Wind farms and solar power….a waste of time…
Professor Mike Hulme has never been too enthusiastic about climate science…or rather with having to get it right…as long as it can be made to support your social and political agenda that’s good enough.
As one of the putative flag wavers for man made climate change, Mike Hulme, until recently head of the Tyndall Centre at the UEA, gave the game away in his book “Why We DisAgree About Climate Change”
The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us.
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Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.
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We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilize them in support of our projects.
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These myths transcend the scientific categories of ‘true’ and ‘false’.
He has now left the UEA and works as ‘Professor of Climate and Culture in the Department of Geography in the School of Social Science & Public Policy at King’s College London where I am a member of the Environment, Politics and Development Group. ‘
He tells us that the emphasis on science distracts from resolving political challenges arising from different interests, values and attitudes to risk.
Yeah….that old science just gets in the way of the politics…..the politics of making policies based on the …erm…science of climate change.
So essentially what Hulme is saying is that Policy should be made now based upon…what?…the same methods applied to the Bible? The Earth was created by a God in 7 days, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Paradise…etc etc?
In other words making it up to suit yourself and your own vested interests.
Hulme makes some revealing comments in this recent podcast (abridged) which attack the IPCC and the use of windfarms and solar panels as the solution to climate change:
These are deeply political challenges…the IPCC has not proved a successful policy framework and the new report will not provide a helpful way to untangle those obstacles and barriers.
My argument is to call for a different framework, one not dependent on science…not on getting the numbers right or the precision correct…a policy of climate pragmatism….recognising a different number of environmental goals rather than reach the ‘great deal’ as the UN tries to achieve by getting 193 countries to agree….the emphasis should be on improving society’s resilience to climate risk, improving air quality…not just CO2, and the CO2 challenge…away from fossil fuels by using massive public led innovation in renewable technologies to replace fossil fuels…windmills and solar tiles on people’s roofs…it’s not going to get you there.
Presumably, he doesn’t elaborate, Hulme means going nuclear….or perhaps Shale gas…still, not exactly supportive of the government’s( and Ed Miliband’s) windmill and solar policy.
Not sure how Harrabin and Co could ignore such a damning statement from such a prominent player in the climate change debate, such as it is….especially as he had such a close working relationship with him…the Tyndall Centre giving Harrabin £15,000 for his CMEP propaganda project at the BBC.