[Tubby Isaacs]

For no particular reason, I just came about this erudite discussion from a few years ago. Check out the rubbish in here.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 5h0005.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Andrew Tyrie, btw, is the chair of the Treasury Select Committee, so no backwoodsman.

When I was at school, the standard orthodoxy in geography lessons was that we were on the threshold of a new ice age.

That's a solid basis for an argument right there. What you think you can remember from geography lessons. Your teacher was a top climate scientist, I presume. More homespun wisdom on the way, I think. Ah yes:

The idea of a peak oil moment in the resources industry is an old chestnut that has been around for at least 50 years. Anybody minded to give the idea houseroom could do no better than read the outstanding paper that was written only a few months ago by Professor Peter Davies of BP in which that theory is decisively scotched—of course, it is complete nonsense.

Someone from BP says there's no problem with using all the oil we want? Christ. Anyway, time for Tyrie to have a rest:

Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con): As my hon. Friend knows, I share many of his views. Does he agree that it would be a mistake to act too swiftly when, according to the Met Office Hadley Centre, last year there was a 12-month long drop in world temperature sufficient to wipe out a whole century of warming? In addition, China, which is supposed to be spewing out more carbon emissions than ever before, has had its coldest winter in 100 years.

Eh? How do you "wipe out a whole century of warming?" And who said you can't have cold weather where there's lots of carbon emissions?

Back to the more heavyweight Tyrie:

There are a lot of measurement problems with global warming. There has not been any global warming for the past eight years, although that is not well known, and whether there was a rate of faster growth in the temperature of the planet in the 1930s or in the 1990s is hotly disputed—if I may use that phrase. There are also some interesting disputes about whether the last century or the mediaeval warm period was the warmest in the last millennium.

So 1998 was the hottest year. Guess we can ignore all the following years being nearly the hottest then. And that fact was well-known. People like you banged on about it all the time. And the increase in the nineties has to be the fastest increase ever to count as global warming, does it?

Such a good point, here it comes again:

To finish off my comments on the intervention made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the summary of the Harvard-Smithsonian centre for astrophysics’ study on proxy climatic and environmental changes in the past 1,000 years states:

“across the world, many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest, nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.”

Any word on the effects of those hotter periods? Did everyone just sunbathe a bit more? How many people lived in the world then?

it needs to be shown that we are causing that increase.

There's another earth somewhere we can compare it with?

we need to be sure that the main carbon producers of the world—the UK contributes about 2 per cent. of total carbon emissions—will co-operate and implement massive reductions with us.

Yeah, let's do nothing and expect these main carbon producers to do something, eh? How about the amount emitted per head? No doubt that shows it's all China's fault.

The risk of making a mistake, prejudicing global growth and consigning a substantial proportion of the world to continued poverty

not to mention the risk of hitting hardest the poorest in our own community

Oh, I bet that's who you're really worried about.

The key question is how one weighs the benefits and costs of mitigation policies to remove carbon from the atmosphere against policies to adapt to warming once it has happened.

You reckon no-one's thought about this before? They just fancy mucking about with carbon for its own sake, do they? Anyway, costs and benefits for whom?

Anyway, you seen what's coming next?

The Gore report is a scandal. The fact that it has been distributed to our schools reflects badly on the House. It has been comprehensively rubbished by a series of top papers produced by the American Academy of Sciences, so much so that even a judge felt the need to intervene in the debate. It should be withdrawn from our schools. There are many mistakes in it.

Yeah, of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconvenie ... ific_basis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A judge is the usual authority on climate change, is he? And there's something else about the judge you didn't mention, isn't there?

The judge ruled that An Inconvenient Truth contained nine scientific errors and thus must be accompanied by an explanation of those errors before being shown to school children.

but hey, withdraw that video now!

I lost the will to live at that point.

[Althea]

When I was at school, the standard orthodoxy in geography lessons was that we were on the threshold of a new ice age.

You know it's gonna be bullshit as soon as this comes up.

We're already in a goddamned ice age.