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More from David Cameron’s speech yesterday Climate change is a huge and growing problem.

In Britain the three hottest years since records began centuries ago all occurred in the last

decade. “Our planet is rapidly getting warmer. The polar ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. Hosepipe bans in April. What more evidence do we need? We simply cannot afford to ignore it. This Government hasn’t taken the environment nearly seriously enough. We need to be the party that doesn’t tiptoe around the issue. Instead of just far-off targets that we will never meet, we need binding targets for carbon emissions every year. We can take a lead. We can make a difference.

Imagine if twenty years ago I’d have told you that all our cars would be running on unleaded petrol…that we’d be recycling our waste on a daily basis… that houses in England would have solar panels on their roofs. You’d have thought I was mad.

Well today I want this Party to lead a new green revolution.

Daring to imagine possibilities that seem a distant dream today.

Unleashing innovation, imagination, inspiration.

Setting a clear framework that brings forward the best technology, the brightest thinking, the boldest plans.

And setting a clear challenge for individuals, for households, for business and for government… a clear challenge that says: this is our planet, our future, our responsibility.

We’re all in this together, and together we can lead the way.”

Download full speech

This section gained the most applause so I assume that those in the hall had perhaps been brainwashed by crusading journalism, or alternately were perhaps not so very old.

Because had they been around during the 1970s they would have been told to be worried, very worried, about global cooling.

Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned of “extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation.”

Science Digest (February 1973) reported that “the world’s climatologists are agreed” that we must “prepare for the next ice age.”

The Christian Science Monitor (”Warning: Earth’s Climate is Changing Faster Than Even Experts Expect,” Aug. 27, 1974) reported that glaciers “have begun to advance,”

“growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter”

and “the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool.”

Newsweek agreed (”The Cooling World,” April 28, 1975) that meteorologists “are almost unanimous” that catastrophic famines might result from the global cooling that

the New York Times (Sept. 14, 1975) said “may mark the return to another ice age.”

The Times (May 21, 1975) also said “a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable” now that it is “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere’s climate “has been getting cooler since about 1950.”

Let Cooler Heads Prevail

If the scientist in the 1970 was so spectacularly wrong what is it that make today`s scientist right? perhaps they are in some cases the very same people.

David Cameron probably thinks he has hit upon a popular idea, a notion that can only have been reinforced by the reaction of his audience. But setting a clear challenge for individuals, for households, for business and for government will not come without associated costs, cost which if he is determined that we should lead a new green revolution, would be borne by us in Britain but not by our trading partners, this can only have the affect of slowing down the British economy.

Before leaping feet first into the void created by questionable science and dragging the country down with him Cameron should question some of his own rhetoric,

Our planet is rapidly getting warmer, The National Academy of Sciences says the rise in the Earth’s surface temperature has been about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. But one degree is margin of error they allow themselves. Because taking the temperature of our planet, involves limited precision.

Even then the scientists cover their backs with political like get out clauses, for instance;

The Earth’s climate varies naturally over time, responding to shifts in its orbit, variations in the sun’s energy, levels of greenhouse gases, volcanic eruptions, and random changes in the atmosphere and oceans. The gases that we have been adding to the atmosphere have contributed to the warming of the past l00 years, producing what scientists have called “a discernible human influence on global climate.” We will need a longer record of temperature data and a better understanding of climate to determine how much of the warming has been caused by human activities.

Sorry, on one hand there is a discernible human influence, on the other we will need a longer record of temperature data and a better understanding of climate to determine how much of the warming has been caused by human activities.

In fact the planet is cooler now than it was 4, 5 or 6 thousand years ago.

Analysis of long-term European temperature

records: 1751–1995

ABSTRACT: Monthly temperature records are assembled for 57 European stations, with some of the

records extending nearly two and a half centuries. Our analyses reveal a statistically significant warming

of approximately 0.5°C over the period 1751 to 1995. The period of most rapid warming in Europe

occurred between 1890 and 1950, and there is quantitative evidence that some of the observed warming

during this 60 yr period may be related to urbanization or other local effects; no warming was

observed in the most recent half century. Urban effects or other local contaminations in the earliest

records could not be quantified due to a dearth of reliable comparable data. The long-term warming in

Europe has been confined to the low-sun months, and the coldest period since 1751 occurred near 1890.

Hosepipe bans in April? perhaps Cameron should read Eureferendum, here and here

If the EU had not imposed such draconian unrealistic and arbitrary standards of purity for drinking water and sewage effluent costing billions, the water companies could have invested that money in repairing their leaking system, or creating new reservoirs. It was a political choice to impose those standards and costs on out drinking water, we can now see the results, it will also be political choice if the Conservatives ever gain office, to impose new standards to combat Global warming, the results of which will probably not be come evident until after Cameron is out of office. But never mind we have new green lean conservative party leader, just wait and see how much we all appreciate what he is going to cost us.

Not a penny more of public money should be directed at propping up Britain’s political parties. For 20 years they have conspired to reduce public participation in democracy. Now they are paying the inevitable price — depressed membership, reduced income and falling election turnouts. To demand that the taxpayer reward them for this exclusivity with further subsidy is outrageous. The party leaders are even now discussing how to replenish their party coffers from state funds. Since taxpayers are not privy to this conspiracy against the exchequer the only redress may yet be rioting in the streets.

These are the people — the party leaders and their predecessors — who have been selling honours to pay for their burgeoning empires and then lied about it. Tony Blair and David Cameron now have the cheek to tell the public that if it wants them to stop doing what they deny doing it must pay them for it. The effrontery is breathtaking. Let them sweat.

So says Simon Jenkins in a hard hitting comment in the Times today