Many of the obituaries of Nigel Lawson, Lord Lawson of Blaby, have glossed over the work that dominated the last 20 years of his life. This was warning of the dangers and unrealistic costs of removing fossil fuel and the dire economic and social consequences of what has come to be known as Net Zero. The Daily Telegraph spent a page detailing the significant events in his life, but three brief mentions of his Net Zero and climate science concerns didn’t even coalesce into a single sentence. Of course, the Guardian didn’t go out of its way to discuss his concerns, but it did provide a short obituary paragraph that gave a summary of the work that dominated his later years (presumably to discredit him).
His main interest, however, was a campaign to counter the case for global warming. He set up a think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, designed to challenge international attempts to mitigate the impacts of global heating. Lawson claimed that economic growth should not be slowed down to prevent a possible eventuality, but that policy should be made pragmatically in response to what had already happened.
Lawson came to politics relatively late in life after a successful career as a financial and political journalist. After the near-collapse of a Britain dominated by hard Left statism in the late 1970s, the Thatcher governments of the following decade helped boost free markets, entrepreneurship and living standards. Lawson was the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983-1989, and is credited with introducing many of the successful tax and economic reforms that transformed the British economy at the time. His success is often attributed to a combination of careful planning, thinking the unthinkable (whoever thought telephones shouldn’t be run as a state monopoly by the Post Office?) and a practical approach to the art of possible politics.
His later work on climate science and the gathering moves towards Net Zero undoubtedly appealed to his considerable intellectual abilities. The Guardian correctly noted that he didn’t wish economic growth to be slowed for a possible eventuality. Writing an essay for a climate compilation book in 2015, he noted that hundreds of millions of people suffered in dire poverty in the developing world. Asking these countries to abandon the cheapest available sources of energy is, at the very least, he said, asking them to delay the conquest of malnutrition, to perpetuate the incidence of preventable disease and to increase the numbers of premature deaths. “Global warming orthodoxy is not merely irrational. It is wicked,” he added.
Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapour warmed the planet, accepted Lawson, but he raised serious scientific questions about any danger this posed. In particular, he noted that scientists had not agreed on the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2 and how much temperature would rise. In fact, since Lawson wrote his essay, these estimates have been generally lowered in most scientific circles. He stated that temperatures had been much higher in the past, without any human involvement. And he queried whether any rise in temperature would actually be a bad thing. “It would, after all, be surprising if the planet were on a happy but precarious temperature knife-edge, from which any change in either direction would be a major disaster,” he suggested.
Lawson had an elegant riposte to the so-called precautionary principle which is often used to justify the expenditure of vast amounts of money just in case there is some dramatic change in the climate. To him the most important use of the precautionary principle was against the precautionary principle. There are only so many things one can take precautions against, particularly since there are many scientists who fear the Earth is heading for a new ice age. “It would be difficult, to say the least, to devote unlimited sums to both cooling and warming the planet at the same time,” he dryly observed.
On the balance of probabilities, noting all the suggested advantages and disadvantages, Lawson concluded that in a nutshell, “global warming is good for you”. Short shrift was given to what a few years ago was the burgeoning pseudoscientific practice of claiming bad or ‘extreme’ weather was “consistent with what we would expect from climate change”. Noting these “weasel words”, he asked, so what? “It is also consistent with the theory that it is a punishment from the Almighty for our sins – the prevailing explanation of extreme weather events throughout most of human history.”
The fact remains, reported Lawson, that empirical studies show there has been no perceptible increase, globally, in either the number or the severity of extreme weather events. To this day, similar studies confirm this view.
It seems this last analysis led to his cancellation in most mainstream media, particularly at the BBC. In a recent World Weather Attribution (WWA) guide for journalists titled ‘Reporting extreme weather and climate change’, the former BBC Today Editor Sarah Sands bemoaned the time when Lawson managed to suggest there had been no increase in extreme weather. I wish we had this guide to help us mount a more effective challenge to his claim, wrote Sands. These days, she said, attribution studies have given us significant insight into the horsemen of the climate apocalypse. We have evidence and we have facts, and they are a secure foundation for news, she added.
Imperial College-led World Weather Attribution specialises in near-instant weather attributions. It does this by modelling two imaginary climates, one without and one with humans producing CO2. Any weather event supposedly magnified in the latter is said to be due to human-caused climate change. Roger Pielke, a noted science writer and a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, is unimpressed: “I can think of no other area of research where the relaxing of rigour and standards has been encouraged by researchers in order to generate claims more friendly to headlines, political advocacy and even lawsuits.”
If the Telegraph obituary writer failed to pick up the importance of Lawson’s climate work, no such error was made by the newspaper’s columnist Allison Pearson. Commenting on his founding of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in 2009, she said it pushed back against the complacent, settled wisdom on climate change. “Amid growing alarm about the cost to the U.K. of a Gadarene rush towards Net Zero, his scepticism feels more vindicated by the day,” she added.
Nigel Lawson was an old school, inquiring journalist, and a great, game-changing politician. Your own correspondent owes him a debt of gratitude since the reforms of the Thatcher Government opened up the City of London with greater opportunities in financial journalism, broke the sclerotic power of print unions to control the manufacturing process, and provided genuine tax incentives for entrepreneurship – in my own case, the publishing business.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. He is the former owner of Evandale Publishing Ltd.
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Not at all a fan of CNN for sourcing anything reliable but their updated article on the Moscow attack by ISIS does tally with other reports. Seems Putin did a Netanyahu and did not heed the warnings given that a terrorist attack was imminent and large gatherings were most likely targets;
”ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow Friday after assailants stormed the venue with guns and incendiary devices, killing at least 60 people and injuring 145.
The terror group took responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram on Friday. It did not provide evidence to support the claim.
Video footage from the Crocus City Hall shows the vast complex, which is home to both the music hall and a shopping center, on fire with smoke billowing into the air. State-run RIA Novosti reported the armed individuals “opened fire with automatic weapons” and “threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire.” They then “allegedly fled in a white Renault car,” the news agency said.
State media Russia 24 reported the roof of the venue has partially collapsed.
The fire had been brought largely under control more than six hours later. “There are still some pockets of fire, but the fire has been mostly eliminated,” Moscow governor Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/22/europe/crocus-moscow-shooting/index.html
Is that the same ISIS, the one with the brand new shiny pick-ups, that morphed out of Al Qaeda (and before that the Mujahideen, funded by the CIA/Pentagon) to sow discord in countries in the Middle East that the US wants to destabilise?
Yes indeed. If I had to do a poll on Twitter of the responses to who orchestrated this attack, the front-runner would be CIA closely followed by a false flag by Russia itself. But, being Twitter, there’s quite the mixed bag in there, inc Mossad.
Thank God, I don’t do Twitter, Mogs!
LOL, I was adding to my comment above but, yet another disadvantage with this software DS use is that if somebody responds to your comment you then can’t edit in the 15min allotted timeframe, and you responded and cancelled me
So I’ll just add on this;
I was more keen to see the death/casualty toll this morning, plus if any info had been extracted from the arrested terrorists yet. I guess we await more details on this one.
Ah, I see – no one is safe until everyone is safe. Cue increased security at airports for example? Another push for digital ID?
I’d say it could be more simple than that, how about the murder of the only real opposition to putin in a siberian prison?
and his, not unappreciable amount of followers being slightly miffed with that!
To avoid political headlines it might be easier to just blame muslamics!
One of Victoria ‘F*ck the EU’ Nuland’s nasty little surprises she promised before she was
sackedresigned? As kimdotcom says:Kim Dotcom @KimDotcom – 21:01 UTC · Mar 22, 2024
Sanctions didn’t work. Billions in weapons didn’t work. Unwavering support didn’t work. Counter-offensive didn’t work. Non-stop propaganda didn’t work.
Rules-based terrorism is all they have left. It won’t work either. It just shows how evil and desperate they are.
And this:
Daniel Dumbrill @DanielDumbrill – 10:08 UTC · Oct 12, 2022
Now Al Qaeda & other Salafist Jihadist groups are reportedly entering Ukraine to fight Russia directly. Coincidentally, last week an ISIS recruiter the Taliban captured said he received funding via Ukraine. The Taliban only released this video domestically.
Yes, all part of the playbook from the paranoid sociopathic US Government, get others to do the dirty fighting for you.
What’s really going on?
Putin still proceeds with his plan to force Moldova into the Russian ‘Union State’, joining existing members Belarus and Eastern Ukraine.
Annexation of the Polish Suwalki corridor will then encircle the Baltic States and set up a new iron curtain from Kaliningrad in the north to Odessa in the south.
‘Shor stated on March 22 that his current trip to Russia is aimed at building a “clear plan” for future Russian and Moldova cooperation.’
‘Shor stated that his goal is the “total resignation of the current pro-Western regime” ‘
‘Shor last visited Russia on February 7 and met with Russian Duma official Leonid Kalashnikov, the chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Eurasian Integration, and Relations with Compatriots Abroad.’
‘Shor is a prominent Kremlin political proxy in Moldova.’
Moscow Times
“Countryfile’s John Craven says there is ‘disturbing’ evidence of racism in rural areas”
Where I live is a very traditional rural area and in the local town, I see people of other colour and ethnic origins all the time and see no evidence of any overt racism. They sit in the same cafes and go the same pubs and no one bats an eyelid. I would say that incidences of racism are quite rare but you are never going to get everyone to have the same attitude at the same time. Not when we are being overloaded with immigrants and many of our seaside towns and cheaper hotels are crammed full of people, predominantly young men, who probably won’t assimilate or learn our cultural ways and won’t want to. I know there are areas in the country that have a much higher percentage of immigrants than where I am and I can understand that people are angry about how these men are foisted upon communities and if you dare to complain, you’re called a racist. You might even be arrested for lodging a complaint! On the whole, we are an extremely tolerant country and I am fed up with these types of article that continually seek to undermine our society and make us feel guilty about our attitudes to the blatant immigration scandal. It’s an indoctrination process in slow motion. The boats – and the planes (many are simply flown in) – have to stop but before that, we have to eradicate the perpetrators – or maybe I call them the perpeTRAITORS – from Westminster.
I don’t have a Telegraph subscription so I can’t read the article and can only go by the headlines.
The word “racism” seems to me to have become meaningless because it is used to mean whatever people want it to mean. My default reaction, if I cannot directly question whoever is making statements about “racism”, is to ignore it or think “so what?”.
You don’t need a subscription. Either hit the ‘esc’ button (if you’re on a Mac) just as the article loads (might take you a few attempts) or, much easier, copy and paste the URL into this https://archive.is/
And it’ll load up the article for you.
Thanks. The article cherry picks a handful of incidents of “racist abuse”. No doubt this happens, as it does in cities and suburbs, everywhere on planet Earth. I’ve encountered physical assault and verbal abuse from all sorts of people in my life – I don’t think any of it was “racially aggravated” as the phrase has it, but that wasn’t any consolation. Sometimes you are somewhere, wrong place, wrong time, face doesn’t fit for whatever reason, dickheads or thugs will have a go.
Should read “Countryfile’s John Craven says there is ‘disturbing’ evidence of Englishness in rural areas”
John Craven – the count in Countryfile
I thought John Craven would be forming the base of a compost heap by now.
Why do we continue to employ old buggers who are past retirement age?
“After earnings plunge, BioNTech pins hopes on cancer drug launches”
Nice little perpetual earner, eh? Design a jab for a designer virus that, amongst other diseases, enhances turbo-cancer risk, and then design more drugs – often with the same underlying platform – to treat those cancers, knowing full well that the expected success rate is a lot less than the allegedly ‘safe and effective’ virus jabs. I don’t use the word evil often, but this surely must be.
A small but potent victory in the covid wars – FDA ordered to remove ‘that’ tweet and other social media posts about Ivermectin.
https://popularrationalism.substack.com/p/best-day-ever-for-ethical-physicians
“‘Trust science,’ Paris mayor boasts as city declares ‘there will be no air conditioning in Olympic athletes’ rooms ‘to cut the carbon footprint’ of summer Olympics”
What a cock!
Several years ago after a really bad harvest in North Korea the regime promoted the idea that the population was eating too much and less food was healthier.
We in the west treated this with mockery.
It seems as if mockery may be turning into imitation. I expect to see plenty of instances going forward in energy starved Europe of officials telling us that both aircon and heating are bad for you, that walking is much better than mechanised transport, that raw food is better than cooking it, etc.
It’s not that we’re short of energy, no no, it’s all deliberate and for our own good…or when the case is too preposterous, for the good of the planet.
Oh Stewart, you are SO right mate!
“The Scottish Government has said it may loosen the legally-binding targets it has set itself, which is good news says Andrew Montford”
Good news? No, good news would be the total and utter annihilation of the snp and a complete reversal of all its insane policies!
“I don’t have much sympathy for the Waspis, and neither should you”
Ross Clark, go f%#k yourself!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/22/the-bank-of-england-is-pushing-britain-into-bankruptcy/
The bankrupting of the United Kingdom is deliberate and the aim once we accept that we are beyond broke is to sell the country off, probably to the IMF or possibly a conglomerate of criminal gangs such as Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street etc. The sell-off will be comprehensive – even down to our houses.
Spot on Hux. I’m curious about these new ‘National Landscape’ areas KCIII implemented as part of his coronation ‘gift’ to the nation,
vastly extending previous national park boundaries. Are these areas going to be sold off, us peasants cleared & herded into the cities, and the land converted to private playgrounds like the deer parks of old, where trespass could lead to the removal of a hand, blinding or death? One wonders mightily. The Norman extent of deer parks was 2% of land: these new areas are nearly 25%…
Thanks WW.
No question there will be some malign logic behind these ‘National Landscape arenas.’ I tend to think your assumptions are probably spot on.
Another conspiracy theory bites the dust:
It was said that those-in-the-know were give a saline only (neutral) jab instead of the unsafe and defective C19 jabs; well now the sudden onset cancer cluster in the Royal family seems to discredit that. Firstly the late Queen (bone cancer), KC III, Fergie, Princess of Wales, perhaps another one or two…
My wife and I had this same conversation last evening!
I don’t trust any of these “diagnoses”. There’s a huge difference between being “diagnosed” with something and actually having it, as Farid Fata of Michigan proved. The Globalist aim is to put an African on the throne, and they only need to remove the six others in the line of succession to make Meghan Smirkle’s dreams come true. Why else do all the main UK media, even GB News, have special tabs placing Meghan & Harry next to the tabs of the main royals, at the top of the page, and keep featuring endless flattering photos of Meghan and “news” stories about her, when nobody is the least bit interested?
Both King Charles and Princess Catherine were given the all-clear after surgery, then when they returned for check-ups, the doctors had mysteriously found cancer cells, so they could ruin their happiness and blast them both with chemo and radiation. How likely is it that they and Fergie would all suddenly be “diagnosed” with cancer within days of each other? Reliance on dodgy Third World “doctors” is not a great idea, and you should always get a second, third & fourth opinion for potentially lethal “diagnoses”.
Imagine the nightmare if the Smirkles end up as “Regents in charge” of the Wales’ three children, like “The Princes in the Tower”. Harry and his heirs must be removed from the line of succession to the throne, as the vast majority of the British public would wish. If not, then Parliament has failed the public yet again.
“Ketanji Brown Jackson Defenestrates the First Amendment” – The Supreme Court Judge claimed she lacked the expertise to define a ‘woman’, says Brownstone.”
OK Ketanji, easy one for you,: define a man?
“Sexist skyscrapers. Non-binary pigeons. Winston Churchill the Nazi.”
Excuse me? Have I woke up in a different dimension?
When “ffs” is just not enough!
Off topic ……
It occurred to me the other day that pre the c19 paradigm there was much in the media about the 5G rollout and the infrastructure contracts going to the Chinese with the obvious security concerns. I also remember some health concerns being raised about the particular frequency emitted by 5G.
Now that 5G masts are all over the place I’m wondering whether this rollout was slipped in during the distraction of C19 etc.
Does anybody have any info on this?
“Cyclists must have ‘identification, a licence or insurance’ under new plans from ‘Mr Loophole’ Nick Freeman”
!
Yes yes yes
ALL road users should be made accountable!
And go swivel downtickers! Cyclists should be made to pay their way like other road user have to! All road users should pay for the roads, and don’t come out with the “well I’ve got a car as well” chestnut, if you own two motorcycles you have to pay for both!
…”identification?”
Another excuse for digital ID.
Maybe the cycle could be registered to an owner much like a car to save having to carry Id? I certainly don’t agree with having to carry identity cards!
Moscow Islam massacre !! What’s the story ?
Putin has good relations with Muslims, married a Muslim athlete and his two sons by her are being raised as Muslims, reportedly. Russian troops have also been sent to Muslim Chechnya to be trained for the Ukraine War.
This supposed “Moscow Islam Massacre” is just Putin’s attempt to distract global attention away from the video evidence of ballot-stuffing that got him elected.
Russian Social Media Swamped With Video Evidence Of Ballot-Box Stuffing (rferl.org)
Video emerges of ballot box stuffing in St. Petersburg, Russia during presidential elections (youtube.com)
More here, Freddo. ISIS-K apparently. Tragically, the death toll is climbing as more bodies are being pulled from the burned ruins. We need to wait and see what these arrested terrorists say;
”Last night, masked men in camouflage gear wielding automatic weapons stormed the Crocus City Hall – opening fire and hurling explosives into a crowd.
Some 6,000 people are believed to have been inside the venue watching Russian rock band Picnic when the bloodshed began.
The gunmen began shooting civilians at point-blank range – through glass doors, turnstiles and then the concert hall itself, traumatised witnesses said.
At least 143 were killed – including three children – and over 121 wounded – but the death toll continues to rise as bodies are pulled from the smouldering rubble.
The US says it has intelligence that confirms the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for the bloody massacre – and argued it was led by an Afghanistan-based splinter cell, ISIS-K.
While the attack by ISIS-K in Russia on Friday was a dramatic escalation, experts said the group has openly opposed Russian Vladimir Putin in recent years.
Colin Clarke of Soufan Center, a Washington-based research group, said: “ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticizing Putin in its propaganda.”
Michael Kugelman of US think-tank, the Wilson Center, said that ISIS-K “sees Russia as being complicit in activities that regularly oppress Muslims.”
He added that the group also counts as members a number of Central Asian militants with their own grievances against Moscow.”
https://www.the-sun.com/news/10867541/isis-k-moscow-massacre-behead-children/
Remarkably similar to Bataclan.
“No point in making any big statements on the Moscow shooting, but I wouldn’t rule out a false flag operation,” researcher Pekka Kallioniemi wrote. “This is what FSB/Putin did in 1999 to justify the Second Chechen War and improve Putin’s popularity and image as a strong leader.”
“Russia is a police state which fails every time it attempts to police anything other than unarmed peaceful protesters,” journalist Alexey Kovalyov wrote in response to Bondarev. “That, or I’m now more than ever convinced that the 1999 Moscow bombings were indeed Putin’s false flag.”
Putin Critics Suggest Moscow Concert Shooting Was ‘False Flag’ Operation (newsweek.com)
Other reports said that the Russian Special Forces took an hour and a half to arrive, because they were “stuck in traffic”.
“Humza’s Hate Bill”
Notice that the “Hate Monster” is not only blatantly phallic, as C.J. Strachan pointed out in his article, but also the colour of “gammon”. That word “gammon” is also used as a racial insult, referring to the skin colour of Ethnic Europeans = “white people”. No one has ever been arrested or charged with “hate crime” for using that word, but just try using words referring to the skin colour of other ethnic groups, and see what happens.
I do not understand how any Indigenous Scot in the Scottish assembly could have voted for this viciously anti-Indigenous Scottish bill.