I’m reading reports that Tory MP Ann Winterton has made a complete fool of herself in today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. She has suggested that the government should cancel “wasteful expenditure” on wind farms as the current weather clearly demonstrates that global warming is nonsense.
Despite being complete nonsense, this is an argument that I hear on a regular basis. It’s trotted out by someone every time the weather takes a turn for the worse. Here’s another Tory MP, Douglas Carswell[1], making the same claim during December’s snows. [Update: And here’s the the front page of today’s Express: Snow Chaos – And They Still Claim It’s Global Warming]
I was about to write a post pointing out the obvious flaws in this argument, but there was a feeling of deja vu niggling away at the back of my head. Then I remembered what I wrote during the snow we had last February.
[1] You might want to take a look around Carswell’s site. There’s a lot of nonsense there. I’m planning to cover him in more detail in the coming weeks.
Oh dear, it’s depressing that people that ignorant are in charge. I can’t wait to tell my parents about this – Winterton is their local MP and they seem to think she can do no wrong!This was in today’s Guardian – making the same point: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/jan/06/cold-snap-climate-sceptics