Snapshot of _At least 30 Reform candidates have cast doubt on human-induced global heating _ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/01/at-least-30-reform-candidates-have-cast-doubt-on-human-induced-global-heating) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/01/at-least-30-reform-candidates-have-cast-doubt-on-human-induced-global-heating)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Their social media posts often claim that warnings of anthropogenic warming are a “hoax” or “scam”, and many include conspiracy theories about how the “climate change narrative” can be attributed to the World Economic Forum, “globalist elites” or “the Illuminati”.
You know, at times I wish that the Illuminati *did* secretly rule the world, using their power to secretly influence things. It would make things much more exciting, and we'd probably have a much more cyberpunk aesthetic to our society than we actually have now.
I mean, it certainly could be antisemitic.
Given that we're talking about Reform though, it's equally possible that they're referring to people who have convinced themselves that the Earth is some sort of sphere (which they call "a globe") hanging in the middle of nothing.
Which is obviously ridiculous. After all, you can't just have things floating in nothing, can you? They'd fall down, obviously. Which is why it's much more likely that the world is flat, and sitting on the ground. And there's just a conspiracy of silence orchestrated by pilots to pretend that the ice wall that surrounds everything doesn't exist.
> Earth is some sort of sphere (which they call "a globe") hanging in the middle of nothing.
HAnging hanging, how can something hang in nothing. Jesus H. Some daft bloke wearing thin rimmed specs told me that the earth was like an orange. A bit rough on the outside and sharp inside.
Hannging I ddon;t knoe.
It's fun how these are often the same people who firmly hold the (far more justifiable) belief that The People Who Run Things couldn't find their arse with both hands, an atlas and a week to search.
I guess you can believe that the people behind the scenes are highly competent and only the puppets on display are useless - but that just seems so at odds with any sort of lived experience by any human ever.
It reminds me a little of the capital punishment debate. Some people seem to simultaneously hold the views that: (a) the political and legal professions are corrupt, weak, useless, in it for themselves, willing to sell justice to whoever can afford the right barrister or who has the right school tie; and (b) the state should be allowed to execute people.
But then I suppose the idea that secretly *someone* knows what's going on is a comforting one.
>But then I suppose the idea that secretly someone knows what's going on is a comforting one.
Well quite! People want there to be an order to things, rather than it just being random chaos; and that good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people, and there is someone somewhere organising accordingly. It reminds me of a quote from Babylon 5:
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
Do these people have no memory at all as well? I’m at the young end of the millennials and I remember there being snow on the ground in my hometown most winters and the notion of a 40 degree day was absurd. Literally all you need to do grasp the reality of climate change is pay attention to the changes in the natural world.
We like to dismiss them as idiots but we should call them out for what they are: useful idiots for an industry that’s cheerfully accepted swathes of people mostly in poor countries have to die so the money tap stays on.
Mid Gen X here. Interestingly the second hottest summer we've ever had happened in 2006. It never quite peaked as high as we have recently seen but it went on and on and on. I was moving into my current flat that year and well remember not being able to sleep and taking my friends dog for a walk at 0400 and doors were open to try and get a little respite.
I also remember heavy, bitterly cold, long winters back in the 80s. I lived in Buxton which is notorious for being dismal most of the year. I went to see my dad a few months ago and we had to deal with snow there, but it's the only place now I have seen snowfall since the noughties and I still live in the north-west. All this to say that the climate crisis has been notable getting worse since the start of the 21st century. People who deny what the damn Victorians knew are cretins and should be called out, I quite agree.
This is such a weedy headline. 'Casting doubt' implies they are just saying 'hey, guys, maybe it's not quite what we think!' [as opposed to actively promoting pseudoscience and misinformation](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/reform-uks-climate-denial-undermines-democracy/).
I believe they took lessons in climatology after their Masters in COVID, their degree in gender studies, and their A level in the History of the British Empire.
This is the thing that pisses me off.
The big news media political journalist is really really good at knowing the ins and outs of the Westminster bubble.
Everything else, they don't know shit about fuck. Yet present themselves as the highest level of communicator to everyone else.
This is why we are so economically illiterate as a nation.
And we gone from panels being a mixture of various authorities on different subjects to being a political editor as host and political commentators and politicians being the guests.
There was a Question Time a while back, I believe it was the episode with Paddy McGuiness, and they are talking about the dentist crisis in the country. Politicians and journalists (and a comedian) all proclaimed this is the problem so therefore this is the solution.
Then one guy in the audience was a dentist and explained the problem clearly and everyone learnt more in his 2 minutes than the 15mins of waffling from know-it-alls on the panel.
Nigel farage constantly lies about climate change, he said humans contribute 3% of CO2 each year it’s 33% he will know this.
He’s Russias bitch just like his pal trump.
Total human CO2 output is 29 gigatons, compared to 750 gigatons in the carbon cycle (3.8%).
https://www.che-project.eu/news/how-do-human-co2-emissions-compare-natural-co2-emissions
The correct argument against it is that if the system was previously in equilibrium, even a small excess every year will add up, similar to only eating an extra 3% calories more than you burn every day will eventually make you fat.
No worries - if you are sceptical about what politicians say about tax, you can always check it at [Tax Check UK](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1dp8nwo/conservatives_have_renamed_their_twitter_account/)
So be it. They should all be held account to the same rules.
EDIT: to whoever downvoted can you explain why parties shouldn’t be held accountable to the same rules
Do you mean to suggest that politicians shouldn't work under current scientific consensus because they might be wrong? What's the point of science then?
The original question was this:
> Should politicians be held accountable for giving statements that actively go against accepted scientific research?
Everyone, including politicians, should be able to question the science of anything.
Blindly making policy *contrary to* science is a different question.
Over short distances, low velocities, and medium sized masses, special relativity and Newtonian mechanics give the same predictions, more or less. Engineers can, and do, rely on Newtonian mechanics when they are designing a bridge or a building.
Politics and science are different. Should be different.
If politicians simply relay science into policy, just employ the scientists as the politicians.
(As a scientist, this is a terrible idea.)
I’m not saying they are the same. Just posing that they shouldn’t be able to make claims against accepted scientific research. In this instance the politicians should still be able to decide the policy on what to do. But they shouldn’t be able to doubt the data
> But they shouldn’t be able to doubt the data
Of course they should. Everyone should be able to 'make claims against' any science: good science will prove its worth.
Politicians who make policies which are *explicitly against* the science is the problem.
My gormless local candidate [says that climate change is 'bit of a hoax'](https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/24420282.southampton-test-reform-candidate-says-climate-change-bit-hoax/).
I'm just down the road and was coming here to share this bit:
"He added that as a gardener, he works in the environment every day, and that the former Soviet Union diverting rivers to drain seas was a man-made action that changed the climate."
So climate-change is manmade... the Soviets did it!
"The climate has been changing for millions of years"
Statements like this show why politicians should stop pretending to be scientists. Does he really think climate science isn't aware of that?
I mean before they changed their policy page to their "contract", they had the absolute brain dead take that more people die of cold than heat anyway, like there's no helping this party
There are issues with the "human-induced climate change" narrative - namely that we have a very finite amount of fossil fuel left with which to add to it.
To put it bluntly, significantly reduced fossil fuel emissions by 2050 are absolutely inevitable, as at the current burn rate, that is roughly the year it all runs out.
Accept that is the case, and "screw net zero" becomes an even more ridiculous "jam today" policy from an economic perspective. We are far too focussed on long term threats to humanity from a changing climate, and not focussed enough on the more immediate impending hyperinflation of carbon fuel costs within 2 decades if we don't break the dependency.
You can believe whatever you like about human induced climate change and still accept this is the case.
What that does reveal is the wider challenge - it isn't any good considering net zero as a national exercise where we disassociate ourselves from carbon based energy use overseas to meet our needs. If you import half your food from countries with a huge carbon footprint and carbon prices spike, you're still going hungry or broke even if your domestic energy needs are entirely met by renewable and nuclear.
Snapshot of _At least 30 Reform candidates have cast doubt on human-induced global heating _ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/01/at-least-30-reform-candidates-have-cast-doubt-on-human-induced-global-heating) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/01/at-least-30-reform-candidates-have-cast-doubt-on-human-induced-global-heating) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Their social media posts often claim that warnings of anthropogenic warming are a “hoax” or “scam”, and many include conspiracy theories about how the “climate change narrative” can be attributed to the World Economic Forum, “globalist elites” or “the Illuminati”. You know, at times I wish that the Illuminati *did* secretly rule the world, using their power to secretly influence things. It would make things much more exciting, and we'd probably have a much more cyberpunk aesthetic to our society than we actually have now.
I wonder what they mean by [globalists](https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/globalist) 🤔
I mean, it certainly could be antisemitic. Given that we're talking about Reform though, it's equally possible that they're referring to people who have convinced themselves that the Earth is some sort of sphere (which they call "a globe") hanging in the middle of nothing. Which is obviously ridiculous. After all, you can't just have things floating in nothing, can you? They'd fall down, obviously. Which is why it's much more likely that the world is flat, and sitting on the ground. And there's just a conspiracy of silence orchestrated by pilots to pretend that the ice wall that surrounds everything doesn't exist.
> Earth is some sort of sphere (which they call "a globe") hanging in the middle of nothing. HAnging hanging, how can something hang in nothing. Jesus H. Some daft bloke wearing thin rimmed specs told me that the earth was like an orange. A bit rough on the outside and sharp inside. Hannging I ddon;t knoe.
It's fun how these are often the same people who firmly hold the (far more justifiable) belief that The People Who Run Things couldn't find their arse with both hands, an atlas and a week to search. I guess you can believe that the people behind the scenes are highly competent and only the puppets on display are useless - but that just seems so at odds with any sort of lived experience by any human ever. It reminds me a little of the capital punishment debate. Some people seem to simultaneously hold the views that: (a) the political and legal professions are corrupt, weak, useless, in it for themselves, willing to sell justice to whoever can afford the right barrister or who has the right school tie; and (b) the state should be allowed to execute people. But then I suppose the idea that secretly *someone* knows what's going on is a comforting one.
>But then I suppose the idea that secretly someone knows what's going on is a comforting one. Well quite! People want there to be an order to things, rather than it just being random chaos; and that good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people, and there is someone somewhere organising accordingly. It reminds me of a quote from Babylon 5: "I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
A Babylon 5 reference! What a great day this is turning out to be. "It no longer matters who started it, G'Kar. It only matters who is suffering"
Do these people have no memory at all as well? I’m at the young end of the millennials and I remember there being snow on the ground in my hometown most winters and the notion of a 40 degree day was absurd. Literally all you need to do grasp the reality of climate change is pay attention to the changes in the natural world. We like to dismiss them as idiots but we should call them out for what they are: useful idiots for an industry that’s cheerfully accepted swathes of people mostly in poor countries have to die so the money tap stays on.
Yes, but it was slightly chilly last Tuesday and I have just debunked climate change. /s
Mid Gen X here. Interestingly the second hottest summer we've ever had happened in 2006. It never quite peaked as high as we have recently seen but it went on and on and on. I was moving into my current flat that year and well remember not being able to sleep and taking my friends dog for a walk at 0400 and doors were open to try and get a little respite. I also remember heavy, bitterly cold, long winters back in the 80s. I lived in Buxton which is notorious for being dismal most of the year. I went to see my dad a few months ago and we had to deal with snow there, but it's the only place now I have seen snowfall since the noughties and I still live in the north-west. All this to say that the climate crisis has been notable getting worse since the start of the 21st century. People who deny what the damn Victorians knew are cretins and should be called out, I quite agree.
This is such a weedy headline. 'Casting doubt' implies they are just saying 'hey, guys, maybe it's not quite what we think!' [as opposed to actively promoting pseudoscience and misinformation](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/reform-uks-climate-denial-undermines-democracy/).
I believe they took lessons in climatology after their Masters in COVID, their degree in gender studies, and their A level in the History of the British Empire.
But also we're sick of hearing from experts, so...
You describe the average British columnist and commentator
This is the thing that pisses me off. The big news media political journalist is really really good at knowing the ins and outs of the Westminster bubble. Everything else, they don't know shit about fuck. Yet present themselves as the highest level of communicator to everyone else. This is why we are so economically illiterate as a nation.
It's a staggering level of unfounded arrogance. Robert Peston probably really believes he's at economics, pandemics, foreign policy, etc
And we gone from panels being a mixture of various authorities on different subjects to being a political editor as host and political commentators and politicians being the guests. There was a Question Time a while back, I believe it was the episode with Paddy McGuiness, and they are talking about the dentist crisis in the country. Politicians and journalists (and a comedian) all proclaimed this is the problem so therefore this is the solution. Then one guy in the audience was a dentist and explained the problem clearly and everyone learnt more in his 2 minutes than the 15mins of waffling from know-it-alls on the panel.
sadly so
Nigel farage constantly lies about climate change, he said humans contribute 3% of CO2 each year it’s 33% he will know this. He’s Russias bitch just like his pal trump.
Total human CO2 output is 29 gigatons, compared to 750 gigatons in the carbon cycle (3.8%). https://www.che-project.eu/news/how-do-human-co2-emissions-compare-natural-co2-emissions The correct argument against it is that if the system was previously in equilibrium, even a small excess every year will add up, similar to only eating an extra 3% calories more than you burn every day will eventually make you fat.
Should politicians be held accountable for giving statements that actively go against accepted scientific research?
No worries - if you are sceptical about what politicians say about tax, you can always check it at [Tax Check UK](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1dp8nwo/conservatives_have_renamed_their_twitter_account/)
If so I'm not sure there has been a single statement uttered this election campaign by any of the parties that wouldn't get them the jail.
So be it. They should all be held account to the same rules. EDIT: to whoever downvoted can you explain why parties shouldn’t be held accountable to the same rules
Because some people will think their side is telling nothing but the truth and it's just the other side that's lying.
But in this case it is one side that is verifiably true and the other is lying and provably so through absolutely mountains of data.
I'm not arguing I'm saying why other OP was downvoted.
So they shouldn’t be held to same set of rules as then it could be argued that one side is lying? I’m not sure I understand
Oh no… anyway
Accepted science changes constantly. No.
Climate Chance has been accepted science for decades. I think there ought to be something to de-incentivise politicians from rejecting actual reality.
Newtonian physics was accepted for centuries. Until it wasn't.
Do you mean to suggest that politicians shouldn't work under current scientific consensus because they might be wrong? What's the point of science then?
The original question was this: > Should politicians be held accountable for giving statements that actively go against accepted scientific research? Everyone, including politicians, should be able to question the science of anything. Blindly making policy *contrary to* science is a different question.
Questioning something is different to making a statement and representing it as fact
Over short distances, low velocities, and medium sized masses, special relativity and Newtonian mechanics give the same predictions, more or less. Engineers can, and do, rely on Newtonian mechanics when they are designing a bridge or a building.
Indeed. And how was Newtonian physics bettered? By questioning the accepted science of the day.
So because we have a better understanding of something we shouldn’t use it? We should instead represent opinion as fact?
Politics and science are different. Should be different. If politicians simply relay science into policy, just employ the scientists as the politicians. (As a scientist, this is a terrible idea.)
I’m not saying they are the same. Just posing that they shouldn’t be able to make claims against accepted scientific research. In this instance the politicians should still be able to decide the policy on what to do. But they shouldn’t be able to doubt the data
> But they shouldn’t be able to doubt the data Of course they should. Everyone should be able to 'make claims against' any science: good science will prove its worth. Politicians who make policies which are *explicitly against* the science is the problem.
At last a serious party for the flat earthers.
My gormless local candidate [says that climate change is 'bit of a hoax'](https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/24420282.southampton-test-reform-candidate-says-climate-change-bit-hoax/).
I'm just down the road and was coming here to share this bit: "He added that as a gardener, he works in the environment every day, and that the former Soviet Union diverting rivers to drain seas was a man-made action that changed the climate." So climate-change is manmade... the Soviets did it!
This is the party that says it will abolish the target to reach net zero, so this isn't much of a surprise.
"The climate has been changing for millions of years" Statements like this show why politicians should stop pretending to be scientists. Does he really think climate science isn't aware of that?
Given their ~~manifes...~~ contract states they want to repeal all net zero policy, this does not surprise.
The problem is that the evidence now is black and white, and they really don’t like black…
I really don't have a problem with anyone casting doubt on anything, it's the complete denial and lies that get my back up.
I mean before they changed their policy page to their "contract", they had the absolute brain dead take that more people die of cold than heat anyway, like there's no helping this party
I'm shocked. Shocked! Well, not that shocked.
There are issues with the "human-induced climate change" narrative - namely that we have a very finite amount of fossil fuel left with which to add to it. To put it bluntly, significantly reduced fossil fuel emissions by 2050 are absolutely inevitable, as at the current burn rate, that is roughly the year it all runs out. Accept that is the case, and "screw net zero" becomes an even more ridiculous "jam today" policy from an economic perspective. We are far too focussed on long term threats to humanity from a changing climate, and not focussed enough on the more immediate impending hyperinflation of carbon fuel costs within 2 decades if we don't break the dependency. You can believe whatever you like about human induced climate change and still accept this is the case. What that does reveal is the wider challenge - it isn't any good considering net zero as a national exercise where we disassociate ourselves from carbon based energy use overseas to meet our needs. If you import half your food from countries with a huge carbon footprint and carbon prices spike, you're still going hungry or broke even if your domestic energy needs are entirely met by renewable and nuclear.
It's in their official party policy documents isn't it? Along with some rubbish about COVID being exaggerated.