For the past couple of weeks, many big-wigs are meeting in Copenhagen for a chit-chat about climate change. This happens against the backdrop of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit email hacking. This is said by some to offer evidence that climate scientists have manipulated data in order to boost the case that climate change is man-made.

The emphasis on whether or not climate change is man-made confuses me. For instance, the Met Office’s response to the hacking seeks to underline the fact that climate change is man-made: “The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise and humans are responsible for it.”

Why is there so much concern over whether or not changes in temperature, and the knock-on effects that result, are man-made? Would climate change really be any less of a problem if it were caused by, say, volcanoes, sunspots, or other natural phenomena? The flood would come anyway.

Surely the correct question is not whether climate change is man-made. The correct questions are:

• Is climate change happening?
• What effects will it have?
• What will be the net cost of these effects?
• What actions can be taken to guard against these effects?
• What will be the cost of taking these actions?
• Is the cost of taking these actions greater than the net cost of the effects of climate change? (i.e. can the resources be better spent elsewhere, for instance on alleviating poverty, etc.)

If I see that it is raining, I don’t just stand there for ages pondering over whether or not the rain is man-made. I just put up an umbrella.

• Is it raining? Yes.
• What effects will it have? It will make me wet.
• What will be the net cost of these effects? I will feel uncomfortable and may become ill.
• What actions can be taken to guard against these effects? I can put up an umbrella.
• What will be the cost of taking this action? I will have to carry my umbrella around with me.
• Is the cost of taking this action greater than the net cost of the effect of rain? No.

Voila — I have successfully guarded myself against the effects of rain in the most efficient manner, without worrying about what caused the rain. So why worry about what causes climate change? As far as I am concerned, if the flood is coming, the flood is coming and that is the only information I need to know.

Granted, the causes of climate change are a pretty important thing to know. If you know the cause, you know what you can do to help prevent it.

But the debate over whether or not climate change is man-made implies that, even if climate change is happening, it doesn’t matter if it’s not man-made. But that is surely not true. The effects will be just as devastating whether it turns out climate change is caused by man-made or natural causes.

It just seems to me that the focus on whether or not climate change is man-made suits both sides of the debate rather too much. Climate change sceptics will apparently view any evidence that climate change is not man-made as a signal that climate change is nothing to worry about (which is surely not true).

Meanwhile, left-wing environmentalists love the focus on the man-made aspect because it gives them an excuse to lecture people on their behaviour. This can be seen in the ever-growing list of human behaviours that are said to cause climate change — everything from taking the car to eating meat and even — can you imagine? — having children.

I would like to hear a bit more emphasis on the effects of climate change in the event that it is not man-made. Otherwise, the anti-environmentalists seem like all they care about is their cheap flights and fast cars. And the moralising environmentalists come across as wanting to take us all on one big guilt trip for having the temerity to exist.

Here is The Scotsman in full scaremongering mode.

METEOROLOGISTS last night said Scots will need to learn to live with the extreme weather and the chaos it has brought to the country over the past few days, as the unpredictable effects of climate change begin to bite.

A bit of wind? Can anyone seriously look at yesterday’s weather events and describe it as an outlier; some kind of new-fangled mystical event?

For once, the (initial) comments in the Scotsman.com thread are sensible.

Clan-destine:

Has Scotland ever had anything else but bad weather?{especially in winter} I think after a few thousand years of bad weather we’re pretty much resigned to it by now and very much used to it….is this news? It’s a bit like a headline that says “Jings!Ice found in Iceland!!”

Statsman:

We never had bad weather in Scotland when I was a kid. It was all sunshine and magic love pixies. Damn this global warming!

DunCraig:

These meteorolgists must be babes in nappies!

Now, I believe that climate change is happening and is a problem. But some people are clearly in the business of creating fear. If the slightest gust of wind or wee puddle is going to be blamed on climate change, people will stop believing that climate change is a problem or even exists at all.

I have written before about the fact that the slightest abnormal weather event is being blamed on climate change. I am beginning to see this sort of thing with increasing regularity. This has severe implications for the credibility of the “scientists” who lunge in, blaming everything on climate change with no data to prove it. Climate change is damn close to turning into a religion.

People are not bloody idiots. Keep a lid on it and tell us about the icecaps melting, not a pissy wee gale the like of which we see every year!

I now know what they mean when some people say that environmentalism is the new religion.

Thankfully the storm surge predicted at dawn didn’t come to much. It seemed like a different story last night. I was listening to Radio 5 Live overnight, and they were simulcasting with BBC local radio stations. (Incidentally, you can listen to it here — the relevant bits are from about 2 hours in.)

It sounded pretty grim. The high tides hadn’t receded, and a further three feet of water was expected. Hundreds of people evacuated.

One woman was on holiday on a boat in the affected area. She had to wait until it was light until she could make a move and was worried that her boat was going to tip.

Then Radio 5 Live took a telephone call from Chris in Norwich. It is safe to assume that he was Chris Ballance because he said he used to be an MSP for the Scottish Greens. He said is deputy climate change spokesperson for the Green Party, so you can just imagine what he was saying about it all.

It is almost certainly global warming.

The thing that really annoyed me about this was that just about ten minutes earlier an actual meteorologist, Peter Gibbs, was explaining precisely what was going on. It was a one-off meteorological event. An unfortunate combination of low pressure sitting over the North Sea, gales blowing around the north of Scotland and spring tides in the English Channel, and the geographical nature of the area (the narrowness of the North Sea towards the Channel meaning that the water has nowhere else to go). There is a good diagram here.

Presenter Dotun Adebayo asked him just the right question: What about the great storm of 1953, was that global warming too? Bam!

With the listeners having had it explained to them precisely what was causing the rising waters in the south east of England by an actual meteorologist, politician Chris Ballance obviously felt the need to phone up and make sure that some spurious guff about climate change got broadcast. It seemed to me like a crass attempt at making party political gains, exploiting and capitalising on the genuine worry people felt about lives and property.

I am not a climate change sceptic by any means. Funnily enough, I am readier to accept the expertise of qualified physicists, meteorologists and climatologists over the deniers who approach the issue from a political, ideological perspective.

But I can’t help but notice that environmentalists have managed to get themselves into a position where the slightest freakish event is put down to climate change. There is no scope any more for one-off events, meteorological coincidences or freak conditions. It’s all climate change now.

In centuries gone by, before people had enough knowledge to realise otherwise, such events might have been put down to a higher power, a God or something. Having had a brief few centuries of enlightenment, we are almost reverting back to using a catch-all explanation for everything rather than actually analysing what is going on. Climate change is the new God.

I see that Al Gore has decided he wants to be the next Bob “Give me us your fockin moneys” Geldof. Mr Gore wants to stage the biggest concert of all time ever. Rumours that the stage will be Gore’s forehead are yet to be confirmed.

Gore has given the series of concerts the oh-so-imaginative name Live Earth. Wait a minute that sounds like a Microsoft product. Wait a minute — it is! Shit me!

Hopefully this will knock Geldof off his perch a bit. Back when there was all that Live 8 nonsense I wrote plenty of stuff about the offensiveness of Geldof, a man who unashamedly makes a living out of starving Africans.

He is not content with giving an undue platform to bland rockstars who don’t have the faintest clue about politics or economics and bollocksing up his purported goals in the process. Geldof has also allowed his offensive sperm to turn into Peaches Geldof. I had my suspicions before, but now I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Bob Geldof is the most evil man on the planet.

As such, I hope Gore’s big concert puts a massive dent in Geldof’s ego. The problem is that Geldof will only be replaced by Gore on the “Massive Arsehole” league table. Soon, Geldof will strike back with his own massive concert, then Gore will hold another huge concert. Then Bono will come along and throw his weight behind the creation of a carbon neutral™ Benevolence Android™, thereby gazumping them both.

Despite the fact that Bono is firmly in third place on the Massive Arsehole league table, he might have the right idea with this carbon neutral™ Benevolence Android™. After all, it is surely true that a great deal of climate change is caused by the hot air emitted from the Geldof / Gore axis of ego. And that is without taking account of the guitar-wielding windbags that they place on their foreheads that are cleverly disguised as stages.

Of course, the biggest problem with holding massive concerts is that they actually use up shedloads of energy. After all, they involve the use of massive fucking speakers and sophisticated lighting systems — real energy guzzlers. And then there is the small matter of the transport involved to get everyone there.

Gore claims that the concerts will be carbon neutral, but this is a bit hollow. After all, they could plant the trees anyway, without holding a concert. That would probably do much more good. But then we wouldn’t be able to have a giant party then, would we? Diddums.

My biggest problem with this concert proposal though is the fact that it is designed to “raise awareness” of the climate change issue. But has Gore not seen the news recently? Every fucker on the planet already knows about climate change. You could not possibly raise awareness of climate change! It is already the most talked-about issue on the planet!

In other words, this concert will achieve absolutely zip. If anything, it will have a generally negative effect — just like Live 8. Well done Mr Gore! Do the world a favour and stick to what you’re good at — losing presidential elections.

Gary Andrews is similarly unimpressed.

There have been a couple of long responses to my last post on libertarianism and Ukip.

First out of the blocks was Longrider, who takes us away from abstract political ideologies and brings in a bit of pragmatism.

Libertarianism in its pure form is anarchy. If you are to have individual freedom, sooner or later you are going to need commonly accepted rules to govern the limits of that freedom. Put simply, all freedoms are limited to a greater or lesser degree. I do not profess to have the freedom to do as I please if it hurts others or impinges on their freedoms. The moment we accept this principle, we have stepped away from the brink of anarchy that is the absolute of libertarianism.

None of the libertarian bloggers I frequent appear to be offering anarchy as an alternative to what we have. This means that they recognise the need for some form of collective behaviour where individuals are unable to achieve their aims alone. We need government for foreign policy, policing, defence, local services, for example. Therefore, we accept (grudgingly) the need for general taxation to fund these activities. Depending on just how extreme is the individual will decide just how large that list is. So all of those libertarian bloggers are prepared to compromise. It doesn’t damage their libertarian credentials, though; it merely makes them pragmatists.

Longrider is absolutely correct. There is probably not a single (sane) person on the planet who thinks that there should be no government. But this is precisely my problem with a lot of the arguments put forward by libertarians.

It is a contradiction to say that government intervention in the economy is a bad thing, then to turn around and say that the government should do everything it can to control immigration. Either interfering in the economy is bad or it isn’t. Make your mind up.

I am not saying that everybody has to make a black and white choice between having a lot of government invovlement or none at all. Far from it. I sit in between, like most people do. It is not inconsistent to want free trade in goods and services but to want a restriction in the movement of labour.

But this is the thing. Once you accept that some government intervention can be a force for good, you have voided your ability to use “small government” as a mantra, a panacea for all economic ills.

It is no longer good enough just to say, for instance, “the government should reduce taxes because government intervention harms the economy and restricts my freedom.” Because in DK’s instance, he has decided that, in the case of movement of labour, govenment intervention improves the economy and that freedom matters not a jot.

I should now link to DK’s post now as the issues are becoming intertwined. His post contains not a single sweary-word, which AntiCitizenOne in the comments reckons means that “you can tell he was angry”. Heh, sorry about that DK.

DK is at pains to point out that while he is broadly in favour of free trade, he has reservations when it comes to labour.

I have reservations about the free trade in labour for reasons that I shouldn’t have to expand on beyond saying that my reservations are based on the fact that humans are not homogenous. If we were, we wouldn’t be having all this ruckus about Muslims, veils, etc.

The thing is, DK is probably right that there are problems with culture, language and so on that mean that in reality free movement of people can be a genuine problem (even though I think most of the “problems”, particularly with the debate about veils at the moment, are exacerbated and blown out of proportion by the government and the media).

But cultural issues are not the only things that vex DK about migration.

Our policy of poaching trained nurses from Africa and the Phillipines or doctors from India has been criticised, for instance, because it leaves already impoverished countries lacking trained medical staff. And now, of course, many of our medical staff cannot find jobs here and are looking to go abroad (but you can pretty much guarantee that they won’t go to the Phillipines or Africa.

Now, one can argue that this is precisely what the free market is about, but it is difficult to conclude that it does not both countries, in general terms, worse off.

In the short term it probably does make at least one of the countries worse off. In the long term it would probably make everybody better off. A proponent of the free market would usually say that if there is such a high demand for nurses in the Phillipines, surely it will encourage many more people to become nurses in the Phillipines because wages will be increased.

Here’s what The Economist had to say about migration of Poles a few months ago.

Even the emigration of a million-odd Poles has its upside. It is better to wash dishes in London than to be jobless at home. Many Poles abroad are learning new skills, languages and attitudes that will stand them in good stead when they return, as most do. Freedom of movement inside the EU means that, unlike previous generations, most Poles are not emigrating for ever.

All I will say is that short term losses for long term benefits are usually relished by libertarians. Who can seriously argue that cutting welfare benefits would not make anybody worse off in the short term, even if it makes them better off in the long term?

Just as free trade in labour has its problems, free trade in everything has its problems. These are usually played down by libertarians — think of income inequalities. But in the case of labour, DK is placing an emphasis on them.

As I said, it is perfectly fine to hold these views, even if the explanations for holding these views seem inconsistent. But that is the thing. It is not the views themselves that I object to — although I may not necessarily agree with them, that wasn’t the point I was making. It is the explanations of these views that need some fine tuning.

Since DK has revealed that in his opinion government intervention can be a force for good, he has become a utilitarian like the rest of us. It is no longer good enough just to call for smaller government for the sake of smaller government which is what most libertarians spend much of their time doing.

Longrider also puts forward this favourite argument of those who would like more controls on migration.

The argument comparing movement of peoples within the UK and peoples moving in from outside is fine but for the small matter of numbers. Just how many people can we accommodate before it becomes too much?

But people have been predicting such a Malthusian catastrophe for centuries and it has never happened, not in Britain at least (and famously the world has a food surplus). Incidentally, the fact that a Malthusian catastrophe has never occurred is also one of the most popular (and convincing) arguments put forward by climate change / peak oil deniers. Somehow, for some on the right, while it means that nothing should be done about climate change, it suddenly becomes a major problem when it comes to migration. Strange.

DK points at water shortages in the south east as evidence that it is happening, but I don’t buy that. People just as commonly point at climate change or the privatisation of water companies as causes of those water shortages, but DK wouldn’t see it as a reason to nationalise the water industry or treat climate change as a top priority.

Given that population growth in the UK (and Europe) is reaching a plateau, and that population in Scotland has actually been declining, the idea that the UK is somehow running out of space is absurd. Anyway, if we were genuinely unable to accommodate more people, nobody would want to move here, would they? That’s how the free market supposedly works you see.