Britain
From ClimateWiki
Government officials in Britain have made efforts to counteract the supposed negative effects of global warming. However, not all Brits believe in the theory. The following is an outline of Britain's battle with climate change.
Contents |
Potential Effects of Climate Change
Britain has attributed several issues to man-made climate change such as:
Rising Temperatures
Changing Sea Levels
Extreme Weather (ex. wash-out summers, big chills, extreme heat waves)
Economic Issues (ex. Association of British Insurers estimates that households will pay up to four per cent extra each year due to extreme weather events)
Decrease in Crop Yields
Less Water Availability
Organizational Efforts to Combat Climate Change
The following is a list of some of the organizational initiatives that aim to combat global warming.
Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
On 3 October 2008 the Prime Minister announced the creation of a new Department of Energy and Climate Change which will be able to give an even greater focus to solving the twin challenges of climate change and energy supply. The department will bring together much of the Climate Change Group, previously housed within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), with the Energy Group from the Department for Business, Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).
Committee on Climate Change (CCC)
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is an independent body established under the Climate Change Act to advise the Government on setting carbon budgets, and to report to Parliament on the progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
QUEST (Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System)
The primary objective of QUEST is to achieve a better qualitative and quantitative understanding of large-scale processes and interactions in the Earth System, especially the interactions among biological, physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere, ocean and land and their implications for human activities.
British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
The mission of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is to undertake a programme of first class science through which an active and influential role can be sustained in the Antarctic region, giving the UK an authoritative voice in Antarctic affairs. BAS research covers all aspects of science and exploits the unique natural laboratory conditions in the Antarctic to address problems of global and regional relevance. BAS also discharges the UK's responsibilities for complying with the Antarctic Treaty and administers the British Antarctic Territory.
The Royal Meteorological Society was founded as the British Meteorological Society on 3 April 1850. The Royal Meteorological Society advances and promotes the science of meteorology by means of journals and other publications, discussion meetings, conferences, professional accreditation, grants, medals, prizes, workshops for schoolteachers and other educational activities.
The Tiempo Climate Cyberlibrary is an electronic information service covering global warming, climate change, sea-level rise and related issues. The Cyberlibrary provides access to authoritative news, views, briefing material, publications, data, analysis tools and educational resources on the subject of climate change, with particular reference to the situation of the developing world.
IPCC Data Distribution Centre
The IPCC established the Data Distribution Centre to facilitate the rapid uptake of more recent climate change science by researchers in the impacts community, and to improve consistency in the scenarios adopted in different assessments. Enhanced compatibility between impacts studies is of great importance when evaluating and synthesising results across regions and sectors, and this is a major goal of Working Group II of the IPCC for its Third Assessment Report (TAR).
Criticism
Indications that Britain is becoming skeptical of global warming:
“There may be no other country where the religion of global warming inundated society so thoroughly as in Britain. All major political parties endorsed it and the solutions to climate change. It was preached from the pulpit, endorsed by almost every celebrity, hammered him in PSA's on TV all day long. The media played right along, led by the venerable BBC who not only promoted global warming doctrine, but savaged any skeptics that dared disagree with the dominant theology. Now, after a couple of months of climategate revelations, the tide appears to be turning. A new poll out shows decidedly more people skeptical of climate change.” - Rick Moran of the American Thinker
"The number of British people who are sceptical about climate change is rising:
The Populus poll of 1,001 adults found 25% did not think global warming was happening, a rise of 8% since a similar poll was conducted in November.
The percentage of respondents who said climate change was a reality had fallen from 83% in November to 75% this month.
And only 26% of those asked believed climate change was happening and "now established as largely man-made". The findings are based on interviews carried out on 3-4 February.
In November 2009, a similar poll by Populus - commissioned by the Times newspaper - showed that 41% agreed that climate change was happening and it was largely the result of human activities.
Despite active measures by the BBC and the liberal Guardian newspaper to suppress climategate revelations, other media outlets like the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and the TimesOnline have picked up the slack and have run story after story about the fraud, the bad science, and the shameful actions of scientists in trying to suppress opposing viewpoints. It shows that when people get all the information, they can make up their own minds. Some of it appears to be getting through." - BBC
Additionally, the House of Lords have shown their distrust of the global warming theory:
"The Committee, having considered various aspects of the economics of climate change, calls on the Government to give HM Treasury a more extensive role, both in examining the costs and benefits of climate change policy and presenting them to the United Kingdom public, and in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We have some concerns about the objectivity of the IPCC process, with some of its emissions scenarios and summary documentation apparently influenced by political considerations. There are significant doubts about some aspects of the IPCC’s emissions scenario exercise, in particular, the high emissions scenarios. The Government should press the IPCC to change their approach. There are some positive aspects to global warming and these appear to have been played down in the IPCC reports; the Government should press the IPCC to reflect in a more balanced way the costs and benefits of climate change. The Government should press the IPCC for better estimates of the monetary costs of global warming damage and for explicit monetary comparisons between the costs of measures to control warming and their benefits. Since warming will continue, regardless of action now, due to the lengthy time lags in climate systems, and since there is a risk that international negotiations will not secure large-scale and effective mitigation action, a more balanced approach to the relative merits of adaptation and mitigation is needed, with far more attention paid to adaptation measures. We are concerned that energy and climate policy appears to be based on dubious assumptions about the roles of renewable energy and energy efficiency and that the costs to of achieving its objectives have been poorly documented..." - House of Lords
References
House of Lords. "The Economics of Climate Change." Volume I: Report. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12i.pdf>.
"Print Article." American Thinker. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. <http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/02/climate_skepticism_growing_in.html>.
"Effects of Climate Change." Directgov. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. <http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Thewiderenvironment/Climatechange/DG_072929>.
"Global Change and Climate Change: Europe." ITAS - Institut Für Technikfolgenabschätzung Und Systemanalyse. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. <http://www.itas.fzk.de/eng/infum/gch_EUR.htm#GB>.
"Britain, Climate Change Leaders | Nicholas Stern - Times Online." The Times | UK News, World News and Opinion. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3412545.ece>.
