I’ve just watched an excellent Uncommon Knowledge interview with the Danish-born statistician Bjorn Lomborg, best-known for his book ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’. I should declare at this stage that, although I’ve read a great deal else that he’s written, I haven’t actually read TSE. So far as I can tell, then, Lomborg believes both that the climate is changing, that that change is ‘a problem’ for mankind, and that human activity is causing much of that change.

Harrumpfers will know that I’m with him on the first – the idea that the climate was essentially unchanging until naughty humans came along and besmirched it (by raising billions of their kind from subsistence living to comfort, affluence and longevity) is the sort of eschatological twaddle that typifies ‘green’ thinking. I also believe that the ever-changing climate has always posed a challenge (I think ‘problem’ is a bit strong) to humans, but that the wealthier we become, and the more wisely we use and preserve our wealth, the less of a ‘problem’ it will become to meet that challenge.

Where I part company with Lomborg is on the extent of anthropogenic influence on the climate, specifically, the effect of CO2 emissions, which I believe to be negligible, at least so far as can be determined by proper application of the scientific method.

Still, two out of three points of agreement isn’t bad, and what makes Lomborg appealing to me is the way he drives greenies into fits of spluttering, infantile rage. Precisely because he accepts so much of their belief system, and cannot, therefore, be dismissed (as I am) as a ‘denier’, they find it harder to ignore him when he tells them that their fears are grossly exaggerated and their solutions both fatuous and sociopathic. Particularly upset are those carpet-baggers who are up to their ears in ‘renewables’ investments, which they know will be toast if (let’s hope that’s a ‘when’) Lomborg’s ideas become mainstream, and displace the prevailing narrative of doom.

Might be a while, though. The social rewards of the climate catastrophism religion are still abundant. But with a cold winter coming on in a Europe that has prostrated itself on the climate altar, it may not be too much to hope that a shivering population may finally question the wisdom of the ‘experts’ who have led them into their misery.

In the interview, Peter Robinson puts to Lomborg, one by one, the arguments of the zero carbonista, and one by one Lomborg demolishes them, showing them up for what they are – a recipe for poverty and death. Well worth watching in full.

Tom Forrester-Paton