Constitution Club:
Holy carbon offset, say it ain’t so, Al! The UK’s Energy and Climate Change czar said this week that although he still believes the earth’s temperature is rising, “natural phases” may be to blame.
Translation: We didn’t do it. (Al Gore unavailable for comment.) From The Telegraph:
Tim Yeo, an environment minister under John Major, is one of the Conservative Party’s strongest advocates of radical action to cut carbon emissions. His comments are significant as he was one of the first senior figures to urge the party to take the issue of environmental change seriously.
He insisted such action is “prudent” given the threat climate change poses to living standards worldwide. But, he said, human action is merely a “possible cause.”
Asked on Tuesday night whether it was better to take action to mitigate the effects of climate change than to prevent it in the first place, he said:
“The first thing to say is it does not represent any threat to the survival of the planet. None at all. The planet has survived much bigger changes than any climate change that is happening now. Although I think the evidence that the climate is changing is now overwhelming, the causes are not absolutely clear.
There could be natural causes, natural phases that are taking place.”
While Yeo said he believes a strong probability exists that man-made causes contribute to greenhouse gas concentrations, he made it clear that he no longer intends to ring the alarmist doomsday bell.