The Global Warming "Debate" is Falling Apart

Rob Tracinski at TIADaily.com has a great piece describing how the Climate Warming "debate" is falling apart.

"..And best of all is the story below, about a debate at the venerable old Oxford Union, in which prominent skeptics defeated alarmists in a vote by the students—and by a good margin. Intellectual climate change is possible, and it is only a matter of time before it comes, in full force, to the US."

Tracinski will have his Daily blog free for a while so take advantage and read his excellent analysis of the events of the day from an Objectivist's point of view. Read below.

For what is believed to be the first time ever in England, an audience of university undergraduates has decisively rejected the notion that "global warming" is or could become a global crisis….

Last week, members of the historic Oxford Union Society, the world's premier debating society, carried the motion "That this House would put economic growth before combating climate change" by 135 votes to 110….

Mr. James Delingpole, a blogger for the leading British conservative national newspaper The Daily Telegraph, seconded the proposition, saying that–politically speaking–the climate extremists had long since lost the argument. The general public simply did not buy the scare stories any more. The endless tales of Biblical disasters peddled by the alarmist faction were an unwelcome and now fortunately failed recrudescence of dull, gray Puritanism. Instead of hand-wringing and bed-wetting, we should celebrate the considerable achievements of the human race and start having fun….

Lord Monckton repeatedly interrupted Lord Whitty to ask him to give a reference in the scientific literature for his suggestion that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic. Lord Whitty was unable to provide the source for his figure, but said that everyone knew it was true. Under further pressure from Lord Monckton, Lord Whitty conceded that the figure should perhaps be 92%. Lord Monckton asked: "And your reference is?" Lord Whitty was unable to reply. Hon. Members began to join in, jeering "Your reference? Your reference?" Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled.

Lord Leach of Fairford, whom Margaret Thatcher appointed a Life Peer for his educational work, spoke third for the proposition. He said that we no longer knew whether or not there had been much "global warming" over the 20th century, because the Climategate emails had exposed the terrestrial temperature records as defective….

Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK, concluded the case for the proposition. He drew immediate laughter and cheers when he described himself as "Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, scholar, philanthropist, wit, man about town, and former chairman of the Wines and Spirits Committee of this honourable Society". At that point his cummerbund came undone. He held it up to the audience and said, "If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and"–glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box–"measure it!" "Oxford Union Debate On Climate Catastrophe" at The SPPI Blog .