Is it just me, or does anybody else here find her writing...difficult? Not the words or syntax or anything. Just her sentances are way too long to follow.
I find her thinking difficult. She is a bully and will shout down and verbally abuse anyone who disagrees with her as anyone who listens to The Moral Maze on R4 will know. A revolting mad woman.
Melanie Phillips?
stark raving loony with well-documented outlandish ideas on many subjects...
Agreed.
However ... there are grains of truth in her article. There is not a concensus that GW is man made, rather the majority of climate scientists do accept that the weight of evidence points in that direction. I remember reading a New Scientist article on GW, and there were quite a few leaps in the reasoning. Whether that was just the article, or the actual state of the science is unclear.
I know from experience as a scientist many years ago that scientific concensus can change overnight, though it is rare.
Sorry, Colin, I wasn't suggesting that Chinese industrialisation and the consequent pollution and increasing carbon emmissions were solely the fault of the 'wicked west'. I well appreciate that the situation is a great deal more complex than that. But do you not accept that consumer demand in the west has played a significant role in enabling China's rapid growth?
Both China and India are rapidly industrialising, along with Mexico, and many other countries. And of course Russia, Ukraine etc are now free to explore capitalism too.
In the case of China they are producing huge amounts of consumer goods for the West, and absorbing raw materials like never before. That is why the cost of raw materials has escalated dramatically. But inflation is growing, as are wages, so China's labour costs will start to become less favourable in 10 years or more. But by then they will be the largest economy in the world. Anyone with an interest in the stock market will know that the Chinese stock market has been growing at an amazing rate.
India is somewhat different, as they are providing services to the rest of the world, especially call centres, software, and financial services. I know this from first hand. I am a software engineer, and most of the people I work with are Indians. Many of these are contractors supplied by an Indian 'body shop' which puts bums on seats. The rest are ex-contractors who obtained work permits and gained permanent jobs in the UK. They are well educated, intelligent, and they speak decent English. It is now difficult for a UK software engineer to get a job in telecoms in the UK as there are so many experienced Indians. Basically 5 or more years ago the UK government auctioned 3G licences, the high cost of which crippled the UK telecoms industry. So they got rid of lots of permanent UK staff, and hired Indian contractors on lower salaries. Now the only people with experience are foreign, mainly Indian. Is it right that foreigners can enter the country so easily and displace UK workers? I am sure many low skilled workers displaced by Polish immigrants might echo those sentiments.
Incidentally Indians I know own one or more houses in India near the the technical centres, and they are doubling in value in a couple of years, such is the rise in demand for housing near computer companies.
Unless you see this from close by you might not realise how fast the world is changing. It really is incredible.
But who are we to say that Indian and Chinese cannot share the Earth's resources with us?
