To Archive List PageOn Tuesday 27th March 07, Macclesfield Council will show "An Uncomfortable Truth", the Al Gore film on climate change, to a private audience of councillors and officials in the council-owned cinema in the Knutsford Civic Centre.
THIS PRIVATE FILM SHOW WITH A BUFFET LUNCH FOR COUNCILLORS AND FRIENDS IS UNLAWFUL

A Statement by Councillor Brendan Murphy

"Nobody denies that the climate is changing. You have only to look out of your window to discover that. And few people would want to pump pollution of any kind into the atmosphere just for the sake of it.

"The real issue is:
   1. How much of the change is man-made?
   2. Can man prevent the change? … and
   3. What measures can be taken that will have a beneficial effect without harming the economic wellbeing of both poverty stricken countries and wealthy countries?

"This is a very controversial propaganda film – produced by a failed American politician, who has no scientific qualification, who is, himself, a polluter par excellence, and who is making an obscene profit out of this mockery of common sense.

"Furthermore, this private showing; with a free lunch to boot funded by Council Tax payers; is unlawful and it will be reported to the District Auditor (aka audit commission). The statutory code of practice on local authority publicity is quite clear – councils should not use public money to fund publicity campaigns designed to persuade the public to hold a particular point of view on a question of policy.

"The New York Times of March 21st described Al Gore as a heartbreak loser turned Oscar boasting Nobel hopeful, globe-trotting multimillionaire wallowing in pop culture eminence."

"Yesterday, he told the US Congress he did not intend to run for President but declined to say he WILL NOT do so.

"He admitted his own house in Tennessee has a carbon footprint twice the American average. He uses a private jet to criss-cross America and each trip discharges more carbon emission that the average American traveller creates in a whole year.

"He recently flew to the UK to trail his money-making road show in this country when he could have delivered the same message via video conferencing.

"And the charge sheet against this quack goes on and on.

"Like me, he is not a scientist. Like him, I have also read around this subject but I have listened also to experts with an opposing view.

"Much is made about the UN's recent IPCC report signed by several hundred scientists which, despite all the spin, has still not been published in FULL. Bear in mind that the majority of scientists who signed that report are either funded by the green lobby or come from small countries like the Maldives, which are desperate for UN funding to reduce the impact of Nature on their lands.

"It is preposterous we should be subjected to a one and a half hour, one-sided diatribe from a quack politician (who did nothing about this when he was Vice President) and then have barely an hour for those with an opposing view to state an alternative argument.

"There is a hotly contested argument about the correlation between the heating of the earth and the emission of carbon, the role of sunspots, the cause and effect of ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream and El Nino.

"I could go on the a very long list of challenges to Gore's story of science fiction

"I was very struck by that tear-jerking iconic photo of a Polar Bear and her cub stranded on an ice floe drifting in the "warming" sea. But then I read that polar bears use ice floes to get from one area to another.

"I read about the decline of the Arctic Bears then I discovered that in Northern Canada there has been a population explosion … nothing to do with climate change. It results from an end to seal culling, which leaves a more abundant food supply for the bears.

"I read that people in low-lying areas want a stop to climate change. But then I read that people in Tibet welcome the warming because their pastures have become more productive and the quality of their lives much improved.

"The Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and the impoverished countries of the Andes have no intention of staying poor for the benefit of Al Gore.

"But the political motivation behind the Climate Change swindle is revealed in the fact that the showing of this film comes a few days after the Chancellor, with all-Party enthusiasm, launched a new era of taxation – green taxes which hit the poor and the middle classes and leave the ruling elite; politicians, captains of industry, officials and others who live off public purse; to carry on with the privileges of travel, warmth and possessions which the rest of us will have to pay for financially and environmentally.

"If we really believe that cars and aircraft make an unacceptable contribution to carbon emissions, then let's be honest. Don't just tax them so that the wealthy can carry on. Ban them! Give the manufacturers, say 20 years, to develop new technologies to end the emissions – otherwise their machines are prohibited.

"It was done with leaded petrol and noisy aircraft and worked. A prohibition may be a draconian measure but, if Al Gore is right, then a total ban on carbon emissions is the only sure way. BUT I DON'T THINK GORE IS RIGHT and so I don't want to go down that road. But then I don't want to be a political hypocrite.

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