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
Don’t make it too tough for these guys to change their minds. This is a huge admission, particularly because he does have renewables business interests. It certainly is more courageous than than that of the skulks under siege in the once shining institutions of science who are reduced to shouting louder and louder as a scientific response. Don’t expect the end to be pretty
What a complete misrepresentation of his statement, lol. Your title(here and elsewhere) makes it look like Yeo said that everyone is skeptical of climate science. He did not say that, or even something like it. Why not include his last quote from the article?
Yeo is probably angling for some ‘Conventional Power’ directorships, to balance his ‘Renewables Power’ directorships.
[For our American & other foreign readers, Tim Yeo is paid £65,000 pa to be a Member of Parliament, but over the past two years, three green-energy companies have paid him an additional £245,691. The fact that he happens to be Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee is of course purely coincidental.]
Yes, but it could still be both.
My take.
“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.”
Looks like Mr Yeo may have been right, although for the wrong reasons 😉 …
Dollis:Show me some evidence of climate change- real evidence, not the wet-my-britches kind of talk about droughts, tornados, etc. that alarmists screech about.
An intentional fraud of this magnitude is undeserving of a quiet death….
CELEBRATE V-AGW DAY ! ! !
Deliver all carbon credit and climatology material to the nearest coal fired generating plant for bio-mass thermal recovery. “Zeke” above is correct. In 1932, with the election of both FDR & Hitler, US capitol chose to invest over $100 million in creating the ‘nazi miracle’, ATT owned Fokker aircraft, Ford built Panzer engines, GM owned Opal and it’s war material manufacturing. WW II was stage set for a decade. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, democracy threatened to become universal. Only a Neville Chamberlain moment by the Big Bush, was able to crush the Chinese democracy movement. A rapid influx of YOUR 401K capital converted the starving ‘Iron Rice Bowl” into a worth opponent, turned ‘unbeatable’ world leader. This nefarious plan by the monarch-monopolists depended on a crushing Carbon tax. Unfortunately for the demonic elitists, not all of science rolled over on command….and Nature was unaffected by false math models.
Demand a Modern Magna Carta….leg irons and eternal solitary confinement for the Truth traitors.
In the online poll 53 percent are saying global warming is ‘completely natural’.
I was going to write my true opinion of Timothy Yeo but, as this is widely read blog, I decided not to sully its pages with my vituperation.
The man is evil.
You’re missing my point. Perhaps these will clarify; recent tweets from yours truly:
Nuccitelli has replied several times, but his position is well-summed up by his last reply (to my second to last tweet above).
So, for the record, Dana Nuccitelli’s position is that the highly alarming models are correct. He also says it is untrue that climate sensitivity estimates have to be adjusted downwards:
Is this position (1) scientifically tenable? I don’t think so. We’ll find out.
(But mpainter, there is copious evidence that the climate changes: forgetting all of the longer-term, more technical stuff, just look at humanity’s historical records for the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. But really, you can go back hundreds of millions of years at least and see much evidence for both huge and smaller shifts in climate — such as the last major ice age, but there were many colder times than that, and hotter times than now.)
† He keeps on throwing out red herrings like this, as if that had anything to do with my point; but actually, he’s wrong even there. Some of the scientists who feel they were miscategorised believe there is warming caused by mankind, just less than popularly believed: i.e., less climate sensitivity to anthropegenic factors. Here is Nucitelli commenting on his recent article at The Guardian in defence of his paper:
and here’s one of the scientists who feel his paper was miscategorised:
Now I have to extrapolate to conclude that Dana is wrong here, that climate sensitivity is important to his paper. However that’s easy to do because clearly the percentage of warming caused by mankind vs. natural factors relates to climate sensitivity to mankind’s actions.
This is far from the only self-serving logical fallacy Nuccitelli has engaged in. The one I personally found funniest is how item 5 on his Guardian article talks about conspiracy theories, and how he opens the same article going on about some obscure oil company’s half million dollar funding of climate skepticism back in the day. I thought it was odd that he would open that article of all articles with a type of conspiracy theory
relying, perhaps astutely, on his Guardian audience to let him get away with special pleading on this front — despite his point 3 which was about “logical fallacies”.
At any case, three things:
1. The amount of money skeptics receive in funding pails into insignificance compared to the billions in funding and government propaganda, however well meaning, spent on the pro-catastrophic anthropocegenic climate-change/AGW side.
2. Who cares anyway? Science isn’t about funding, it’s about data. The data is showing climate sensitivity is less than Nuccitelli’s beliefs, which is exactly what the skeptics have been saying all along.
3. Right or wrong, Nuccitelli is on record. Let the facts prevail. Except, Doh! Popular Technology — the blog Nuccitelli tweeted me to say his Guardian article is in response to — is being censored in the comments under that article at The Guardian.
Perfect! We have an national election here in Sweden next year. The “green” parties (yes, two) will be in serious trouble …
The Daily Telegraph is still quoting the 12,000 papers and 97% support AGW meme, I notice. Still, at least Yeo seems to be looking for a bolthole – he knows the wind is turning, if I may put it like that.
Mark says:
May 29, 2013 at 1:37 pm
“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.”
Looks like Mr Yeo may have been right, although for the wrong reasons 😉 …
My thoughts entirely. In another two years (five years from the quote) we will not be arguing about man-made contributions, because we will know that are negligible.
As a number of people have said, we should not make it too hard for people (especilally politicians) to change their minds. One of the problems of our current age of communication is that no statement is ever forgotten and – therefore – forgiven. We will not be able to just “throw the bastards out” because all of the political parties bought into this and we have no-one to replace them. Allowing them to back down gracefully, however hard that makes me grind my teeth, is the only way forward.
““It is possible there are natural causes as well, but my view has always been that – for twenty years – I have thought the scientific evidence has been very convincing. The strong probability is that it is man-made causes contributing to greenhouse gas concentrations.””
Follow the money.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2189492/It-wonder-Tim-Yeos-branded-Jolly-Green-Hypocrite.html
Has anyone considered the possibility that Yeo was speaking metaphorically? Of course not. He gave a reasoned answer to a question that is paraphrased in the Telegraph story. The audio clip could have included the question but they chose not to. It is a bit of a manufactured story I am afraid. Newspapers do it rather too often (and I am a long time Telegraph reader so please don’t accuse me of bias there). Yeo is a politician so some sort of equivocation was to be expected.
Tim Yeo featured in question #3
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/26/article-2331057-19FFB5AD000005DC-557_634x858.jpg
Where I live, the climate change every year between two periods called “summer” and “winter”, with transition periods in between called “spring” and “autumn” …
Yes, if you read my comments above, you’ll see I did. And I’m not the only one.
In August of 2012 it was reported that Tim Yeo
So it’s a surprise he’s saying this now.
More
metaphorically
paraphrased
equivocation
Anything but the truth, Margaret?
“Although I think the evidence that Tim Yeo is an idiot is now overwhelming, the causes are not absolutely clear. There could be natural causes that are taking place, or it could just be that he is a crook.”
When this massive scam is over people need to go to jail. They should start with Gore and work their way down through Hansen, Mann, Yeo, Pachauri et. el.
…forgot …
It was quite different just more then 10 000 years ago. Back then, we only had “winter” here …
I’ll believe that the meme is changing when the greenies acknowledge that wind, solar and geothermal are dirtier than fossil fuels. not before.
Rob Potter says:
May 29, 2013 at 2:40 pm
. We will not be able to just “throw the bastards out” because all of the political parties bought into this and we have no-one to replace them. Allowing them to back down gracefully, however hard that makes me grind my teeth, is the only way forward.
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In the UK there is a political party which has not bought into it. It’s doing rather well in the polls. (and in recent local elections)