Green MP Caroline Lucas Tries to Keep Science Out of Climate Science

Green MP Caroline Lucas has written to Labour leader Ed Miliband to protest that one of his MPs, Graham Stringer, has been telling the truth about climate change.

The letter, an apparent attempt to get Stringer sacked from his position on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, begins:

I’m writing with regard to yesterday’s report from the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee on climate science and the 5th assessment report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

I’m sure that we will both welcome the Committee’s unambiguous endorsement of the integrity of the science and the compelling case for urgent action to cut carbon emissions and secure a global climate deal.

However, in light of your criticism of the Prime Minister for having climate deniers in his Cabinet, and your comments about the harm caused to our country by delay and dither on climate change, it was especially disappointing to see Graham Stringer, a senior Labour MP, join forces with Conservative MP Peter Lilley in an attempt to undermine the findings.

As Caroline Lucas should know – she’s an English Literature graduate – this is a wonderful example of irony. Of the 11 MPs on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, only two disagreed with its recent whitewash conclusion that “there is no reason to doubt the credibility of the science or the integrity of the scientists” in the latest IPCC report.

How strange that the two MPs who dissented – Peter Lilley and Graham Stringer – should be the only ones on the committee with science degrees.