Climate-changers - where are your manners?

“Man-made CO2”, “climate change”, “global warning”, “Copenhagen”, “Al Gore”. What cumulative effect do these words and phrases have on you? Indignation? Anger? Fear? Fervour? Disgust at humanity?

Or, like me (and over 40% of the British public, apparently), do you think “I’m not absolutely sure, but I suspect this is a load of old bollocks”?

Welcome to the Flat Earth Society. Well, according to our Prime Minister, and when has heever been known to be wrong?

Like most people,  I am as scientifically ignorant as it is possible to be and still make it through the day in one piece. So I, and the rest of us ignoramuses, have to judge the issue on a mixture of logic (I’d call it “common sense”, but that would upset Stephen Fry) and  the behaviour of the people at the heart of the matter. Or matters, actually, because we first have to be convinced that the earth is warming up. If we accept this as fact (and many very intelligent people don’t), is it doing so at a freakish, unprecedented rate? If so, what’s causing it? If we can tell why it’s happening, then, no doubt, we can tell how hot it’s going to get. If we know for certain that it’s going to get seriously hotter and it’s not man-made, what can we do about it? If it’s going to get seriously hotter and it is man-made, what can we do about it?

Climate change enthusiasts have successfully completed the journey along this twisting path – i.e. it’s going to get seriously hotter and it’s mainly down to human activity. They could stop and explain it to us dullards, but, really, there isn’t time, and, anyway, we’re too dense to understand what they’re saying. Or too corrupt. All we’re doing – we pig-ignorant, selfish, greedy, complacent, Gaia-defiling bastards – is hampering the efforts of cleverer, more compassionate people to save us from our idiot, Caliban selves.

And you have to sympathize with man-made climate changers: all they’re asking for is a complete change of tack for the global economy and a complete change of behaviour by the human race. For goodness sake, why can’t we simply accept what they’re telling us? Even if we can’t grasp the overwhelming (and simple) scientific evidence, why can’t we just let them get on with the job of changing the world, when it’s obvious that reducing carbon emissions – and all that that entails – is just morally the right thing to do?

The data on whether the earth is, at this particular moment, warming up or cooling down is, at best, ambiguous. If we can’t prove that the earth is heating up, we can’t say whether what’s happening is freakish or not. As we don’t know what’s happening, we can’t tell how much human beings are contributing to whatever is going on. And our ignorance of what’s happening right now means that hazarding a guess as to how high temperatures will climb by the end of the century is about as valid as trying to predict the level of the FTSE 100 on 7th December, 2109.  Logic would suggest we need a better argued case (rather than the tendentious, emotive, inaccurate nonsense peddled by Al Gore in  A Convenient Lie).

Given that a scientific consensus doesn’t exist (some eminent scientists believe the Earth is now actually cooling, and some believe that solar radiation is hugely more important to earth temperatures than man-made CO2 emissions) we’re forced to look at how the climate changers are conducting their campaign to persuade us of their cause. It’s not particularly edifying. They refuse to share data with other scientists. They use “tricks” to hide anomalies. They have accused opponents of being in the pay of oil companies (when the best way of bagging research grants is to be pro-climate change), and when appearing on radio or TV they tend to be rude, tetchy, irrational and insulting on a personal level to anyone who has the temerity to question their assumptions (sounds like Gordon Brown, actually – no wonder he’s on their side).  

When you’re asking the world to invest untold zillions to solve a problem, it seems reasonable to ask that you prove to the satisfaction of the vast majority of taxpayers - whose money you will be using, and whose way of life you will be changing fundamentally – that the problem actually exists. 

Manners, a dash of humility, and the teensiest smidgin of self-doubt might also help. If Gordie had managed to display any of these qualities ahead of the global banking crisis, and had heeded that tiny handful of deranged Flat-Earthers warning that disaster was imminent, we - and our children - would be a lot better off.