If global warming is a man made disaster why have governments around the world failed to do very muc

I have heard this before.

From the Mail and, no, Mr Booker has not changed his name! The Government earned plaudits from the green lobby yesterday for its new plan to crack down on the craze for wood-burning stoves.

As the Mail reported on its front page, the stoves chuck out lethal pollution, particularly from wet wood, and contribute to thousands of early deaths from lung and heart disease.

One reason Britain burns more wood than it has done for decades — a survey found 7. It gives off less CO2 than any other heating.

As a result of these persuasive arguments, about 1. Now we learn that wood-burning is the single biggest source of tiny soot particles called PM2. Given these horrific facts, why have governments in recent years made wood-burning such a core part of energy policy?

For there is no doubt ministers have been desperate to encourage it. There is just one issue. Health problems apart, the whole thing is an economic disaster. Participants could only qualify if they installed specific expensive renewable heating systems — as opposed to wood-burners bought by homeowners simply trying to be eco-friendly.

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Just 35, households have invested in it since its launch, while 6. A version of the scheme — with even more lavish subsidies — ran so totally out of control in Northern Ireland in that it led to the downfall of the government there, sparking a political crisis that, 17 months later, is not resolved.

Some users of the scheme kept heating systems running flat out night and day because they made such a profit from the subsidy scheme. But even this disgracefully wasteful affair is dwarfed by what has become one of the most controversial green energy schemes of all: Millions of tonnes of wood pellets are now needed by Drax every year, and since it is impossible to supply that quantity domestically, vast amounts of pellets are shipped 3, miles to Yorkshire from the U.

Yet a series of studies has confirmed what should have been obvious. It takes decades to grow a mature CO2-absorbing tree to replace a CO2-producing tree that can be cut down in seconds.

Even the most ardent green activist groups have protested that chopping down millions of acres of forest in America to fuel a system that ends up chucking out more CO2 is an absurd ecological disaster. This was even endorsed in a report last year by Duncan Brack, who had been a special adviser to Chris Huhne when this scheme was first being discussed.

What makes it even more disturbing is what happened to Mr Huhne after he was forced in to resign for perverting the course of justice by lying over a speeding offence.

Scarcely was the former environment minister out of prison inhaving served only two months of an eight-month sentence, than he was given a new job by an old school friend as European Director of Zilkha Biomass, a U.

The bitter truth is that these fiascos caused by our obsession with wood-burning are just a part of a larger disaster that taints almost every green scheme governments have foisted on Britain in the quest to reduce carbon emissions.

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Remember why the Blair government in encouraged millions of motorists to switch to driving diesel cars through offering tax subsidies. Eventually, it turned out that the pollution in the form of those PM2. And so, with a screeching U-turn, all the tax incentives encouraging us to buy diesel cars were reversed and diesel drivers were penalised.

It is all very well MPs coming out with yet another report on yet another green energy fiasco. But why is it always only after the damage has been done?

The fact is that not one of these schemes comes into being without having been nodded through Parliament. In that sense our MPs are as much a party to these disasters as the ministers who propose them.The inside story of Extinction Rebellion, the direct action group that paralysed central London to protest against what it see as the government's inaction on climate change.

But perhaps nowhere have the failed global-warming doom and gloom predictions been more pronounced than in the Antarctic, where sea-ice levels have . By contrast, the report found, less than $ billion a year is being spent around the world to reduce emissions or otherwise cope with climate change.

- More Than International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims - More Than International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims - Most of the Recent Warming Could be Natural.

White House quietly puts out report on how global warming is worsening US disasters and everyday lives The island where a young American was killed last week has been cut off from the world.

Can we still stop global warming? Only if we radically change our capitalist system, argues author Naomi Klein. In an interview with SPIEGEL, she explains why the time has come to abandon small.