According to Peter Lilley, the Conservative MP for Hitchin and Harpenden and former Cabinet minister, ‘One of the ersatz religions which fills the void in recent years is belief in Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming. It claims to be based on science. But it has all the characteristics of an eschatological cult.’ So are we making a false god of climate change? Is environmental wellness the new religion?
Lilley explains that the Catastrophic Global Warming cult – as he calls it – ‘has its own priesthood and ecclesiastical establishment – the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; they alone can interpret its sacred scriptures – the Assessment Reports; it anathematises as ‘deniers’ anyone who casts doubt on its certainties; above all it predicts imminent doom if we do not follow its precepts and make the sacrifices it prescribes. What most clearly distinguishes the Catastrophic Global Warming cult from science is that it is not refutable by facts. As Parliament enacted the Climate Change Bill, on the presumption that the world was getting warmer, it snowed in London in October – the first time in 74 years.’ Lilley adds, however, that this was explained as a symptom of global warming.
‘Alarmists are reluctant to admit that the global surface temperature has not increased for 16 years, despite CO2 emissions rising far more than predicted,’ Lilley notes. ‘In 2006 I asked how long the pause in warming would have to persist before the Met Office would revise its model. They replied that, since it is based on known laws of physics, they would never adjust it. Just like the German philosopher Hegel, who claimed to derive the laws of nature from first principles: when told that the facts did not agree with his theories, Hegel replied: “So much the worse for the facts”!’
While Lilley, having studied physics at Cambridge, does accept that climate models incorporate some established physical laws including the basic greenhouse effect, he argues ‘This implies that doubling the concentration of CO2 will raise the temperature by a fairly harmless 1.2ºC. But the models amplify this several fold using assumptions about complex phenomena which cannot yet be reduced to simple physical laws.’ He adds, ‘Unfortunately, costly renewables are driving many into fuel poverty and manufacturing jobs overseas. Action by Britain is pointless unless China, India and Africa join in. They are most vulnerable to climate change. But they are vulnerable because they are poor. They will remain poor until they harness energy like us.’