Nigel Lawson's whopper

Gareth Renowden reports:

On Thursday morning, TVNZ's Breakfast Business programme included an interview with Baron Lawson of Blaby. It's available here. Nigel's opening statement is a shocker:

"There's no global warming happening at the present time. That's clear, accepted on all sides of the argument."

...

I'm particularly disappointed with the TV interviewer, who gave him an incredibly soft ride. You'd think even TV NZ business journalists might be expected know enough to spot blatant rubbish when it's being spouted.

Meanwhile, the Herald (via NZPA) reports him as saying: "We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting." I'm rendered speechless, which is something I might wish for the blue Baron.

Renowden has more on Lawson's visit to NZ here.

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Is he related to the other Lawson ... Nigella?

Suspect he well might be, given he's serving up bigger air-filled soufflés than the amply inflated Lawson.

He's her father.

He also has a son, Dominic Lawson who is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph and a GW denialist and is married to Rosa Monckton who is the sister of Christopher Monckton.

Lawson logic:

Temperatures in Finland and Singapore are very different and people adapted. So a mere 4 degree increase in global mean temperature over a hundred years cant possibly be that hard to adapt to.

I wonder if he learnt to lie when in politics? Probably.
Unfortunately I am too young to have memories of his precise role as chancellor.

Seems that being barking mad does run in families....

By san quintin (not verified) on 16 Nov 2007 #permalink

"We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting."

Well, he at least got that right, albeit not for the reason he thinks he did.

By Julie Stahlhut (not verified) on 16 Nov 2007 #permalink

Tell me, tim. are you going to stop using his daughters cooking recipes as a result.

I'm sure Gouldiechops will.

I'm particularly disappointed with the TV interviewer, who gave him an incredibly soft ride

You mean their government paid for tv station hasn't yet become an arm of the Green party like ours? That's surprising.

JC, I hope to God you're not referring to the BBC, or else you're dumber than I thought. Or more naive. Or both. Check the BBCs programme 'Home Planet'. One of the resident 'experts' on the programme is none other than Philip Stott, a denialist extraordinaire if there ever was one. Moreover, how often does the BBC, like the corporate-owned mainstream media, detail the attempts by wealthy, powerful, vested interests to distort the science underlying climate change? They may report on the seriousness of climate change, but they rarely if ever say much about the corporate-funded lobbying groups whose aim is to maintain the status quo.

The same myth about the 'BBC bias' has been made with respect to their coverage of the Iraq war. But the BBC was, and is 'pro-war'. The Glasgow media research unit found that, leading up to the invasion, more than 90% of BBC's invited 'experts' supported the invasion and subsequent occupation. This is well detailed in several books, most notably 'Guardians of Power' by the excellent team at MediaLens (2006).

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Nov 2007 #permalink

C, I hope to God you're not referring to the BBC, or else you're dumber than I thought. Or more naive. Or both.

Jeff, I WISHED to god you were referring to TVNZ, or else you're dumber than i thought.

Doodlepops, did you even bother to read the post or did you get into some orgasmic state in trying to explain to me how balanced the BBC is (lol)? I am well aware of the BBC's balance thank you very much.

...Doodlebops?
...DOODLEBOPS?
DOODLEBOPS?!

By Laser Potato (not verified) on 30 Nov 2007 #permalink