The G8 climate summit: science or politics? [opinion]

Is the current western obsession against carbon dioxide driven by science or politics? In the run-up to the recent climate bill passed by the US House of Representatives, the Environmental Protection Agency made moves to have CO2 – the basis of life on this planet – and other “greenhouse” gasses, labelled as pollutants. Recent leaks of emails from within the EPA have shown that an internal scientific report that disagreed with the foregone conclusions and stating that the science was out of date, was suppressed. Moves to take legal action as a result are now underway, but the lesson learned from this is clear – the politics overrides the science, whatever the latter’s findings.

Of course, we all breath out CO2 and use energy, currently mainly derived from the burning of fossil fuels, and so the concept of being able to tax and control people based on carbon and the notion of “saving the planet” is a dream come true, but not only for politicians. Big businesses can also carry on polluting as normal, as all attention is focussed on carbon footprints, and scams like carbon offsets and trading stand to make enormous sums of money for the likes of Al Gore. The intellectual corruption is just about total.

So, what are we to make, here in India, of recent complaints by Lars-Erik Liljelund, climate adviser to the Swedish government? He wants countries like ours also to commit to cut carbon emissions – not that the west has yet done this to any significant degree.

He has stated: “We will have serious problems if China, India, South Africa and Brazil” also do not pitch in, said Liljelund. “We are entering a climate crisis.”

Our politicians should tell westerners like Liljelund to go back to school and learn basic science, before trying to dress up commercial protectionism as efforts to “save the planet”. Some commentators recently suggested that the panicked efforts by the US regime to pass the climate bill was a result of the increasing evidence that refutes the notion that CO2 is dangerously affecting the world’s climate and the rapidly growing numbers of scientists speaking up against this corrupt science, often at the risk of losing their research funding.

Mother nature is lending an interesting helping hand. Solar activity is at the lowest it has been for about 200 years – and that was a period of generally cold conditions. Temperatures have been falling world-wide for the last few years, and this may well be as a result of the lower solar activity. Not one of the computer models used to make the dire predictions that are trumpeted by activisits like Gore predicted this recent drop in temperatures. No wonder the panic has set in among those politicians that wish to impose carbon taxes and controls.

The government of India should take the advice of the UK’s Lord Monckton, who has said that the wisest course is actually to do nothing. A difficult position for politicians, but given time, the Sun itself may demonstrate that Monckton was right. Climate change is natural, and we need to learn to adapt to it. India knows this better than many countries, with the variability of the monsoon such a critical part of life here. The equivalent here to the current western position would be if Indian politicians imposed taxes in order to control the monsoon. Utter nonsense. What will they do next? Try and ban winter?

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Edward Henning