Wednesday 9 December 2009

Sarah Palin on Copenhagen: heroine of the Tory blogosphere?

The Guardian have republished Sarah Palin's Washington Post op-ed on climate change, attacking Barack Obama' refusal to boycott the Copenhagen climate conference.


In fact, we're not the only nation whose people are questioning climate change schemes. In the European Union, energy prices skyrocketed after it began a cap-and-tax programme. Meanwhile, Australia's parliament recently defeated a cap-and-tax bill. Surely other nations will follow suit, particularly as the climate email scandal continues to unfold.

In his inaugural address, President Obama declared his intention to "restore science to its rightful place." But instead of staying home from Copenhagen and sending a message that the US will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices, the president has upped the ante. He plans to fly in at the climax of the conference in hopes of sealing a "deal." Whatever deal he gets, it will be no deal for the American people.


But let me put a fraternal question to the other side of the aisle here in British politics - and to the popular end of the right-wing blogosphere in particular.

Of course, they have every right to disagree with the Tory leadership and the broad consensus among governments around the world.

But, on a point of information, Tory Bear, Tim Montgomerie, Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale, Douglas Carswell et al, please advise

... I wonder is there anything in the Sarah Palin op-ed you would disagree with?

***

PS: But let me exempt the one nation wets of the Tory Reform Group, who have commendably weighed in with a new pamphlet (PDF), foreword from Nick Stern and all, calling for a Churchillian level of ambition at Copenhagen and beyond.

Its good to hear a different voice from the right. There is even as essay on 'Making Green Conservatism a mass movement'. There may be just a little way to go.

4 comments:

Guido Fawkes said...

I'd like to know what polar bear tastes like.

Letters From A Tory said...

She's no heroine of mine, thank you very much.

She's a hardcore Republican loon with about as much credibility as Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq.

13eastie said...

This blog continues to be incapable of resisting the urge to associate AGW-scepticism with the Tory party.

It's a pathetic way to make an argument.

The Tory party has consistently offered a green argument in recent years.

No 'tory' blog has offered hero-worship to Palin.

If AGW is as big a deal as people suggest, it's worth considering whether it reaches beyond our puny shores.

Lame.

Guido, I don't know what polar bear meat tastes like, but I can tell you that women of child-bearing age are discouraged from its consumption. For the men-folk, shooting one is, I'm told, not all that challenging, but the carcass is a bugger to shift and, assuming there would not be too many folk around to partake, it would take a age to eat a whole one.

Sunder Katwala said...

This post is slightly tongue-in-cheek. And I was just asking the question. (Iain Dale was very warm about Palin's Vice-Presidential campaign though). It is somewhat aimed at my friend Tory Bear, who seemed to get a bit riled by his considered and settled view now being more prominently on the record.

I fully accept LFAT's distancing from the Palinista wingnuts: I imagine Dizzy Thinks may well think something similar. They are among the prominent right-wing rationalists of the Tory blogosphere.

Palin's "balanced" climate scepticism, mentioning some climate impacts, seems to me quite similar in tone to Iain Dale's or John Redwood's. To that extent, it may also be open to Douglas Carswell and Tory Bear who are in the 'warming myths' and global cooling' camp to dismiss her as a sell-out for being much more open to the global warming myth than they are.


***
This blog has helped to point out the scale of grassroots climate scepticism in the Tory party: I have done so since Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome told our fringe meeting that he had evidence that majority opinion in the party was sceptical, which I think was a very low profile issue outside Conservative Home at that point. (I was myself surprised by TM's analysis, but went on to look into it).

So both right-wing and independent voices also think this is a potentially significant political issue, as This Independent piece shows,

However, the main post showing the scale of climate scepticism was primarily about the disagreement between Conservatives, noting the frontbench's support. It also pointed out a couple of pro-consensus Tory bloggers. This post points to the very welcome Tory Reform Group pamphlet.