MP still avoids tough questions on global warming

It’s now been almost six months since Greg Knight MP published a newsletter containing a thoroughly misleading article about global warming . Given the continuing debate over renewable energy in East Yorkshire I wrote to him immediately to point out the errors in the article and ask for a correction.

Weeks passed without reply and a follow up email to his office eventually prompted a letter from his researcher, Matthew Thomas, in July. This response completely ignored the refutation by the source the newsletter itself used. I replied to that letter on the 23rd July demanding a correction, with a follow up email on the 6th Sept, and still there has been no word from his office.

I also note that I’ve been removed from the mailing list for the constituency newsletter, as was another person who pulled up Greg Knight on this issue.

Why is Greg Knight so happy to spread lies about climate change and ignore the people he works for when they hold him to account?

Why is Greg Knight happy to employ a Parliamentary researcher who completely fails to understand and engage counter arguments?

 

The truth about Greg Knight…

“It could well be that the truth has finally caught up with them.”

That was a barb from Greg Knight this week after two newspapers corrected their reporting on the sitting hours of MPs.

It’s a shame the truth about climate change hasn’t caught up with Mr Knight, who is yet to apologise for publishing misleading ‘analysis’ of a Met Office report in his April newsletter.

Greg Knight’s premium rate phone number

Our MP, Greg Knight, not one for answering emails promptly, if at all, appears not to appreciate phone calls from his constituents, if his use of a premium rate phone number is anything to go by.

After hearing nothing in three months from our most honourable representative I thought I’d give his office a ring. According to his website though, the telephone number to contact him on as a constituent is an o845 number. While such numbers are free to call from a BT landline, they charge a premium rate from mobiles.

Figures from Ofcom in the last quarter of 2011 show that 13% of people in the UK live in a home that has a mobile phone but no landline phone. I have a landline at home but during the day am at work, where I can’t use the office phone for such matters.

Should I, or anyone else, really have to fork out for the ‘privilege’ of contacting my representative in Parliament? It hardly seems consistent with the vague concept of democracy parliament supposedly entails.

Greg Knight misleads on global warming

The latest e-newsletter from Greg Knight has claimed the planet is no longer warming and may even be heading for a mini-ice age in what is a shameful abuse of climate science and statistics.

The newsletter, sent by his senior parliamentary researcher, Matthew Thomas, contains the following story:

The supposed consensus on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing that our planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures even suggest that we could be heading for a mini iceage to rival the 70 year temperature drop that saw ‘frost fairs’ held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week, rather quietly, and without fanfare by the Met Office.  It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Having previously dismissed the role that our sun plays in climate changes, some scientists are now having second thoughts, but it will probably take ten or more years from now before we will be able to determine for certain whether the warming that took place late in the 20th Century was caused by manmade CO² emissions or merely by natural variability.

This story has been lifted near verbatim from an article written by the Daily Mail’s David Rose who, in January, claimed that the Met Office’s latest data showed there had been no warming for 15 years. The Met Office responded:

This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.

They go on to include the full response they provided Mr Rose. One key part, which he ignored, said:

[…] what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850.

As the Skeptical Science website shows, David Rose was selective in his use of data as well as quotes from the Met Office, a common tactic among people who claim global warming is not caused by humankind.

Similarly, the second claim, that we are heading towards an ice age, is also false. The Mail article suggests this will be caused by weakening solar activity but as the Met Office said:

This research shows that the most likely change in the Sun’s output will not have a big impact on global temperatures or do much to slow the warming we expect from greenhouse gases.

The suggestion that global warming is caused by the sun rather than human industrial activity, is one that holds no water. As Skeptical Science – a really handy website – points out, the trend for solar activity over the 20th century has been a slight cooling.

Note also that Mr Knight makes no explicit references or links to the data or the “some scientists [who] are now having second thoughts”. A person with the power to participate in lawmaking should at the very least provide evidence for such bold claims as those contained in his newsletter*.

This also links to his use of “supposed consensus”; actually a David Rose line. Climate skeptics like to talk down the consensus among scientists studying climate change and global warming. In actual fact, “around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position.” (source: includes an explanation of how consensus emerges)

Furthermore, the claim that it will take ten years or more to know for certain what caused (like it’s stopped) global warming  sits nicely with Greg Knight’s apparent views on renewable technologies. The MP has been vocal in his opposition to proposed wind turbines in East Yorkshire; if he can undermine, in the eyes of his constituents, the science that supports our need for them then his opposition appears expedient.

And finally, for a bonus laugh, there is the use of this Time magazine cover to illustrate the story. This cover is from… 1977. As if thirty five subsequent years of science don’t matter.

I have written to Mr Knight to ask for an apology and correction in his next newsletter and, further, that he engage in the grave issue of climate change with the scientific rigour it sorely needs.
*Not that it’s a problem in this case as Mr Knight (or whichever of his staff wrote the newsletter) was lax enough to simply copy text from the Mail article, making it easy to source the information.

Greg Knight forcing through NHS privatisation

Greg Knight last week voted with his Coalition bosses against releasing the risk assessment for the controversial Health and Social Care Bill

The proposed changes will essentially open up the NHS to full-blooded privatisation and put at risk the principle of free health care.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has so far refused to publish the risk assessment in open defiance of two freedom of information requests and despite regional risk registers flagging up serious concerns, including the likely failure to deliver statutory objectives.

Wednesday’s vote is typical of the government’s arrogant and unmandated approach to forcing through changes to the National Health Service.

The bill is opposed by the majority of doctors and nurses and has prompted an e-petition of over 150,000 signatures.

While Mr Knight toes the line in Westminster he is much more eager to please crowds at home by showing his support for Bridlington Hospital, which has suffered cuts to services over the past decade.

A year ago Andrew Lansley visited the hospital at Mr Knight’s invitation and told staff and patients it had a future. If this bill gets through Parliament the same can’t be said for the wider NHS.

Lest we forget, you simply can’t trust the Tories on the National Health Service.

Greg Knight wants to cut benefits for cancer patients

Our Right Honourable MP, Greg Knight, earlier this month voted to bind cancer patients to the time limit for employment support allowance.

This means that people with cancer who have been out of work for twelve months will now be means tested for this particular benefit irrespective of whether they are fit to work. Even if their partner earns as little as £150 per week, the ESA will be removed.

MacMillan Cancer Support estimate that “thousands of cancer patients – still recovering from their illness and therefore too sick to work – will see their income drop by up to £94 a week from April.”

Mr Knight’s cruel decision came in a day of votes to overturn Lords’ amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill, in which the government also enacted ‘financial privilege’ to prevent the Lords from responding to the defeat.

The government also defeated Lords’ amendments to allow young disabled children who have never worked to continue claiming contributory benefits and not charging single parents to use the Child Support Agency.

Child poverty in Bridlington – is Greg Knight helping?

Earlier this month the End Child Poverty group revealed the extent of child poverty across the country in 2011. In Bridlington the numbers are dire.

Children are defined as living in poverty “if they live in families in receipt of out of work benefits or in receipt of in-work tax credits where their reported income is less than 60% of median income.”

In Bridlington South, the number of children living in poverty is estimated at 31%. In Bridlington Central and Old Town it’s 29% and, in Bridlington North, 12%. In comparison, the figure for the whole of England is 20.9%.

These alarming figures beg the question: how can our MP, Greg Knight, be working in the interests of his constituents when he continues to support the savage economic and social policies of his Tory colleagues?

Since the current government took office, Mr Knight has:

• Voted to increase VAT, a tax move which hits people with low incomes the hardest.
• Voted for cuts which are causing huge job losses in the public sector.
• Voted to remove financial help for the poorest school students.
• Voted against small taxes on the big banks responsible for our financial hardship.
• Voted against taxing bonuses to fund youth jobs at a time of high youth unemployment.

The Coalition pledged to end child poverty, but according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Joseph Rowntree Foundation, their policies are forecast to throw an extra 200,000 children into relative poverty by 2015.

Furthermore, the above figures examine poverty before housing costs are included. A cap on housing benefit coincides with social rents for new tenants rising to 80% of market rates while private rents are soaring. This places further strain on poor families’ financial resources.

One way out of poverty is employment, but jobs simply don’t exist. The private sector hasn’t filled the gap caused by cuts to the public sector and attacks on the welfare safety net are worsening the situation. Austerity is not working.

Mr Knight is a staunch Conservative who rarely rebels against his party, a party who are making ordinary people suffer to pay for the bankers’ folly. Therefore, why exactly do we support his presence in Parliament?

Greg Knight wants to make us happy

My latest email notification from They Work For You is a gem. Yesterday, Greg Knight asked:

“May we have a debate on happiness? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Is the Leader of the House aware that from this weekend onwards, for several months, many millions of people will be less happy than they could be as Britain is plunged into darkness by early afternoon after we have put our clocks back? If we cannot have a debate, may we have action in future to end this unnecessary and depressing ritual?”

Seasonal Affective Disorder affects many people and the gloom from never seeing daylight outside work can dent even the happiest of workers. This particular comment though was in reference to moving the clocks forward an hour permanently, in part to reduce carbon emissions, which to his credit, Greg Knight supports.

However, to use happiness as an inroad to this topic while his Tory government push through policy after policy causing misery across the country – particularly through job losses and youth unemployment – is greatly incongruous. Delve even deeper and you will see how funding for mental health services are or could be affected.

Mr Knight may well genuinely want to help his constituents when it comes to happiness, but in doing so shouldn’t he stand up for us when our wellbeing comes under attack from other quarters?

David Hockney speaks out against turbines

The nimbies are at it again, quelle surprise.

In a recent Hull Daily Mail article campaigners claimed that East Yorkshire is considered a soft touch for wind turbines. I’m not sure how this stacks up as the council have merely been on the receiving end of applications; few (none?) of the recent influx have been granted permission yet and the opposition voices seem to far outweigh supporters. How can you be a soft touch for simply being inundated with applications?

Greg Knight has also waded into the debate, with his objections, going by what has been printed in the Free Press, being set in the “what about teh views” camp. “When wind farms are erected, our countryside views are destroyed,” he says. He also references a Renewable Energy Foundation paper* picking up on intermittency, as though onshore wind will be the exclusive form of electricity production.

Now David Hockney has stuck his oar in, calling wind turbines ugly and stating that “nobody talks about beauty and ugliness anymore”. He also says that turbines are unnatural. Well, so are the hedgerows and houses in his paintings.

However, his piece de resistance is the plea for more poetry: “We don’t have a shortage of energy, we just need to harnass it. We have a shortage of poetry, maybe people should talk about that.”

I’m not sure what he means by shortage of energy, I’m not sure that’s the issue here; it’s how that energy is being harnassed which, as it happens, wind turbines do a better job of by virtue of being greener. And, strangely, wind turbines do harnass our abundant natural energy. But as for the poetry line, you have to laugh. Poetry is not going to cure our climate change woes so let’s cut the wanky soundbites.

Meanwhile, more letters have poured into the Free Press, with the Paper Clip columnist even taking up the issue. All the while there has been a complete failure to engage with the issue I’ve raised three times in letters to the paper: that if we’re to maintain our current lifestyles we need a mix of energy types, including onshore wind. If we don’t want wind then we should probably think about changing our lifestyles. Of course, this doesn’t bear thinking about, which is why nobody yet has put any real thought into the wider issues surrounding the turbines.

 

*I need to come back to this paper. It isn’t named but I have a feeling I’ve looked at it before and there were a number of questions raised over it by others, which haven’t been acknowledged in the Free Press.

Greg Knight and Met Office privatisation

Why does Greg Knight keep asking questions regarding the funding and possible privatisation of the Met Office?

Earlier this week, Mr Knight requested that the defence secretary be asked: “what the cost to the public purse was of the Met Office in the last 12 months for which figures are available; and how many people the Met Office employed (a) on the most recent date for which figures are available and (b) 10 years prior to that date.”

This follows similar questions over recent years asking, variously, about the accuracy of forecasting, the cost and even whether staff should receive bonuses dependent on accuracy (if only he would ask the same of bankers’ bonuses!).

There have been murmurs of privatisation from the Tories over this time, but so far nothing has come of it. Greg Knight also asked about it in January of this year, to which Andrew Robathan said he’d commissioned a review, which would consider privatisation, to be published in the spring. Unfortunately I can’t find that review. I don’t think it’s been published yet – there hasn’t been anything in the news about it – so it’s nice to see Knight pestering about the privatisation of one of our great institutions.

As it happens, the Met Office made a dividend for the MoD of just over £8 million in the twelve months referred to by Greg Knight. As Tom Watson MP also points out, it could actually cost the MoD if they have to purchase weather data from a private supplier.

By Jamie Potter