Under Gordon Brown’s stewardship as Chancellor, the tax burden on us all rose by about a third in real terms. Many of these tax rise were the so called “green taxes” designed to tackle the alleged problem of man-made climate change.
Of course, if the object of this tax strategy was to reverse the effects of man-made climate change, it was fundamentally flawed from the beginning. Unless every single nation on earth followed exactly the same strategy and it produced exactly the same change in behaviours then its impact on the climate would be precisely nil. Recognising this weakness (albeit a bit late) today Mr Huhne has called for a global legally binding climate change deal by 2015 (like that’s going to happen).
This week Mr Osborne has announced an extension of Mr Brown’s strategy and a whole series of new green taxes are winging our way. Quite apart from the weak logic of green taxes, new scientific research has emerged that virtually destroys the whole notion of man-made climate change.
New research by London’s Natural History Museum has shown that:
· 2 million years ago climate change caused East Africa to dry out and forced our ancestors out of the trees and made them walk
· 450,000 years ago climate change saw an Ice Age and it split human populations. In the north Neanderthals evolved while in the south Homo Erectus (our ancestors) evolved
· 55,000 years ago climate change caused Africa to be dry and forced Homo Erectus to migrate to Europe
· 25,000 years ago climate change saw another Ice Age. Sea level dropped 330 feet as a result and humans were able to walk to North America and populate it
· 14,000 years ago climate change saw the end of the last Ice Age and erratic weather patterns and caused humans to develop farming to stabilise food supplies
What is clear from the above (and conveniently ignored by the climate change proponents) is that:
· Climate change has been a regular feature in the past
· It has been caused by entirely natural events
There is nothing to suggest that any change in climate that may or may not be occurring today is man-made.
Of course, if climate change is NOT man-made, then the green taxes will have absolutely no impact on the climate and so are a “con”!