Gordon Brown calls climate change deniers “flat-earthers”

Recently Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spoke out against climate change deniers labeling them as anti-science “flat-earthers” who are spreading outdated information:

“Mr Brown last night insisted that the science on climate change in settled, and accused those who question the consensus of being outdated.

He said: “With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics. We know the science. We know what we must do.””

Ed Miliband, Brown’s climate secretary, also recently joined in defending the climate science from the deniers “siren voices“:

“We know there’s a physical effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leading to higher temperatures, that’s a question of physics; we know CO2 concentrations are at their highest for 6,000 years; we know there are observed increases in temperatures; and we know there are observed effects that point to the existence of human-made climate change. That’s what the vast majority of scientists tell us.”

And Brown and Miliband do have the climate science on their side. Last month a new climate report was released by the Met Office in the UK making the link between climate change and human activity even stronger:

“It says the evidence is stronger now than when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change carried out its last assessment in 2007. The analysis, published in the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Journal, has assessed 110 research papers on the subject.

It says the Earth is changing rapidly, probably because of greenhouse gases.”

So the science is clear. And our politicians seems to know how to talk about it. It’s just too bad then that inequality between rich and poor nations helps fuel a climate of mistrust and sabotages efforts to secure a climate deal.

Simon Leufstedt is the editor of Green Blog. Simon has previously studied Global Environmental Justice and is currently studying Human Ecology and Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. Simon is also blogging over at the Swedish 350 website and working with the Swedish TckTckTck organisation. You can follow Simon on Twitter and on Google+.
View all posts by Simon Leufstedt →