Do statistics cause global warming?

Just as Sir Muir Russell’s inquiry has exonerated scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and the climate science community starts to rebuild its public image, new research released today threatens to reignite the debate surrounding climate change data.

Nigel Lawson’s thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, has announced the conclusion of what Lord Lawson terms “a long-range” study. “

After looking at all the evidence,” he told a press conference this morning, “and examining all the facts, one thing is clear: it is the gratuitous and over-indulgent use of statistics by climate change scientists that is largely responsible for the global rise in temperature.”

Speaking on BBC2’s Newsnight programme, Lawson said, “Not only are these scientists smudging the facts, the way they are smudging the facts has a worse effect than the facts they are trying to smudge. Our study shows, beyond any reasonable doubt, that statistics give off a weird, intense heat. Just try sticking a pie chart next to a Calippo overnight – go on, try it. You come down next morning – bingo and whoopsy – Calippo’s gone.”

When asked how then the Global Warming Policy Foundation was going to prepare and present their data, he replied, “Anecdote. Word of mouth. And a brave new type of bar graph we have developed, devoid of numbers, thereby radically diminishing the poignancy of its statistical emissions.”