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Talk about Newsnight

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Friday, 9 March, 2007

  • Newsnight
  • 9 Mar 07, 06:20 PM

eu203.jpgEU climate change plan - how realistic are the proposals?

Plus: the new Wembley inches towards being completely ready; are Palestinians being used as human shields by Israeli soldiers? And after one woman awakes briefly from a vegetative state we ask what happens to people in comas.

Gavin hosts - on 91Èȱ¬ Two, on the website, then on the blog...

Comments  Post your comment

  • 1.
  • At 07:41 PM on 09 Mar 2007,
  • Strangeranger wrote:

In a combat over resources prisoners, dead and information are routinely exchanged.
Infantry sentiment must surely be conditioned by the paucity of Arab reciprocity.

  • 2.
  • At 09:25 PM on 09 Mar 2007,
  • Albert Bond wrote:

It seems that those connected with the human rights movement are quick to judge the Israeli's for what they do, but when the islamists behead people on the tele, it is strange that nothing is said, could there be an indication of their leanings

  • 3.
  • At 10:48 PM on 09 Mar 2007,
  • graham_chapman wrote:

ref Climate change and Europe

Why has Newsnight not got the self confidence to be positive about something. The negativity is becoming predictable and tedious.

  • 4.
  • At 11:03 PM on 09 Mar 2007,
  • John Palmer wrote:

EU Climate Change Plans.
What a load of biased baloney. Not a sceptical or dissenting voice to be heard in the program. Well, here is one. 91Èȱ¬ based wind turbines will take 150 years to pay for themselves, and have a 25 to 30 year life. These so-called energy saving bulbs require greater consumption of fossil fuels in their manufacture, and have poor lighting output which deteriorates rapidly in use. I for one will install extra lighting points to make up for the lack of illumination. Oops! there goes your energy saving. Get real. We are not going to stop the natural process of climatic cycling which has been going on for millions of years. If they want to do something useful, they will make the use of nuclear power stations compulsory, reducing emmissions drastically, and cutting our dependancy on Arab oil sheikhs and Russian gas barons for our energy needs. Make us change all our light bulbs? Someone really is taking the mickey.

  • 5.
  • At 11:55 PM on 09 Mar 2007,
  • Gordon wrote:

Its all very well for the Greens to squeal about the EU not proposing to cut CO2 emissions by 30% but at the moment the green party support the further introduction of traffic calming and a retention of existing schemes. Traffic calming has the potential to increase local CO2 emissions by 100% and to remove it could cut overall transport emissions by 5% at a stoke. That is not including the nastiest pollutants like un-burnt hydrocarbons etc which cause lung disease and probably cost the NHS a fortune every year. If anybody had bothered to do the research I suspect that the link between lung disease and traffic calming could be proven beyond reasonable doubt. The areas with the highest rates of lung disease in Blackburn Lancs. coincide with the areas with the heaviest traffic calming.

Its probably a case of one quasi-religion trumping the other, both road safety and climate change theory are ideologies dreamt up by university boffins to sell products or services into a newly created false market. I suspect that if the EU bans old fashioned incandesant light bulbs, the price of low energy light bulbs will go through the roof. As usual with " green " schemes the poor will end up further into debt and virtual slavery paying for a product which is unlikely to pay for itself during its life. Not all low energy light bulbs last forever, I got two for 99p when they were on promotion, one lasted only three hours but the other is still going. Some of the light bulbs in our house are 20 years old and I have no intention of replacing them untill they blow as most of them are not on long enough to make a significant difference.

There is also the question of how countries like France can be expected to cut CO2 when the already generate most of their electricity from nuclear. They are also too far south ( like most of the UK ) to build efficient wind farms, even if there is such a thing. Solar looks promising but most electricity is needed in long winter nights when the sun doesn't shine. 20% renewables is a joke and can only end in power cuts during peak periods when its dark and / or the wind doesn't blow. It could be argued that IRAN has a better strategy for combating climate change, at least they are investing heavily in a nuclear power programme.


  • 6.
  • At 12:48 AM on 10 Mar 2007,
  • Manjit wrote:

Will the Green MEP or a environmental pressure group ever be happy untill we all return to the dark ages?

The negativity coming from Caroline Lucas was perplexing. For once was it beyond her to praise the EU and British Government for doing something positive on the Environment? Or are the Green Party no better than the Daily Mail in there outlook on the political process?

I think also the Green MEP was slightly pushing it when she said that public opinion is way ahead of politicans on environmental issues.

It would be interesting in some of these discussions on climate change etc if the 91Èȱ¬ had some sceptical vocies. The C4 documentary last night 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' was excellent. Would it have been something we would have seen on the 91Èȱ¬? somehow I think it unlikely.

  • 7.
  • At 08:57 AM on 10 Mar 2007,
  • Maurice - Northumberland wrote:

Too many are very quick to condemn Israel at every opportunity, especially when it is not put into context:-

Then add all the other occasions that Muslims have used the same tactic, what about Saddam's use of children for the purpose?

Israel aswell as everyone else must fight fire with fire, and to hell with the so-called Moral Ground (the sanctuary of the weak), too many people die when their hands are tied!

  • 8.
  • At 03:05 AM on 12 Mar 2007,
  • TheBoxDeLuxe wrote:

At last! The first glimmer of acknowledgement of the C4 doc by the 91Èȱ¬: - News 24's Head 2 Head, with David Aaronovitch debating environmental issues with Janet Daley, who touched on the existence of a lack of concensus (among scientists) about anthropogenic warming, in the last 5 minutes of the programme.

Subject to any exclusivity rights C4 might have, I think the data-fit (the graphs) part of documentary and a short explanation could fit a short 'science slot' on the main news.

What I found most sinister though was the section explaining the level of interference in the handing out of research funding to scientists, which seems to be be largely conditional on adherence to the 'orthodoxy', in this case.

But it's not just in the field of climate science where this happens. It appears that even a doctorate is no protection against having to re-apply for your own job every few years, so it's understandable if most of them do just toe the line - in order to keep a roof over their heads, perhaps?

  • 9.
  • At 10:44 AM on 12 Mar 2007,
  • vikingar wrote:

IRAN - SPYING & DEFECTION

"Oh Frabjous Day, Calloo, Callay, He chortled in his joy"

Well here's an interesting development that apologists & appeasers of radical Iranian regime should take note of.

General Ali Reza Asgari, 63, Iran's former deputy defence minister (also former general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) had allegedly been spying on Iran since 2003, defected to the West & is reportedly being interrogated by intelligence officers at a NATO base in Germany after slipping out of Iran via Damascus and Istanbul - March 12, 2007 [1]

Iranian Regime are claiming he was kidnapped by Mossad [2] which must have been some mean trick, given a rather large number of General Ali Reza Asgari family have also coincidentally fled Iran :)

Lets await what secrets the man has brought with him [2]

- intell ref Iran’s relationship with tmilitant Lebanese party Hizbollah;
- the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
- the Badr organisation, the former military wing of the Tehran-allied Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq

Also perhaps …

- intell on Hamas funding & logistics?
- Iranian military plans?
- Iranian nuclear development?
- other military relationships?

Q. wonder if this defection & spying development anything to do with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad desire to now address the UN Security Council? [3]

Interesting, vulnerable, exposé … are words that come to mind.

Looking fwd to a NN update on this.

vikingar

SOURCES:

[1]
[2]
[3]

  • 10.
  • At 10:36 AM on 13 Mar 2007,
  • wrote:

I type as I watch Monday's GW/CC (they are different, I am told) piece on my PC (shame such a large chunk was missing for copyright reasons. It would have been interesting to see what the 91Èȱ¬ editted out of an edit), with this morning's 91Èȱ¬ Breakfast summary numberfest still ringing in my ears. Don't know about the EU, but our own bonny lads and lasses are gettting into a froth enough simply in Londonland.

Targets every year or 5, depending on who is in power and hence needs time to make sure the numbers 'fit'.

Sorting things out by 2050 (I rather thought the IPCC report suggested that may be a tad late, but there we go, it's good to meet a target rather than solve an actual problem when your index-linked is based on it).

There were the usual, if highly sensible, suspects.

When I were was a lad it was cycle to work, share a bath with a friend and put on an extra jummy.

They all still apply (except the bath one... just hope shower cubicles will be big enough for the new plan).

But now it's insulation - fully endorse that one, and in fact have suggested a plan of my own: , bulbs and standby.

The last two also make good sense, but the details still seem a bit vague. And after the road pricing farce my ears get attuned to words like 'suggest', 'encourage', 'make', etc, especially when they morph into 'we'll fine you if you don't'.

Like 4x4s, these items were and indeed are on sale legally, and possibly even generate VAT in the process. So I do wonder who bears the cost of them being taken away and replaced which, in the case of bulbs, means swapping a 20p effort for a £3 one. Not to mention, in some more stylish cases, the fittings too.

Standby button offing is just plain common sense, but I stand ready to see how Messrs Philips, Sony, LG, etc, get on board with the UK government's plans, in the great global scheme of things. I guess they will, because they'll have to. But again, will that mean I have a salaried and pensioned army of red dot monitors turning up on my doorstep to demand I scrap my perfectly good old TV and buy a new eco-one, with no concerns as to the manufacturing costs in terms of enviROI? Even though I do get up and switch it all off at night at the socket?

Funnily enough, in the same slot it was announced that there was a German outfit about to build a new coal fired power station. But not to worry, its emissions will be... 'better'.

Now, I don't know about your domestic output and how close to a personal 20% reduction you're meeting, but it all rather paled into insignificance when some environmental experts were wheeled out for their 2p worth.

Tony Juniper of FoE was as helpful as a director/spokesperson of a major charitable corporation can be, but what did make me pay attention was the long-haired, but seemingly un-named individual who advised that 2/3 of the energy from our power stations is wasted.

Now, that seems quite a lot. Almost 67% in fact. And despite living and breathing this stuff for a while I'd never heard it before.

And vs. all the other stuff being wittered on about it seems, if true, to be something much more worthy of the talking head's attention in comparison to most I have had served up by our media of late.

For what it's worth, what our media and scientific community IS worth in terms of climate debate may be followed to some degree starting here:

It's an interesting discussion. I think my most relevant contribution as it applies here was this:

'I think I understand now why I get so agitated by science reporting these days. These guys are not required by a huge 'system' to allow anything trouble the viewer by way of loose ends. Hence with climate change: 'the planet is doomed... for this reason'. Period. Or, 'the planet is fine... for this reason'. Period. Nice soundbite. Nice headline. Nice ratings.

Not awfully helpful, though, when we're not too sure.'

  • 11.
  • At 12:08 AM on 14 Mar 2007,
  • Jappo wrote:

Kudos for acknowledging a C4 programme - but why pick the one guy that knows that malaria carrying Mosquitos do their worst in icy conditions just as well as they do in equatorial regions (a fact removed from the official IPCC Report)?

Why no mention that the Southern Ice caps are increasing in their iciness? Why no mention that the World;'s mopst effective greenhouse gas is water vapour, and, mpst importantly, why no mention of the recent, indisputable, discovery that low level clouds are formed only in the presence of Ionising Radiation.

Two simple quetions to ask of anyone:

If the Earth wre covered in clouds would it be colder or warmer?

The bubbles in your Coke are made of CO2, if you heat it up will it fizz more or will it fizz less? (i.e. emit more CO2 intgo the atmosphere, or less)?

C'mon Newsnight - you're scared aren't you?

  • 12.
  • At 05:18 PM on 14 Mar 2007,
  • Maurice - Northumberland wrote:

Is David Aaranovich hired as a comedian?
Or just for the good old Socialist ability to waffle and say un-supportable zilch!

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