Will reduced solar activity counteract global warming in the coming decades? That is what outgoing German electric utility executive Fritz Vahrenholt claims in a new book. In an interview with SPIEGEL, he argues that the official United Nations forecasts on the severity of climate change are overstated and supported by weak science.
…the fearmongering is also beginning to take effect. When I was in a restaurant recently, I overheard a woman at the next table telling her children that it’s wrong to eat an Argentine steak — because of the climate. That’s when I ask myself: How could we have come to this point?…
Der Spiegel
2/6/2012
The articulate utility executive is nervous at the beginning of the conversation. He is groping for words — not a common occurrence for the practiced provocateur. After all, Fritz Vahrenholt, 62, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, has been a rebel throughout his life. “Perhaps it’s just part of my generation,” he says.
He is typical of someone who came of age during the student protest movement of the late 1960s, and who fought against the chemical industry’s toxic manufacturing plants in the 1970s. His party, Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), chose him as environment senator in the city-state of Hamburg, where he incurred the wrath of the environmental lobby by building a waste incineration plant, earning him the nickname “Feuerfritze” (Fire Fritz). He worked in industry after that, first for oil multinational Shell and then for wind turbine maker RePower, which he helped develop. Now, as the outgoing CEO of the renewable energy group RWE Innogy, he is about to embark on his next major battle. “I’m going to make enemies in all camps,” he says.
He wants to break a taboo. “The climate catastrophe is not occurring,” he writes in his book “Die Kalte Sonne” (The Cold Sun), published by Hoffmann and Campe, which will be in bookstores next week…
The article, with many graphics and photos, continues at Der Spiegel.
Related: The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows. Meltwater from Asia’s peaks is much less then previously estimated, but lead scientist says the loss of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern
Also, Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again). Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century…
A painting, dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius depicts one of many frost fairs on the River Thames during the mini ice age
