GLOBAL WARMING: DOES IT MATTER?
A climate summit in Durban has ended with agreement to bring down carbon emissions to save the planet.
A deadline of 2020 could yet prove a cop-out. But do we need to be so concerned about emissions? Is fear of global warming holding back much-needed development?
Emma Barnett interrogates George Monbiot, environmental activist, and Claire Fox, director of the British think-tank, the Institute of Ideas.
[Image courtesy of eyeglass view via Flickr.com ©©]
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Claire Fox sounds really ignorant. Her Wikipedia entry is very interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Fox 20 years working for Revolutionary Communist Party
Peter Howells
Since the CERN and NASA data in the late summer anyone who still pushes CO2 global warming is a potential criminal !
Gordon Pye
Hi Emma,
I’m wondering if you could get Claire Fox to answer the original question George asked her on this comments board. It struck me very much that her position that removing all frameworks increases freedoms is, at best, wishful thinking.
Not every freedom forms part of a zero-sum game but some clearly do and without rules of engagement, it’s a nonsense to say that everyone’s freedom is increased when clearly, already powerful people have a greater access to those freedoms.
It seems to me that Claire Fox is incapable of working out that the freedoms she has living in a western society are available to her because western societies are more heavily regulated. She might wake up if she had to live in a country with the lack of regulation she’s looking for. That’s not to say that regulation is always good, far from it, but the converse position, that regulation is automatically bad and having less of it is a good thing, is pure nonsense.
C.
Colin
Clare’s extreme views on political freedom seem to blind her to reality. George Monbiot’s patient and reasoned responses to her made this even more apparent.
Karin
Amazing how some people duck and dive to defend the indefensible. Well done George
Ian Gilfillan
Claire Fox’s think tank is running on empty.
Seanos
Claire, in the opening exchange with George, you concede that sometimes peoples freedoms can intrude on the freedoms of others (you say that it happens “rarely”). If you are reading this comment, could you give an example of one of these rare examples?
Rob Hind
Thanks George. Voice of reason vs. voice of greed.
Alex
The Institute of ideas, or lol.
Illinois Cook
@Gordon Pye, you say “Since the CERN and NASA data in the late summer anyone who still pushes CO2 global warming is a potential criminal !”
I wonder what you base that idea on? I haven’t heard of any findings that refute the idea that global warming is happening and partly caused by CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
Karin