From the GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser
Tim Yeo: We Are All Climate Sceptics Now
Humans May Not Be Responsible For Global Warming Says Committee Chairman
Humans may not be responsible for global warming, the MP who oversees government policy on climate change has said. Tim Yeo, the chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change committee, said he accepts the earth’s temperature is increasing but said “natural phases” may be to blame. He said: “Although I think the evidence that the climate is changing is now overwhelming, the causes are not absolutely clear. There could be natural causes, natural phases that are taking place.” Mr Yeo has previously spoken with great certainty about the science of climate change. He said in 2009: “The dying gasps of the deniers will be put to bed. In five years time, no one will argue about a man-made contribution to climate change.” –Matthew Holehouse, The Daily Telegraph, 29 May 2013
As part of Germany’s switch to renewables, industry has been exempt from paying higher prices associated with solar and wind energy. The European Commission, however, believes the practice distorts competition on the Continent. Huge penalties could be in store. Energy-intensive industry, which plays an important role in the German industrial landscape, threatens to be “driven out of the country.” The controversial law, with its billions in subsidies for green electricity, could hardly survive in its current form. —Spiegel Online, 29 May 2013
We can be sure that whatever proposals China makes will be all about the best possible economic growth path for China. Reducing global CO2 emissions is not a goal of the Chinese government. Fans of global carbon treaty fans are desperate for good news, having watched their pet issue move from the front pages at the time of the Copenhagen summit to the obscure back pages of the specialist journals. (How many people followed the recently concluded Bonn edition of the global climate talks?). This news out of China will be used to try to pump up the publicity machine, but a serious CO2 treaty remains a no-hoper. –Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia, 28 May 2013
The $77 billion solar industry is facing a quality crisis just as solar panels are on the verge of widespread adoption. A review of 30,000 installations in Europe by the German solar monitoring firm Meteocontrol found 80 percent were underperforming. –Todd Woody, The New York Times, 29 May 2013
The number of households insulating their homes has dramatically fallen this year, threatening to torpedo the Government’s energy efficiency drive and push utility bills even higher. According to industry figures obtained by The Times, cavity wall insulation was fitted in 1,138 homes last month, compared with almost 40,000 in April last year. The slump underlines the lack of consumer interest in the Government’s Green Deal programme, which ministers have billed as the biggest home improvement programme since the Second World War. –Tim Webb, The Times, 29 May 2013
The UK and Germany are among four EU member states whose emissions from fossil fuel combustion are expected to have risen over 2012, despite the bloc seeing an average drop in CO2 output. New estimates from EU statistics agency Eurostat suggest UK CO2 emissions last year climbed by 3.9 per cent compared to 2011, while Germany saw a 0.9 per cent increase. The UK and Germany are also listed as having the highest absolute emissions from energy use in the EU, with the UK responsible for 472 million tons of CO2 over 2012, up by 17.7mt from 2011, and Germany 728mt. –Will Nichols, Business Green, 29 May 2013
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¡Ojalá!
“In five years time, no one will argue about a man-made contribution to climate change.”
The irony of it.
Apparently Tim Yeo is angry that his words have been ‘taken out of context’. Hardly surprising, since he derives a great deal of income from alarmism.
How can this be since the “science” is settled?
The news is currently on the front page of the UK’s Daily Telegraph website http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
The science is like the weather: sometimes it’s unsettled.
I asked Yeo in person how he could be trusted on the issues of climate and energy given that he receives regular money from the renewables industry. His response? –
“It will be a dark day in parliament indeed when outside financial interests are not allowed.”
” review of 30,000 installations in Europe by the German solar monitoring firm Meteocontrol found 80 percent were underperforming.”
Perhaps it was that the expectations where simply out of wack with reality. Of course blaming things on “under performing” gives a pass to those who over projected, as in “but the models told us…….”
LOL 😀
OK, I’ve been over this post a couple of times and the Orwellianisms within Orwellianisms which this MP/chairman doth speak truly have my head in a whirl. It’s really weasel worded stuff – just what one would expect from any politician in the face of a changing public opinion (in this case caused by the readily available evidence of a non-cooperating climate, oh the flaming irony).
B***ards. I want my money back.
I am so very angry. For being patronised, for being called a “denier”, for them debasing and stealing the good name of science, for hundreds of billion wasted on fraudulent idea, for all those dead from cold and hunger.
Democratic institutions have failed badly, and if it was not for the internet, we’d have another XX century style grotesque lie taking hold around the world, and not being cleared until it caused mass death and destruction. Am I exaggerating? I don’t think so, just think of the recent XX century history and you will get the idea. We think of ourselves as “civilised” and having learned the lessons, but we don’t stop at causing misery, death and destruction for the “higher purpose” of “saving the world”. Has ANYTHING changed, I ask myself?
Some politician changing his mind is not scientifically interesting, but I suppose it could be of practical importance.
It’s at least good that he’s open to the possibility; if only scientists were so scientific!
Alberto says:
May 29, 2013 at 12:27 pm
The science is like the weather: sometimes it’s unsettled.
************************************************************************
That’s a great one-liner. Did you make it up? It reminds me of those Yoki Bera quotations I’ve read.
Mr Yeo still has a ways to go before he is on even keel. He says that “the evidence of climate change is overwhelming”. Someone needs to call his attention to the temperature trends of this century.
Kitefreak, I don’t read it that way. He, like a lot of people, was more certain before.
Now he, like a lot of people, is less certain. But he’s still not convinced catastrophic AGW is false. Heck, I’m not convinced it’s false — I just think it’s very unlikely based on the available data.
I think CO2-induced warming is a real, but relatively minor and somewhat self-limiting, factor and is dwarfed by natural climate-change drivers.
He’s my MP. Much disliked, distrusted; but as they say “You could put a blue rosette on a sheep round here, and they’d vote it in”. The man is beyond parody
The evidence for climate change is overwhelming. As I wrote to Dana Nuccitelli a few minutes ago:
He was expressing a reasoned, skeptical position per Richard Feynman’s philosophy that all scientific conclusions are estimates of probability. I accept his contention that he finds catastrophic AGW a plausible hypothesis.
James Delingpole sticks the boot into Tim “The Trougher” Yeo
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100219218/trougher-yeo-recants-on-global-warming
Yeo and his money grubbing cronies should pay the price for their crimes against humanity.
Tez, I haven’t read Delingpole’s article yet, but the headline is misleading.
Saying that AGW is only a possibility for being the main driver for climate change, but that it’s the possibility you consider most likely
is not “recanting”.
I would love to see the actual output statistics for one of California’s solar farms for comparison with their claims when the facility was built. That data should be available to the public, especially since those farms represent a huge expenditure of taxpayer money..
I agree with Delingpole’s broad point:
This is not the only currently socially-taboo to have the minority opinion scientific discipline in which this will happen either.
“We can be sure that whatever proposals China makes will be all about the best possible economic growth path for China.”
It may be a little more complex than that. In order for communism itself to be vindicated, open western democracies and free markets must be strangled, and China must be portrayed as having the world’s most powerful economy. This trumping up of China’s economy is partly based on adjusting their extremely poor average income with purchasing power parity. And as this is done with the right hand, the left hand destroys the purchasing power of the people in western democracies by raising the costs of commodities and energy arbitrarily.
It is China that was behind Rio +20 Sustainability agreements, and China has also been signing agreements to destroy agricultural output in the US and in Europe by rationing water and forcing “organic” and “sustainable” agriculture. These 5 year plans have already been signed with the Dept of Ag and with the EU and China.
Even without global warming, commodities, water, and electrical power are being undermined by gigantic banks in commodities speculation and environmental activists, so that it can be said, “Look, open societies failed and resources ran out.”
I messed up the blockquote above. The first para. in blockquote was Delingpole; the second para., I.
[Done. Mod]
I think Yeo’s comments are the first step in Britain’s Conservative Party trying to distance themselves from the country’s disastrous energy policies and blame it all on the Liberal Democrats.
The latter have an official policy of supporting anything green and goofy and currently control the Ministry of Energy and Climate Change.
Climate change is natural and normal; something self-evident to anyone not a bolt-in -the-side-of-the-neck greenie.