‘Unthinking Climate Change Worship Harming Britain’ UK Energy Minister Warns

Britain has been damaged by ‘unthinking climate change worship’, a senior Tory minister claimed today as the coalition parties clashed over going green. Lib Dem Energy Secretary Ed Davey is using the floods crisis to launch an extraordinary attack on ‘diabolical’ and ‘wilfully ignorant, head in the sand, nimbyist’ Conservatives who question global warming. But Conservative energy minister Michael Fallon has hit back, insisting now is not the time for ‘political’ squabbling. ‘Unthinking climate change worship has damaged British industry and put up consumer bills. It’s David Cameron who is cutting green taxes and steering Europe away from artificial targets.’ --Matt Chorley, Daily Mail, 13 February 2014

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If we look at 2-month precipitation numbers during autumn and winter in the region, we find that this latest period of December/January has been exceeded on eight occasions since 1910. In other words, it is, on average, an event that happens pretty much every decade or so. A couple of points stand out: 1929/30 stands well above the rest, and on all three graphs. More on this later. There is no evidence that recent years have been unusually wet, compared to earlier decades. --Paul Homewood, Not A Lot of People Know That, 14 February 2014 Before anybody gets carried away with claims of “record rainfall” that we keep hearing about in the UK, let’s consider the facts. In the UK as a whole, January was only tie 17th wettest month since 1910, with 183.8mm. Relatively speaking, last month was wetter in England & Wales, but even there it was only the 16th wettest month, on the England & Wales Series, dating back to 1766 . Last month recorded 184.6mm, well short of the wettest month on record, October 1903, which had 218.1mm. --Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 14 February 2014 The UK’s extreme winter weather has fast become a flashpoint in the debate over whether climate change is already affecting weather systems, and how governments should respond to it. The number of people who think the “environment” is the biggest cause of concern in the UK has jumped from 6 per cent to 23 per cent in a month – on a par with welfare – according to pollsters YouGov. Still, this is unlikely to sway prominent Conservative climate policy critics such as Lord Lawson, the former Conservative Chancellor. “Every prediction so far that the alarmists have made has been falsified,” he said, adding that while increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere undoubtedly warm the planet, it is unclear by how much, or how natural forces affect such changes. --Pilita Clark and Jim Pickard, Financial Times, 14 February 2014 Once, Cameron’s Tories were green. But the experience of government has led the Prime Minister to go cool on this agenda, and focus more on the tension between cheap energy and green energy. The floods have also demonstrated what happens if you leave environmental policy to a deeply politicised quango which seems more interested in wildlife than in protecting people and property. A quango that declined to spend £5 million dredging rivers in Somerset, but somehow found £31million to build a bird sanctuary there. And all because of a certain idea of siding with nature, rather than man. --Fraser Nelson, The Daily Telegraph, 14 February 2014

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