Hans Labohm writes in an email:
Dear all,
Pursuant to my earlier e-mail, I am sending you the translation of my posting on DDS.
The posting has been published now on:
See the translation below. (Feel free to improve my English).
Best,
Hans H.J. Labohm
Translation:
Dutch parlementarian René Leegte (VVD, Classical Liberal Party) bells the cat
By Hans Labohm
The Daily Standard, June 27, 2011
In his intervention in a recent parliamentary climate debate, René Leegte (VVD) elaborated on the adverse effects of climate change on food security.
René Leegte:
‘There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. .. Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. …. [..] the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.’
So far the usual climate alarmism, to which the we have become accustomed. So, nothing unusual – except that these words were spoken by a classical liberal. But then – surpise, suprise – René Leegte went on:
Chairman,
You may have noticed already that this quote comes from a Newsweek article of April 28, 1975. The world was mesmerized by climate change, because of global cooling. A new ice age was in the offing. And mankind had to prevent it. It was the era of the Den Uyl [Dutch socialist prime minister] government, which firmly believed in social engineering – climate being no exception. It is less than forty years ago. What have we learned since?
But now we talk about global warming. We pretend to have a better understanding, but the data on which we rely – the long-term temperature measurements – largely come from the same sources, which earlier told us that the earth would cool.
It is clear that many people begin to feel increasingly uncomfortable with the climate debate. Countries like Canada, Japan and Russia refuse to take part in a follow up of Kyoto. That makes sense, because while we witness a new record in the emission of CO2 (and believe me, every year we will break new records) the temperature curve has remained flat.
I call upon the government to come up – as soon as possible after the recess, but well before the budget debate – with an explanation of why the IPCC models project ever-increasing warming, while the measurements show a leveling off.
The current climate debate is the wrong debate. It’s the wrong debate, because the real problems of the moment are drought, health, biodiversity, food and energy.
We should not pretend that climate policy offers a solution to these problems. Climate is the wrong issue. We should not pretend that if we reduce human CO2 emissions, we might solve the real problems. I envy those who believe in those fairy tales. But I am very concerned about all the money we waste on pursuing the wrong priorities.
I would like to invite the Minister to promise that he will urge his European partners to pay equal attention to the views of climate realists, thus ensuring more balance in the discussion, so that we can find real solutions to problems where we can make a difference.
So far René Leegte.
Last minute news
On the front page ‘De Telegraaf’ posted the following article.
‘Met Office is partisan in climate debate’
VVD: Dissolve Met Office
by Inge Lengton
THE HAGUE, Tuesday
The Met Office must be dissolved. That is the position of the VVD [Dutch classical liberal party], which accuses the institute of bias in the climate debate.
According to Liberal MP Leegte, the Met Office is too much prejudiced in favour of the CO2-driven warming hypothesis. “Eighty percent of the scientists of the KNMI are honest, but 20 percent are not independent. That is unacceptable for an institute that receives every year 60 million euros of public funding.”
According to the VVD fraction the Met Office is exclusively focussed on CO2 as a culprit for the rise in global temperatures, while the real problem is probably wider, says Leegte.
“The Met Office seems to believe that if we solve the CO2 problem, we are solving the climate problem, but it does not work that way. The earth’s temperature fluctuates. To what extent this has to do with CO2, is uncertain.”
Leegte suggests that in the future the Met Office might outsource certain tasks, such as climate research and weather alerts. “Meteo Consult can do it, but also foreign universities or institutes,” says Leegte. “As long as they are independent.”
So far ‘De Telegraaf’
Could René Leegte picked up these ideas from the mainstream media? No way, Dutch newspapers like De Volkskrant, NRC/HB and Trouw, only publish articles which are conducive to spreading the climate gospel that man-made CO2 causes temperatures to rise. But maybe he has been a regular reader of The Daily Standard?
Readers who want information on alternative views, might consult the following links:
http://fgservices1947.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/ten-climate-fairy-tales-%E2%80%93-hans-Labohm/
http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2011/06/zon-binnenkort-in-winterslaap
http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2011/05/de-co2-obsessie
http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2011/06/de-co2-obsessie-2
http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2011/06/klimaatdiscussie-overzicht-van-argumenten-pro-en-contra
A whole party just for Classical Liberals.
That’s what we need.
Are there any parties like this in Europe?
peterhodges says:
>>A whole party just for Classical Liberals. That’s what we need.<<
Amen, brother.
René Leegte doesn’t know what climate science is about when saying climate scientists solemly focus on CO2 when trying to explain climate change. Quite embarassing.
Hans Labohm, the author of this article on the other hand has been demasked manipulating the truth by several Dutch authors.
In English :
http://jules-klimaat.blogspot.com/2009/03/labohm-again-sigh.html
In Dutch :
http://weblogs.nos.nl/klimaat/2009/11/17/goochelen-met-hans-labohm/ Goochelen Met Hans Labohm
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/gerrit-hiemstra-maakt-korte-metten-met-hans-labohm/ Gerrit Hiemstra maakt korte metten met Hans Labohm
http://transitiontowns.nl/archief/3748 Klimatscepticus neemt loopje met de waarheid
http://sargasso.nl/archief/2009/04/22/statistische-strohalmen/ Statistische strohalmen
Hans Labohm probably is the last Dutchman on earth to cite on a website interested in the truth.
Seems like 10 years is a good number for harbingers of doom.
Ted Danson The “seas will be unhabital in 10 years”,
“The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.”
More from http://www.richardabarrett.com/?p=195
1990 Actress Meryl Streep ”By the year 2000–that’s less than ten years away–earth’s climate will be warmer than it’s been in over 100,000 years. If we don’t do something, there’ll be enormous calamities in a very short time.”
January 1970 Life Magazine ”Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support …the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
July 9, 1971, Washington Post “In the next 50 years fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun’s rays that the Earth’s average temperature could fall by six degrees. Sustained emissions over five to ten years, could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
June 30, 1989, Associated Press U.N. OFFICIAL PREDICTS DISASTER, SAYS GREENHOUSE EFFECT COULD WIPE SOME NATIONS OFF MAP–entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect.
1991 Edward Goldsmith, 5000 Days to Save the Planet ”By 2000, British and American oil will have diminished to a trickle….Ozone depletion and global warming threaten food shortages, but the wealthy North will enjoy a temporary reprieve by buying up the produce of the South. Unrest among the hungry and the ensuing political instability, will be contained by the North’s greater military might. A bleak future indeed, but an inevitable one unless we change the way we live….At present rates of exploitation there may be no rainforest left in 10 years. If measures are not taken immediately, the greenhouse effect may be unstoppable in 12 to 15 years.”
April 22, 1990 ABC, The Miracle Planet “I think we’re in trouble. When you realize how little time we have left–we are now given not 10 years to save the rainforests, but in many cases five years. Madagascar will largely be gone in five years unless something happens. And nothing is happening.”
March 29, 2001, CNN ”In ten years time, most of the low-lying atolls surrounding Tuvalu’s nine islands in the South Pacific Ocean will be submerged under water as global warming rises sea levels.” [Next year we’ll know if this extremely unlikely prediction comes true.]
on and on and on………kinda rolls off the tongue, that ten years.
To badly paraphrase Winston Churchill;
This is not the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
And now we can see the beginning of the end.
@ur momisugly Aaron Stonebeat, June 28, 2011 at 3:25 pm
In dutch media, I would not have reacted to Aaron’s reply: dutch readers will know how to interpret Aaron’s words. But this is an international blog with many readers who are not versed in dutch politics, so I thought I should add my view.
Let me start with stating that Aaron’s description of the PVV is the usual left wing paper description for the right wing party, so I would advice everyone to assume the usual hyperbole when reading it.
But it’s worth noting that it’s more socially acceptable to state Aaron’s description than to admit one has voted for the PVV. So the fact that the PVV was the only party to be officially skeptic, made it easy to set it away as a lunatic view, as the only party to support it was “that lunatic party.” A classic fallacy (shoot the messenger), but very often used.
And yes, VVD and PVV are competing over voters, but there are lot of areas where they differ and this is just a minor one. Some current major ones are that they differ on their views on sending money to Greece, and on increasing the retirement age.
It would have been easy for the VVD to stay quiet on CAGW. Just mumble something about ‘high costs’, ‘don’t harm our industry’, and ‘let’s wait for the international approach’, and skip to the next topic. That’s the approach of the last years and it would have worked for many years to come.
So I think Hans Labohm is right: this is a landmark. It was an unforced turn and thus is genuine.
With about 35% of the dutch parliament officially skeptic, the skeptical arguments will be heard in parliament, and MSM will be forced to report on it.
It will be interesting times for dutch politics. As it has been for the last couple of years.
@antoon DV, June 28, 2011 at 4:27 pm:
Your dismissing of Hans Labohm’s views might work on some dutch blogs, but not here.
I’m sure the WUWT readers will be able to recognize the usual ‘attack the messenger’ fallacy, and the arguments presented in the linked articles are just rehashing what has repeatable been said on WUWT.
Meanwhile, in Italy, there is grumbling among the poor, because pasta prices are rising, because local farmers make better money growing “biofuels.” (Subsidized?)
Someone needs to tap the wealthy intellectuals on the shoulder, and clear their throat a time or two. The rabble are getting restless, and don’t believe wealthy intellectuals care about them the slightest bit.
Do they? Or do they see the rabble as excess population to be gotten rid of?
Look’s like the Dutch parliament needs an a$$hole transplant. Donor material to be provided by the White House!
@Sjoerd:
Thanks for putting the remarks of “Aaron Stonebeat” and “antoon DV” into perspective.
I am as Dutch as one can be: believer in democracy, justice and defender/user of the right to free speech for everyone.
Does “Aaron Stonebeat” knows about the roots of the Green Party (“GroenLinks” in Dutch)?
It’s a merger of some small parties, among them the Communist Party and the Pacifists Party, former admirers of Ulrich regime in East Germany.
The merger took place after the end of the bloody experiment on humans, called marxism.
That’s what I would call a “populist opportunistic” party.
Good stuff, nice list at the link.
And another one bites the dust (exactly 3 months ago).
The CAGW doomsayers are so bad that they cannot even be compared to a stopped clock. They are never right.
TomB says: June 28, 2011 at 9:10 am
“First Geert Wilders, now René Leegte – there’s something strange going on in the state of Denmark. Perhaps this wave of sanity and common sense will spread.”
This is happening in Holland (or The Netherlands).
Mr. Leegte has said more skeptical things already. I really hope he can achieve something.
TomB says: First Geert Wilders, now René Leegte – there’s something strange going on in the state of Denmark. Perhaps this wave of sanity and common sense will spread.
We live in eternal hope…… now who can we disband down under? apart from the Brown Gillard Government?
Ah yes now I remember Our Princess Mary is up there…. maybe that is where the sainity springs from?
One can’t talk about climate science in Holland without mentioning Henk Tennekes (former director of research at the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute) and author of a First course in turbulence http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4658)
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/my-position-on-climate-change-by-hendrik-tennekes/
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/when-will-they-ever-learn-by-hendrik-tennekes/
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/seamless-prediction-systems-by-hendrik-tennekes/
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/henk-tennekes-resigns-from-dutch-academy/
The desmogblog reference for Tennekes says that he hasn’t published research in peer-review since 1990. However he has re-edited one of his books for MIT press in 2009 http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11941
The remainder of the desmogblog reference is a rather desperate attempt to smear him by saying that papers he has written have appeared on websites organized by people who know people who have been paid by tobacco and/or oil companies!
http://www.desmogblog.com/hendrik-tennekes
The problem is that we now have a science problem that has become a political problem. Since right wing parties have declared that AGW is a lie, left wing parties are doomed to continue to support it, not just now but for all time. Thus AGW will become baked in the left-wing cake just as the failed doctrines of Marxism are.
Democracies all over the world desparately need an opposition to right-wing politics that isn’t simply a collection of failed left-wing theories.
The correct (sorry Hans, but for clarity) translation of the title is: “Renee Leegte (VVD) puts the cat among the pigeons”. Otherwise a fine translation.
If the science is inconvenient, we should turn to the Inquisition for guidance.
@richard:
Henk Tennekens was right in at least one major issue: you can’t predict weather any better with more computing power.
The 3-day forecasts are just as good as 30 years ago, even now hidden in the current 10-day forecasts.
One can’t model something one doesn’t understand.
And don’t shoot the messenger.
Oh Antoon
The ice core graphs you link to show that C02 and temperature do correlate, but that C02 lags temperature by several hundred years during the warming periods. Now it is a basic law of physics that event A cannot be the cause of event B, if A occurs after B. Didn’t you know this already?
Richard, never go to a dentist with a toothache: he knows those dirty little things about teeth called facts 🙂
Never go to a climatologist to learn something about climate and climate change. Same reason: dirty little things called facts. Dirty big pool called reality.
So sure, ask ole Tennekes!
This is an embarrassment to the Dutch politics. A politician who wants to abolish a scientific institute because he doesn’t like the scientific conclusions is entirely antithetical to independent research.
People who value independent research should be appalled by this episode.
My commentary in Dutch:
http://klimaatverandering.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/vvd-kamerlid-leegte-oneens-met-klimaatwetenschap-dus-wil-knmi-afschaffen/
Well, perhaps you could prevail upon Geert Wilders to give up on his homeland (does Europe really have any chance at this point?) and move over here to the USA. After some time we could elect him to any office (except for prez of course) and his talents would no longer be wasted on those that appear to fear xenophobia more than cultural death by attrition.
Rednecks are not considered evil here as they thrive in the warmer climate from AGW, and criminal records can be a Résumé enhancer, particularly in Chicago. So no worries on either front!
But seriously, if enough of you can’t stand him, just send him our way.
/NoSarc
Problem is Bart what are the scientific conclusions? Can you find out any mistakes in the statements he quoted form Climate Scientists way back in 1975 and what they are saying today? Where is the science there?
Climate scientists have been lax with the scientific method and have been crying wolf for too long for anyone to take them seriously. And what conclusions? Model runs are not conclusions. And model runs are not data.
Care to point out the empirical evidence and conclusions for AGW?
pat said at June 28, 2011 at 9:09 am:
“Bureaucrats and academics have corrupted science everywhere. It is all about money and control of other peoples lives.”
I would submit that the ‘death’ of science is the over-taking of the various policy organs by lawyers. The original US EPA was staffed by scientists and engineers, but then the lawyers invaded to craft their pernicious Rules and Regulations with little valid background.