainable adaptation. That includes them using whatever non-polluting fuels (fossil or otherwise) that they can afford in order to develop their economies and improve their existence.

Posted by Pete Ridley | July 13, 2009 8:01 PM

Jonathan, do you ever read the comment this blog you attract?

If not, I don't blame you. If so, perhaps consider moderating them (i.e removing the inevitable wittering from this Ridley fellow)?

(here we go "blah blah censorship. blah blah green fascism blah blah blah").

Posted by MKP | July 14, 2009 12:25 PM

Dear readers, a subscriber to Australian Senator Steve Fielding’s blog (Note 1) brought to my attention a topic that I had not come across, Global Governance. This sounded ominous (“Big Brother” big time) so I looked further. I discovered a UN supported organisation, the Commission on Global Governance produced a report in 1995 (Note 2) QUOTE: The Commission on Global Governance has released its recommendations in preparation for a World Conference on Global Governance, scheduled for 1998, at which official world governance treaties are expected to be adopted for implementation by the year 2000. Among those recommendations are specific proposals to expand the authority of the United Nations to provide:
 Global taxation;
 A standing UN army;
 An Economic Security Council;
 UN authority over the global commons;
 An end to the veto power of permanent members of the Security Council;
 A new parliamentary body of "civil society" representatives (NGOs);
 A new "Petitions Council";
 A new Court of Criminal Justice; (Accomplished in July, 1998 in Rome)
 Binding verdicts of the International Court of Justice;
 Expanded authority for the Secretary General.
UNQUOTE

Interesting comments appear in “Global Governance: Why? How? When?” (Note 3) in which the names of many supporters of the “Significant Human-made Global Climate Change” hypothesis keep cropping up, including pseudo-environmentalist politicians Al Gore, Maurice Strong, Robert Mueller and James Lovelock - the “Gaia” hypothesist - (Note 7).

No doubt the global economic crisis has put things on hold for a while, but watch out. If you want something to really panic about, forget the “significant human-made global climate change” propaganda and look at the plans for Global Governance (and the individuals who are involved).

The UN is driving the Global Governance movement, just as it is driving the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis. I’ve looked further into the background and current activities (they’re still pushing it along Note 11) of our friends Gore, Strong, Mueller and associates like Timothy Wirth, Richard Benedick, George Soros and it’s frightening.

In 2007 Zbigniew Jaworowski said (Note 8) QUOTE: The concern at the top about “climate change” is not genuine and there are hidden motives behind the global warming hysteria. ..

Maurice Strong, who dropped out of school at age 14, established an esoteric global headquarters for
the New Age movement in San Luis Valley, Colorado, and helped produce the 1987 Brundtland Report, which ignited today’s Green movement. He later become senior advisor to Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, and chaired the gigantic (40,000 participants) “UN Conference on Environment and Development” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Strong, who was responsible for putting together then Kyoto Protocol with thousands of bureaucrats, diplomats, and politicians, stated: “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.” Strong elaborated on the idea of sustainable development, which, he said, can be implemented by deliberate "quest of poverty . . . reduced resource consumption. . . and set levels of mortality control”.

Timothy Wirth, U.S. Undersecretary of State Global Issues, seconded Strong’s statement: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy”

Richard Benedick, a deputy assistant secretary of state who headed policy divisions of the U.S. State Department, stated: “A global warming treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect.” UNQUOTE

As expected, Jaworowski was ridiculed by the supporters of the hypothesis, accused of being just another “conspiracy theorist”.

(Note 9) QUOTE: In 1991, Strong wrote the introduction to a book published by the Trilateral Commission, called Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology, by Jim MacNeil. (David Rockefeller wrote the foreword). Strong said this:

“This interlocking…is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international. By the year 2012, these changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political life.”

These chilling words are in line with ones he used for the opening session of the Rio Conference (Earth Summit II) in 1992, that industrialized countries have:

“Developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class—involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing—are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns.”

The only change that has happened since 1992 is that Strong and Soros now have their Agent of Change coming to the White House. UNQUOTE

I could go on and on and on, but it’s too frightening for the gullible. Global Governance (actually Global Dominance) is far far more dangerous and frightening than anything the scare-mongers tell us about climate change and much more likely to happen.

Supporters of the hypothesis defend their position with anything they can turn to, including insults and vilification, but, as A Schopenhauer (1788-1860) said "Truth will first be ridiculed, then violently opposed, and finally accepted as self-evident". The truth about the hypothesis is that it is reaching the stage where it is becoming more and more self-evident.

Returning to the “Significant Human-made Global Climate Change” hypothesis, Timothy Wirth is reported (Note 10) to have commented recently about the US “cap-and-trade” climate change bill which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on June 26. QUOTE: And there’s nothing in the bill promoting the use of natural gas, which should be in a good position to cut the nation’s CO2 emissions, Wirth said “Natural gas is a domestic fuel, that can support the grid and provide electricity in when renewable sources such as the wind or the sun don’t operate, and which emits less CO2 than coal or oil when burned, he said. UNQUOTE
From my high-school chemistry I understand that domestic natural gas is virtually methane (CH4), ignoring the impurities coal is carbon (C) and burning means combining with oxygen (O). CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O and C + O2 = CO2. In simple terms this tells me that burning coal produces less greenhouse gas (CO2) than burning methane (CO2 + 2H2O). I’m obviously missing something very fundamental here so would someone kindly explain for me.

Regarding concerns about food shortages in some parts of the world, it is interesting that despite the claims of the environmentalists, the UN organisations directly involved appear not to consider that climate change is the problem. Rather, it appears to be due to agricultural mismanagement (Note 4, 5 & 6)

NOTES:
1) see
http://www.stevefielding.com.au/blog/comments/assessment_of_penny_wongs_response_to_my_3_questions_on_climate_change
2) see http://sovereignty.net/p/gov/gganalysis.htm
3) see http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Global_Governance_1.htm
4) see http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31318&Cr=food+crisis&Cr1=
5) see http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31328&Cr=food+crisis&Cr1=
6) see http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31051&Cr=hung&Cr1=agriculture
7) see http://www.scribd.com/doc/3448720/Robert-Mueller-the-UN-and-the-Gaia-Worshippers
8) see http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf
9) see http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6485
10) see http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/07/06/daily55.html?ana=from_rss
11) see http://windfarms.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/al-gore-global-governance-london-july-7-2009/ and particularly
http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/gore-on-global-governance-what-the-climate-change-scam-is-really-about/

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

Posted by Pete Ridley | July 15, 2009 11:52 AM

You may be interested in my comments today submitted to Jonathan's "Ashden Awards" blog

Regards, Pete Ridley, Human--made Global Climate Change Agnostic

Posted by Pete Ridley | July 19, 2009 7:37 PM

Whenever I read you comments Pete, I am reminded of Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper and saying "Peace in our times".

He too, avoided the blindingly obvious.....

Posted by Fr. Peter | July 24, 2009 9:25 PM

Spot on post - and always glad to remember Richard, whose absence is often felt in the debates that continue in the thorny world of business/civil society engagement. On a separate point, your valedictory comments in the Independent today are invaluable in understanding the last decade of Labour policy (if that's the word!) on the environment - first time the Blair/Brown dynamic has been linked to the UK's schizophrenia on sustainability I think. Fascinating, and depressing too.

Posted by Brendan May | July 25, 2009 7:45 PM

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