A Tory researcher has emailed the entire European Parliament a propaganda video claiming “there is no such thing as man-made global warming”, Left Foot Forward has learned.
Benjamin Harnwell, Chief of Staff to South East MEP Nirj Deva, sent the eight-minute clip to all “MEP & ASSISTANTS-7th-Legislature; Bruxelles” from his boss’s work account.
Last month Mr Deva joined prominent climate change sceptics Daniel Hannan and Roger Helmer in failing to back a motion calling for the Copenhagen talks to agree an 80 per cent cut in emissions by 2050 – the official Tory policy.
The news will come as a blow to David Cameron as he attempts to take his party with him on climate change. His “Vote Blue, go Green” strategy appears to be flattering to deceive.
Yesterday Left Foot Forward listed previous instances of Conservative climate deniers and sceptics, who include David Davis, Lord Lawson and Peter Lilley, with Liberal Conspiracy reporting Oliver Letwin and Iain Duncan-Smith’s role with the European Foundation, which on Tuesday published a report outlining “100 reasons why climate change is natural and not man-made”.
And earlier today a poll revealed that Conservative voters who opposed action to help the poor outnumbered those who suppported it by 23 per cent. Among Labour and Liberal Democrat voters net support stands at around 30 per cent.
35 Responses to “Tory researcher caught peddling climate denial propaganda”
Tom Callow
Researcher for #climate change denying Tory MEP circulates denial video to EU Parliament http://is.gd/5reof #cop15 (h/t @TheBrianDuggan)
convince me
Researcher for #climate change denying Tory MEP circulates denial video to EU Parliament http://is.gd/5reof #cop15 (h/t @TheBrianDuggan)
Tom
Richard Lindzen is a thoughtful, intelligent, and well-qualified scientist. He also has a bit of a reputation for taking deliberately contrarian positions (he doesn’t believe that lung cancer is strongly linked to smoking, for example), and most of his colleagues believe he’s wrong on this, too. Nonetheless, he engages with the evidence, and offers opinions worth acknowledging, even if many other equally well-qualified climatologists disagree with him.
That doesn’t change the fact that the video in the email, like the Express article from the European Foundation the other day, is utter nonsense, unscientific, and perfectly classified as propaganda.
Mike Thomas
Tom,
Thing is… he is not alone.
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” – Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” – Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years.”
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” – Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC “are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” – Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” – U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.” – Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?” – Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” – Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” – Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” – Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.
“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” – Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.
“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” – Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.
That’s just a sample of a few scientist, all relevant to the field of climate and historical climate fluctuations.
Now, perhaps if you look at the IPPC list you will find a lot of ‘scientists’ but not from pure or applied science but plenty of scientists from non-related science and even a railway engineer.
Tom
Yes, it is just a sample of a few scientists. You can always find a few scientists who disagree with pretty much anything – you’ll find a fair few, including a Nobel prize winner, who believe HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, for example.
You can find even more if you misrepresent them, of course, and if your misrepresentations are then spread around the internet by credulous ‘sceptics’ who, while being ‘sceptical’ of anything put forward by mainstream scientists, will happily copy-and-paste anything that agrees with their prejudices. Without, for example, checking to see what has been missed out by ellipses.
Dr Joanne Simpson said “Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly. What should we as a nation do? Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the IPCC because if we do not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and the climate models are right, the planet as we know it will in this century become unsustainable. But as a scientist I remain skeptical.” If you’re going to moan about ‘political gloss and spin’, you really shouldn’t quote-mine like that.