Monday 1 February, 2010

UK
Science/Nature

A cold Britain during so-called Global Warming

By Charles Gardner

As Britain shivers from the effects of yet another cold front, the tragi-comedy of errors that has blighted the climate change debate gets more confusing – and bizarre – by the day.

The whole world has been misled over a forecast for a Himalayan glacier meltdown by 2035 caused by global warming.

Now the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change – set up by the UN to advise on the matter – has been forced to admit it was wrong, and that it was based on speculation.

What is worse, it has emerged that the man in charge of the panel, Rajendra Pachauri, was told that the claims were false before the recent Copenhagen Summit called to discuss joint action on the issue which could yet cost millions in terms of compensating poor countries said to have been worst hit by the effects of climate change.

This is the same body that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore for its work on something many don’t even believe is happening.

Apparently when a prominent glaciologist disputed the Himalayan statement in an Indian government report last year, Mr Pachauri responded by writing it off as ‘voodoo science’.

And all this comes hot on the heels of the so-called Climate Gate controversy in which hacked e-mails suggest some scientists may have sought to conceal data that did not support their views.

The UN panel has also been found guilty of wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

And the claim that it was already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters was central to discussions at Copenhagen including a demand by developing countries for $100 billion in compensation from the rich nations blamed for creating the most carbon emissions.

UK Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband has even suggested that British and overseas floods could be linked to global warming. Even leading churchmen and Christian relief organisations have jumped on the bandwagon.

And though a later caveat was added to the above-mentioned UN report (on natural disasters) admitting “insufficient evidence” for such a link, this was kept from the Copenhagen summit despite the fact that at least two scientific reviewers had urged greater caution in proposing a link.

No-one is suggesting that there hasn’t been an increase in the severity and frequency of natural disasters including earthquakes. But that is not the result of global warming. It is a sign that we are living in the days immediately preceding the Second Coming of Christ who, when asked to indicate the signs of his imminent return, pointed to natural disasters in the context of which he made the astonishing comparison with a woman’s labour pains which, as we all know, increase with severity and frequency as the time for birth draws near.

In the Gospel of Matthew, for example, Jesus is quoted as saying: “There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth-pains.”

But of course in the current secular climate of the West, politicians go to great lengths to avoid bringing God into the equation. It’s easier to blame man for, in their humanistic thinking, he is at the centre of the universe and can therefore solve its problems. After all, why consult the manual to fix the earth when you can do it yourself?

As the new co-chairman of the IPCC working group overseeing the climate impacts report Professor Christopher Field said in explaining away the 2007 (glacier) report as having been broadly accurate at the time it was written: “Science is progressive. If something turns out to be wrong we can fix it next time around.”

Very handy!

Now at last the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science, has called for a more honest dialogue on climate change, admitting that the impact of global warming has been exaggerated by some scientists.

The Government’s chief scientific adviser Professor John Beddington said climate scientists should be less hostile to sceptics who question man-made global warming. There needed to be more openness of the uncertainties of climate science.

“There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can’t be changed,” he said.

And there have been so many other bizarre claims in recent weeks, some even contradicting established propaganda on the issue. For example, it was recently reported that some climate change scientists now say that the desert will actually shrink, not grow, through global warming. And we’ve already promised millions in compensation to countries who are going to suffer because of an extension of barrenness!

Then there was the public information broadcast encouraging us to drive ‘five miles less’… and a connection with contraceptive services, though I couldn’t follow the logic on that one.

And there was the UN’s climate change negotiator declaring that, in his view, Copenhagen had at first seemed a “major failure” but that on reflection he felt it provided the basis for future negotiations.

Meanwhile former Chancellor Nigel Lawson has been infuriating his colleagues in the House of Lords with regular contributions of perfectly eloquent scepticism on the issue.

But few wish to listen to reason when the International Politically Correct Campaign is still conducting the orchestra – though with increasing discord.

I don’t know about global warming – more like the warmth of wool being pulled over people’s eyes.

Photo: Luke Wilson Photography