Express | June 12,2011
By Hilary Douglas

WITH ­energy firms poised to hike their prices by up to 22 per cent, consumers may well feel it is time to question the growing burden of so-called green taxes.

While energy experts will point to a rise in the price of oil, the Government’s commitment to renewable energy is the real reason behind the increases, as we ­already have 14 per cent added to our bills to fund projects which cut carbon emissions and global warming.

However a leading scientist who worked for Australia’s Department for Climate Change for many years, says experts got their predictions wrong and the whole idea that ­carbon dioxide is the main cause of any global warming is in fact a lie.

David Evans, who was a consultant for the then Australian Greenhouse ­Office until last year, said: “The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of any warming is based on a guess made in 1980 that was proved totally wrong by scientists as far back as the mid-Nineties.

The whole thing is now a train wreck. Although no one started out to scam or mislead, really the ­climate scientists are a bit corrupt now as they know they are exaggerating, but there are now too many jobs, ­industries, trading profits and ­political careers riding along on this nonsense to admit it is just that.

“To be perfectly clear, of course carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and yes every bit of carbon dioxide emitted does warm the planet, but the issue is not whether carbon ­dioxide warms the planet, but by how much.

“Indeed, most scientists on both sides also agree on how much a ­given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if nothing else changes. These calculations have been known for at least a century, the disagreements start with what happens next.”

Dr Evans explains that the planet ­reacts to the extra carbon dioxide by warming, which in turn causes more water to evaporate from our oceans.

“Back in the Eighties, when the carbon theory started, scientists guessed that the extra water would increase the blanket of moist air around the planet, which would ­really heat things up as moist air is also a greenhouse gas.”

Dr EVANS says that by 1995 they knew this was not happening, and that the ­am­p­lification in the climate models was wrong. He added: “They had thought that for each bit of extra warming caused by ­carbon, there would be three bits of warming due to the extra moist air, but no evidence was found. Indeed, weather balloons that have been measuring the ­atmosphere since the early Sixties failed to find any amplification. 

The alarmists all predicted that as the planet warmed, a hot spot of moist air would develop over the tropics about 10km up as the layer of moist air expanded up into the cool dry air above, but the ­thousands of balloons each year did not find a hot spot. Not even a small one.

“By the Nineties, even though some scientists did publish research which said all this, the lavish ­research grants had already been handed out and no one was quick to dispel what was at that time just a simple mistake, a mistake based on the best knowledge at the time. 

“The fact that the horror of warming caused by extra moist water did not occur should of course have been welcomed as good news, but by then the politicians were involved with all sorts of international protocols at vast expense, and the carbon ­trading and renewables industries had been born worldwide.

“This was the time the climate ­scientists behaved ­poorly, effectively keeping the ­information quietly to themselves, allowing politicians the world over to tax people to the hilt for supposed green taxes and anti-carbon taxes to save the world.”

Dr Evans explained that every common energy process used by man emits carbon and the taxes are now part of most ­nations’ policy, with most having their own carbon or climate change departments.

There are now several independent pieces of evidence showing that Earth responds to warming due to extra carbon dioxide by ­dampening the warming, not amplifying it.

“Every long-lived natural system behaves in this way, countering any disturbance,” added Dr Evans.

“All the guesstimates made by the scientists have been way over the mark and now they keep lowering the temperature increases they ­expect; from 0.30C per decade in 1990 to 0.20C per decade in 2001 and now to 0.15 per decade.

“One way they conceal their terrible record of predictions is in the way they measure temperature.

“Official thermometers are ­often placed near the warm exhaust of air conditioning outlets, over hot Tarmac at airports where they get blasts of hot air from jet engines, at waste water plants where they get warmth from decomposing sewage or in hot cities choked with cars and buildings.”

Dr Evans added: “Yes, carbon ­dioxide is a cause of global warming, but it is so minor it’s not worth doing much about.”