Mrs T and Climate Change
Friday, June 22, 2012 at 8:35AM I've just heard a theory which like all good theories forced me to re-assess a long held opinion. I lived through the Thatcher era from start to finish; it’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the Iron Lady.
picture courtesy wikipedia
She and her best bud Ronnie Reagan are the gardeners who planted the foul weeds of unregulated banking and finance (AKA rabid gambling) that have shafted our economies and created a miniscule super-class who live beyond the law.
However, when she was presented with the very earliest data suggesting an anthropomorphic link to the clear evidence of climate change, she studied the report and came to the rapid conclusion that ‘we had to do something.’ ]
As a student, Thatcher studied Chemistry at Somerville Collage in Oxford. She was a scientist, she knew that when a new theory emerges you look at the peer reviewed evidence, you assess the possibility that it may be flawed, you consult with a wide range of opinion and you come to a decision.
It was Thatcher who removed this particular problem from party politics, in the UK it is just an accepted fact in government, regardless of general opinion that human beings, CO2 and the continued use of fossil fuel is a bit of a problem.
In the UK it is only extremist nutbags with personal issues they’re not dealing with who get red faced and rage-ridden about the topic. I don’t want to use their names not because of some spurious legal fear, but because I don’t want to give them any airtime.
So I begrudgingly have to admit Thatcher has risen slightly in my estimation, mind you she has only risen from the bottom of the slime pit of bigotry and selfishness onto the fetid shores of corruption, but she has risen.
Unlike her American counterparts on the right. Her manic Christian ultra conservative cousins across the pond reacted in a deliberately misinformed way, peddling lies and doubt like hollow point rounds in a special ops shoot out. They pontificated about ‘freedom’ and ‘restrictions on our way of life’ often citing their God as proof that we could keep on raping the planet.
So even though I loath pretty much everything Thatcher did and stood for, I respect her stance on this highly un-contentious scientific knowledge.
Reader Comments (12)
My opinion of all politicians, of all political orientations is that they're a shower of corrupt, self serving, conniving, devious, SOBs, who are only in it for their own greedy self interests.
It just makes life simpler.
Ah, she'll win you round eventually Mr Llewellyn! ;-) And I take it you're not planning on getting this onto "what's hot" on Google+ as the latter section might well act as a bit of a blue touch paper to some of the chaps and chapesses over there... I'm not sure Google have big enough servers for that thread!
It could be argued that the rest of Thatcher's ideology undermined any efforts she made to combat climate change. Privatisation, the glorifying of greed, destroying the society she didn't believe in etc. all empowered the sort of people and short term thinking that act against any concerted efforts to address the problem.
'[I]n the UK it is just an accepted fact in government, regardless of general opinion that human beings, CO2 and the continued use of fossil fuel is a bit of a problem.'
Robert, can you find some way to sponsor me for immigration to the UK? While it may be a minuscule sample, I want to live where the politicians exhibit some intelligent behaviour.
Thatch got you in the end... When it came to science she had her head screwed on much better than any other politician.
I`m with Kevin. America seems to get more rediculous by the day. But then,it may just be where I`m from. West Virginia doesn`t have a very good record for producing open minded intelligent people. It is a state where not all that long ago people fought wars against coal companies to get a more fair shake and somewhat safer working conditions. Now,While the unions are being actively destroyed,pensions are being canceled and safety is seen as a curse that does nothing but cost jobs, people proudly sport their "Friends of Coal" bumper stickers and signs. Just say"Praise the lord for guns and that there Mexican feller who shot that Martin boy. Lets all go and elect another fellon to public office"
We`re not all drooling idiots here,but we are a minority.
How much was genuine concern about climate change and how much was a great excuse to bugger the coal unions do you reckon? Just a thought?
I hope you mean anthropogenic rather than anthropomorphic.
Anthropomorphic would mean scientists are predicting the climate will turn INTO a human.
I hope you mean anthropogenic rather than anthropomorphic.
Anthropomorphic would mean scientists are predicting the climate will turn INTO a human.
Ironic! Speaking as a Conservative skeptic who questions the anthropomorphic origins of so called global warming I had always known the lovely Iron Lady pushed global warming in order to prop up Nuclear power in Great Britain.
It tarnishes her & take off a bit of her Right Wing awesomeness in my eyes.
Oh well then.
Video is the new Opiate of the masses!
Robert, I agree that Mrs T did do one thing right by raising the climate change debate to the public level. However, there are many more serious changes which she wrought on science in this country which cast shame on her background as a scientist. Chief among these is the dissolution of nationalised research which followed the collapse of, for example, the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board). This put research into the hands of private corporations with their own agendas. Who now would fund a researcher to prove that a popular soft drink was in fact seriously damaging to people's health?
(It is my opinion that Mrs Thatcher's main concern in raising the Climate Change argument to provide an extra bit of leverage against the labour-voting industries she was attempting to destroy, but that is a matter for history, not science. Likewise, there were strong arguments for a weakening of the trade unions, but a hack-and-slash demolition of the whole sector was entirely catastrophic)
Nowadays, major research is only done if significant (i.e. corporate) funding can be found for it. Mrs Thatcher was correct in saying she had found no strong scientific evidence to suggest that BSE was harmful - because nobody was funded to look for that evidence.