‘Ungreen’ Minister at odds with duty to protect environment
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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I am appalled that our Assembly Minister for the Environment, Sammy Wilson, who in my opinion appears to be side-stepping his duty to protect the environment.
The rich countries of the world are using up its resources and contributing to climate change out of all proportion to their numbers while the majority of the world's population live in poverty, a human rights violation.
The less developed countries will suffer most from climate change and the consequent extreme weather conditions, famines and water shortages.
These advertisements, which the Minister is banning us from seeing, would hopefully have had some effect in making us aware that each one of us can do something to save the world for future generations.
His excuse that it is New Labour propaganda is laughable.
When the Westminster budget announces benefit increases or tax concessions, will he refuse that on the same grounds?
The Alliance Party has long campaigned for an independent Environment Protection Agency, but instead we have a Government department whose responsibilites include Natural and Built Heritage, Environmental Protection, Climate Change and Environmental Crime presided over by a minister who is so ‘ungreen’ that he will not accept that climate change is the greatest threat facing our planet today.
Margaret Marshall
Belfast
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Sammy Wilson is an embarrassment to Northern Ireland and to the DUP. I predict his days as "The Minister for the Environment" (an oxymoron if ever there was one) are numbered. I would make him "The Minister for Small Island Thinking" (a most suitable post for the intellectually challenged), and send him off to sea in a canoe with an endless supply of tinned sardines and vegetable soup to do a ten year survey.
Meanwhile, more merriment is anticipated at the prospect of even further of his naively lunatic pronouncements following the International Conference on climate change. Come on Sammy - don't let us down.... dig that hole a little bit deeper.
Posted by plannisuarus rex | 15.02.09, 11:18 GMT
Sammy Wilson is a man of rare integrity, when it comes to politicians. You should be proud, Margaret, that it has taken an Ulsterman to stand up as one of precious few to denounce this enviro-nazi load of tripe for what it is, and retain enough integrity to stick his neck out when all others fall for it because of a cowering, "Big Brother knows best" mentallity.
I live in Ontario. We've had one of the most severe winters to recent memory. There was a global warming rally took place this past Dec. in Toronto. IT WAS THE COLDEST OF THAT DATE ON RECORD.... and it looked good on them, with their shivering placards and all!
Posted by k.tait | 13.02.09, 00:28 GMT
Whatever the view of the Alliance party, its leader abstained in todays vote....either Mr Ford has confidence in Mr Wilson or he does not....I dont have a lot of confidence in Mr Ford to make up his own mind...what a sorry pitiful state of affairs.
Posted by Malachy Mulligan | 12.02.09, 19:51 GMT
Chris Harries, those people in Australia were victims of green politics. Ask the person who was fined $50,000 for building a 100m firebreak around his property. His house is one of the only ones standing within 2km. Everyone else's burned because the brush was not cut or burned back as has been done for thousands of years by the aboriginal population, because it is against the law. Your policies mirror those in California, except California does encourage firebreaks (I'm impressed they got something right). Australia is on its way to being just another failed eco-state, like CA.
Green intervention kills thousands, if not millions each year, just as it will do with anti carbon policies.
Posted by Michael D Smith | 12.02.09, 11:48 GMT
Yes Richard but the gravel rash when you come off the bike can be terribly painful!
Posted by Dan Sweeney | 11.02.09, 22:34 GMT
It's quite shocking to think that an advert was given the go ahead last summer, which proclaimed gay people as perverts, but that we cannot have a simple advertisement urging us to save energy. Doesn't matter if he believes in climate change or not, there is no harm in that advertisement. And as for the 'Scottish Parliament have rejected it, thus we should to' debate, they did indeed reject it, because they are bringing in their OWN!
Posted by Concerned? | 11.02.09, 22:08 GMT
Oh c'mon Sammy ...you were one of the first to be affected by Global Warming...remember those photos that appeared in all the Papers when you removed your clothes as it was too warm.
How dare you impose censorship on the general public.
Posted by Mikey | 11.02.09, 21:47 GMT
Denial is a normal human reaction amongst people who can't handle an issue that is too big for them to come to terms with. So we should be sympathetic to Sammy Wilson and nurse him through his disability. In time he will accept.
If Mr Wilson were to go directly to disaster victims, like the fire victims in Australia, and tell them climate change is not real he would be mugged. So he had better not.
With reference to the devastating fires here, 7 consecutive days of weather over 40 degrees celsius combined with fierce winds and low humidity was totally unprecedented. We had conditions akin to spontaneous combustion.
Suspicion about possible firebugs is almost incidental. Simultaneous floods in northern Australia were not caused by water bugs. Severe droughts in the interior were not caused by water thieves.
In short, many parts of this country have become fairly inhospitable, even uninhabitable.
Posted by Chris Harries | 11.02.09, 20:47 GMT
So Sammy Wilson does not believe in man made global warming, and censors any messages to the contrary. Why is this a surprise to anyone, for this is well within the frame of other DUP madness. These include lest we forget: "curing" homosexuals; dinosaurs that played hide and seek with children on Noah's ark: the universe being less than 6,000 years old. This is a party of fruitcake theories and over loud behaviour that acts as a smokescreen. For me there is no debate. Folk like David Attenborough fully believe in global warming being a man-made catastrophe. Folk like Sammy Wilson do not. Take your pick.
Posted by plannisuarus rex | 11.02.09, 19:22 GMT
I completely agree with Sammy. I don't see a shred of the 'evidence' for global warming that cannot be refuted...But of course, under New Labour, we are only allowed to see one side of the story. Anything that might contradict this is censored.
Posted by Karyn | 11.02.09, 19:10 GMT
Northern Ireland is lucky to have an Environment Minister blessed with common sense and willing to use real science rather than the "political" science indulged in by global warming scaremongers.
Posted by WHCM | 11.02.09, 16:58 GMT
Perhaps he just want a warmer climate for some reason? Think of the money we could all save on clothes for instance if we didn't need so many.
Posted by Richard | 11.02.09, 15:50 GMT
There seems to be a growing number of people who don't really bother to listen to, or consider the arguments for and against, on any local topical issue. I trust Mrs Marshall you are not one of these. These people simply vehemently attack anything emanating from a DUP Minister, or conversely from a Sinn Fein Minister, not on the basis of whether it is correct or incorrect but from the standpoint that, if it comes from the DUP it must be wrong, or from Sinn Fein we must dismiss it. Reading some of the posts below and from further reading, Mr Wilson does seem to have a valid argument for what he has said and done.
ps I am not a Sinn Fein voter but I do recognise the good work already done by Sinn Fein Ministers like Conor Murphy and Michelle Gildernew in their respective departments. Likewise I can see good work from SDLP, DUP and Unionist ministers.
Posted by T J McClean | 11.02.09, 13:18 GMT
I thought the fires were caused by people playing with matches according to the Aussie PM. Hows that for an 'Anthropocentric' cause. That was an awfully big word for a local politico.
Have no fear ! Sammy wants to store spent nuclear fuel rods under Carrickfergus at the salt mines. He gets my vote on that alone!
Bottom line kiddies is that if we accept the 'God did it', 'Big boys who ran away' or its all the Suns fault approach, advocated by these people then we will be stuffed by the time they are discredited comprehensively. At least the New Lab spin approach isnt detrimental to the environment. Doing nothing is.
Posted by Sartorius | 11.02.09, 12:41 GMT
Malachy,
I see you are spouting of the same old de-bunked rhetoric, where is your evidence? In the Bible I suspect. If you had any accepted quantative evidence then you would change the World. Offcourse you and Sammy do not have this evidence because it does not exist unlike the ever growing body of evidence testing and refining the Anthropogenic Global Warming Hypothesis.
I have posted a detailed overview concerning Peak Oil and EROI on the BT article discussing the recent increase in oil prices.
In-spite of the Global warming 'debate' the advert has very real relevance. Did you ever stop to think that the Government might be smoothing over the issue of Global Peak Oil production? Would it surprise you to hear the solutions identified for anthropogenic global warming are one and the same as what will be required to deal with Peak Oil?
Could you please do everone a favour and read a book which includes verifiable sources for yet futher reading!
Posted by M Spence | 11.02.09, 11:58 GMT
Ms Marshall..."The rich countries of the world are using up its resources and contributing to climate change out of all proportion"
given that the UN Internation Panel for Climate Change showed that surface temperatures had not risen since 1999, despite an exponential growth in CO2 emissions (egChinas 2 new coal power stations a week) would lead any reasonable person to ascertain that CO2 is not the major, or even a significant factor in global warming or climate change. in fact for 9 years there hasnt been global warming at all!
Perhaps we should do something about the methane plumes at the arctic circle though. 20 times more damaging to the atmosphere than CO2 and leaking out of the permafrost at the rate of millions of cubic metres a day.
Perhaps sammys common sense approach is best, lets not waste money on silly initiatives and use that money make ourselves more energy efficient.
Posted by david | 11.02.09, 11:16 GMT
We can well do without an EPA if it is anything like its Irish counterpart. Try to get a straight answer from them on Carbon (excesses over Kyoto), cryptosporidium (levels exceeding Bouchier), levels of lead in water supply etc. and wait and wait for the answers. Sammy Wilson is quite correct in requiring evidence based argument, rather than bending to what is essentially pseudo religious persuasion. These people for instance are arguing that current forest fires north of Melbourne are due to 'global warming' rather than their being a consequence of 'cooling' of Indian Ocean, whereby less moisture is taken up to become rainfall over that part of Australia. We will not need to theorise about Climate when th two US satellites are sent up next year. Dilettantism-our obsession with trivial solutions may assuage consciences, but the answer is that we should be less greedy.
Posted by Malachy McAnespie | 11.02.09, 10:50 GMT
"As an elected representative he is as entitled to his views as you are to yours", I totally agree.
However here is the argument, I don't need Mr. Wilson ramming his opinion down my throat. I would have liked to have seen the advertisement and then made my own educated judgement!!!!
Posted by cd | 11.02.09, 09:21 GMT
As an elected representative he is as entitled to his views as you are to yours, he just happens to be in a position to do something constructive/destructive about his. I, like Mr Wilson, am not yet convinced by the 'global warming' argument and see it as an excuse for governments to make money at our expense. I suspect I am not alone in being thoroughly fed up hearing about 'carbon footprints' and the like.
Posted by Kevin Steer | 11.02.09, 08:49 GMT