Third of Conservatives don’t accept climate change
Yesterday the Guardian published figures showing that a third of Conservative MPs don’t believe, or don’t know what they believe about, climate change. This on the same day that Gordon Brown gave the keynote speech to the Guardian’s ‘Climate Change Summit: how to beat Green Fatigue’ conference.
Writing in yesterday’s Guardian, Brown says climate change “is a challenge that inspires rather than daunts me.” Currently critical columnists (there’s a mouthful of cs) of Brown agree: Jonathan Freeland agress that “Brown sees this vast horizon: Cameron and the others can barely glimpse it.” Yet Cameron is for the Guardian “Britain’s most influential politician”.
Another view, this morning in the New Statesman, is that Labour would do better by leaving the coming economic downturn in the hands of Cameron, as it could mean another 20 years of Labour if the Conservatives get it wrong.
Both leaders have been talking mixed messages on climate change over the past months or so, for example:
Compare this:
With this:
And for Gordon, compare this:
With this:
The flip-flop has made its way this side of the Atlantic: or, according to the New Statesman, just describes what politicians have been doing for years. Either way, both Conservative and Labour parties seem to be very much behind the Stern Report on climate change. What would the author, Nicholas Stern, think of those third of Conservative MPs who don’t agree with the science? In an interview with Prospect magazine, Nicholas says (ironically, discussing a former Tory, Nigel Lawson):
I don’t have a particular issue with Lawson himself, but I do with the sceptics who deny the science. It is not controversial any more. Of course, there will always be people who point out that temperatures are not changing as fast this decade as the last [see Lab report, Prospect June 2008], but that is irrelevant; climate change is about the long-term trend, not the fluctuations.
Most people who follow the subject closely know that the return of the El Nina weather system means that we’re likely to have a cooler period. But it will pass. And globally and historically, June was warm, and warming. As Climate Progress says, “the Ice Age is STILL over.”
The problem for Cameron, despite his huge lead in the polls, is that, as Matthew Taylor writes, he could still be swept away by failures in his party.
Someone still living off his glory of advising Margaret Thather is causing embarrassment for the right-wing on climate change. Christopher (Viscount) Monckton is still suggesting that climate scientists are wrong, and that the IPCC are up to 2000% out on their measurements. This article is in the peer-reviewed science (which sceptics normally criticize as a closed shop and self-serving) but is not picked up by any reputable news agency. Only Transworld News. The story on Transworld News is a press release, pretty much verbatim, written by Robert Ferguson, officer for the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI).
The Chief Policy Adviser of the SPPI? Christopher Monckton.
[UPDATE: Sat 19th, story picked up on the misogynist's Mens's News Daily, a blog site 'dedicated to ordinary men, those walking wallets of family court'.]
This is a problem with the unfettered web: that products (PR amplifiers such as TransWorld) can take PR spin and amplify it outwards, to blogs such as… Tom Nelson (‘Proved: there is no climate crisis’). The issue of amplification is real and problematic: Nelson is a big amplifier of sceptical views, such as the columnist Andrew Bolt, who have a big enough audience already. See my comment on the OnEarth blog.
A lesson for the Conservatives? Stop listening to people like Monckton, and maybe starting listening to a moderate US Republican, calling for multilateral global support.
Download all the MP responses on climate change
[...] Original post by alexlockwood.net [...]
[...] of Conservative MPs don’t accept climate [...]
A problem with the unfettered web (well, free speech generally) is that people are free to express their biases and obviously you are exercising that right. As you have attacked the publication I write for, I assume you don’t mind a response. Try sticking to the subject and being accurate. That would help immensely. The article you site in your UPDATE, is published at Men’s News Daily, not “Men’s News Daily Blog.” The publication is not misogynist (which isn’t sticking to the subject anyway). I contend that the article is accurate and newsworthy. If you have a rebuttle, publish it. But attacking the messenger is only a sign of weakness. Personal attacks, especially unfounded accusations, discredit any real argument you might care to make. I think though, that you should leave the scientific debate to scientists. This overwhelming politicization of the climate debate is very destructive, as I mention in a more recent article: “Norway Should Apologize for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize” - http://mensnewsdaily.com/2008/07/19/norway-should-apologize-for-the-2007-nobel-peace-prize/
You might also find the following articles of interest:
April: IPCC Challenged to Recant Global Warming Position - http://mensnewsdaily.com/2008/04/19/ipcc-challenged-to-recant-global-warming-position/
May: Global Warming: Has Anyone Noticed that it’s Over? - http://mensnewsdaily.com/2008/05/24/global-warming-debate-has-anyone-noticed-that-its-over/
Also note that recent surveys demonstrate that most scientists do not believe in the man-made global warming / climate change theory. If you’re interested in accuracy, you need to be unafraid to find the facts and report them. It is your right to simply blog away with your own bias, but as long as you remain on that path, do not consider me a colleague - i.e. the type of “blogger” that you are.
“Third of Conservatives don’t accept climate change” - Interesting statistic by the way, even though written in a misleading way (”accept climate change”? Do they have outdoor air-conditioning, or what?).
Only 26 percent of climate scientists and engineers meeting in Alberta, Canada (51,000 sample size) attributed global warming to human activity like burning fossil fuels. And that’s the core scientific issue that is directly related to the politics that you’re discussing.
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=1d688937-54b7-48f4-a4be-d6979dada5df&k=65311
Funny how you talk about PMs as if they are scientists, and ignore the fact that no scientist who isn’t bought by green-money interests has signed off on the snake oil that is the anthropogenic global warming theory. And the ones who have are eerily silent about recent reports of a 30% increase in polar ice cap levels.
Be honest for a change. Is someone paying you to say what you say?
Also interesting that you suggest that the PMs listen to ANOTHER POLITICIAN, simply because that politician shares your (bought?) views, rather than to A SCIENTIST WHO MIGHT KNOW WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT.
You and I both know that politicians say whatever is expedient. So why the emphasis on them, and not on the truth?
It’s important for future policies that MPs either accept or reject the AGW theory.
But for the truth, it’s only important that the science is right. I have looked at it, and it’s not. Funnily enough, it’s pretty obvious that it isn’t, and a lot of people have had to bend their minds in knots to believe in, for instance, the hockey stick. I don’t know why they do it.
That doesn’t mean that we won’t, for instance, go down the carbon trading route. It just means that, like the Iraq war, we will do so with the wrong justification.
I don’t know if this matters from the point of view of the environment. Generally, putting less of anything out into the atmosphere or the sea is a good idea, as is improving efficiency. I would support both these positions. But building a whole world-wide movement on a fraud seems a stupid and dangerous thing to do from the point of humanity. Science will certainly be the loser….
It’s really interesting, but also surprising, to hear that climate skeptics remain in countries other than the U.S., and also to hear about “politics” in the UK.
But I suppose we are still the uncontested winner in the race, “large industrialized countries who have not signed the Kyoto Protocol as of September 2008″