Memorandum submitted by Roger Helmer MEP
(CRU 14)
1. I am Roger Helmer. I am a Member of the
European Parliament, representing the East Midlands Region since
1999.
2 Declaration of interest: I have no financial
interest in the climate debate. But for several years I have been
involved in the debate, arguing against climate alarmism and in
favour of a realistic approach. I believe that current changes
in climate are not exceptional compared to previous periods, and
are driven largely by natural terrestrial and astronomical cycles.
I do not believe there is convincing evidence of significant human
impact on the climate, or that proposed mitigation efforts will
have any effect. I am a former member of the European parliament's
Temporary Committee on Climate Change (now disbanded). I have
published books, pamphlets and DVDs on this subject. I have organised
several conferences of climate realists in Brussels, and attended
such conferences in the USA and elsewhere.
3. Confidence in climate data: There has
been a series of revelations which cast huge doubt both on currently
available climate data, and on the credibility of the UN's IPCC.
The IPCC's pin-up chart, the Hockey Stick graph, has been comprehensively
debunked by independent statisticians. It is perhaps the greatest
false proposition in science since the Piltdown Man hoax. More
recently, the IPCC has been forced to admit that its prediction
of the melting of Himalayan Glaciers by 2035 is entirely
without foundation, and clearly wrong. Days later, we learned
that the IPCC claim linking the increased cost of natural catastrophes
with global warming was equally false. It was not peer-reviewed
science, as we had been led to believe, but a recycled claim by
a lobby group.
4. The CRU e-mails. The leaked CRU e-mails
appear to show a deliberate and systematic attempt by leading
climate scientists to falsify data, to "hide the decline",
and to exaggerate warming. The CRU climate data in any case is
at variance with satellite data showing a much more moderate rise
in temperature. The CRU scientists are closely linked with scientists
in other leading climate institutions, casting a huge doubt over
the basic data which the IPCC has been using.
5. The Stern Review: In reaching its estimates
of the costs and benefits of climate mitigation attempts, the
Stern Review, regarded by the government as the definitive economic
analysis on the issue, relies heavily on the discredited link
between global warming and natural catastrophes. So the conclusions
of the Stern Review, and especially the claim that the costs of
inaction exceed the costs of mitigation, can no longer stand.
6. RECOMMENDATIONS:
(A) Your Committee of Enquiry should appoint
a team of independent statisticians, with no established
position in the climate debate, to study the source data
used by the CRU, and to validate the global temperature data.
Your committee should listen not only to CRU scientists, but also
to those who have studied and criticised the data collection methods
on which the CRU analysis is based, for example Anthony Watts
(www.wattsupwiththat.com).
(B) Your Committee should invite Lord Stern to
re-work his analysis excluding the presumed additional costs of
natural disasters "caused" by climate change. It should
also invite a couple of distinguished independent economists to
check and comment on Lord Stern's analysis, and particularly on
his choice of a discount rate to evaluate future costs.
January 2010
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