I’m waiting for actual photos of the event from the official photographer, but for now I’ll make do with what can be found on the Internet. For those who don’t know, the Oxford Union is the top of the food chain for scholarly debate. This is a significant win.
Founded in 1823 at the University of Oxford, but maintaining a separate charter from the University, The Oxford Union is host to some of the most skillful debates in the world. Many eminent scholars and personalities have come and either debated or delivered speeches in the chamber. Monckton was invited as part of the formal Thursday debate.
It is described as follows:
The Union is the world’s most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. It has been established for 182 years, aiming to promote debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.
Here is a view inside from a previous debate:
From the SPPI Blog, an account of the debate:
Oxford Union Debate on Climate Catastrophe
Source: SPPI
Army of Light and Truth 135, Forces of Darkness 110
For what is believed to be the first time ever in England, an audience of university undergraduates has decisively rejected the notion that “global warming” is or could become a global crisis. The only previous defeat for climate extremism among an undergraduate audience was at St. Andrew’s University, Scotland, in the spring of 2009, when the climate extremists were defeated by three votes.
Last week, members of the historic Oxford Union Society, the world’s premier debating society, carried the motion “That this House would put economic growth before combating climate change” by 135 votes to 110. The debate was sponsored by the Science and Public Policy Institute, Washington DC.
Serious observers are interpreting this shock result as a sign that students are now impatiently rejecting the relentless extremist propaganda taught under the guise of compulsory environmental-studies classes in British schools, confirming opinion-poll findings that the voters are no longer frightened by “global warming” scare stories, if they ever were.
When the Union’s president, Laura Winwood, announced the result in the Victorian-Gothich Gladstone Room, three peers cheered with the undergraduates, and one peer drowned his sorrows in beer.
Lord Lawson of Blaby, Margaret Thatcher’s former finance minister, opened the case for the proposition by saying that the economic proposals put forward by the UN’s climate panel and its supporters did not add up. It would be better to wait and see whether the scientists had gotten it right. It was not sensible to make expensive spending commitments, particularly at a time of great economic hardship, when the effectiveness of the spending was gravely in doubt and when it might do more harm than good.
At one point, Lord Lawson was interrupted by a US student, who demanded to know what was his connection with the Science and Public Policy Institute, and what were the Institute’s sources of funding. Lord Lawson was cheered when he said he neither knew nor cared who funded the Institute.
Ms. Zara McGlone, Secretary of the Oxford Union, opposed the motion, saying that greenhouse gases had an effect [they do, but it is very small]; that the precautionary principle required immediate action, just in case and regardless of expense [but one must also bear in mind the cost of the precautions themselves, which can and often do easily exceed the cost of inaction]; that Bangladesh was sinking beneath the waves [a recent study by Prof. Niklas Moerner shows that sea level in Bangladesh has actually fallen]; that the majority of scientists believed “global warming” was a problem [she offered no evidence for this]; and that “irreversible natural destruction” would occur if we did nothing [but she did not offer any evidence].
Mr. James Delingpole, a blogger for the leading British conservative national newspaper The Daily Telegraph, seconded the proposition, saying that – politically speaking – the climate extremists had long since lost the argument. The general public simply did not buy the scare stories any more. The endless tales of Biblical disasters peddled by the alarmist faction were an unwelcome and now fortunately failed recrudescence of dull, gray Puritanism. Instead of hand-wringing and bed-wetting, we should celebrate the considerable achievements of the human race and start having fun.
Lord Whitty, a Labor peer from the trades union movement and, until recently, Labor’s Environment Minister in the Upper House, said that the world’s oil supplies were rapidly running out [in fact, record new finds have been made in the past five years]; that we needed to change our definition of economic growth to take into account the value lost when we damaged the environment [it is artificial accounting of this kind that has left Britain as bankrupt as Greece after 13 years of Labor government]; that green jobs created by governments would help to end unemployment [but Milton Friedman won his Nobel Prize for economics by demonstrating that every artificial job created at taxpayers’ expense destroys two real jobs in the wealth-producing private sector]; that humans were the cause of most of the past century’s warming [there is no evidence for that: the case is built on speculation by programmers of computer models]; that temperature today was at its highest in at least 40 million years [in fact, it was higher than today by at least 12.5 F° for most of the past 550 million years]; and that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic [no one has asked them].
Lord Monckton repeatedly interrupted Lord Whitty to ask him to give a reference in the scientific literature for his suggestion that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic. Lord Whitty was unable to provide the source for his figure, but said that everyone knew it was true. Under further pressure from Lord Monckton, Lord Whitty conceded that the figure should perhaps be 92%. Lord Monckton asked: “And your reference is?” Lord Whitty was unable to reply. Hon. Members began to join in, jeering “Your reference? Your reference?” Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled.
Lord Leach of Fairford, whom Margaret Thatcher appointed a Life Peer for his educational work, spoke third for the proposition. He said that we no longer knew whether or not there had been much “global warming” over the 20th century, because the Climategate emails had exposed the terrestrial temperature records as defective. In any event, he said, throwing good money after bad on various alternative-energy boondoggles was unlikely to prove profitable in the long term and would ultimately do harm.
Mr. Rajesh Makwana, executive director of “Share The World’s Resources”, speaking third for the opposition, said that climate change was manmade [but he did not produce any evidence for that assertion]; that CO2 emissions were growing at 3% a year [but it is concentrations, not emissions, that may in theory affect climate, and concentrations are rising at a harmless 0.5% a year]; that the UN’s climate panel had forecast a 7 F° “global warming” for the 21st century [it’s gotten off to a bad start, with a cooling of 0.2 F° so far]; and that the consequences of “global warming” would be dire [yet, in the audience, sat Mr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, whose landmark paper of 2008 had established that not one of 539 scientific papers on “global climate change” provided any evidence whatsoever that “global warming” would be catastrophic].
Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK, concluded the case for the proposition. He drew immediate laughter and cheers when he described himself as “Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, scholar, philanthropist, wit, man about town, and former chairman of the Wines and Spirits Committee of this honourable Society”. At that point his cummerbund came undone. He held it up to the audience and said, “If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and” – glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box – “measure it!” [cheers].
Lord Monckton said that real-world measurements, as opposed to models, showed that the warming effect of CO2 was a tiny fraction of the estimates peddled by the UN’s climate panel. He said that he would take his lead from Lord Lawson, however, in concentrating on the economics rather than the science. He glared at the opposition again and demanded whether, since they had declared themselves to be so worried about “global warming”, they would care to tell him – to two places of decimals and one standard deviation – the UN’s central estimate of the “global warming” that might result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. The opposition were unable to reply. Lord Monckton told them the answer was 3.26 plus or minus 0.69 Kelvin or Celsius degrees. An Hon. Member interrupted: “And your reference is?” Lord Monckton replied: “IPCC, 2007, chapter 10, box 10.2.” [cheers]. He concluded that shutting down the entire global economy for a whole year, with all the death, destruction, disaster, disease and distress that that would cause, would forestall just 4.7 ln(390/388) = 0.024 Kelvin or Celsius degrees of “global warming”, so that total economic shutdown for 41 years would prevent just 1 K of warming. Adaptation as and if necessary would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective.
Mr. Mike Mason, founder and managing director of “Climate Care”, concluded for the opposition. He said that the proposition were peculiar people, and that Lord Monckton was more peculiar than most, in that he was not a real Lord. Lord Monckton, on a point of order, told Mr. Mason that the proposition had avoided personalities and that if Mr. Mason were unable to argue other than ad hominem he should “get out”. [cheers] Mr. Mason then said that we had to prepare for climate risks [yes, in both directions, towards cooler as well as warmer]; and that there was a “scientific consensus” [but he offered no evidence for the existence of any such consensus, still less for the notion that science is done by consensus].
The President thanked the speakers and expressed the Society’s gratitude to the Science and Public Policy Institute for sponsoring the debate. Hon. Members filed out of the Debating Chamber, built to resemble the interior of the House of Commons, and passed either side of the brass division-pole at the main door – Ayes to the right 135, Noes to the left 110. Motion carried.
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@ur momisugly Geo Flynx.
Margaret Thatcher is a very old lady, has been for some time and at her stage in her life is unlikely to change her views. Perhaps if you read a little history, you may stumble on the idea that the ‘Iron Lady’s’ determination to rid the UK of the coalmining unions may have had a little to do with her conveniently embracing the theory that burning coal (and other fossil fuels) is bad for the environment.
LOL
Labor’s Environment Minister in the Upper House, said that the world’s oil supplies were rapidly running out …
Just repeat this in the Gulf of Mexico. LOL!!, bring me a diaper!
Ulric said, “If we look back through history, it is so clear to see that Cold is our greatest problem, and that warmer times have been times of prosperity and security. Did this get overlooked? forgotten? not by me, not by Lord Lawson either. It will become urgent that we get our priorities right in the next few years.”
Good point. Dr. Iben Browning once indicated that is has been estimated (back in the 1980’s) that for each degree of average temperature drop in the northern hemisphere the growing belt would move 300 miles south over time. This would put Canada and Russia in a food pinch to say the least, since neither does too well now in that department. The mini ice ages of the recent past subsequent to large volcanic erutions caused famines, plagues and wars. From the the archeological and geologic records available, on the other hand, it appears as if flora a fauna did quite well during warmer times.
Wren says: May 24, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Given the framing of the debate, “This House would put economic growth before combating climate change,” and the expertise of the opposition, I’m surprised the vote was so close.
Framed a different way, “This house would take action to combat climate change,” and more knowledgeable debaters, I would expect a different outcome.
Aaah Wren. Where was this assertion when polls say that X% believe the earth is warming and it’s humans fault (we all believe that-to some degree. And your question “This house would take action to combat climate change,” is equally uncertain. How about “This house…………………………change by planting a tree. Next time you bring up a consensus poll, I will remind you of your disingenious contention of biased questions.
the media is still in lockdown mode over agw. there is an article in the new york times today decrying the public’s repudiation of global warming, especially in great britain. yet nary a word about this debate. in fact the article presents climate alarmism as the norm and skepticism as denial.
whenever i hear someone dredge up the old…”but 90 something percent of CLIMATE scientists believe in global warming…” i can’t help but be reminded of the last giant scientific quackery that overtook the “rational, scientific” world. EUGENICS. huge numbers of scientists of the day were easily led into believing this tripe as did the politicians who set in motion the very policies that the scientists were scaring them into enacting(hundreds of thousands of people sterilized worldwide to start). the twisted thinking of these men of science eventually influenced the mind of a very influential austrian in the 20’s. what happened next? well, i guess you’ll have to read about it….let’s just say that it didn’t end well.
bonus question. who funded the eugenicists? hint…same organizations funding anthropogenic global warming….
Hooray for Christopher Monckton! I sometimes wish he was American so we could elect him as president.
Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
“Scientists agree that humans cause global warming
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure.”
Statistics, statistics statistics… a survey conducted in 2007, according to your link.
This was a poll mailed to randomly selected members of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union. Results depend on the wording of the survey.
I would have to agree with the 84% and the 74% that I believe human activity can be scientifically connected to warming, although I doubt that it is the only cause of climate change, and on whatever proportion of warming results from human activity. Also I don’t have a lot of faith in the measurement of any increase in temperature, because of methodology that tends to accentuate the warming. So the amount of warming is in question, and why it’s not steadily increasing, like CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
You have, like so many in the debate, only used quotes supporting your side. Here is another snippet from the same article:
“However, the survey finds that scientists are still debating the dynamics and dangers of global warming, and only three percent trust newspaper or television coverage of climate change.”
Well I’m impressed that a debate was called and members of both sides actually responded. The alarmists seldom agree to a debate, the reason is simple they almost never win. The alarmists are making the AGW claims and so it is up to the alarmist side to provide the evidence. The skeptics aren’t really making any claims so it’s much easier to be a skeptic/denier of AGW than a proponant. And can you imagine taking on Lord Moncton in a climate debate? Good luck.
Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century
“Belief” , off course, is a controlling factor in religlon and has no valid role to play in science. More, it is quite damaging to the study of science.
Then too, who exactly were those scientists surveyed, and what was the selection process used to determined who would be polled? Those in the scientific community who make an excellent living by obtaining government funding and who would have to go looking for a job (no where near as lucrative) without such government funding have a clear and powerful motive to outwardly and vocally profess belief in order to keep the funding coming their way, whether they actually hold such a belief at all.
I offer the following lyrics from one of my favorite lyric writers (with tongue not firmly in cheek at all), Tom Lehrer (once math professor, Harvard University):
Selling Out is easy to do,
It’s not so hard to find a buyer for you.
When money talks, you’re under it’s spell,
ah, but what do you have when there’s nothing left to sell?
Selling out (I’d rather call it compromise)
is easy to do (sometimes you have to close your eyes)
It’s not so hard (being rich is no disgrace)
to find a buyer for you. (put on your shoes and join the race)
When money talks, (it has a very soothing voice)
you’re under it’s spell, (its up to you to make the choice)
ah, but what do you have when there’s nothing left to sell?
[over] (before you know it there’ll be nothing left to sell!)
You can’t always break the rules, people who try are fools,
When you get older, maybe then you will see.
I’ve always found ideals, don’t take the place of meals,
That’s how it is and how it will always be!
It’s so nice to have integrity, I’ll tell you why,
If you really have integrity, it means your price is very high.
So remember when you start to preach, and moralize,
That we all are in the game and brother it’s name is compromise!
~ Tom Lehrer
Scientists are every bit as human as the rest of humanity!
Ref – Mike says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:43 pm
“MrPete said (May 24, 2010 at 9:27 pm): “Mike [wrote] “While the cost of doing this is real it is smaller than the likely costs of doing nothing.” Why is the likely cost of eliminating climate change lower than the cost of adapting to climate change? Humanity has been adapting to climate change for thousands of years at affordable cost. We’ve made it through larger swings in the past. If anything, the hardest thing to survive will be the next ice age.” While humans experienced major climate changes in the past these occurred gradually. Furthermore, human civilization has not experienced the rate of change in climate conditions that we are very likely to experience. Do keep that in mind. Good night!”
_______________________________
The beginning of an interglacial is more catastrophic than the beginning of a glacial. Humans will have little problem going into the next ice age. In fact we may be doing just that now. Human civilization, to our knowledge, has never gone into or come out of a glacial period. Civilization is a human invention of the current interglacial.
In attempting to isolate the root cause of the concern we hear these days about “climate change”, might it not be a justifiable fear of the failure of our precious “civilization”, and the death of billions of the civilized, should anything change –I mean anything at all– that might shake the foundations and bring it all crashing down upon our heads? The fear of the unknown is our most challenging condition. Yesterday it was AGW, today it’s Recession moving toward Depression, tomorrow it might be another war and the tipping of the political power scales more toward wherever.
College undergrads count for nothing and everything. The debate was little more than a good show to them. They’ll gravitate toward the money when they’re out and about and paying their own way in the world. And their greatest fear will ever be the great unknown.
Green is nothing more than a hammer to beat you and the rest of humanity into feudalism and servitude,as they will decide who will and who won’t emit evil carbon dioxide 🙂 .
Wake up you warmist idiots and get with the program before it is too late.
The agenda has nothing to do with the environment none of the globalists give a stuff about the environment if they did surely they wouldn’t be blowing the middle east etc to kingdom come?
Looking after the environment is a great idea, taxing the western world (not china and india etc) for C02 emissions will have zero benefit on temperature just make Al Gore and his carbon trading derivative crooks even more wealthy as they laugh at you paying silly amounts for green energy.
The hysteria is over, the hoax is dead…now onto world war three please I am getting impatient.
Monckton is an absolute blockbuster. He’s a brilliant debater AND extremely well informed. He can deliver a Brittanica of facts on the fly, while simultaneously spinning verbal circles around his opponents, and slapping them silly from 6 different directions. Very few people have this kind of skill.
It’s so good now to see more sceptics arrive at a level of confidence to call this theory what it is – an outright fraud. An unmitigated Scam. Monckton has always had that confidence. Every American owes this man thanks. When we get our country back, we need to honor him appropriately.
The most devastating argument against MMGW is that its advocates steadfastly refuse to provide *any* negative case. That is, they will not, and cannot be compelled to say, under what measurable circumstances “global warming” is *not* happening. By doing so, they in effect say that *everything* “proves” global warming.
This is exacerbated by their extremely difficult to prove basic assertion, that mankind’s total contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere, a tiny fraction, of a trace gas, will somehow cause a self-reinforcing amplification of a natural system that generates far more CO2 than mankind could possibly produce, not countered in any way; which in turn will cause a remarkable increase in temperature, though there are immense natural influences already at work, causing normal temperature fluctuations far greater than their proposed theory could possibly bring about.
In short, they are trying to assert that the “butterfly effect” will cause global warming, and refusing to state any condition where the butterfly’s wings will not have that eventual outcome. For which reason, we must give them enormous power and wealth, and impoverish ourselves.
“Margaret Thatcher remains an active supporter of anthropogenic global warming causes.” – GeoFlynx
Maggie Thatcher wanted to break the out of control coal unions in the UK, and I beieve that she is dead. Her death also preceded most of the debate regarding CAGW.
Hi Layne-I hope America is taken back by the republic and rescued from the brink of socialism,bankruptcy leaving in its wake a digital neo feudalistic police control grid that has been delivered at break neck speed by Obama (Real Name: Barry Soetoro Born Kenya) and his Wall Street Fraudsters and Climate Communists…good luck with the fight U.S.A !!
Oh No !! They now have a portable echo chamber !!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Wren says:
May 25, 2010 at 8:10 am
Mark says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:28 am
I’m sorry to say that the Oxford Union debate is an irrelevancy. Nobody cares about it any more. It is less significant than the boat race.
====
Which may be why the debates get so little coverage in the main stream media.
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
– Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our
economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
– Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies
“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”
– Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
– Professor Maurice King
“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land.”
– David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to
discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”
– Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
– Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
“Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion
of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature.”
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
“The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”
– Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview
“My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
-Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake,
use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
– Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit
“All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and
behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
“Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on the earth.”
– Michael Fox, vice-president of The Humane Society
“Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor.”
– Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia
“The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.”
– Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
„A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.“
– Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
„A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible.“
– United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment
“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
– Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor
“… the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.”
– Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
„One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.“
– Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier
“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
– Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund
“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
– John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
“The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.”
– Christopher Manes, Earth First!
„Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.“
– David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.”
– Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
– Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
“Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
– Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
– Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
„We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.“
– Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
„No matter if the science of global warming is all phony, climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.“
-Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment
„The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level.“
– Al Gore, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize
„The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.“
– emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
„We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis.“
– David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager
„Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send out entire planet’s climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced – a catastrophe of our own making.“
– Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth
„By the end of this century, climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic.“
– Sir James Lovelock, Revenge of Gaia
„Climate Change will result in a catastrophic, global seal level rise of seven meters. That’s bye-bye most of Bangladesh, Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis.“
– Greenpeace International
„Climate change is real. Not only is it real, it’s here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon – the man-made natural disaster.“
– Barack Obama, US Presidential Candidate
„We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth.“
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
„In Nature organic growth proceeds according to a Master Plan, a Blueprint. Such a ‘master plan’ is missing from the process of growth and development of the world system. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system. Ten or twenty years from today it will probably be too late.“
– Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
„The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.“
– UN Commission on Global Governance report
„Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.“
– Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
„In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways.“
– Dr. Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General
„Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises.“
– Lester Brown, WorldWatch Institute
„A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income.“
– Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
„Adopting a central organizing principle means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, to halt the destruction of the environment.“
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
„Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced – a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.“
– UN Agenda 21
„The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human sepcies has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution. Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature.“
– Rene Dubos, board member Planetary Citizens
I jumped the gun with the Maggie Thatcher is dead thing. I was conflating it with Reagan’s death. I also can’t find any evidence that she is some kind of “climate change,” Cap & Trade, or Al Gore advocate to this day. Arguably she did get the CAGW band wagon rolling in her efforts to fight the coal unions.
Good job Lord Monckton – well done!
I would have thought that students were too young to understand the vagaries of the weather. Anyone who experienced the changes over the last 60 years realises that what we experience today isn’t unusual. People also get more sceptical of those in the pronouncements of those in authority as they get older.
This was a very very good result for the sceptics cause – lets all keep up the pressure.
@ur momisugly Mike May 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm:
Wow.
They BELIEVE.
Is it a church? A temple? A cult?
Belief has as much to do with REAL science as the color of a seal’s fur has to do with corn yields.
I thought the Royal Society got religious points of view out of science 350 years ago.
This is climate “scientists” Mike is referring to. I can see some level of “belief” if the poll was taken on non-climatic scientists, because scientists in one speciality accept that the ones in other disciplines have done due diligence. It is both professional courtesy and an assumption that assertions are based on proven facts. But within climate science itself, what could they possibly be thinking, saying they “believe”? If they are actual scientists, either they know, or they shut their yaps. They don’t go around professing to “believe.”
Believe? Spare us, please!
Wow! 45 % of the future UK political class think action on climate change is more important than economic growth! Given that for these guys economic growth is the Holy Grail, that is a truly epic result. The outcome was never in doubt – the shock is the slimness of the majority.
@Human Person Jr May 24, 2010 at 5:32 pm:
Oh? Do you think that they for a second are not trying to be funny? Of course they are! That is half the purpose of the debates – to mock the opposition, to “jawn” them, to belittle them with dryness – and to see if the audience gets it.
Do you not think Lord M was aware how funny that cummerbund thing was?
Of course he did.
I’m totally with [Feet2the Fire] on this …
” Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed BELIEVE “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century.
Eighty-four percent say they personally BELIEVE human-induced warming is occurring … Only 5% BELIEVE that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; the rest are unsure. !
Belief is nothing to do with Science – Belief Systems are RELIGIONS – nothing more and nothing less – Science demand evidence \ data \ postulates \ rigour and the process of challenge & debate …
As to oft-spouted ‘there is a Consensus’ – well, if it’s a Consensus, it’s not Science – and if it’s Science, it’s not a Consensus …
I’ve been convinced of the fallacy of the ‘AGW’ viewpoint for some 15 years now – watched the groundswell of hysteria become official policy \ accepted orthordoxy – I’m so glad it’s now being beaten down …
Phil-Given that for these guys economic growth is the Holy Grail, that is a truly epic result.
That is old school economic growth is going to be impossible as we enter into the next globalist phase. When they get Dr Rajendra Pachauri (globalist green fraudster)to shut down Steel Plants up North and Ship the same company to india producing the same emissions and billions are exchanged then it is time to wake up-or be raped into servitude.
Corus is owned by Tata Steel of India. Recently, Tata received “EU-carbon-credits” worth up to £1bn, ostensibly so that steel-production at Redcar would not be crippled by the EU’s “carbon-emissions-trading-scheme”. By closing the plant at Redcar – and not making any “carbon-emissions” – Tata walks off with £1bn of taxpayers’ money, which it will invest in its steel-factories in India, where there is no “carbon-emissions-trading-scheme”.
There’s more. The EU’s “emissions-trading-scheme” (ETS) is modelled on instructions from the “International Panel on Climate-Change” (IPCC) of the United Nations Organisation. The Chairman of the IPCC is one Dr Rajendra K.Pachauri, a former railway-engineer, who obtained this post by virtue of his being Chairman of the “Tata Energy-Research Institute” – set up by Tata Steel.
What was that line about you could get a spotty teenager to cook up a dodgy computer model, or you could get real world data?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8700000/8700472.stm