Tory climate change sceptics

Conservative Home's Parliamentary reports, by Tom Greeves (CCHQ staffer and speechwriter for Boris and Lord Coe) come highly recommended for its foraging through places few others go. A new posts carries extracts from a Westminster Hall debate on the Stern climate chage report from Wednesday. It contains natural scepticism about Stern from some Tory MPs, downright hostility from others.

Peter Lilley: "His report was not subjected to peer review, and it is time that it was, or at least to a common or garden review in the House... the recent period of cooling does suggest that either manmade global warming may be smaller or that the impact of other factors may be greater than climate models have so far assumed."

David Heathcoat-Amory : "The evidence in the Stern review relied heavily on the intergovernmental panel on climate change. I have read the bulk of both reports and I am aware of being in the presence of something similar to a secular religion with its articles of faith and its heretics.

The comments below the post reflect an, er, even healthier debate. One writes:

A courageous stand by Mr Lilley and Mr Heathcote-Amory, particularly so in the light of the rigid adherence of the party leader to the Green Party nostrums. I commend "Zac" and his acolytes in the Conservative leadership to consider the Sun Spot cycle and its influence. Maybe that's a little unfair, after all my Grammar school gave me the advantage of firm belief in the value of scientific analysis.

Comments

[P Stroud]

Thank God that someone on the Tory ranks is questioning the whole business of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and the sensational pseudo science preached by some of the IPCC hierarchy. Unfortunately the well deserved scepticism has not spread to Mr Cameron or his environmental adviser Zac Goldsmith. The Tory grandees should listen to another of their own, namely Lord Lawson, a long term sceptic, who made a very powerful speech in the Lords during the Climate Bill debate on the 17th November. It is to be hoped that Tory rank and file members will lobby their MPs on the matter and stop the wholesale support for this government’s fanatical drive to take us back to the era of the horse and cart.

[Scott Redding]

As well, Villiers is having a rough ride from the same quarter of the Conservative party for her anti-Heathrow expansion, critical of BAA, position. Vote Blue, Go Green (rolls eyes).