Nothing More Than Hot Air?

There are two MSM articles that coincide with two separate themes this blog has referred to recently,

The first was in yesterdays Telegraph “There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998
By Bob Carter”

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

That industrial carbon dioxide is not the primary cause of earth’s recent decadal-scale temperature changes doesn’t seem at all odd to many thousands of independent scientists. They have long appreciated – ever since the early 1990s, when the global warming bandwagon first started to roll behind the gravy train of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin. Yet the public appears to be largely convinced otherwise. How is this possible?

Since the early 1990s, the columns of many leading newspapers and magazines, worldwide, have carried an increasing stream of alarmist letters and articles on hypothetical, human-caused climate change. Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as “if”, “might”, “could”, “probably”, “perhaps”, “expected”, “projected” or “modelled” – and many involve such deep dreaming, or ignorance of scientific facts and principles, that they are akin to nonsense.

The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself. No matter how accurate it may be, cautious and politically non-correct science advice is not welcomed in Westminster, and nor is it widely reported.

The article concludes with a call for the British Government to urgently recast the sources from which it draws its climate advice. The shrill alarmism of its public advisers, and the often eco-fundamentalist policy initiatives that bubble up from the depths of the Civil Service, have all long since been detached from science reality. Intern-ationally, the IPCC is a deeply flawed organisation, as acknowledged in a recent House of Lords report, and the Kyoto Protocol has proved a costly flop. Clearly, the wrong horses have been backed.

This as I mentioned is the very horse that David Cameron is so keen to mount that he is making it central a Conservative policy to lead a new green revolution.

The other article is William Rees-Mogg in the Times “For goodness’ sake don’t mention Europe: it doesn’t fit our new image”

Rees-Mogg point out the obvious but usually ignored fact of British politics, that a great deal of our national policies have an EU related connection. Writing of David Cameron’s speech in Manchester: “He did not refer at all to Europe in his leader’s speech in Manchester on Saturday. This omission, however, made his speech sound strangely lopsided, since most of his main themes had a European aspect that he did not mention. Identity cards arise from European policies, as does the regionalisation to which he is so strongly opposed, while the environment is largely a European competence. Even if he did not wish to discuss the European integration, he should have recognised the European limitations on British policymaking. More than half of all our legislation now comes from Europe. Parliament is the rubber stamp for Brussels.

Yesterday Oliver Letwin further stirred these troubled waters. On the BBC Sunday AM programme, Andrew Marr asked him why there had been no reference to Europe in the leader’s speech. Mr Letwin replied that the speech had concentrated on “mainline issues”, clearly implying that Europe is not one. If Europe is not a mainline issue, what is?

No doubt the real motive for avoiding discussion of all European policy is that Europe does not fit the desired image of Mr Cameron’s party. Euroscepticism could be as embarrassing as a striped polyester bow-tie at a Notting Hill party. To some people, the mention of Europe sounds obsessive or old-fashioned. But Conservative Party policy, while it needs a favourable image, cannot merely be a fashion statement. Europe matters because in wide areas Brussels makes the laws for Britain. Mr Cameron understands that perfectly well. Any policy without a European element is only half a policy, if that.

Unless Cameron addresses the EU aspect, and explains exactly how he will deliver policies that run counter to EU aspirations, the policies he is touting amount to nothing more than hot air, and in the context of global warming, the last thing the new green Conservative leader should be doing is adding to the problem. .

Similar Posts:

• New GW Site
• IPCC Talking about a Conflict of Interests – not
• Climate Change Denial
• Global Cooling
• Conservatives’ Achilles heel
• Sea Ice Fact Fiction or Myth
• Climate Change aids EU Integration
• Climate change is a huge and growing problem.