Published on YouTube Aug 20, 2013: About the Speaker: One of the world’s top climate diplomats, John Ashton is now an independent commentator and adviser on the politics of climate change. From 2006-12 he served as Special Representative for Climate Change to three successive UK Foreign Secretaries, spanning the current Coalition and the previous Labour Government. He was a cofounder and, from 2004-6, the first Chief Executive of the think tank E3G. From 1978-2002, after a brief period as a research astronomer, he was a career diplomat, with a particular focus on China. He is a visiting professor at the London University School of Oriental and African Studies, and a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College.
About the Talk: If you are under 30 today, you are on track to find out in your lifetime what unmanageable climate change will be like. Business,politics and economics seem to have no response. What is going wrong and how can you use your voice if you want this fixed in time to fix your future?
60 Comments
Climate Change: Why you should be angry and why anger isn’t enough: John
Ashton at TEDxBedfordSchool http://buff.ly/19xLOlp
Climate Change: Why you should be angry and why anger isn’t enough: John
Ashton at TEDxBedfordSchool http://buff.ly/19xLOlp
Climate Change: Why you should be angry and why anger isn’t enough: John
Ashton at TEDxBedfordSchool http://buff.ly/1exVvEc
LFTR was developed in the 60’s/ 70’s. It failed. India is wasting money on
them now… why not cash in on the massive solar industry instead of
letting China take all the solar jobs?
Don’t talk nonsense, of course the planet will be “liveable” Science
existed it just didn’t have the nomenclature we use for science today,
don’t be ridiculous. How did the Egyptians build the pyramids without
mathematics? Or the Romans their magnificent aqueducts. This is a bit of
guesswork based on flimsy correlations. You could also say there are more
bicycles now on the planet than 100 years ago. This is a media fuelled
propaganda story to tax you and me, that’s all it is.
every new technology has problems that get overcome with development saying
LFTR had serious problems that could never be overcome is another one of
your lies, there is no coolant water in LFTR so its obverse you don’t know
what your talking about, typical alarmist, avoiding any real solution like
the plague as long as that research money keeps coming in and the problem
never goes away, that’s all that alarmists like you care about, research
grants
I’m sorry, but I just can’t take some one who doesn’t understand the basic
function of a system seriously when they make “obverse”[sic]”false claims
about it. How do nuclear reactors of ALL types create electricty? The
nuclear reactions HEAT water, which converts to steam and pushes a turbine
(as part of the Rankine cycle). This water, along with water used to keep
graphite cores in LFTR cool gets easily contaminated, and by design is
released… causing serious problems
Excellent talk: thank you.
Offending people to no end is not OK. However, sometimes it helps shke them
out of their complacency and ignorance. This obviously does not always
work. And if you think Christians have been offended, try thinking about
the offence caused by all religions to the biggest minority belief system
in history by hectoring, mudering, genocidal, bigotted people who believe
they know the truth but offer no evidence.
The definitive sign of a good climate would be falling food prices.
strange how the cooky crumbles!! Corn futures tumbled, capping the biggest
weekly loss in more than a month, after the government said U.S.
inventories will double as farms recover from the drought in 2012 to
produce the biggest crop ever……..
reuters, wow who is keeping the prices high, 23 Oct 2013 – With next year’s
wheat output seen matching 2013’s strong 92.46 million … producer of
wheat would be a bearish factor for global prices which …
Wow, it’s almost like there is a global market for products…. That is
definitely a great reason to ignore the effects of pronounced drought on
crop yields and it’s affects on the impoverished of the world.
where, tell me where for 2013!!
Everywhere. In a world increasingly plagued by drought, even the markets
can’t keep playing the specious speculation game indefinitely, and the poor
will always bee the first to suffer for it. cnn. it/RsXsaQ 1. usa.
gov/1fes8Ge bit. ly/NDhq13
I gave you direct links; why not cite the articles you claim directly? The
USDA site I linked clearly shows the impacts of the drought on global
prices. I am very sure not even you will deny direct claims by the USDA.
But if you feel like it go ahead. But start linking relevant sites/articles
if you want to be taken seriously. Dates and claims are not citations, you
at least need the author as well as the publication and date.
CONT… World food prices fell for a fifth month in September to the lowest
level in three years, with grain prices sliding as production of corn and
rice is expected to exceed demand. An index of 55 food items tracked by the
FAO fell to 199.1 points from a revised 201.4 in August, the Rome-based
United Nations agency wrote in an online report today. The gauge is down
from a record 237.9 points in February 2011 and at the lowest level since
September 2010.
since you asked so nicely here are some further references, all from this
year: cnb. cx/ZDe4fX cnb. cx/VevRby on-msn. com/1czCLWz bit. ly/H9pQMP
took a look a the first and third link but as it was January 2013 and
February 2013 a lot changed and as it turned out the US had a bumper
harvest for 2013 as did Canada and pretty much the whole world so not very
helpful.
news.howzit.msn.com/analysts-see-bumper-harvest-for-corn-after-devastating-2012-2
What you’re really talking about is cost structure. Farmers are using more
equipment, more petrochemicals, and more inputs in general in order to grow
crops. Since the number of farms has increased so much it can produce a
glut, prices fall. Anyone who fails to keep up can find themselves priced
out of the market.
The European’s thought the earth was flat because the church said the earth
was flat. Religious doctrine holdover to provide a simple answers for the
little children in grade school. Grade school was the last time the global
climate change denier’s paid attention in school.
Excellent link: “In the 2012/2013 season, the global corn harvest plunged
to 855 million tonnes from 883 million tonnes a year earlier.” you proved
my point very nicely that at least ONE of the major grains was devastated
by the drought in 2012/2013. “This upcoming season, however, the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA) is FORECASTING [emphasis mine] a
harvest… ” “Everybody EXPECTS [emphasis mine] it to be a record high
harvest on a global level” You claim expectations are evidence?
and the actual skill of the farmer himself. The cost of farming is
expensive enough in a western country, to start opening up land in remote
eastern regions and in Africa comes with a new set of problems, transport
to markets has its own problems. The fact that farmers are willing to open
up new land shows a confidence in the weather, the no 1 enemy of many
problems involved in farming.
No farmer is counting on the rain to water his crops… he’s counting on
irrigation. The Arab Spring was the result of a sudden sharp increase in
food prices, mainly due to the fact that the area suddenly became a net
energy importer. An increase in food prices means that more farming becomes
economically viable. When food prices rise economic profit is possible,
which means that he can afford to pay higher water rates.
No farmer is counting on the rain to water his crops… he’s counting on irrigation. you man like the Egyptians, Romans, Chinese etc used Irrigation in the past.
No, I mean like we use irrigation now. We use underground aquifers to irrigate crops. You can’t count on rainfall, it’s too erratic and there’s a substantial amount of capital investment in crops, so part of your costs include transporting water by pump, which is seriously depleting our stores. We’re drawing down glacial meltwater to grow food faster, but once the aquifers are depleted, we’ll have to rely on rainfall and then we’ll be in serious trouble.
Its long past time that idiots like this guy were jailed for spreading fear
and hysteria among our kids.
I commend this gentleman for his calm and reasoned anger and his respect for and trust in the ability of the younger generation to use their intellectual and fiscal influence to get done a job that ought to have been done a long time ago.
Change can indeed take place, and the technology to implement it exists already. Let cooler heads prevail: the ranting and raving and stunning self-centeredness shown by both political extremes in all Western countries these days must give way to the truly non-partisan efforts of those who have the scope and perspective to change the way in which we use and produce our energy from now onward.
Yes, we should be very angry with climate ‘skeptics’ who are only skeptical because climate change threatens their economic, political and cultural views. Fuck the planet, let’s make more money!
WHAT ABOUT MY ‘INNOCENT PEOPLE’ OF SAMOA THAT WERE ‘SLAUGHTERED’ BY THE
PRIME MINISTER OF SAMOA ‘CHINA NUCLEAR TEST SITE’ Five Year Plan By PM that
he never told and let known to the ‘INNOCENT PEOPLE’ of my SAMOA. ‘CLIMATE
CHANGE’ BUSINESSES are ‘EVIL’. You are just trying to persuade people or
the young generations to believe is good to ‘slaughter’ innocent people in
their country for them to make money. My Innocent People of Samoa that were
‘murdered’ by the ‘China Nuclear Test Site’ Five Year Plan By PM that
‘created’ a MANUFACTURE TSUNAMI on Sept 29th, 2009 never had a FUTURE. My
Islands will survive without your ‘Evil’ CLIMATE CHANGE BUSINESSES.
I have one single question:
Does this “iceholes” pretend that the planet Earth stops having Changes in
it’s climate?
The planet start having climate changes the very instant it came to be,
that’s a fact!
15 years in the business of “climate change”? ….and then?
What is it you propose to “stop the earth from having “climate changes”? ,
how, when, who ?
In sum: a huge planet size hot air balloon!
Solving? climate change? many words to say absolutely NOTHING!
15 years we got it…..and you DON’T HAVE ANY ANSWERS …..TO WHAT?????
it MAY be doing this. It MAY be doing that. All of this climate change
business is total Fantasy. Thank God every Cop has Failed Miserably. Just
give it over, the Jigg is up.
No, we can’t ‘deal’ with climate change, any more than we can ‘deal’ with
the moon’s orbit. we have no control over either and to think otherwise is
arrogant. The earth’s climate will change no matter what we do do to all
you tree-huggers I say “Deal with it!! Stop worrying about it and get on
with life!!” And stop being so damned negative. We live during a
fantastic time in human history where we have the technology, medicine etc
to live great lives, so stop worrying about nothing and enjoy life you
bunch of morons!
Interesting, well supported and thoughtful presentation. The problem is
the premise is 100% reversed from the real solution. Politics is not the
answer. The real solution is to produce the renewable, technical and
crowd-organized solutions in the following ways:
Keep them local, debt free and sustainable.
Keep them interesting to everyone – IOW, make them attractive to even the
most materialistic.
Keep them cost beneficial to both the customer and the workers.
We already have proven solutions in every economic sector which follow
these rules. They just need more support.
The rest will take care of itself. People will prosper, monopolies will
die, governments will shrink and power will return to the people. There
may be many details avoided here, but overall, it really is that simple.
“I’ve been in the climate change business for fifteen years now”
That tells you right there everything you need to know about this fraud.
I thought was going to learn something:-) lol a bunch of hoopla
The predictions on climate change were all wrong. The peer reviewed
consensus predictions within 95% certainty of future temperature were
WRONG. We need a Sociological study to find how most major scientific
organizations all believe the same WRONG IDEA. I suspect many scientists
were wrong because of GROUP THINK and intimidation. The data directly
disagrees with idea that climate models can predict accurately and data
does not even correlate to significant man-made global warming, which
became “Climate Change” after all the predictions completely failed. All
humans know the climate changes. It always has. No one has come even
remotely close to showing that significant man-made climate change has
occurred. There are many scientific critics that are silent out of
intimidation. Climate model grade = F
What a load of bollocks. The human contribution to greenhouse gases is just
0.0009% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Any warming there is or
has been has nothing to do with anthropogenic carbon emissions, and
everything to do with natural variability. CO2 in the atmosphere is barely
above the all time low in the earth’s history, so we need more of it, not
less. Cut the current levels by 50%, and all plant life would die, so would
we. It is an imminent ice age we should be more concerned about, not global
warming, because the next one is overdue, and when it comes, it will very
likely wipe two thirds of the world’s population off the face of the earth
unless we are prepared for it. When the Holocene epoch comes to an end, the
one we have been enjoying for the last 12,000 years, the next ice age will
arrive hard and fast. The last ice age began 110,000 years ago and went
from a climate warmer than that of today to full on ice age in just fifty
years. At its peak 20,000 years ago, the ice over the UK was three miles
thick in places and extended as far south as London.
This is because we are actually living in one of the earth’s major ice ages
right now, one of at least five in the earth’s history that we know of,
this being the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation which began 2.58 million
years ago. Within this major glaciation, the climate has been flipping back
and forth between relatively short warm periods, and longer much colder
periods for the planet as a whole. The warm period we have been living in
for the past 12,000 years is known as the Holocene, and as modern humans,
it is the only climate we know.
Now all scientists agree that the world is cooling, not warming. Ice is
recovering in the Arctic and the ice extent, in circumference and volume,
is at record levels at the Antarctic. The argument for anthropogenic global
warming id dead in the water.
we need a population order….
Cold weather-global warming
Hot weather-global warming
Record Arctic ice-global warming
Decrease in Arctic ice-global warming
Increase in hurricans-global warming
Decrease in hurricans-global warming
Increase in tornados-global warming
Decrease in tornados-global warming
See a pattern here? It was 10 degrees warmer in the 1800’s than today, and
Co2 levels were lower.. The “consensus” or the “settled science” they talk
about, consists of 300 or so paid, nutball scientists who will fudge and
cherry pick data for grant $$.
Our government, who invade countries for resources, spy on its citizens and
destroy the constitution should be our real cause for worry.. People can
barely afford to heat their homes or buy food and they want more money??
GTFO!
AGW-deniers = Holocaust deniers = 911truthers = Sandy Hook hoax theorists =
creationists = peak oil deniers = antivaxxars = antidrug terrorists =
pro-drug war fascists = fucking morons
well said. I wish more people would listen to talks like this one.. thanks for the talk.
get the facts:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
Makes me feel like dropping out of high school all over again, if only I could.
Pure hokum! Non sense. This fraud is propagating a lie and he knows it. He
just wants you to believe it too. Money to be made in the green business.
Selling carbon credits to themselves like that damn liar Al Gore. He buys
carbon credits from himself through acompany he created. Oh the lunacy of
these propagand peddelers.
These people want you to buy into the cleAn energy windfarms that kill
hundreds of bald eagles and other protected species, that you would be in
jail if you harmed one. However if you contributed to the Obama campaign,
you can kill them for free and no penalty. the wind turbines have
absolutely ruined the bautiful sierra nevadas. Now all you can see is ugly
friggin windmills. They take 20 years to pay for and they won’t last 15.
Great capital venture.
Given the fact that land is being turned over to grow biofuels, at a time
when millions of children are starving to death in their mothers arms. I
can honestly say, without a science degree, or without doing too much
research. Climate Change is complete and utter bollox, and the bullshit we
are being fed is beyond laughable. Any solution that anyone comes up with,
that doesn’t involve taxing people, is immediately dismissed. The solution
to Climate Change is to shut down the NGO’s, shut down the Universities
that are pumping out retards at great expense to themselves and society,
when they could be doing something far more meaningful with their lives.
Trying to use politics to change things in this matter still sounds like
someone whistling cheerfully from a cross..
This guy says “we have to take oil and gas out of transport and heating.”
The technology of fuel systems that produce 100 mpg or better for the
average size car has been around for a long time. There’s quite a few
videos on YouTube of such inventions dating back to the 70’s.
If this technology were in use today then global CO2 emissions would be
lower. The reason it isn’t in use is because of corporate interference
within government, and perversion among its officials.
what he is saying here is the rotten world we created, deal with it please
cause its ur problem know, ooh and we will keep contributing 2 pollution
with our pensions, wich you ofcourse will not have
He’s 100% correct. Just one thing: At 15minutes in, when he starts to tell
the younger generation how to go about making change, he forgets to mention
what every other speaker forgets to mention – that the “global corporation”
cannot be stopped, and therefore global warming will not be stopped,
period. Governments are corrupt, and that is not going to end. So lets talk
about what will happen after the world goes to hell, rather than wasting
our time talking about how we can make a real change, which is impossible.
These fools have a whole lot of nerve to look at us peasants like we are
supposed to solve this kind of government corruption madness. We can get
some wind mills and solar panels ready for the post-world to come, and
that’s about it. This is a reality we all have yet to face, just as we took
forever to face the fact that we are polluting our breathing air. And the
fact is, we are afraid to even talk about it, which only underscores how
screwed we all truly are. I’m disgusted to be on the same sinking ship as
my so-called government, who will still somehow manage to steal the better
seats.
The only thing this guy says that is true is it’s about politics and
politics are all about control.
Many factors affect temp, co2 is one. Overall, will increase temp when
everything else is constant. So a circumstance when temp was higher but
there was lower co2 does not mean co2 has no effect. had it been higher
levels of co2, it would have been even warmer in that case.
And global warming can cause cooling as ice melts there will be more of
that ice surface area, now water, interacting with the oceans in energy
transfer, thus cooling the water.
Please don’t respond to the comments of climate change deniers,they are
creating a debate where none exists to confuse public who come here to
learn about climate change.
He’s got a problem which I don’t need.
Global warming is real. But what they are failing to remind everyone that
the earth has been warming and cooling since it first formed. The notion
that man has or can have any effect is pure fantasy. There are too many
factors that govern our climate that are vastly more powerful then we are.
If people would stop and think for a moment they might see this.
The earths rotation, it’s orbit and the sun have the most effect and are
mostly overlooked.
We all know the earth wobbles on it’s axis and our orbit is not fixed. Then
toss in the suns cycles and you have three forces that are vastly more
powerful the we are.
Global warming is a campaign cooked up by people that want to profit form
something that we have no control over.
I urge people to do some research and get the facts before coming to any
conclusion. Remember, these forces have been going on for billions of years
and have cycles of there own. I also urge people to keep an open mind.
If by chance we do have some effect on climate it most likely is extremely
small and good ol mother earth will fix itself.
Souring around the galaxy ship mother earth has always been a bumpy ride.
Republicans over 65, with HS or less education from the south who are
Biblical literalists = the most ignorant segment of US population. For them
97% of Climate Scientists and 12,720 of 12,744 peer reviewed scientific
papers are some kind of fraud or hoax. Understanding why idiots like James
Inhofe and paid shills of the fossil fuel industry make absurd HOAX
statements is easy – they get paid for it by extremely wealthy oil
companies. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old – Evolution IS – and climate
deniers are mainly young Earth Creationists who “believe” dinosaurs lived
with mankind. My grandchild may not survive their collective stupidity.