Green Nightmare Haunts UK Prime Minister David
Cameron
Warned He May Lose Elections Over Rising Green Energy Costs
UK Chancellor George Osborne tells the
environmental lobby today that Britain should not be “in front of the rest of
the world” in tackling climate change. In an interview with The Times, the
Chancellor dismissed as a gimmick Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy prices,
but he signalled that he could ease green measures if prices continued to rise.
Michael Fallon, the Energy Minister, is understood to be looking at reducing
the burden of environmental measures on household bills in the next
Conservative manifesto. --Francis Elliott, Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester, (subscription
required) The Times, 28 September 2013
On June 8 2008, only five Members of
Parliament – Christopher Chope, Philip Davies, Peter Lilley, Andrew Tyrie and
Ann Widdecombe (all Conservatives) – voted against the Climate Change Bill.
They are worth naming, I think, because “the Five Members” who defied executive
fiat in the 1640s have an honoured place in our history. The modern Five
Members, four of whom are still MPs, should be honoured too. But all the other
Tories – nearly 200 of them – voted for the Bill, led by an enthusiastically
green David Cameron. What this means is that energy prices will go on rising
for at least a generation. What that means is that the most unavoidable element
in any household’s cost of living will make that household poorer each year for
the foreseeable future. And what that means is that any incumbent government
will find it extremely hard to get re-elected. –Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph, 27 September 2013
By putting energy prices at the heart of the
political debate, [Britain's opposition leader Ed] Miliband has raised a series
of interconnected issues. [UK chancellor] George Osborne is known to have been
increasingly impressed by the former chancellor Lord Lawson’s more sceptical
view of the orthodoxy on global warming – an orthodoxy reaffirmed last week by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I ask David Cameron if he, too,
has shifted his ground on greenery. “I’m certainly not more Lawsonian. It’s
worth looking at what this report this week says – that [there is a] 95 per
cent certainty that human activity is altering the climate. I think I said this
almost 10 years ago: if someone came to you and said there is a 95 per cent
chance that your house might burn down, even if you are in the 5 per cent that
doesn’t agree with it, you still take out the insurance, just in case.”
--Matthew d’Ancona, The Sunday Telegraph, 29 September
2013
From the geniuses who gave us vanishing
Himalayan glaciers and similar jeux d’esprit comes another million-word
exercise in Nostradamus-style science to be hung on a very robust nail in the
smallest room in the house. The dystopian predictions of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are now awaited by the saner elements of the
population with the same keen anticipation as the special edition of a
favourite television comedy show on Christmas Day. -- Gerald Warner, The Scotsman on Sunday, 29 September
2013
A leading global warming expert believes the
latest UN warning on man-made climate change is a "big gamble" as
temperatures have not increased since 1997. Dr Benny Peiser, of Lord Lawson's
Global Warming Policy Foundation, argued today's report from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is based on flawed models. Dr
Peiser does not doubt the climate has changed, but the report has failed to
explain why temperatures have not risen since 1997. He said: "The IPCC are
gambling that temperatures will rise soon. They ignore the fact that their
models have a problem, and they are unable to say when the temperature will
start rising again. That is a gamble.” --Owen Bennett, Daily Express, 28 September 2013
The global warming ‘pause’ has now lasted for
almost 17 years and shows no sign of ending – despite the unexplained failure
of climate scientists’ computer models to predict it. The Mail on Sunday has
also learnt that because 2013 has been relatively cool, it is very likely that
by the end of this year, world average temperatures will have crashed below the
‘90 per cent probability’ range projected by the models. Last night independent
climate scientist Nic Lewis – an accredited IPCC reviewer and co-author of
peer-reviewed papers – pointed out that taking start years of 2001, 2002 or
2003 would suggest a cooling trend of 0.02-0.05C per decade, though this would
not be statistically significant. --David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 29 September 2013
The IPCC has thrown down the gauntlet. Should
the pause continue they are toast. --Judith Curry, head of climate science at
the Georgia Institute of Technology, Mail on Sunday, 29 September 2013
In the climate debate, which side are you on?
Do you think climate change is the most urgent crisis facing mankind requiring
almost unlimited spending? Or that it’s all a hoax, dreamt up to justify
socialism, and nothing is happening anyway? Because those are the only two
options, apparently. I know this from bitter experience. Every time I argue for
a lukewarm “third way” — that climate change is real but slow, partly man-made
but also susceptible to natural factors, and might be dangerous but more likely
will not be — I am attacked from both sides. I get e-mails saying the
greenhouse theory is bunk and an ice age is on the way; and others from
guardians of the flame calling me a “denier”. --Matt Ridley, ,(subscription
required) The Times, 28 September 2013
In the past 16 years, temperatures have not
risen at all, that is a fact, and before 1980 we had 30 years of cooling. Since
1950, only 20 years have seen rising temperatures and nobody knows when
temperatures will rise again. If climate scientists were honest enough to
acknowledge their predictions were for excessive warming they would have to
admit that their climate models could be in serious trouble. The reality
regarding climate change is that the outlook is much better than people are
being led to believe with scary reports like this. We are not facing imminent
disaster, temperatures aren't rising as predicted and we have much more time
than is claimed by climate alarmists to get our policies right. Unless global
temperatures begin to rise again in the next few years it is very likely going
to suffer an existential blow to its credibility. --Benny Peiser, Daily Express, 28 September 2013
Everyone likes a consensus. The word itself
has only positive connotations, regardless of the conclusions reached. When the
consensus is said to be among experts — rather than the more obviously fallible
world of politics — then that’s it: opinion is elevated to the status of
unchallengeable fact. This is when things can get really dangerous. --Dominic
Lawson, ,(subscription required) The Sunday Times, 29 September 2013
It is thanks to the Labour leader Ed Miliband
that we are paying dearly for the Climate Change Act - easily the most
expensive law ever put through Parliament. Yet the man who sent us down this
disastrous path now wants, by law, to stop electricity prices rising, just when
our energy companies must spend billions of pounds to bring his mad dream to
fruition. –Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 29 September
2013
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