The Christian Hawk; A Christian Eye on Politics
Climate Change Hysteria; One of Britain's Foremost Climate Scientists Speaks Out!
November 4th 2006.
One of Britain's leading climate research scientists has attacked the catastrophe theory of climate change. Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK says that the language of chaos and catastrophe as applied to climate change has now got completely out of hand. Writing in his Viewpoint article, Hulme states that,
“... Over the last few years a new environmental phenomenon has been constructed in this country - the phenomenon of "catastrophic" climate change......It seems that mere "climate change" was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be "catastrophic" to be worthy of attention.
The increasing use of this pejorative term - and its bedfellow qualifiers "chaotic", "irreversible", "rapid" - has altered the public discourse around climate change. This discourse is now characterised by phrases such as "climate change is worse than we thought", that we are approaching "irreversible tipping in the Earth's climate", and that we are "at the point of no return.
I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.”
Mike Hulme has been critical of British Prime Minister Tony Blair for climbing on board the current hysteria. A few weeks back, in an open letter, Blair warned the EU heads of states:
"We have a window of only 10-15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing a catastrophic tipping point."
On November 4th a mass demonstration was expected to take place in Trafalgar Square, London to protest about “catastrophic climate change”- their aim being to "stop climate chaos" – and this is actually now the name for a coalition of strongly left-wing leaning and anti-American environmental activists and faith-based organisations.
In his article, Hulme asks the question,
“Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging which surrounds science's predictions?”
One of the reasons (Hulme suggests), is because the language of catastrophe is a political and rhetorical device to change the frame of reference for the emerging negotiations around what happens when the Kyoto Protocol runs out after 2012. Another way of stating this would be to say that certain interests have decided to use a tactic of frightening the living daylights out of everybody in order to insure a meek and compliant attitude at the 2012 negotiating table!
Hulme further states,
“The language of catastrophe is not the language of science. It will not be visible in next year's global assessment from the world authority of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
To state that climate change will be "catastrophic" hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science.
Is any amount of climate change catastrophic? Catastrophic for whom, for where, and by when? What index is being used to measure the catastrophe?
The language of fear and terror operates as an ever-weakening vehicle for effective communication or inducement for behavioural change.”
We
should applaud Hulme for finding a way to get his protest heard
because many other climatologists are currently finding the media
door firmly closed to them when they want to attack the current
'climate catastrophe' hysteria. Moreover, climate change unbelievers are finding that research money is suddenly very hard for them to secure and, even more unpleasant, in some cases their names are being smeared. I have it on good authority that a favourite smear is to accuse them of being paid by the oil companies; this starts to get at the root of where some of these left-wing 'greens' are coming from: they want to see the destruction of the western economic system. Unwittingly - and surely naively - leading British politicians like David Cameron and Tony Blair are now dancing to the tune of these people, many of whom support Marxist social policies.
Of course, for his part, Mike Hulme does
believe that humanly-engineered climate change is a problem but is
angered that the apocalyptical propagandists have taken over the
arguments and that real scientists are no longer even being listened
to.
Ace British newpaper columnist Peter Hitchens of the Daily Mail has likened these climate extremists to members of a fanatical cult and in the The Mail On Sunday of November 5th 2006, made this suggestion,
"Perhaps Professor Richard Dawkins, that mighty scourge of irrational faith, might like to give us his views on this unreasoning, fanatical cult."
The Christian Hawk
November 4th 2006.