reply to post by Kailassa
Climate change is natural. It has always happened. It happens on all the solar system's planets. Man made global warming is a fiction based on
statistical data. Data that is incomplete, misinterpreted, partly ignored and, quite often, only well chosen samples are used to push agendas. The
matter was recently debated in the U.K's House of Lords and here are some extracts of an article about that debate:
The government's climate minister in the House of Lords dropped a clanger on Monday evening, when he claimed that the polar ice caps were melting at
a record rate.
"It is indisputable that polar ice caps are melting - we can see that with our own eyes," Lord Hunt, Minister of State of the Department of Energy,
told the house. Hunt described himself as a climate "agnostic" - but he was swiftly corrected by Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former Chancellor.
"My Lords, that is not true of the past year; The noble Lord’s predecessors were seriously misinformed by his officials, and I suspect that he will
be too," Lawson replied. Twisting the knife he continued: "That is a real problem for him, and I feel for him.
"The fact is that in the Antarctic, where most of the ice is, the ice is thickening and has been for some time. In the Arctic this year there has
been a greater extension of ice than ever before."
....
The debate gave the Government and its supporters the chance to say something they hadn't in the Commons. That hand on heart, that they don't know
what they're talking about. Quite literally. Take this exchange between The Earl of Onslow and Lord Hunt. Onslow asked:
"The world’s climate has got colder over the past 10 years, just, while world emissions have risen by quite a lot. Can the Minister explain
that?"
"My Lords, I am not a scientist," the Minister replied, "and it is not my role to debate the intricacies of scientific arguments".
...
So to Lawson.
After Mrs Thatcher's former Chancellor had written a book on policy responses to climate change, he discovered that no British publisher would take
it. A US publisher brought it to market, and it's since become a hit, translated into two languages.
Lawson's main point was that this was a futile gesture. It didn't require the UK to cut its own emissions by one gram. But the consequences of this
gesture were costly. He began by explaining why he hadn't spoken before in the House:
"I felt that it was unbecoming for an unbeliever to take part in a religious service, which is what all this is really about.
"The Bill will go down in history, and future generations will see it as the most absurd Bill that this House and Parliament as a whole as ever had
to examine, and it has now become more absurd with the increase from 60 per cent to 80 per cent."
A futile unilateral gesture?
Lawson invited the Lordships to "pretend the planet is warming" - and ignore the figures from the Met Office and Hadley Centre. (Lawson said he
didn't see the evidence supported the claim that the planet was cooling, but it certainly hadn't done a lot of warming since the 1998 El Nino).
"The majority of climate scientists do not think that if there were a warming, it would be a disaster." So what then?
The point of the bill was symbolic - and only "makes sense" if other countries were to follow suit and make similarly symbolic gestures, he
argued.
(The UK only contributes 2 per cent of man-made CO2 emissions worldwide, while worldwide human emissions are only 2 per cent of the planet's CO2
output. And the planet's CO2 is about one tenth of greenhouse gas. So the rhetoric is about "setting an example".)
The problem, said Lawson, was that Europe had planned to isolate the US, a plan that had "backfired horribly". This left the EU making symbolic
pledges of its own - no one expects China, the world's biggest CO2 emitter, or India to follow. Except that the Europeans are now backing off. The
catchy 20 per cent by 2020 reduction has been abandoned. Germans need their coal, the new members like Poland need theirs - and are playing
industrialisation catch-up - and the whole thing is falling apart.
"Nothing will happen. It can only be agreed unanimously and will be looked at again in December this year, after the Poznan meeting, which I hope the
Minister will grace with his presence. It will be an educational event for him."
Lawson highlighted a recent conference called "Cashing in on Carbon" in which an investment group featuring Lord Stern was prominently featured.
"So the people who gave you the glories and the joys of mortgage-backed securities are now offering the great business opportunity of carbon-backed
securities."
Meanwhile the emissions trading system was a "scam": China made a lot of money selling these worthless indulgences. So much money, it had to tax
them. Climate change had also proved to be a vote-loser for the Canadian Liberal opposition - its "green shift" cost it the election - and in New
Zealand, said Lawson. He also warned the Tory party not to find itself "high and dry" with symbolic climate gestures.
Lords debate Climate Bill, carbon racket
My opinion: Global Warming has been changed to Climate Change because it will allow our money to be swindled from us under the guise of the Global
Cooling now upon us. Called Climate Change it will deter the public from talking about that old Global Warming con in light of Global Cooling.
Also, this planet once had an atmosphere suited to anaerobic life forms. Our current atmosphere is one of many phases - it will not always be suited
to aerobics. Should we really try to stop our planet's biosphere's evolution?
How Bacteria Nearly Destroyed All Life Have a read, it's damn interesting.