Consensus cost

I was shocked to hear that an unnamed RIBA member had suggested she should have the word “bitch” tattooed on her forehead, simply for posing the question “is global warming hot air?”

Such an unwarranted insult is unacceptable in civilised debate, particularly when coming from a member of a professional body such as the RIBA. It seems as if the debate surrounding global warming has sunk to the level of a vicious barroom brawl.

Reading the Spectator article brought to mind that, during the medieval era, the established church imposed its will using torture and burnings to force a common belief on those considered to be heretics; and that Galileo was denounced to the Roman Inquisition for publicly expressing heliocentric views.

Nowadays scientists, or anyone else who questions the “consensus” view, are treated to a stream of abusive ad hominem attacks, as Amanda Baillieu has just found out. The recent controversy surrounding leaked emails from the CRU at University of East Anglia seems likely to inflame this verbal conflict in the run up to the UN Copenhagen climate conference, and beyond.

While accepting that climate is changing I am far from convinced that it is solely the result of man-made CO2 emissions. Most of the media, including the supposedly impartial BBC, and career politicians of all persuasions, whose grasp of science is at best limited, uphold the “consensus” view and refuse to countenance any dissent. It is therefore a brave but welcome move by BD’s editor to ask such a pertinent question at a time when those who disagree with climate change orthodoxy are demonised, derided as a “flat earthers”, or simply viewed with derision and incredulity.

What none of the letters and responses in subsequent issues of BD appeared to recognise were the economic implications of embarking on such a massive programme of reducing C02 emissions over the next 50 years.

In late 2008 MPs debated the Climate Change Bill, which could potentially prove to be one of the most costly pieces of legislation ever put before Parliament. A few months earlier, the Times reported on a conference of the International Energy Agency in Japan, at which it was announced that the human race would have to spend around $45 trillion, equivalent to more than two thirds of the entire world’s current economic output, in order to halve C02 emissions by 2050.

More recently, a climate economist associated with the IPCC estimated that imposing high taxes to stabilise CO2 levels could potentially reduce global economic output by 13%. At the same time global energy needs are expected to double by 2050 for which there is no clear policy nor programme of implementation, apart from vague government plans to install forests of wind turbines around the country which will fail to produce power when wind speeds are low. Coming on the back of the world’s worst recession in 80 years, how do architects imagine they will survive when confronted with such a potentially significant reduction in global economic output for the foreseeable future?

Anyone wanting to become acquainted with the economic repercussions of counteracting climate change should read Nigel Lawson’s book An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming.

David Lewis, Hailsham, East Sussex