Lawson: scrap “absurd” Climate Change Act

Conservative party peer, Nigel Lawson, has said the Government should suspend the “absurd” Climate Change Act in order to allow the third runway at Heathrow to go ahead. The remarks will embarrass fellow Conservative David Cameron who supported the Act and opposes the third runway.

According to the Press Association, earlier today in the House of Lords, Lord Lawson said:

“The third runway at Heathrow has been kiboshed by the courts as the direct and predictable result of the Government’s absurd Climate Change Act, which was passed with enthusiasm and complete thoughtlessness and acclaimed by all parties in this House and the Commons.”

He asked Transport Secretary Lord Adonis:

“Is not the only possible solution – if you think that a third runway is important and I agree with you – to put the Act in suspense not least because even the Government has admitted that it makes no sense without international agreement, which Copenhagen shows is not obtainable?”

Left Foot Forward reported last week that the High Court said the government’s position on airport expansion was “untenable in law and common sense”.

http://twitter.com/damopk1/status/11310316738 damopk1

RT @leftfootfwd: Lord Lawson: scrap "absurd" Climate Change Act so Heathrow 3rd runway can go ahead http://bit.ly/d1R9GC
http://www.gregorynorminton.co.uk Gregory Norminton

Who cares what the bigoted old bag of skin has to say? He, along with his son Dominic and Dominic’s brother-in-law Christopher Monckton, are shills for the denialist industry, and ought to be treated with moral contempt.

http://www.desmogblog.com/nigel-lawson
http://twitter.com/recurvirostrida/status/11314426692 Gill

RT @leftfootfwd: Lord Lawson: scrap "absurd" Climate Change Act so Heathrow 3rd runway can go ahead http://bit.ly/d1R9GC
Rory

In what way is he bigoted? It’s a serious charge and I demand that you substantiate it.
http://www.gregorynorminton.co.uk Gregory Norminton

bigot n. – an obstinate and intolerant believer in a religion, political theory, etc (OED)

In the face of overwhelming evidence of abrupt, human-induced climate change (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-climate-change-is-not-a-matter-of-faith-1916393.html), Nigel Lawson – a man with no scientific training – repeatedly pursues an ideologically-driven agenda of obscuring that science and undermining political efforts to respond to it. He obstinately believes in discredited or unproven theories of climate change and its impacts; and yet like so many in the ‘sceptic’ camp he repeats the absurd claim that acceptance of climate science is now a ‘religion’ (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/25/nigel_lawson/).

Nigel Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation pretends to be open-minded about the science while pursuing a denialist agenda: its director, Benny Peiser, is a noted ‘sceptic’, as are the non-expert ‘experts’ on its panel, such propagandists as Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen, and Ian Plimer. Please follow the link I included to Desmogblog for more on the GWPF.

I hope this answers your ‘demand’, Rory; though somehow I doubt it will.
Rory

I don’t think it’s Lord Lawson who’s being intolerant.
http://www.gregorynorminton.co.uk Gregory Norminton

There can be no tolerating lies that kill.
Mr. Sensible

Tory environment and transport policy all over the place, again.

Will, I said last week how the Tories cannot be shown as some sort of environmental champions, and I’ve been proved right.

I don’t support the policy, but the Tories’ comments in opposition are just trying to buy votes in Hillingdon.
Rory

Sorry Mr Norminton, but I’m afraid your dogmatic stance does not help your case. Surely the best way to arrive at the truth is through robust but reasoned debate? I think even The Straw Man would agree with me on this.
http://www.gregorynorminton.co.uk Gregory Norminton

Oh, I’ve experienced the denialist version of ‘reasoned debate’ – even attempted, most futilely, to engage in it. I’ve been called, by Monckton and others, a fascist, a communist and an apologist, somehow or other, for mass murder.

There can be no reasoned debate with people who are pushing a lie, and have no interest in getting at the truth. What we’ve seen, in recent months, has been a tide of intimidation of scientists (http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/11/glenn-beck-sarah-palin-climate-science/ or again http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/sen._inhofe_inquisition_seeking_to_criminalize_climate_scientists/), relentless misinformation online and in the press (ever read the Telegraph blogs?) and a wilful attempt by anti-science spokespersons to establish a false equation between scientific evidence on the one hand and mere propaganda on the other (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ACyqhI8FTfI/S0n-A2EVSMI/AAAAAAAAANY/cNFd6NHsYOo/s1600-h/phpThumb_generated_thumbnail.jpeg)

Given the stakes (and I mean what I wrote about lies that kill: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6387208.ece) it is time we stopped giving propagandists the credit of calling them honest debaters. They aren’t. By all means, let’s discuss how we save ourselves from the mess we’ve created; but we can’t be wasting time with ideologues who deny that the mess exists.
http://www.gregorynorminton.co.uk Gregory Norminton

Ugly as it looks to have all these hyperlinks, I see that the Times link failed above. So here are three others on the fatalities being caused by human-induced climate change:

http://ghf-ge.org/Media/PressReleases/tabid/265/EntryId/40/Climate-Change-responsible-for-300-000-deaths-a-year.aspx
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLS1002309
http://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/
Mr. Sensible

This goes to show that as far as the Tories and the environment are concerned, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
http://www.gelfuel.info Adrian Morgan

Climate Change is really scary, now we have super typhoons and a lot of flooding going on some countries..**: