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Holocene' (Domack et al.
2005
). This kind of cherry-picking is conspicuous
throughout (Friel
2010
: 142).
4
Conclusions
The fact that climate change has been demoted to the background may well be due
to the activities of climate change sceptics, with the 'Climategate' affair just a few
weeks before the 2009 Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change. Groups like the
Global Climate Coalition have been so successful at shifting the debate that the
Bush administration credited them with playing a key role in America's rejection of
the Kyoto protocol (Berners-Lee and Clark
2013
: 126). Apart from Senator Inhofe,
there are many infl uential public fi gures who uncritically repeat the unscientifi c
statements favoured by the contrarians (for a full list, see Skeptical Science).
The Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who in 2009 remarked that the science
behind climate change was 'crap' (Rintoul
2009
), seems intent on repealing the
climate policies of the previous government. While the attitude in the UK to
the subject is mostly one of indifference, several politicians and journalists appear
to accept the stories fabricated by those hostile to the scientifi c fi ndings on climate
change uncritically, for instance, Peter Lilley MP, who once declared 'I am a global
lukewarmist',
5
and 'I just think its effects tend to be exaggerated', as well as Owen
Paterson MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, seem-
ingly downplaying the message of the
2013
IPCC Report: '…I am relieved it is not
as catastrophic in its forecast as we had been led to believe early on…' and 'The
climate is always changing … and I think in the Holocene the Arctic melted com-
pletely …' (June 7th edition of
Any Questions
, Radio BBC 4).
Also, Ann Widdecombe, former MP, asked the rhetorical question 'What do
Peter Lilley, Andrew Tyrie, Philip Davies, Christopher Chope and I have in com-
mon?' in an article in the
Daily Express
. She then answered herself with some
apparent satisfaction: 'We were the only MPs to vote against the 2008 Climate
Change Bill.' The article in question was tellingly entitled: 'Even scientists are now
cooling on climate change' (13 March
2013
). Then, there is John Redwood, whose
vote was, as he said 'a mixture of for and against', justifying his doubts by referring
to Channel 4's
The Great Global Warming Swindle
documentary. There are also
journalists, such as Martin Durke, director of the aforesaid documentary, and
Melanie Phillips - 'global warming is a scam' (Phillips BBC
2009
), and Climate
scepticism fl ourishes outside the Anglo-Saxon countries as well: a topic
Die Kalte
Sonne
(English:
The Neglected Sun
- Vahrenholt and Lüning
2012
), with contribu-
tions from the Dane Henrik Svensmark, the Israeli Nir Shaviv, the American Nicola
Scafetta and the German Werner Weber, with as central thesis 'that the Earth has not
warmed since 1998, that the Hockey Stick graph was a hoax, that only the sun is to
blame for global warming'.
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