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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Friday, October 17, 2014

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

Climate Change Lobby
‘Has African Blood On Its Hands’
Owen Paterson Says:
‘Wicked’ Green Blob Kills Thousands Every Day
 
The former Environment Secretary attacked a so-called ‘green blob’ at the heart of Government yesterday – accusing Whitehall officials and ministers of raising energy prices for the poor. Owen Paterson said their support for flawed wind and solar power cost billions and made electricity and gas needlessly expensive. He said the ‘green blob’ included civil servants and quangos in thrall to the climate change and environmental lobby. Speaking to the Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank, Mr. Paterson claimed the effects of climate change had been ‘consistently and widely exaggerated’, and policies to encourage onshore wind farms will cost £1.3trillion by 2050. --Daniel Martin, Daily Mail, 16 October 2014

Film stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio who campaign to reduce consumption of fossil fuels are consigning millions of Africans to a life of poverty and ill-health, according to Britain’s former environment secretary. Owen Paterson said the focus on climate change had obscured the real causes of deprivation in poor countries. His comments were made while delivering the annual lecture of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think-tank known for being sceptical of climate change [policy]. Mr Paterson said: “The sight of rich film stars effectively telling Africa’s poor that they should not have fossil fuels, but should continue to die at the rate of millions each year from the smoke of wood fires in their homes frankly disgusts me.” --Ben Webster, The Times, 16 October 2014

We must challenge the current groupthink and be prepared to stand up to the bullies in the environmental movement and their subsidy-hungry allies. --Owen Paterson, 2014 Annual GWPF Lecture, London, 15 October 2015

As a member of the Cabinet for four years I supported Coalition energy policy. However I have become increasingly aware from my own constituency and from widespread travel around the UK of intense public dissatisfaction with heavily subsidized renewable technologies in particular onshore wind. I have used the last three months since leaving the Cabinet to learn more about the consequences of this policy. And what I have unearthed is alarming. Our current policy will cost £1,300bn up to 2050. It fails to meet the very emissions targets it is designed to meet. And it fails to provide the UK’s energy requirements. I call for a robust, common sense energy policy that would encourage the market to choose affordable technologies to reduce emissions. --Owen Paterson, 2014 Annual GWPF Lecture, London, 15 October 2015

Dozens of small nuclear reactors should be installed throughout the country near towns and cities if the UK wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep the lights on, the former environment secretary, Owen Paterson, has said. “This is a well established technology,” he said in his first major speech since he was sacked in the summer Cabinet reshuffle. “We have nuclear plants in our submarines which are accepted.” The plan was among a set of energy measures Mr Paterson outlined on Wednesday in a lecture to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which questions the cost of many climate change policies. --Pilita Clark, Financial Times, 16 October 2014

In its response to the 2014 Annual GWPF Lecture given last night by Owen Paterson, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has issued a statement to what Mr Paterson said. Unfortunately when it comes to Paterson’s claim that the earth’s surface temperature hasn’t risen in 18 years the CCC shows itself to be out of step with what has now become mainstream scientific opinion. Only campaigners, committees and some commentators use misleading phrases like ‘slowdown’ or ‘warming trend.’ In the peer-reviewed scientific literature, most scientists call it a temperature “hiatus” or “pause.” In fact, the global warming pause has become, as the journal Nature acknowledges, the biggest problem in climate science. It is a real problem that the CCC doesn’t think actually exists. --David Whitehouse, Global Warming Policy Forum, 16 October 2014

Six years ago today, an ambitious Labour politician, newly appointed climate change secretary, set Britain on a ruinous path that threatens our energy-dependent civilisation with collapse. Such is the devastating conclusion of Owen Paterson, the Tory former Environment Secretary, who yesterday joined Lord Lawson among the highest-profile critics of the political consensus on energy policy. Like this paper, he accepts emissions should be cut – though without ruining ourselves in a vain bid to meet EU targets. Indeed, Mr Paterson sets out alternative means of achieving cleaner energy more cheaply. At the very least, his ideas deserve full examination. --Editorial, Daily Mail, 16 October 2014

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