All Thatcher's fault

Watching the much-anticipated C4 film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”.
The science is OK – I was worried they would over-egg the pudding and drag in some of the siller arguments (the Monckton stuff, e.g.) It’s more cautious than that – nothing I have seen so far can be trivially dismissed.
The only really startling claim (1/2 hour still to go) is that Baroness Thatcher kicked the whole panic off in the 1980s in an attempt to undermine the NUM. According to Nigel Lawson, she wanted nuclear power to reduce dependence on coal and oil, saw the early suggestions that anthropogenic CO2 might cause warning, and set up a large Royal Society research project to go and back it up, leading directly to the IPCC etc.
I’ve never heard that storyline put forward before, and I can hardly wait to see if it stands up to scrutiny. Just imagine telling all the anti-capitalists that they’re just left-over pawns of their most hated enemy.

The programme seems to be winding up with whacking some easy targets – the idea that malaria would spread because of warming is plain silly, and I have never actually heard it before. Apparently the IPCC reports have put it forward, so it is perhaps worth taking on.

One thought on “All Thatcher's fault”

  1. Melanie Phillips has a real nice bit up on the malaria thing.

    BTW thanks for the comment. I put a link up on the main page to the “siting” page and a link to your profile.

    If you prefer a to link to one of your blogs rather than the profile let me know.

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