The Chair and Director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation appear before a Commons this afternoon. Left Foot Forward sets out 5 questions they must answer.
The Chairman and Director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation appear before the Science and Technology Select Committee this afternoon. Left Foot Forward sets out five questions they should be asked.
1. Who funds the Global Warming Policy Foundation?
Lord Lawson has written in the Independent on Sunday:
“the GWPF was “funded entirely by voluntary donations from a number of private individuals and charitable trusts. In order to make clear its complete independence, it does not accept gifts from either energy companies or anyone with a significant interest in an energy company”.”
Who are these private individuals and charitable trusts?
2. Why is the GWPF sharing offices with the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining?
The GWPF are based at 1 Carlton House Terrace, SW1Y 5DB.
Also at this address is the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, which “exists to promote and develop all aspects of materials science and engineering, geology, mining and associated technologies, mineral and petroleum engineering and extraction metallurgy, as a leading authority in the worldwide materials and mining community.”
3.What links does Lord Lawson have with big oil?
Lord Lawson told Channel 4 News that, “I have no links to oil companies of any kind”.
But the Central Europe Trust – which he chairs and in which he has “significant shareholdings” – claim as clients BP Amoco, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Texaco, and Total Fina Elf.
4.Why does the GWPF’s academic advisory council include a number of climate sceptics?
The aim of the GWPF “is to provide the most robust and reliable economic analysis and advice”.
Why then does their small academic advisory council include well known climate sceptics including:
• Ian Plimer, the author of “Heaven and Earth – Global Warming: The Missing Science”
• Philip Stott who has written that “global warming is a faith“
• Sir Ian Byatt who has faced calls to be sacked as chairman of Scotland’s water regulator for his thoughts on climate change; and
• Professor Richard Lindzen who appeared on the Great Global Warming Swindle.
5. Why does the GWPF’s board of trustees include a known climate sceptic?
The Liverpool Daily Post quotes remarks made by GWPF trustee, the Bishop of Chester:
The row followed the Bishop of Chester’s speech in a House of Lords debate on energy, in which he said discussion about the causes of global warming was “still open”.
Describing himself as a “scientist in a previous incarnation”, Dr Forster – whose diocese includes Wirral – said there was no consensus among climate scientists that “carbon dioxide levels are the key determinant”.
And he told peers: “Climate science is a notoriously imprecise area, because the phenomena under investigation are so large.
“That makes precision difficult to achieve.”
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27 Responses to “Five questions for Lord Lawson and Benny Peiser”
Anon E Mouse
Will –
1. Why not write and ask who funds them? Who funds LFF? Surely what they say is what matters…
2. Who else operates from this building? What’s wrong with that organisation? It’s legal and there was a time Labour used to support the mining community…
3. When did oil become an illegal commodity? (That question takes me back in time Will…)
4. Isn’t scepticism part of scientific study? Why wouldn’t one include opposing views on a board?
5. Ditto above.
Seems to me Will that this is typical of the left – smear the messenger again.
The fact is Dr Benny Peiser may be wrong in everything he says until one day he is right and surprise surprise he has now stated that the data presented so far from the CRU (Does no one at LFF actually care about FOI at all?) is incomplete.
It is either incomplete or it’s not. Phil Jones either threatened legal action or he didn’t. That is the issue LFF should be checking. The character of this man has no relevance on the *facts* and I just wish LFF would stop the personal attacks on individuals who do not share it’s minority opinion on this climate change nonsense….
Oxford Kevin
Of course the data from CRU is not complete. CRU has a legal obligation to various government met offices around the world not to release data that belongs to them. If you are so desperate for the data, why don’t you just go and purchase it from those very same met offices. You wont be able to make it public but you can do whatever research you need with it.
Kevin
Oxford Kevin
As to Peseir it is not about whether he is right or wrong in this instance, but about claiming something that was false and standing by it for a year so that the claim could be used to bash those who accept AGW over the head with.
Kevin
Anon E Mouse
Kevin – Oh I see now. A taxpayer funded university is not subject to foi?
Why wouldn’t all these organisations, particularly those funded by taxpaying peoples around the world just publish their raw data and let the various organisations use and interpet the data as they wish?
That way people could make up their minds regarding the veracity of the data that is published and used to punish those very same taxpayers with unreasonably excessive taxes on the essentials need to conduct their lives – I mention specifically John Major and his “Fuel Tax Escalator”.
And as for standing by a flawed argument well that just happens in life. I’m still waiting for WMD to be found in Iraq, yet most decent fair minded people just accept a mistake when they see it and don’t dwell on the details. A bit like the glaciers melting by 2035 I guess.
All of which fails to address my central point about shooting the messenger and smearing individuals for political gain…
John77
I disagree with Lord Lawson on Global Warming and many other things but incompetent smears do not help. Firstly, private individuals have a right to spend their money in any legal way that pleases them and so MYOB. Secondly a lot of companies & organisations have posh official addresses: it does not mean that there is any link between them – my principal client shares a City address with more than a dozen other companies who share only a landlord, a commissionnaire and a loo. Thirdly Lord Lawson is not an executive in CET, he is 76 years old and gives some advice on strategy and politics to clients who need it – hardly Royal Ddutch-Shell or Total (had you not noticed that Texaco was taken over by Chevron a few years ago – maybe you were still at school?). Fourthly if GWPF is independent it should include climate sceptics as well as “true believers”
That Sir Ian Byatt has faced calls to be sacked because he is associated with GWPF cannot be an argument against GWPF: it can be an example of the sectarian bigotry of AGW campaigners who treat anyone who is linked to anyone who questions their belief as a heretic fit to be burned. Your argument in this case is cyclical.
Your link reports the Bishop making statements that are clearly factually correct with press comments on unreported statements. The solar cycle WILL result in global warming – it is only the extent of the additional warming contributed by mankind that we can change
Oxford Kevin’s first comment should be published as “failed SAT level 2 English Kevin”
“He claimed that the review by Oreskes of all papers on the ISI scientific research database which included the terms global climate change found that none of the 928 papers containing those terms did not question the theory of AGW was fraudulent. He claimed to have 34 papers that rejected or doubted the consensus. A year later he finally released the list of papers and we find that 33 of the papers were completely ambiguous on climate change and one piece of grey literature was not peer reviewed and published by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists challenging climate change.”
Apart from the “did not question” when it should read “questioned”. The 33 papers that were ambiguous did not accept the theory unconditionally and the one not peer reviewed challenged it. So, if one assumes that “failed SAT level 2 English Kevin” is telling the truth, the review by Oreskes was wrong.
I am trying to tell people that burning 180 trillion tonnes of coal in 40 years is bound to warm things up (even if not by as much as the sunspot cycle) but when you disseminate incompetent smears you are not much help (think Jo Moore and Damian McBride compared to Al Campbell and Charlie Whelan)