Ann Widdecombe MP, herself quite a grumpy old sod, has broken ranks and come out of the closet on Global Warming.
Here she is writing in the Daily Express last week …
"Much has been made of my voting with the Government to allow the police to detain terror suspects for 42 days, rather than 28, in special cases.
Yet there was a more important vote last week, in which I was one of only three Members of Parliament to vote against the might of all parties and defy the Climate Change Bill which will cost Britain hundreds of billions of pounds, will not mean any other country has to follow suit and, as we are responsible for only two per cent of the world's carbon emissions, will make no difference to the climate or to global warming.
Climate change has become a religion, with anyone who dares to throw out a question or two instantly accused of heresy.
I have had my doubts for some time, and certainly about major unilateral action on the part of the UK, but these have crystalised since reading Nigel Lawson's book An Appeal To Reason, subtitled A Cool Look At Global Warming.
Appallingly, this gem could not find a British publisher because none was brave enough. One wrote "My fear with this cogently-argued book is that it flies so much in the face of prevailing orthodoxy that it would be very difficult to find a wide market."
Everybody who has English to GCSE standard can understand it and anyone who has uncritically swallowed the belief that the Earth is warming dangerously should open his or her mind at least a little bit.
It is a FACT that there has been no global warming this century, yet never has there been so much production of carbon dioxide, with India and China increasing their activity by the week.
It is a FACT that global temperature has varied throughout history and scientists explain this by changes in solar activity.
It is a FACT that not all climate scientists agree with the prevailing orthodoxy. Those who dare to dissent are treated with about as much respect as Galileo was by the medieval church.
Even if the predictions are true all they offer is a small increase in the globe's temperature over the next hundred years. As Lawson points out, the difference between the temperature in Finland and that in Singapore is vast but in both countries people thrive and so do their economies.
Therefore we might be better off adapting rather than trying to reverse the trend.
I need not go on. You may believe one side of the argument or the other or, like me, you may suspend judgment but until matters are somewhat clearer, I am most certainly not prepared to vote to commit Britain to a course of action which will make not a jot of difference to global temperatures but which could change our way of life and leave us unable to compete with those countries that keep a better sense of proportion.
Some of the worst mistakes are made when all political parties agree. Our entry into Europe is a pretty good example with Ted Heath, Harold Wilson and Jeremy Thorpe all urging a "yes" vote and dissenters dismissed as flat-earthers.
Yet what we thought we were joining (a tariff agreement and economic union) was very different from what we are now proved to have joined (a political union with gradual loss of control over our own affairs). Healthy opposition is needed, if only to ensure that all arguments are heard.
The media had a great deal to talk about last week and three MPs calling for a pause for thought over something most commentators consider a cast iron certainty did not get a great deal of attention.
Yet the Bill still has some way to go before it becomes law. There is still time for a challenge if anyone is interested enough to take his head out of the sand."
The GOS says: Way to go, Ann baby. I think I'll marry you when I grow up.
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Copyright © 2008 The GOS
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