When historians look back at the much-touted Copenhagen "climate conference" of December 2009, they may be unable to resist a wry smile at all the last-minute efforts made to keep warmist hysteria at fever pitch. Inevitably the biggest coverage last week went to Lord Stern's call for us all to save the planet by giving up meat. He presumably means that we should kill off all cows, sheep and pigs, say goodbye to wool and leather, and abandon large tracts of our countryside to brambles and bracken (and the wind turbines his lordship is also keen on). This coincided with a new book by two New Zealanders, solemnly explaining that a major part of the climate change catastrophe is due to meat-eating pets. A large dog, they claim, is the cause of more greenhouse gas emissions each year than a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,000 miles. So goodbye also to dogs and cats. Then there was the official Australian report, supported by their quaintly named Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, calling for a ban on all new buildings anywhere near the sea, lest warming should plunge them below the waves (this in a country 80 per cent of whose people live on the coast). Finally, as if to confirm that belief in global warming has become a substitute for religion, we had the statement from Lambeth Palace on behalf of all Britain's "faith groups" (led by the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, but also including Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians and presumably Rastafarians). They called on the governments of the world to ban fossil fuels, thus restricting any further warming of the planet to precisely 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Presumably we shall see wind turbines sprout from every church, mosque and synagogue, to keep all those clerical word-processors churning out yet more "faith-based" advice to the world's politicians. More to the point perhaps was the attempt by the EU's leaders, met in solemn conclave in Brussels on Friday, to pretend that they can offer anything significant when they join the rest of the 20,000 delegates in Copenhagen next month. Predictably, the great divide was between the richer countries of western Europe and their poorer partners in eastern Europe, who are nothing like so keen on shelling out 100 billion euros a year to bribe China, India and the rest into curbing their "carbon emissions". A second great divide at Copenhagen will be between the developed and developing worlds in general, which will make it impossible to agree on any mandatory emissions reduction targets. The third great divide –though unlikely to be aired much at Copenhagen – is between the bogus science favoured by all the politicians and the real science, which now points out with increasing authority that this is a problem which never really existed anyway. All this makes it unlikely that Copenhagen will end in anything but a gigantic pile of very costly fudge. But naturally our politicians will fall over backwards not to admit anything of the kind.Warmists turn up the heat ahead of the Copenhagen climate conference
The approach of the Copenhagen climate conference in December exposes us to even more overheated opinions, says Christopher Booker
Sunday, 1 November 2009
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