I have always been a slight sceptic within the climate change debate.  I have written very occasionally about the subject and acknowledged the need to take serious scientific opinion seriously.  In many ways my views were best reflected by the Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg who wrote the ‘Sceptical Environmentalist’ several years ago and more recently ‘Cool It’.  He accepts that climate change was taking place and almost certainly the result of human activity.  However, he argues strongly (if I have understood him correctly) that in tackling climate change we need to be open to the idea of cost benefit analysis stating that many options advocated by the environmentalist lobby are expensive, unproven and in may ways damaging to the natural environment.  He concludes by stating that in some cases better use could be made of the funds being demanded by environmentalists.   

When the argument raged over the development of Gwynt y Môr I supported the stance of ‘Save our Scenery’ because I felt that the threat to our tourism industry and coastal heritage outweighed the advantages claimed for the wind farm development.  I have also crossed swords with the Plaid Cymru environmental guru, ex MP for Ceredigion, Cynog Dafis, on more than one occasion not because I automatically dispute the claims that there are changes in our environment that we need to respond to but because he has a George Bush attitude to the issue.  In simple terms, Cynog Dafis, as with many other spokespeople for the environmental movement, tend to have a “if you are not with us you are against us” attitude.  This has been as obvious in the attempts to obstruct Bjorn Lomborg and his right to free speech as with the efforts of some campaigners in favour of Gwynt y Môr to portray those who argued against the development as being ‘emotive’.      

More often than not the argument in relation to the environment has been sidelined by the green campaigners with the mantra, now repeated by ministers at Westminster and WAG level, that the science is clear.  But is that correct?  Today, Andrew Neil presents a compelling case which states that we need to look again at the evidence that has been presented to us by governments and climate change advocates.  He does not claim that there is no such thing as climate change, and neither do I, but it is now very clear that there is a real need to re-visit the science.  Far too many claims made by the ‘climate change lobby’ appear to have been inaccurate and lacking in scientific rigour.  There is a clear need in my view to re-visit the science and debate the issue on a rational basis without the accusation that anybody who questions the current consensus is a ‘climate change denier’.

Guto