EnviroSpin Watch

Canada faces up to the reality the UK media doesn't want to hear.....

Except for the Sunday Telegraph ('Kyoto is pointless, say 60 leading scientists', April 9) and The Daily Mail [story not available online], the silence in the UK has been deafening. As far as I can see (do please correct me if I have missed something), there has been nothing from The Guardian, from The Independent, nor, sadly, even from The Times, and certainly not from the BBC. Yet, there can be no excuses. For one, I personally alerted relevant correspondents at The Guardian, at The Times, and at the BBC about the story.

And, just imagine the headlines if 60 senior scientists had written to encourage the new Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to act at once on 'global warming' and to support vigorously the Kyoto Protocol. The story would have been everywhere.

But, by contrast, the 60 scientists have had the audacity to do precisely the opposite in a powerful 'Open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper' published in the National [Financial] Post (April 6): 'Open Kyoto to debate: sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming':

"Dear Prime Minister: As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol. Although many of us made the same suggestion to then-prime ministers Martin and Chretien, neither responded, and, to date, no formal, independent climate-science review has been conducted in Canada. Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science.

Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future....." [read on, with a full list signatories attached]

So much, as the excoriating Daily Ablution blog (April 10) declared, for 'consensus': 'Climate change "consensus" crushed'.

In Canada, the open letter has already triggered a real debate, as, for example, in The Vancouver Sun (April 8), 'Fate of billions of dollars, not global warming, is the big worry':

"It's hardly a surprise - given that I've been skeptical of the one-sided coverage the topic has received - that I would welcome the federal government 'convening open, unbiased consultations [so that] Canadians will be permitted to hear from experts on both sides of the debate,' as the 60 signatories of the open letter to Mr. Harper suggest, before billions of dollars more are wasted."

Just so. If only this were the case in the UK. Instead, we have to endure the trivia of a Mr. Cameron media stunt, when he flies off (BBC camera crew willingly on hand) to view a Norwegian glacier retreating [a truly bizarre choice - in western Norway, glaciers, like the Nigardsbreen glacier (280m extension), have been advancing for the last couple of decades].

In the UK, the media is failing lamentably in its critical task, while the ignorant smearing of UK critical scientists and scholars goes unchecked. I was told by one good friend only last week that some colleagues simply try to dismiss me with the phrase: "Well! He's paid by the oil companies, isn't he!"

This level of debate is pathetic. And, for the record, I have no links whatsoever with the fossil fuel industry, so anybody who asserts otherwise in public had better watch out!

Well done, Canada. It is surely time to cook that 'global warming' goose..... "Cranberry sauce, anybody?" "Organic, from Sweden, via California, of course!"

But, let's end with a salutary swipe at the UK - from the palaeoclimatologist and geologist, Professor Bob Carter, writing in last Sunday's Telegraph (April 9): 'There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998':

"The British Government urgently needs to recast the sources from which it draws its climate advice. The shrill alarmism of its public advisers, and the often eco-fundamentalist policy initiatives that bubble up from the depths of the Civil Service, have all long since been detached from science reality. Internationally, the IPCC is a deeply flawed organisation, as acknowledged in a recent House of Lords report, and the Kyoto Protocol has proved a costly flop. Clearly, the wrong horses have been backed.

As mooted recently by Tony Blair, perhaps the time has come for Britain to join instead the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), whose six member countries are committed to the development of new technologies to improve environmental outcomes. There, at least, some real solutions are likely to emerge for improving energy efficiency and reducing pollution."

Philip, off to try his new espresso machine. That'll really get me steamed up! Ciao for now.