Global Warming

A bit of a change here from my recent output. However an interview I heard on the radio spurred me into action. 

Lord Lawson of Blaby

I was driving into work that morning and caught the tail end of a discussion between Lord Lawson (Chancellor of the Exchequer '83 - '89 and current chairman of the Global Warming Policy foundation) and Sir Brian Hoskins (a Member of the Committee on climate change). 

At the end of the story I was incensed by the butting in of Lord Lawson during Sir Brian's closing comments. 

Lord Lawson you see is a climate change sceptic. Unfortunately for the climate change lobby the evidence is very technical and esoteric. It is therefore quite easy for sceptics to have a

Sir Brian Hoskins

pop at the climate change theory. But what we were listening to from that studio was a career politician taking on a scientist. A man who uses "spin" on a professional basis and deals in opinions and popularity versus a man with a long history of using fact - measured and verifiable facts. A man who has a long and published history on climate (anyone who has tried to publish a scientific paper will back me up on how difficult it is to maintain a career of such credentials - academics love nothing more than tearing research to pieces like a pack of hungry wolves!).

Why would the BBC allow these 2 people in the same room? Lord Lawson was able to deny the evidence in a way only a politician can. 

It's not as if he was any good as chancellor of the exchequer. He was part of that Thatcher government I so despised. A government that - well, read my other pieces about Thatch. 

I have recently listened to the discussion in it's entirety and on second time around Lord Lawson doesn't come across as quite such a pompous windbag. 

But that still leaves the whole "is there? Isn't there? " argument about climate change. 

Now, of course, I am about to set the world to rights and solve the whole matter once and for all! 

Yeah right!

I have no qualification in this subject save for what I read and hear in the news. Anecdotal evidence I may have does not make it scientific fact. 

However I will ask these questions, 

• Is it not prudent of the world, as stewards handing it on to another generation, to take a look at our usage of the planets resources?
• Surely to assume we ARE having a detrimental effect on the planet and plan accordingly can only be a good thing for the world as a whole?

 Economic negatives will surely be short term and I am always in favour of policy that encourages developing technologies. 

Will Ferrel (not the actor a noted scientist I think you'll find!) on the topic of Climate Change:-