Hold onto free speech in climate change spat

Some of my more learned colleagues in the world of rugby don’t have much time for the musings of one George Hook, but I kind of like the old codger on Newstalk radio in the evenings, when I aim the horse for home. He does pontificate a bit and rambles all over the place, but for all that, he’s entertaining, and regularly enough, he does talk to people who present alternative views to the status quo.

Last week, he interviewed a Professor Leslie Woodcock, who didn’t pull any punches in his views on global warming and who has for many years espoused the view that a ‘great scientific con job’ is being perpetuated, largely driven by billions of euro and dollars of public money being spent on research projects that’s keeping tens of thousands of scientists all over the world in well paid jobs.

Now, I’m not even remotely qualified to make any scientific judgment on Professor Woodcock theories, although this guy is no ‘daw’ being a professor emeritus of chemical thermodynamics at the University of Manchester with a PhD from the University of London and a former NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the US) scientist, as well as being a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

What is somewhat disturbing over the past couple of years in this whole issue is that there has been a concerted move to stifle any dissent on the whole issue of global warming. Even people like former president Mary Robinson have been putting forward the notion that we shouldn’t have balance in this debate any more . . . that we should all ‘join the herd’ and accept without question the consensus side of the debate.

Even over recent times, the BBC have given a commitment to reduce the amount of time given to climate change sceptics on radio and television, and dictates like that always send out warning signals. The climate sceptics might be in the minority and might not be right, but they are quite entitled to make their case and be heard.

Anyway back to Professor Woodcock. He maintains that the earth will always have a natural balance to it, pointing out that carbon dioxide (CO2) – supposedly ‘the great enemy of the earth’ – is in fact ‘the gas of life’ that we breathe out every day from our lungs while the plants breathe it in.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.