Cow’s Blog

April 5th, 2008

The Daily Mail (London, UK) today published an article by former British chancellor Nigel Lawson on global warming. Mr Lawson looks back at past planetary scares which were unfounded: a fear of a population explosion and global starvation in the 60s, a new ice age in the 70s and suggests that global warming is the modern day equivalent.
In what must be a Richard Dawkins inspired piece, he then goes on to call global warming a quasi-religion equivalent in Europe’s secular society:

But there is something much more fundamental at work. I suspect that it is no accident that it is in Europe that eco-fundamentalism in general and global warming absolutism in particular has found its most fertile soil. For it is Europe that has become the most secular society in the world, where the traditional religions have the weakest hold.

Yet people still feel the need for the comfort and higher values that religion can provide; and it is the quasi-religion of green alarmism, of which the global warming issue is the most striking example, which has filled the vacuum, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as little short of sacrilege.

It is certainly a very interesting article which is well worth a read. I myself get quite annoyed at companies who jump on the green bandwagon as a form of marketing. Take those adverts for washing powder that you see on TV. They tell you that you should buy concentrate because it’ll take loads of lorries off the road and because you can wash at 30 degrees, implying that by switching to their product you’ll save the world. What a load of environmental bullshit.

I think it’s certainly true that people are exploiting the cause of global warming for their own political, commercial and protectionist purposes. (One lobby suggests that we should all buy locally produced British food, it saves on food miles. Now I’m all for supporting British farmers but if you buy British strawberries, they’ll have been grown in greenhouses. This produces more CO2 than the act of shipping it from somewhere like Spain.)

But the many ways in which climate change is being exploited for vested interests doesn’t invalidate it’s existence.

I admit that I used to be a little bit of a climate sceptic. So over the last year I took the opportunity to find out more: I did a lot of my own research watching Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and other scientific material as well as some more sceptical articles. I also spoke to researchers at University College, London. I’ve also worked alongside some scientists who are themselves looking at long term changes to the Earth’s climate.

It’s true to say that scientists cannot prove that climate change is real and that it’s definitely a threat. There is still some doubt because as scientists we should remain sceptical. But because it can’t be proved doesn’t mean the most logical viewpoint is to assume that it isn’t true. The weight of evidence is that climate change is happening and that it’s a real threat. Similarly, I can’t disprove there is a tiny little teapot orbiting around the Earth because there’s no way of looking at every single point around the Earth at once. That doesn’t mean there’s a 50:50 chance that there is a flying teapot orbiting around the Earth. So to say that scientists can’t prove climate change is a misrepresentation. The weight of scientific evidence says that there is, and that we should do something about it.

I’ve recently given a few speeches regarding climate change. I’ll probably comment on this in detail at a later date but it is quite difficult trying to accurately get the message of climate change across with scientific scepticism whilst still showing people how important a problem is and what the deadly consequences could be.

• Environment
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