The Great Global Warming Debate

I am a global warming sceptic. Not because I disagree with whichever climatologist spoke last on the subject, but becuse of the way they spoke. The arguments in this issue seem to come from a non-scientific space, from a space which is occupied by spin doctors, publicity managers and self-promoting snake oils salesmen. Worst of all, it has become a political issue. Not politics in the sense of a reasonable opinion reached by consensus and the debate of well-informed authorities, but politics in the sense of populising, self-promoting, resource hi-jacking cock fighting.

The politicising of the debate has done no end of damage to any chance of progress with the issue. Now it's a dirty, sticky paintbrush which soils whoever picks it up, well-intentioned or not. Politics, as practised around here, is based on certain principles. I describe them below, and invite you to recollect what you have heard of the Grat Global Warming debate bearing this in mind:

(1) Keep it simple, stupid. The message must be reduced to the simplest possible terms. In the minds of the politicians and spin doctors we are too stupid to receive and understand a message containing complexities and ambiguities. The important thing is that we should receive their message. For a complex issue the complications must be removed and ignored. For an ambiguous or uncertain issue, the ambiguities and uncertainties must be removed. In the case of the global warming/anthropogenic/CO2 emissions debate removing the ambiguities, uncertainties and complexities to leave a single politicised message is a bad thing to do. "Reduce your carbon footprint!" remains which is patronising, unhelpful and probably has no effect on the outcome at all.

(2) Demonise someone, anyone. Politics is a blame game and to find someone to blame we have to find someone, some grouping and blame them for our troubles and then make them pay. In the sooty footprint debate we have seen drivers of four-by-fours demonised. At my wife's place of work it was seriously suggested she should pay double for her car parking because she drives a Honda CRV which employs four wheel drive (sometimes). This has nothing to do with the carbon footprint of the vehicle, or its CO2 emissions but everything to do with being in a identifiable group. Also identified for demonisation are drivers of luxury cars as in London's CO2 emissions-based addendum to the congestion charge. This is thinly-diguised politics of envy tactic whose end result is merely to raise revenue for governmental bodies.

(3) You cannot exaggerate enough. Tony Blair was briefed on the "imminent global climate catastrophe" and told the rest of us it should be our single most important issue for the future. That was just before the global financial catastrophe happened which stil might cause an end to all trade, a global cost of living crisis and leave us all without the goods and services we rely on (see how it's done?). In politics the important thing is to keep the message (and the man) in the spotlight all the time. (A secondary purpose is to keep the spotlight away from the places you dont want it to go.) To keep the global warming issue alive, a ludicrous spiral of reportage calls us to look at how many nuclear power stations like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl will have to be built before next Christmas, how many villages will be washed into the sea like Boscastle or New Orleans this Bank Holiday Monday and how many of us will suffocate or drown in our cars if we dare go out tomorrow. If you took all this literally, you'd be forced into believing that the devastation wrought on New Orleans by Katrina resulted from me filling my kettle before boiling it for one cup of tea. The causes of the floods in New Orleans may have more to do with inadequacies in the operation of the flood defences. If this surpirses you, read this paragraph through again.

All of which leaves me more than a little disgusted with the whole business. I think we should be concerned, I think that if there is anything I should be doing then I should be doing it. But my good intentions and good will on the issue are being hijacked by media manipulators, green activists, agitprop merchants, anti-industrialists and self-promoting campaigners for self promotion all with their own agendas and axes to grind. They have over-simplified and demonised and exaggerated and obscured the truth and misled us all.