Politicians on Global Warming

British Labour party politician, Ed Miliband, 'declares war on climate change sceptics' in The Observer, formerly an independent Sunday paper, but now owned and staffed by the Climate Change alarmist paper, The Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/31/ed-miliband-climate-change-scepticism

But how good a summary is it?

We know there's a physical effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leading to higher temperatures

Not quite - there is a known effect - the Greenhouse effect - that means temperatures at night on the earth are less cold than they would be without the CO2. But CO2 is not responsible for high temperatures, Secondly, it is thought that CO2 blocks only a small proportion of the infra-red spectrum - heat - and of that small part, already blocks it completely. We could double, treble, quadruple the levels and the amount of infra-red energy retained at night by the Earth would not change. It's a matter of physics, Ed!

Marks out of 10: 1

"We know CO2 concentrations are at their highest for 6,000 years..."

Well, maybe. But in that case, how does Ed explain that temperatures do not follow the CO2 levels up, over either that timescale (a rather odd one - the last CO2 spike was millions of years ago, but conveneintly 6000 years puts us at the start of the little Ice Age, after the Medieval Warm Period, so to a politician, this date is convenient, as from then on the story of 'higher CO2= higher temperatures' can be offered.

Over geological timescales, CO2 levels are still unusually low.The 'standard view' is that "Compared to former geologic periods, concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere are still very small and may not have a statistically measurable effect on global temperatures." ¹

Marks out of 10: 1

We know there are observed increases in temperatures...

A real politician's answer, this one! No one is going to dispute that! And there are also observed decreases too... They used to call the Tory (the British Conservative) party, the 'Stupid Party' but competition is er... hotting up!

Marks out of 10: 0

We know there are observed effects that point to the existence of human-made climate change...

Again, this is sufficiently bland to be impossible to deny. For example, draining rivers and wetlands afffects climate, choopig down rainforests affects climate. But both of thse policies are directly encouraged by the 'CO2' lobby. Nuclear Power involves huge amounts fo water - often drawn from rivers. Biofuel targets, such as that imposed by the European Union, have significantly contributed to destruction of rainfroest in South American and Asia...

That's the kind of 'reality' that superficial poltical games creates.

In fact the only true thing in the whole interview with Ed is this bit:

Tim Ball, writing in the Canada Free Press, took up another element of the Ed Miliband 'Climate Secretary' thesis, the bit where he says:

“It’s right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it’s somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there...”

But as the Canada Free Press commentator says:

"it’s not one mistake but a complete fabrication of every aspect of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports. In addition, science is only correct when accurate predictions are made and the IPCC have been wrong in every single one. Miliband’s thinking helps explain why the UK is on the brink of economic disaster...."