David Cameron has claimed he is a 'true green' to convince people that the Conservatives have changed, no longer the nasty party. When they got ahead in the poles, that has been quietly dropped, instead of 'vote blue go green' we have an Obamaesque message of 'Change'.
Prior to his election as Tory leader, his only recorded statement about environmentalism was to mock wind farms as “giant bird-blenders” and demand more roads be built. But within a year of the sneer, he had one of these built onto his house, and invited the press to see it, proclaiming himself a “true green.”
Cameron says he wants to copy the 'green' policies of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Angela Merkel – but he doesn’t seem to understand what they are. Schwarzenegger, for example, has passed a law requiring car manufacturers to massively slash the amount of fuel each car uses. By 2020, they will have to achieve 43 miles per US gallon. The car manufacturers are fighting the law in court; Schwarzenegger has told them to quit “whining”. This is precisely the kind of “regulation” with, a “bureaucracy” to police it, that Cameron explicitly disavows, and Redwood promises to dismantle.
The man Cameron has put in charge of drawing up his plans for “a bonfire of regulation” is John Redwood, who says global warming is a “swindle” – but if it was happening we should celebrate because we will have more sunny days. “If you want to know if I’m a Tory,” Cameron told the Spectator, “ask John Redwood.”
Wokinghams Mr Redwood 'gaffed' by insisting Britain would "benefit" from the Earth heating up.
In an article on his internet diary the chairman of the Tory's economic competitiveness policy group said he was "sceptical" about scientific evidence that warned about global warming.
He mocked concerns that gas-guzzling cars could contribute to climate change by adding: "A recent news item has told us visits to Mars by space probes detect "global" warming there, but have not yet discovered the 4x4s causing it."
'I have always thought we should remain sceptical about all scientific theories, for that is the way that science advances by constantly submitting theories to test. Meanwhile we are living in a period when things are warming up, so we should manage any unhelpful consequences of that and welcome the good effects it will have. We do need to increase the water supply in the drier south of the UK and make sure we have enough water stored in case we have longer drier periods, and we do need to improve sea defences in case there is going to be a combination of small rises in sea level and higher storm and tidal surges. We will benefit from the better weather for tourism, agriculture and outdoor sports. Fewer people will die of the cold and from snow and ice in the winter.'
A number of other prominent Tories including members of the Commons, Lords and European Parliament have publicly denounced ‘global warming alarmism', or the ‘lunatic consensus on climate change'.
Former leadership contender David Davis has launched a scathing attack on the efforts to achieve a new global agreement on tackling climate change at Copenhagen. He said evidence suggested the earth was cooling, not warming, and that recently leaked e-mails had shown leading scientists "conspiring to rig the figures to support their theories". "The ferocious determination to impose hair-shirt policies on the public - taxes on holiday flights, or covering our beautiful countryside with wind turbines that look like props from War of the Worlds - would cause a reaction in any democratic country."
Some of the Tory sceptics deny outright that man-made climate change exists. Others are willing to concede that the overwhelming scientific consensus is probably right but believe that to do anything about it will damage business or harm economic growth. But British businesses are embracing the development of a low carbon economy and taking advantage of the new worldwide markets in green goods, services and technologies that are opening up.
Graham Brady MP
"There is some room for debate about why the climate is changing and the best ways of tackling it. It is a good idea to reduce carbon emissions, but I would not want to see the whole economy destroyed in the process. There is a balance to be struck." Graham Brady, The Independent, 2 December 2009
Douglas Carswell MP
"I have thought long and hard about it and in my view the climate is not changing because of human activity." Douglas Carswell, Clacton Gazette, 23 October 2009
"The lunatic "consensus" on man-made climate change is starting to break down." Douglas Carswell, blog post, 12 October 2009
Philip Davies MP
"We appear to have gone down a road whereby people's ability to exercise free speech on certain subjects is being undermined, and there is no greater example of that at the moment than climate change. People have jumped on to that particular bandwagon with religious zeal, rather than looking at the issue from a purely objective perspective. Of course we all care about the future of our planet and the legacy that we leave our children and grandchildren-nobody doubts the importance of that-but the question is how effective the measures taken are in tackling any problem that there may be. It is no good our trying to do something completely disproportionate that disproportionately affects our economy and the quality of life of the people of this country, with no overall benefit to the world as a whole, anyway." Philip Davies, Hansard 15 June 2007, col 1020
"The case is not helped by the fact that the planet appears to have been cooling, not warming, in the last decade" David Davis MP
Peter Lilley MP
"There are plenty of other fairy stories around, and I want to touch on the idea that a rise of 2° C would constitute dangerous climate change that we should try to avoid by spending unlimited amounts. That is a 2° C rise not from now, but from before the industrial revolution. We have already had a rise of 0.7° C, so it is being said that a further 1.3° C rise in world temperature would be dangerous. One reason why the ordinary public are in disbelief is because they spend their time looking for places that are 10° C warmer than here, not 1° C. The Minister was frightfully upset when I pointed out that the average temperature in north-east England was more than 2° C higher than that in Cornwall and asked whether it was dangerous for people to go from Newcastle to Newquay. We cannot pretend that comparatively modest changes to the temperature of the Earth will lead to Armageddon- they will not."
Peter Lilley, Hansard, 5 November 2009, col 1052
Peter Lilley also questioned the science behind climate change, arguing that “Politicians, having committed themselves to the idea of climate change, invent the reasons to justify it, and there is a tendency to demonise anybody who dissents from the consensus.
“I believe that the claims that the scientific evidence is overwhelming and that the debate is ended are incorrect and exaggerated, that the damages supposed to result from rises in the global average temperature are exaggerated and that the cost of mitigating that rise in temperature is almost certainly understated.”
Lilley was supported by party colleague Peter Bone who raised the thought-promoting examples of medieval Greenland being warm enough to support vineyards and NASA research apparently finding temperatures to have registered a long-term increase on Jupiter and Mars as well as Earth.
John Maples MP (Conservative Vice Chairman)
"I do not believe that the science is anything like as settled as the proponents of the Bill are making out. In fact, the scientists hedge their predictions with an awful lot of qualifications and maybes that those who invoke them often omit. The science is a bit like medicine in the 1850s. The scientists are scratching the surface of something that they do not really understand, but no doubt will. They are probably on to something, but nothing like the whole story. What they say does not justify any of the apocalyptic visions that we have heard set out." John Maples, Hansard, 9 June 2008, c103
"The only argument for acting radically now is if there is a tipping point - a point of no return. None of the scientists whom I have read predicts that"
Andrew Tyrie MP
"I will not support the [Climate Change] Bill this evening. I have fundamental disagreements with parts of it. It requires the Government, and particularly their successors, to embark on a drastic restructuring of the British economy." Andrew Tyrie MP, Hansard, 9 June 2008, c98
Anne Widdecombe MP
"It so happens that I know that an awful lot of people in our party - and by that I mean a lot - are deeply unhappy with the way that we've signed up apparently quite blindly to the climate change agenda." Anne Widdecombe, Total Politics, 21 August 2009
Lord Lawson of Blaby
"The greatest error in the current conventional wisdom is that, if you accept the (present) majority scientific view that most of the modest global warming in the last quarter of the last century - about half a degree centigrade - was caused by man-made carbon emissions, then you must also accept that we have to decarbonise our economies. Nothing could be further from the truth."Nigel Lawson, The Times, 23 November 2009
Daniel Hannan MEP
"I see guys with clipboards and white coats telling me one thing and then guys with equally impressive white coats telling me another thing and you know I don't know what the science is, I'm not qualified, and I envy the moral certainty of some of the guys on both sides of this argument. But I am worried about the direction that these talks are taking in the sense that it's completely disproportionate, even if you take the figures being quoted by the most optimistic supporters of the whole process, they're talking about a nugatory reduction in climate change rates over the next century and look at the price that they're wanting us to pay for that. We together, Western Europe and the US, account for a tiny, at most 15% of all the CO2 emissions so what we do is really not going to affect things very much, even if you're wrong and all the climate change guys are right about this, it isn't going to make much difference."
Dan Hannan, Fox News, 9 November 2009
Roger Helmer MEP
"We are now planning to spend unimaginable sums of money on mitigation measures which will simply not work, and by damaging our economies will deny us the funds we need to address real environmental problems. As a British journalist, Christopher Booker, has remarked, global warming alarmism is the greatest collective flight from reality in human history."
Roger Helmer, speech, 4 February 2009
I was asked by the Heartland Institute to review EU climate policies, and in particular the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, as I have served on the European parliament's Climate Change Committee. The subject is timely, as the new US Obama administration is looking at similar Cap and Trade schemes. I will argue that the EU's scheme is ill-conceived. It has been hugely expensive and damaging, adding to industry's costs and creating a mountain of red tape, while doing little to curb emissions. It is failing in its own terms. If climate alarmism is misplaced, then the EU's policy is entirely pointless and a vast waste of resources.
Roger Helmer, personal blog, 9 March 2009
Giles Chichester MEP
"Many are not convinced about global warming and argue that warnings of the melting of Polar ice packs and future rises in sea levels are not borne out by the scientific evidence. Others point to our wet, humid summers and local flooding as a foretaste of the increasing effects of climate change. The majority are, like me, confused by messages of doom from experts who issue statements based upon the latest climate predictions of their computer programmes. These are always prefaced by words such as should, could or may, thus emphasising by the vagueness of the language the inadequate foundations of their research."
Giles Chichester MEP, Press released letter, 7 October 2009
Douglas Carswell MP
"When I was a member of Friends of the Earth [before his election to Parliament] I did believe that Carbon Dioxide emissions were responsible for global warming. It is just the facts seem to have changed. And so i've changed my mind"
'Vote Blue:Go Green' turns out to be just Spin
This site is quite good for refuting sceptics.
And these from you tube.
For entertainment, see Sara Palin on the subject.
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