Patrick Harvey Interview

[Igneococcus]

He sill thinks the Cass review is "unscientific":
https://www.thetimes.com/article/8d70cd4b-2b85-4bea-879f-5daa992a2ce2?shareToken=016e03568a02481cf3617dec27209b6c

Ugh he's such a vile little scrote.

I pray he doesn't get in on the list in 2026.

I loathe him.

A crashing disappointment.

It's not scientific! It doesn't follow the science! No sciencey science or anything. No science or sciencing was involved in the unsciency unscience not science thing here!

Any parent who has encouraged their child to eat their greens is currently saying,

"It's all right, I've binned the brocoli, there's loads of turkey twizzlers and cans of macaroni cheese."

Well, it's sad. I used to like and admire Patrick Harvie, dotting about the West End with his bicycle and his collarless shirts. He seemed refreshing and earnest.

He became more and more intransigent and bitter and ragey over the years. I think politics can ruin people.

Then again, maybe I just hadn't seen the murky bits that have revealed themselves since he's been in power. His illogical, intemperate positions.

“I think there are some politicians who, for quite profoundly ill-judged reasons, are trying to tell doctors what drugs they should prescribe to which patients, and I think that’s deeply wrong and dangerous,” he says. He argues that doctors should be allowed to prescribe puberty-blockers if they think there are good medical reasons — “which there are”.

Does he understand that Hilary Cass is a doctor? An eminent, highly regarded, highly experienced paediatrician?

You could get the impression he doesn't think she's qualified. What is it about the woman Hilary Cass that he is unable to respect, I wonder.

I would absolutely love to be able to vote for a party with decent and feasible environmental politics, based on actual science, but I can't see the SGs being that party during my lifetime.

He doesn't come across as being very intelligent- multiple Scottish Green policies have been completely unworkable or actually environmentally damaging - banning new wood burners, trying to force homeowners to convert to heat pumps (impossible for old housing stock & tenements), the deposit return scheme - I'm now very anti-Green as they are grossly incompetent. They pick a stance that sounds good as a soundbite without any interest in whether it's actually environmentally beneficial, economically viable or even scientifically possible.

No. They're actually damaging the cause, partly from ridiculously badly thought through posturing legislation (ban wood burning stoves in favour of gas heaters? The deposit return scheme?!), and partly from relentless pursuit of frankly weird and extreme positions (Rainbow Greens spring to mind).

It's a damn shame. Just when we need them more than ever. And in fact there ARE some sensible policies buried in among the shite, but they are discredited because of the determined stupidity of the representatives.

I think you "I want to be green but..." People need to read the evidence. Yes, wood burners cause pollution. Yes heat pumps work.

It's possible for politicians to hold one daft position without being entirely wrong.

It's just so weird, the only way we know that the climate is changing is because of science, so how does someone who's whole political existence is a stand that is based on science become a science denier themselves. That's next level bonkers.

I would really like to see some proper discussions about many/all of these policies, like I'd like someone to set out, in detail and with proper numbers, how we are going to generate enough power (in all weather conditions) when we are all on heat pumps and we all drive electric cars, or someone could explain to me how cutting down old-growth forests in the US for biomass power stations in the UK is ecologically better than generating power with natural gas. Or make the case for covering hills in Sitka spruce, why Sitka, why on peatland, food security, maybe there is actually a good valid reason for it even if I can't see it but I'm willing to listen. We absolutely need to have proper discussions about all this, but I can't see this happening any time soon, not with anyone in power at Holyrood.

I nearly fell asleep reading that, what a mundane little man he is. He comes across as someone that has been promoted way above his ability by being a big fish in a little pond.

What a wasted opportunity for them in terms of the environment, imagine if they’d put as much effort in to that as they did trying to convince us all that men can be women. Not one iota of self reflection either.

But men can be women though, so why worry about all that other unimportant stuff? A complete waste of an opportunity to bring about meaningful change, flushed down the toilet of ideology, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Wood burners use a renewable source of fuel. Gas fires use fossil fuels.

The specifics of this argument were that this was for a back up heating source for when electricity failed.

Houses, if properly designed and insulated, should not generally need a regular heat source at all. And yes, heat pumps are part of that.

Yeah, I mean how can you take anyone seriously on anything scientific who spouts the TWAW nonsense? Or who like Maggie Personperson (sorry, I know it's overdone but I love it) thinks it's impossible to tell she's female because she's not been sequenced yet, maybe someone should buy her an Ancestry genome kit.

Greenwashing is just as damaging as no green policies at all, possibly more so as it gives the illusion of Something Being Done.

I think the trouble with the Greens is that they will not countenence any criticism of policies, because of the righteousness and self justification.

They assume any questions or criticism are personal ideologiical attack, so discount any attempts to reason. This leaves them with brittle, weak, and sometimes plain ridiculous positions.

Yes. Part of the problem is failures to rigorously stress test propositions and consider risks.

So we saw plans for afforestation that proposed planting Sitka on pristine peat bog, because Trees Are Good.

I'm currently quite concerned that windpower is also going to risk being seen as unmitigatedly good and any potential downsides being automatically discounted.

The govt seems very bad at seeing an issue from more than one angle. Rigidity and myopic focus and over simplification of issues.

God, I wish we had a second house.

Ha! I mean I wish the Scotgov had a second chamber, not that I personally had a second house, although that might be nice, maybe Tuscany ....

Out of interest and context: does anyone know what Patrick Harvey studied at Manchester metropolitan university?
I’ve tried to find out but I’m none the wiser.

BA in Righteousness followed by MA in Being A Knob?

The govt seems very bad at seeing an issue from more than one angle. Rigidity and myopic focus and over simplification of issues.

Absolutely this, I totally agree.

It's the new way of debating things.

"I have a policy. It is Good."

"What about..."

"You do not like my Good policy? I think you must be Bad."

Yes. And now every single opinion you hold is Bad also because nobody can be right about some things and wrong about others. Certain groups of people are automatically Good and can't be challenged at all.

Interested to hear about the Sitka spruce plan. Wasn't what the Forestry Commission did over great swathes of northern Britain many decades agon and now doesn't do because of the environmental effects? The island my mother lives on is half-covered in Sitka spruce even now. It's very noticeable indeed that when you walk through a forest of Sitka there's nothing else there. Quite eerie, actually.

Yes, at times the unevidenced religious fervour type behaviour around environmental issues does rival gender zealotry in it's lack of logic and attempts to destroy heretics. Sometimes it's very much not evidence based and environmental policies can create worse environmental problems than they solve (as well as generally speaking being terrible for the poorest and most vulnerable in society, sometimes it really does feeling like the rich punching down).

I remember as an undergraduate being rather appalled when some of my peers treated an elderly geology lecturer, who had the temerity to mention previous periods of global heating and cooling in the earth's history, very badly, and dismissed all his expertise because they assumed he was trying to say climate change wasn't caused by humans. I think he was raising the possibility but hadn't firmly committed to that position, I witnessed the same talk. And I particularly didn't think it merited him being cast as 'evil' and essentially a wrongthinker just because he might have a different opinion.

Especially since those same students who were extremely nasty about him were all raising money to fly halfway around the world to do 'charity' projects that could have easily be done by those living in those areas, who would have definitely benefited more from directly receiving the money from those flights.