Update Nov 20: Roger Helmer has blogged about the conference though I haven't seen any organiser answer the specific criticisms laid out below by various commentators.
Update Nov 18: Left Foot Forward has also now blogged about this conference picking up on some different points as has Sunny Hundal over at Liberal Conspiracy. Over at the Political Scrapbook there is some background on conference speaker Fred Singer who has form for fronting for vested interests - in his case the tobacco industry. A glance at organiser Roger Helmer's blog find this post supporting the tobacco industry in the face of restrictions proposed by the World Health Organisation.
****
I got an invite from Roger Helmer MEP to attend a conference tomorrow (November 18) in Brussels called Have Humans Changed the Climate - facts and consequences.
Roger is a long-standing critic of anything which supports the idea that humans are responsible for catastrophic climate change. He has even used EU funding to put out a DVD promoting these views. I assume this conference was similarly EU-funded.
Well, he's consistent and open about his views and, generously, you could argue he's merely providing a platform for a debate rather than imposing his own ideas.
I was more interested in the last two speakers at tomorrow's conference: a couple of shills who will look at the media and climate change.
First up is Dr Benny Peiser from Liverpool John Moores University on Media Bias, Climate Alarmism and the Rise of the New Media.
Dr Peiser has bounced around a few topics, including near-Earth asteroids, but since climate change denial pays so well keeps his profile high has proved so stimulating he has written extensively on the issue. The fact he has no expertise in this area is no bar to his standing, obviously. Since he has no media expertise it seems he is doubly unqualified to give any presentation.
But that's just me.
(Incidentally, guess which School Benny is in at John Moores. Geology? Chemistry? Physics? Try, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences).
Then there is the charmless James Delingpole - a Telegraph columnist who thinks it is awfully dangerous to write sarcastic columns about the usual litany of right-wing bogeymen such as the socialist EU superstate (yawn).
Delingpole twittered as he was on his way to the conference: "Free champagne on train; free deluxe hotel room; basement swimming pool; free porn probably. Thank you, Eurotaxpayer."
Humourless lefty that I am I just can't shake the impression he's a pampered hypocrite rather than a cutting-edge commentator.
Strangely, on the speaker programme I was sent he's listed as Dr James Delingpole. Yet I can find no indication anywhere that he has earnt such a title and, if so, whether it was for sciences. It could not possibly be that the title was added to make him look more credible than he actually is?
At least he has one thing over Benny and that is works in the area he is talking about. But then Benny has got a doctorate, even if it was in social anthropology. Well, you pays your money - you takes your choice.
Comments