Battling Against Wealth Increases

The truth has finally come out. Officially. Greens think more wealth is a bad idea.

Environmental campaigners, citing government-commissioned research, have said that the UK's claimed carbon emissions figures are "a big lie". The analysis adds carbon burdens associated with offshore manufactures, shipping and aviation to the UK total, and - according to the activists - shows that economic growth and carbon emissions are inextricably linked, and that the UK is actually responsible for much more greenhouse gas than it admits.

John Barrett, one of the authors of the reports by the Stockholm Environment Institute at York (SEI-Y) for the government and campaign group WWF*, was quoted by the BBC today:

"We are constantly battling against increases of wealth... There's a very fundamental problem here that no one really wants to talk about."
I believe that is going to make greens really popular with the poor people of Britain and the rest of the world.

I do think he has a point though. Have a look at this chart. A country's wealth correlates very well with its CO2 output. Except for a few resource extraction countries like Bahrain and Libya which actually put out more CO2 per dollar of wealth than average.

Next the greens will be telling us that poverty is good for people. That not is going to sell well. Not well at all.

Update:

Commenter lkdemott at Power and Control has this to add:

"Next the greens will be telling us that poverty is good for people."

With one small change, I think most greens will agree with the statement:

"Next the greens will be telling us that poverty is good for other people."

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Welcome Instapundit readers.

posted by Simon on 08.01.08 at 12:35 PM





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Comments

The thing is, the Greens couldn't care less about what's good for people. They're more concerned with anything that's NOT people. Of course they regard wealth as a bad thing and poverty as a good thing.

John S.   ·  August 1, 2008 04:05 PM

Not to mention, the correlation of high gas prices and increased fuel efficiency (if the ever was one) is broken. Fuel efficiency is going down as prices rise.

Fuel efficiency has been delining since 2006.

(DoT miles travelled divided by gallons of finished motor gasoline supplied from EIA is much higher than the DoT's estimates of MPG. Either DoT over estimates miles travel and gallons of gasoline bought, and/or EIA under estimates gasoline supplied. Maybe our car are more fuel efficient than we think, DoT might be biased toward over estimating gasoline sold. Gas stations probably don't mind paying taxes on imaginary gallons they sell.)

aaron   ·  August 1, 2008 04:08 PM

The commies insisted that their system of "scientific socialism" would produce more food, more apartment blocks, more tractors, more televisions...more Stuff.

They failed ignominiously.

So now they call themselves "greens" and insist that Stuff is EVIL.

Alan Furman   ·  August 1, 2008 04:19 PM

--Next the greens will be telling us that poverty is good for [other] people.--
Yeah, a lot of this amounts to "I've got mine already."

Jim,MtnViewCA,USA   ·  August 1, 2008 04:47 PM

Simon nails it above. Greens insist that *other people's* Stuff is EVIL. I know a lot of Greens, and they gotta lotta stuff.

JorgXMcKie   ·  August 1, 2008 05:03 PM

It may yet get even worse! Read D. Keith Mano's 1973 novel "The Bridge" for an idea of just how wacko these people can be.

sestamibi   ·  August 1, 2008 05:16 PM

It isn't just the greenies who believe poverty is good for other people. Pelosi left town after refusing to allow any energy bills tocome to the floor, and Obama wants to place a windfall tax on the oil companies who will just pass it on by raising their prices to us.

Retread   ·  August 1, 2008 06:00 PM

Retread: it's actually worse than that. Of course, the oil companies will pass on whatever extra tax costs that the market will bear. But the market won't bear all of it. People will either burn less gas, or prefer imported gas (which is cheaper because it wasn't subject to the tax). Either way, this reduces the business of the oil companies. Of course, a small decrease in volume can result in a big decrease in profit, or even a loss.

Ragnar Danneskjold   ·  August 1, 2008 06:29 PM

Be careful when passing judgment on the "greens". It will always be one of three primary colors, and, at least for now, most fondly associated with the grass we walk on, the forests we move through...and the dollars we save or spend.

Penny   ·  August 1, 2008 09:02 PM

As the Messiah has told us:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

Fat Man   ·  August 1, 2008 09:17 PM

"Have a look at this chart. A country's wealth correlates very well with its CO2 output."

On a hopeful note, consider a triplet of rich countries significantly below the main trend line: Switzerland, Sweden, and especially France. Virtually all of their electricity comes from hydro and nuclear. There's not much potential to increase hydropower, but a lot of countries could replace fossil-fuel plants with nukes.

Bill Woods   ·  August 2, 2008 11:05 AM

Ragnar, you are confusing the label which the Green Party chose for itself with the actual color.

I mean, are Europeans so stupid that they cannot even see this kind of blunder?

Geoff   ·  August 2, 2008 11:35 AM

Just to make things a little clearer for you, Ragnar:

"Be careful when passing judgment on the "reds". It will always be one of three primary colors, and, at least for now, most fondly associated with the colors of the sunset, the tint of our human blood itself, and the {name_that_culture} symbol of joy and rebirth."

What do I write here? Duh! or SuperDuh! (?)

Geoff   ·  August 2, 2008 11:42 AM

Commies/Greens/socialists suck, big time.
Come and watch their progress in Africa, for g*ds sake, THINK.

keeskennis   ·  August 2, 2008 04:49 PM

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