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GROWING SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE SHOWS 'GREEN' TAXES WILL HAVE NO MEASURABLE EFFECT ON GLOBAL WARMING
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell has urged Conservative leader David Cameron to join a cross party agreement on 5 'green principles.' These include:
- Green taxes to change behaviour.
- Green taxes, including fuel duty, should not fall in real terms from year to year
- A substantial increase in the top rate of Vehicle Excise Duty
The futility of these principles, which rely on attempting to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations, has been exposed in scientific literature: - It has been calculated that two-thirds of 20th century warming can be attributed to Cosmic Rays, a natural phenomenon. [1]
- Data covering 550 million years also shows that the temperature of the Earth cannot be raised by more than 1 to 1.5C by CO2. [2]
- When compared with actual evidence, the perspective used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) could, at best, be able to attribute about a quarter of modern global warming to increased CO2. [3]
ABD Environment Spokesman Ben Adams commented, "The ABD has never accepted the IPCC's emphasis on CO2 as the main cause of climate change. Indeed, the IPCC report of 2001 classifies the level of scientific understanding for most of the known factors, including the solar influence, as 'very low.'
When actually followed through, the IPCC perspective gives a minuscule 0.08C rise due to increased CO2. This is about an eighth of the overall 0.6C rise." [4]
ABD Spokesman Paul Biggs added, "There is growing scientific evidence to confirm the ABD's belief that controlling CO2 emissions as a means of influencing global temperatures and climate change are doomed to fail. Instead, so-called 'green' taxes harm economic growth, jobs and mobility. All pain for no gain."
The ABD urges party leaders to give the UK's 30 million drivers a clear voting choice based on sound science, rather than forming an undemocratic, single policy alliance, and to end the cynical use of computer generated alarmism based on flawed climate models.
Notes for Editors
[1] Cosmic Ray Flux is emerging as the main cause of climate change according to recent papers from Jan Veizer and Nir Shaviv.
Jan Veizer - Cosmic rays set climate change on Earth, expert says: Link
[2] Shaviv and Veizer: Link
New direct experimental evidence pointing to the role of cosmic rays: Link
[3] Colorado State Climatologist, Roger Pielke Senior, has used data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and their approach to the known factors that affect climate, in order to calculate that the
contribution to modern global warming of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations is about 26.5%.
Roger Pielke Senior's calculation in full: Link
[4] Roughly 0.3C of the 0.6C rise in global temperatures took place before any significant rise in CO2.
Even Roger Pielke Senior's generous use of the IPCC perspective indicates that a miniscule 0.08C, or about a quarter of the remaining 0.3C rise, is the result of increased atmospheric CO2.
A new paper by Smith et al, suggests that there has been no global increase in water vapour content, undermines the IPCC foundation stone of an enhancement of the increased warming effect of CO2 via increased atmospheric water vapour.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L06705, doi: 10.1029/2005GL025393, 2006
Variations in annual global precipitation (1979-2004), based on the Global Precipitation Climatology Project 2.5 ° analysis.
Thomas M Smith et al Link
IPCC TAR 2001 Slide: Anthropogenic and natural forcing of the climate for the year 2000, relative to 1750: Link
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For more information about the ABD visit our Website at http://www.abd.org.uk
The Association of British Drivers is run on a voluntary basis to lobby for the beleaguered British motorist: "Reclaiming the roads for the people who pay for them"
"Demanding proper roads (and railways) in exchange for paying one seventh of all taxes"
"Debunking the nonsense you hear about the environmental impact of the car"
"Promoting effective road safety instead of the criminalisation of safe driving"
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