As far as Lord Christopher Monckton is concerned, the debate on global warming is over as the science linking rising CO2 levels to calamitous environmental consequences is fatally flawed.
New studies say the warming to be expected from the doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) between now and 150 years from now is going to be one-sixth of previous UN Climate Panel estimates, according to Lord Monckton, a one-time journalist, businessman and former policy adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
“Half a degree Celsius in 150 years. Not much to write home about,” he told reporters in Calgary on Thursday.
The forecast comes as a result of new methods of measurements, as science has moved away from computer modelling to direct measurements of what’s going on in the atmosphere, he explained.
Monckton, currently chief policy adviser for the Science and Public Policy Institute, was in town to present his Apocalypse Cancelled: The Overheated Hype behind Global Warming presentation to a lunchtime crowd of about 300.
The global warming scare is having catastrophic effects as it’s leading to the creation of public policy that ultimately harms people, he said.
He noted that prior to a ban on the agricultural pesticide DDT, used to stop the spread of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, 50,000 people a year were dying of malaria worldwide.
At the instigation of environmental pressure groups, DDT, “with no more scientific basis than they have now on the global warming front,” was banned, Monckton said.
As a result, the number of deaths from malaria skyrocketed to one million per year. The situation persisted for 40 years until the ban was reversed by the World Health Organization, he told the crowd.
(In May, the UN and the WHO announced a plan to combat malaria while reducing the reliance on DDT and phasing it out by 2020 due to “long-standing and growing concern” over its use.)
“How long it’s going to take this (global warming) scare to end, I cannot foresee. That it will come to an end is now certain because the science is in, the truth is out and the scare is over,” he told reporters.
Monckton cited the “biofuels scam,” as another misfire related to the climate change scare.
The bent for biofuels has taken one-third of U. S. agricultural land in the past two years alone out of food production, doubling the world food prices and causing havoc in Third World countries.
At the close of his presentation, Monckton said he trusted he’d done a good job of exposing the lies behind the climate change scare, and hoped Prime Minister Stephen Harper would “do the right thing” at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
Former Alberta premier Ralph Klein, on hand for the presentation, said he, too, is concerned about the science, generally.
“I think the prime minister, going into Copenhagen, I’m worried that the science is being used as a smokescreen for the real issue, which is health care,” Klein said.
Roger Gibbins, president of the Canada West Foundation, said the collapse in the economy has given people pause to step back a bit from the climate change debate.
“The real question is, as the economy rebounds and we’re back into climate change debate, will there be any marked change over the last year? I think that’s a very open question,” he said.
