Margaret Thatcher was the first leader to warn of global warming – but also the first to see the flaws in the climate change orthodoxy.
A persistent claim made by believers in man-made global warming – they were at it again last week – is that no politician was more influential in launching the worldwide alarm over climate change than Margaret Thatcher. David Cameron, so the argument runs, is simply following in her footsteps by committing the Tory party to its present belief in the dangers of global warming, and thus showing himself in this respect, if few others, to be a loyal Thatcherite.Certainly, Mrs Thatcher was the first world leader to voice alarm over global warming, back in 1988, With her scientific background, she had fallen under the spell of Sir Crispin Tickell, then our man at the UN. In the 1970s, he had written a book warning that the world was cooling, but he had since become an ardent convert to the belief that it was warming, Under his influence, as she recorded in her memoirs, she made a series of speeches, in Britain and to world bodies, calling for urgent international action, and citing evidence given to the US Senate by the arch-alarmist Jim Hansen, head of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Read the rest of the story here
Conversion from alarmist to skeptic. It happens to the best of us, eh Tony?
http://climatesceptics.com.au/watts.html#watts
The view I’d heard was that AGW was the next step in Thatcher’s fight with the coal unions after her NFFO (Non Fossil Fuel Obligation) failed to achieve her pro-nuclear goals.
tallbloke says:
June 14, 2010 at 11:05 am
Mac says:
June 14, 2010 at 4:43 am
Her son is a convicted gun runner.
And all round village idiot.
and an excellent map reader 😉
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/12/newsid_2523000/2523841.stm
I have just been back to the original article and in fairness to Thatcher here is what Booker wrote further in the article.
” It is not widely appreciated, however, that there was a dramatic twist to her story. In 2003, towards the end of her last book, Statecraft, in a passage headed “Hot Air and Global Warming”, she issued what amounts to an almost complete recantation of her earlier views.
She voiced precisely the fundamental doubts about the warming scare that have since become familiar to us. Pouring scorn on the “doomsters”, she questioned the main scientific assumptions used to drive the scare, from the conviction that the chief force shaping world climate is CO2, rather than natural factors such as solar activity, to exaggerated claims about rising sea levels. She mocked Al Gore and the futility of “costly and economically damaging” schemes to reduce CO2 emissions.”
<<>>
I have written to Lord Monckton, suggesting he join in here. We’ll see.
Mac says: “Germany makes things. France makes things, Italy makes things, Ireland makes things, even little Andorra make things – the UK, the place that gave the world industrialism, makes nowt.”
Aye, a nation of shopkeepers, selling each other shoon made in China.
wsbriggs says:
“The sad fact is that there are some who think the masses are disorganized and incompetent – the natural state of man in their eyes, while at the same time, they believe in the power of Government – run by a limited number of increasingly incompetent people.”
The masses are viewed as incompetent, AFTER, they they have selected certain incompetents to govern. The incompetents who govern believe that the incompetents who selected them have made at least one competent decision. The decision to put them in charge. hehe.
Graham Dick says:
June 14, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Conversion from alarmist to skeptic. It happens to the best of us, eh Tony?
http://climatesceptics.com.au/watts.html#watts
Most people don’t know this about Anthony. I’m sure it will come as a shock to some, but it’s a very interesting story. I’m blessed to call him friend.
I lived int eh UK for a long time before the Thatcher Terror. It was awful. the whole country needed shaking up. Then she came along and shook it up. And it was worse.
I happened to borrow Maggie’s book “Statecraft” (2002) from the library a couple of days ago. I would describe her position on AGW as “agnostic”, tempered with a knowledge of political agendas and the exaggeration of claims. Here are the opening and closing paragraphs of the section of the book entitled “HOT AIR AND GLOBAL WARMING” (pp. 449-458):
“The doomsters’ favourite subject today is climate change. This has a number of attractions for them. First, the science is extremely obscure so they cannot easily be proved wrong. Second, we all have ideas about the weather: traditionally, the English on first acquaintance talk of little else. Third, since clearly no plan to alter climate could be considered on anything but a global scale, it provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.
…
The lessons drawn from past predictions of global disaster should be learned when it comes to considering the issue of climate change:
– We should be suspicious of plans for global regulation that all too clearly fit in with other preconceived agendas.
– We should demand of politicians that they apply the same criteria of commonsense and a sense of proportion to their pronouncements on the environment as to anything else.
– We must never forget that although prosperity brings problems it also permits solutions – and less prosperity, fewer solutions.
– All decisions must be made on the basis of the best science whose conclusions have been properly evaluated.”
Paul Deacon, Christchurch, New Zealand
So this guy writing the article is an AGW sceptic and, presumably,a Thatcher admirer who has wasted a few column inches doing a bit of revisionist history to reconcile two things important to him.
The relevance of this twaddle is….?
I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with Elvis Costello on the subject of Margaret “There’s No Such Thing as Society” Thatcher. He has this to say (from his album ‘Spike’):
when they finally put you in the ground
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down
To keep the comment on topic, the grreengrocer’s daughter promoted AGW purely to further her own political agenda. Being sorry for it afterwards smacks of crocodile tears.
As a little tidbit for dinner parties, did you all know that Margaret Thatcher did postgrad chemistry work on soft frozen ice cream? If you buy a Mr. Whippy and wonder why it’s all air, she was the one who worked out how to maximise the volume whilst minimising the product (thereby maximising the profit to the manufacturer)! True!
Thatcher’s role in getting the AGW bandwagon rolling has often been speculated upon on this blog. I just did a site-search with google and got 185 hits. The most recent comments prior to this thread claimed that she was still aboard the bandwagon herself. They may have been what prompted the author to research it and post his findings.
“Rob M says:
June 15, 2010 at 3:27 pm
So this guy writing the article is an AGW sceptic”
How do you know?
” and, presumably,a Thatcher admirer”
How do you know?
” who has wasted a few column inches doing a bit of revisionist history”
Why is it revisionist?
” to reconcile two things important to him.”
Which two things?
“The relevance of this twaddle is….?”
Now, it might not be relevant to you, but then, it was relevant enough for you to make your “twaddle” comment so that question is answered.
Rob, could you clarify what you’re meaning?
Perhaps Maggie T. did
not receive the payoff
she anticipated from the UK nuclear crew–
But BP was an hottie founder because
they anticipated higher
natural gas sales and profits-
“BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)”
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Once-a-government-pet-BP-now-a-capitalist-tool-95942659.html#ixzz0r2xwcCWO
bp a founding member of cap and trade.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Once-a-government-pet-BP-now-a-capitalist-tool-95942659.html
jeef says:
June 15, 2010 at 4:40 pm
As a little tidbit for dinner parties, did you all know that Margaret Thatcher did postgrad chemistry work on soft frozen ice cream? If you buy a Mr. Whippy and wonder why it’s all air, she was the one who worked out how to maximise the volume whilst minimising the product (thereby maximising the profit to the manufacturer)! True!
So, not content with diddling the kiddies out of their free half pint of milk at school, she nobbled their seaside treats as well.
Thatcher Thatcher Ice Cream Snatcher!