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Communicating Climate Realism:
Peter Lilley


Part of a speech by Peter Lilley at the Policy Exchange, 7 May 12; transcribed by ND. The video (of the same title) is easily found on Youtube.

......... So ... over to Peter Lilley, one of the handful of MPs who refused to sign the Climate Change Act.




".......I studied Physics at Cambridge, before I went on to become an economist, and I fully accept the existence of the greenhouse effect. Without the warm blanket provided by greenhouse gases, notably CO2 and water vapour, the Earth would probably be a frozen, uninhabitable rock.

However, I voted against the Climate Change Act, not on the basis that the science is still so uncertain, but on the evidence provided to Parliament by the government about the costs and benefits of the Act.

And this is the government's assessment of the costs and benefits of the Climate Change Act, the most expensive piece of legislation probably introduced in this country since the Welfare State.

....... they said ...... The costs were over £200 billion. The maximum benefits, according to the government's assessment - ... £105 billion.

So the government's own assessment was that the costs were nearly twice the benefits.

And therefore, I voted against.



The feed-in tariffs the government subsequently introduced were even worse. There the government's impact assessment was that the benefit of reduced global warming was ..... £400 million, as a result of the substitution of fossil fuels by solar power. However, the cost to consumers and taxpayers was put at £8.6 billion - 21 times the benefits.

Again, that seemed to me good reason for not doing it.

So much for my position. It's shared by a tiny handful of colleagues in Parliament.....

Our political media and scientific elites are more committed to .... climate change alarmism - all three parties are committed. The BBC, until recently nearly all the newspapers, the great and the good - they're unanimous, and dissenters are cast into oblivion.

Yet opinion polls show, by contrast, that the British electorate is more sceptical of their claims than any other country. This is a wonderful achievement, on the part of our elites, that they have managed to make the British people more sceptical than any other country."



...Until the mainstream media employ some scientists capable of evaluating evidence and speaking truthfully about it, we will not get sensible decisions on energy policy.

ND, habitat21

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