As he points out, when the snow cover on Snowdonia fell between 2003 and 2007 the mass media crowed that this was of course evidence of global warming caused by human activity. But now that Snowdonia has experienced abnormally deep snowfall this year, guess what, it has rarely if ever been mentioned by the same ‘concerned’ media.

NumberWatch, in a humorous ‘rebuke’ of Christopher Booker’s latest article points out that:

The snows of Snowden are a case in point. They were news while they were shrinking, but when that goes into reverse, the rules of modern polite society require the quiet turning of a blind eye.

Equally interesting is the way in which the eco-lobby and the green left have begun to noticeably shift their rhetoric and focus from ‘Global Warming’ to ‘Climate Change’ when it turns out that the facts don’t suit their warming theory. Amusing if it were not so serious is the recent suggestion by some more ‘scientists’ that the recent large increase in Antarctica ice is down to (yes, you guessed it) global warming. Once again it is apparently man that is causing the Arctic to warm while Antarctica to cool.

Christopher Booker finishes his article with the following statement:

It won’t do for believers in warmist orthodoxy to claim that, although temperatures may be falling, this is only because they are ‘masking an underlying warming trend that is still continuing’ – nor to fob us off with assurances that the ‘German model shows that higher temperatures than 1998, the warmest year on record, are likely to return after 2015’. In view of what is now at stake, such quasi-religious incantations masquerading as science are something we can no longer afford. We should get back to proper science before it is too late.

Since the political issue of ‘Climate Change’ has now become almost entirely devoid of any scientific merit or research that may now be occurring, it is imperative that calls for us to all to immediately wreck our economies, consume less and allow government to tell us what to do to an even greater extent be refuted at ever opportunity.

Yet, for the organisers to call the speaking event a debate was incredibly (and probably purposefully) misleading because in fact all members on the panel of so-called ‘experts’ were in complete agreement and therefore there was no actual debate of any kind at all. Not once did they disagree.

This point was starkly illustrated within the first five minutes of the ‘debate’ fully beginning. The first question put to the panel by the Chairman of the event, Roger Nunn, was something along the lines of ‘where are we in the Climate Change debate’ and could the panel briefly explain Climate Change.

This was put first to Professor Anil Markandya who is, it should be noted, a lecturer in Economics at the University of Bath (ie. not an environmental scientist) and also a member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Professor Markandya proceeded to tell the assembled audience that Climate Change was caused by human activity in releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and that there was a consensus among the scientific community on this supposed ‘fact’. The other three panellists unsurprisingly agreed entirely.

Yet, how exactly can something firstly be called ‘fact’ when it is scientifically disputed, and secondly where is the consensus when many scientists still profoundly disagree with the theory (for it is only a theory) that man-made CO2 production is the main component of global warming?

There was in fact only one dissenting voice on this point during the night which came from my friend Matthew. In his question (which was more of a statement really) he pointed out that of fundamental importance is whether or not humans are causing ‘Climate Change’ or ‘Global Warming’. If humans, through industrialisation and CO2 output are not the cause of what can loosely be called ‘Climate Change’ or ‘Global Warming’ then there is absolutely no reason for humans to massively reduce CO2 output as was the constant suggestion by the assembled panel of ‘experts’.

Matthew highlighted that there was not a complete consensus on this issue, shown by the fact (amongst others) that five hundred leading scientists had signed The Manhattan Declaration recently which specifically declared that:

Global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide CO2 is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life … and … that there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

Equally there had been a number of relatively prominent reports and documentaries including The Great Global Warming Swindle which have starkly disagreed that humanity is causing catastrophic climate change. Matthew also pointed out that the Chairman and joint organiser Roger Nunn had received numerous emails asking that he place a sceptical voice on the panel so that an actual debate may take place, but that Roger Nunn had continually refused.

Andrew Pendleton, who is the Climate Change adviser to Christian Aid was given the opportunity to reply to Matthew’s point. He immediately dismissed the Manhattan Declaration as ‘bad science’ that should not be allowed to cloud the ‘way forward’. The Great Global Warming Swindle by Martin Durkin, not without its errors like all reports, was again casually dismissed by Mr Pendleton. The reason? A few of the scientists on the programme had received funding from the Oil Industries. While this is entirely true, this of course does not tackle the point of whether the evidence or the science these scientists have put forward is correct or not. In fact Mr Pendleton seeks to bypass that altogether.

In much the same way the IPCC and those who wish to perpetuate the man-made causes of Climate Change orthodoxy, such as the UN, Governments and the EU have huge vested interests in doing so and are funded by those who have equally large vested interests. Everybody has biases. That is the point. The IPCC was set up to specifically find that man causes climate change through use of CO2 – and guess what, it surprisingly found them.

Mr Pendleton also took the opportunity to smear those in what he called ‘climate denial’ to those who did not agree that there was a link between smoking and lung cancer, or HIV and Aids. However, he and others like him have deliberately used the word ‘denial’ do so because it purposefully invokes undertones of the only other time the word ‘denial’ is used in such context: Holocaust denial. This is the sort of level to which Mr Pendleton and his ilk unfortunately stoop.

‘Climate Change’ has now become almost entirely a politicised issue and separated in most part from any scientific research that may be occurring. In that sense I suppose the political belief in man-made carbon causes of global warming or climate change is much like religion in a way. Whatever contrary evidence is placed in the way is ignored or dismissed as ‘bad science’ or biased in some way or other. This brings to mind something Martin Luther is said to have written:

Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and … know nothing but the word of God.

Despite evidence and research to the contrary, the political agenda of man-made causes of climate change steams ahead undeterred.

At the end of the ‘debate’ we stood outside the Abbey entrance and handed out to those leaving a double-sided A4 reproduction of an article by Christopher Booker and Richard North printed in the Telegraph in November last year called ‘The deceit behind global warming’. On the sheet we also included a few website links to videos of The Great Global Warming Swindle, and other sceptical websites and blogs.

We managed to give out all of our one hundred or so leaflets and we hope that those people we gave them to will take the time to read the article and have a look at the opposing opinions that have been put forth to the current orthodoxy of man-made causes of Climate Change.

Unsurprisingly, for organisations that already firmly believe in the politicised pseudoscience theory of global warming and wish to present evidence to justify their beliefs, it’s not really all that difficult to do.

First you select the outcome you desire – in this case higher mean temperatures in the next couple of decades. Next you take your data (usually carefully hand picked or manipulated in some specific way) and then adjust the output graphs until you obtain your end-goal result – ie. predictions that ‘prove’ temperatures will rise, and thus global warming ‘must’ be happening. Simple.

Gordon Brown in his tenure as Chancellor used similar methods to forecast and present favourable economic growth. The most valued statisticians at the Treasury were those that, regardless of the data, managed to fiddle around with economic models and arrive at the ‘best’ figures – usually 2.5% growth or more.

However, what’s really interesting about the Met Office report is highlighted in an online article by the Guardian. It says the forecast reveals ‘natural shifts in climate will cancel out warming produced by greenhouse gas emissions and other human activity until 2009, but from then on, temperatures will rise steadily’.

So, what exactly does that mean? Well, it’s basically saying that the climate will cool slightly due to ‘natural variations’, meaning that any evidence of rises in temperature caused by us humans will be cancelled out – but that despite this, global warming still exists. How convenient.

For the next few years the global warming pseudoscientists will have no basis for their claims and it’ll all be a matter of blind belief – it’s just that they’re getting their excuses in early.

Yesterday, fifty of its filthy occupants decided to march towards the airport, banging their drums like primitives and protesting loudly about the supposed current and future environmental impact of air travel.

Okay, so I generally do not agree with the neo-hippies’ claims of impending doom and disaster. However, what really vexed me about this particular protest was not the sight of a group of left-wing nutters masquerading as a friendly bunch of tree-huggers, but the fact that three hundred police officers were posted to supervise their protest and squalid anti-capitalist camp.

This seems to me to be overly excessive, especially at a time when most people in Britain will probably never see that many police in their entire life. I bet the grieving families of poor Garry Newlove and Evren Anil, who I mentioned yesterday, are wishing that at least one of those officers had been patrolling nearby when they were most needed.