The Spectator magazine sponsored a debate ‘The global warming hysteria is over: Time for a return to sanity’ held on Tuesday at the Royal Geographical Society in London.
According to Andrew Montford who attended the event:
“I was a bit disappointed overall – none of the presentations managed to combine slick presentation with a strong coherent argument…
“Here are some of the things that stuck in my mind. The first was the sense of anger in the auditorium. People were just very, very annoyed about what was going on. There were times when the warmists on the stage looked taken aback by the heat that they were receiving.
“Simon Singh’s presentation was memorable, but unfortunately mostly for the wrong reasons. He set up what he called a credibility spectrum, with scientists and academies on one side and sceptics on the other and called on us to trust the establishment on the climate change issue…
“Benny Peiser’s talk was the one that intrigued me. He essentially argued that the science is irrelevant – that the public have made their minds up and that they vote out any party that pushes the green line too far. He also noted that they have moved on to other issues, such as the economy.”
Benny is clearly of this opinion writing in Public Policy Europe that:
“The global warming hysteria is well and truly over. How do we know? Because all the relevant indicators – polls, news coverage, government u-turns and a manifest lack of interest among policy makers – show a steep decline in public concern about climate change.”
This may be the situation in Europe, but unfortunately we are lagging behind in Australia. At least, it would appear the Australian media and government doesn’t seem to realize that the public is giving up on the issue even here.
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Links
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/3/30/the-spectator-debate.html
http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/136/climate-fatigue-leaves-global-warming-in-the-cold
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.