[“But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.” The power-corrupted Saruman of Many Colours declaiming in J. R. R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954, p. 272)]

After twenty years of unmitigated ‘global warming’ eco-hype and media bias, we learn this morning that “most Britons don’t believe climate change is man-made” [‘Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change’, The Observer, June 22; paper version, pp. 1 & 7]. What a surprise, I don’t think! While I perused this report over breakfast, I admit to having felt a tiny twinge of pity for The Observer/Guardian, and for the attendant cohort of bien pensant political commentators, metropolitan-elite readers, and environmental reporters, as their very own Ipsos MORI poll rams home the truth, long-known here on GWPs, that ordinary British folk are a tad more sensible and down-to-earth about climate change than they are:

“The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

The results have shocked campaigners ...”

What a naif bunch, they are! They must be collectively weeping into their Sunday-morning cappuccinos. Just enjoy this, for example, from arch-ecotoff, Jonathon Porritt [”For it is he!”]:

“‘It’s disappointing and the government will be really worried,’ said Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the government’s Sustainable Development Commission. ‘They [politicians] need the context in which they’re developing new policies to be a lot stronger and more positive. Otherwise the potential for backlash and unpopularity is considerable.’”

Well, Jonathon, we now know that six out of 10 adults agree that “many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change”, and that four out of 10 “think climate change might not be as bad as people say”. And, in both cases, another 20 per cent are not convinced either way.

Blame Game

Of course, the new game in metro-town is who is to blame for this failure of posh PC politics:

“There is growing concern that an economic depression and rising fuel and food prices are denting public interest in environmental issues. Some environmentalists blame the public’s doubts on last year’s Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, and on recent books, including one by Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor, that question the consensus on climate change.”

Jolly good, say I. It seems that the critical message is getting through better than I thought. Mind you, The Observer also asked Bjørn Lomborg to comment, and he makes an extremely telling, and I suspect painful, point for the ‘Green’ bunnies:

“However Professor Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, said politicians and campaigners were to blame for over-simplifying the problem by only publicising evidence to support the case.”

Just so.

It’s The Voters!

Nevertheless, I am sure that the bien pensant commentariat won’t like that idea, and this is well exemplified by another particularly tear-stained article from The Observer’s political hack, Andrew Rawnsley [‘Don’t rely on the boys with the black stuff, Mr. Brown’, The Observer, June 22; paper version, p. 27]. Now, Andrew really knows who is to blame:

“The culprit is easy to identify. I blame the voters.”

Grief, and this is from a leading ‘democratic’ commentator in a liberal newspaper! Here we are witnessing the true political danger, what I call the ‘Sin of Saruman’ writ large - “But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.”

Hm! Always beware ‘the Wise’! What the political classes and media ‘environmentalists’ have yet to learn is that ordinary farmers are too aware that they have been battling with, and adapting to, climate change for over 7,000 years; that people with even a modicum of commonsense about science recognise that the very idea of managing climate by fiddling about at the margins with just one politically-selected factor is starking-raving lunacy; that people are not fooled by the attempts of the ‘wise’ to control every aspect of their lives; and, that the only way to deal with constant environmental change, whatever its direction, is to maintain strong, flexible economies, while aiding and assisting the poor.

‘The Wise’ - for which read our more dirigiste commentariat and political classes - are always seeking power and control over people’s lives - for the people’s own good, of course, and to erase false consciousness. As I write on the side bar of the ‘Home Page’: “‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty and human choices.”

Luckily, ordinary folk are not being conned. We are too well aware of real climate change. For example, the excellent older ladies of the WI, to whom I speak often, remember vividly the great cold during the last years of the 1940s. Thus, it isn’t ‘the people’ - “the voters” - who are the climate-change deniers, Mr. Rawnsley, it is your ilk, the ‘global warming’ mediaocracy who believe that we can either ‘stop’ or ‘stabilize’ climate change. By contrast, and as The Observer poll so tellingly demonstrates, the public are climate-change realists. We should listen to them, and not to you elitist, ‘global warming’ climate-change deniers [see: ‘The Climate-Change Deniers’, June 20].

And, by the way, “Well done!” to The Great Global Warming Swindle and to Nigel Lawson. We owe you.

Time for my own Sunday-morning cappuccino in the garden - diluted by crocodile tears, of course.