Holyrood herd's darkest hour as zealots prevail

Published on Thursday 25 June 2009 23:04

WAS the climate change legislation the Scottish Parliament's finest hour? Climate change minister Stewart Stevenson (yes, that's his title) declared "Scotland can be proud of this bill… We are leading global action and expect others to follow our lead…"

What vainglorious twaddle. This was the parliament's darkest hour, a chilling example of delusional herd hysteria at its worst. A debate proceeded on no critical scrutiny of the evidence. Arbitrary targets were set after a mindless bidding process that had more in common with a mad hatters' tea party. Greenhouse gas emissions are to be "slashed" by 42 per cent by 2020, rather than 30 per cent, and by 80 per cent by 2050.

What shred of evidence was presented to inform debate on these specific targets? None. So how were the numbers arrived at? About as scientifically as the National Lottery's bouncing ping pong balls.

And what might help us achieve these targets? A very deep and prolonged recession, I'd say. I didn't exactly see Brian Ashcroft of the Fraser of Allander Institute waving his latest gloomy forecasts in the air and crying "Good news! We're going to hit our carbon emission targets!" Is a prolonged recession what we want? Well, it's what the parliament has just voted for.

Any reasoning behind this display of demonic targetitis – the political equivalent of swine flu – was swept aside in a collective charge against "wasteful homeowners and businesses".

Ah, "wasteful homeowners". Boil them in oil – if it wasn't for the emissions! They are to be curbed instead by fines and sanctions and penalties. Our homes, down to the way we heat them and cook our sausages in them, are a private space no more. All this is on the say-so of zealots who would have us punished for failing to kneel at their climate change target pinball machine. If this is a parliament charged to safeguard the people's liberties, count your spoons with this lot.

All this goes by the name of "climate change science". But how scientific is it really? Last week, research led by the Met Office forecast London could have summer temperatures of up to 40C by 2080. Flooding, storms, droughts and heatwaves are all to become more common as a result of rising temperatures.

Readers with longer memories may recall that, in the 1970s, the received wisdom of the BBC, supported by the Met Office, was that we were on the verge of a mini ice age. That, ironically, has proved not far off the mark: crops have been hit by a cold winter; it snowed in June in large parts of Canada; frosts have been reported in Brazil and freak hailstorms in China.

But, of course, say the climate change apologists, it's not cold weather that's the test. It's the changes in the weather. Indeed, any weather "proves" their case!

Is climate change and global warming so open and shut? I do not know. But I defend my right to be sceptical – and perhaps that right is a duty when I'm told it is all beyond dispute. It isn't. A book by climate change sceptic Ian Plimer, professor of mining geology at Adelaide University, hit the Australian best-seller lists and is now being published here by Quartet Books.

He is critical of greenhouse gas politics and argues that extreme environmental changes are inevitable and unavoidable. In his book, Heaven and Earth, the chapters are headed by bold questions such as "Are the speed and amount of modern climate change unprecedented?" "Is dangerous warming occurring?" "Is the temperature range observed in the 20th century outside the range of normal variability?"

In each case, his answer is "No". For example, during the Medieval Warming between AD900 and 1300, the temperature in Greenland was 6C higher than today and grain crops, cattle, sheep, farms and villages were established there. This warming was global and could not have been caused by human action – this, after all, was an age of no ships or planes or cars or power stations.

There is reasoning behind every assertion, and the book has no fewer than 2,311 references to scientific work in 500 pages of text.

Plimer takes a close look at pollution and carbon dioxide. The two are mixed up in current debate, with the result that is treated as identical to the dirt in the atmosphere caused by open combustion of poor quality carbon fuels, which produce soot, smoke, ash and chemicals containing sulphur. This dirt is far removed from which, with oxygen, is vital to life. Carbon dioxide is plant food and without it, there would be no greenery of any sort, whatever.

Does the Sun influence the world's climate? Most certainly, says Plimer. Its energy drives weather, ocean currents and evaporation, as well as preventing the oceans from freezing or boiling. So why is it that the 23 climate models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ignore or minimise the role of the Sun? Might this point to a flaw in climate change theory?

Plimer likens theories on human-induced climate change to creationism, describing it as a fundamentalist religion adopted by urban atheists looking to fill a yawning spiritual gap plaguing the West. He claims environmental groups have filled this gap by having a romantic view of a less developed past.

He is contemptuous of the IPCC, which, he says, has allowed "little or no geological, archeological or historical input" in its analyses. If it had, it would know cold times lead to dwindling populations, social disruption, extinction, disease and catastrophic droughts, while warm times lead to life blossoming and economic booms – suggesting that global warming, were it happening, should be welcomed.

Plimer's critique has, of course, brought the global warmists out in boils. For this is not quite as open and shut as they would have us believe. And they certainly have no right to move against the people with fines and penalties and sanctions for not doing as they demand. Parliament, be ashamed.