SCEPTICISM ABOUT MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE RISE
Scepticism about man-made climate change is on the rise
By John Ingham
AS a revelation it was hardly blinding but Environment Agency boss Lord Smith this week admitted that scepticism about man-made climate change is on the rise.
“We should not underestimate the damage that has been done,” the former Culture Secretary says of the “climategate” sagas.
Confidence in climate science has had a battering after claims that scientists have deliberately or accidentally rigged statistics.
But a Department for Transport poll taken last year, long before leaked e-mails and spurious claims about Himalayan glaciers melting, found scepticism had already soared from six per cent in 2006 to 12 per cent last August.
I think scepticism is misplaced. The cock-ups blighting the debate don’t change the fundamentals that man’s activities are changing the climate.
But scepticism is entirely understandable. Put simply, none of us know whom to trust. Scientists have a long record of bold pronouncements that turn out to be wrong. Thalidomide is safe for pregnant women, oil is going to run out, prepare for a barbecue summer. I’ve lost count of the plagues that were going to wipe us out: BSE, Sars, bird flu, swine flu. But criticise scientists and they close ranks and reach for their ultimate weapon: taunts that you are anti-science.
Then we have politicians currently vying with bankers for the title of Britain’s least trustworthy creatures. A Government that takes its country to war on a lie doesn’t deserve to be in power never mind trusted on anything.
When that bankrupt Government pounces on the environment as an excuse for “green” taxes that are nothing of
the sort, cynicism is inevitable. But unless you live in a bunker you must have spotted that our weather is becoming ever more extreme: precisely what is expected from climate change.
Whether you accept this is down to man’s influence depends in part on which scientists you believe. But all this scepticism may turn out to be healthy if it makes scientists re-check their research with renewed vigour and stops
politicians conning the public and treating it as nothing more than an impotent cash cow.
