UKIP: The Climate Deniers

Farage - The UKIP leader....

Last week the UK Independence Party (UKIP) made big gains in the British local elections.

Non-Brits can be forgiven for saying "who?" because they aren't one of the 3 major parties most may have heard of.

UKIP are a right-wing party founded on the principle that they want Britain out of the European Union (EU). They are also anti-immigration, anti-gay marriage, and climate deniers. You know the sort.

The main reason they did so well was not because the British are turning into closet racists (at least, I hope not) but it's mid-term for an unpopular government and UKIP have become the home for protest votes this year. Of course, UKIP's leader, Nigel Farage, is trying to make out it's a sea-change in UK politics. We shall see.

One of the many disturbing ideas they have is that climate change is insignificant and nothing to do with us humans. No doubt that idea was encouraged by UKIP's scottish leader, Christopher Monckton, a notorious climate denier.

Not only have they got the facts about climate change wrong, they can't even get the facts about the cost to consumers of the UK's attempts to cut carbon emissions. They claim that 12% of our energy bills are down to these attempts, when the actual figure is 2%. I could quote you a litany of other mis-informed statistics they come up with but I'll leave it up to this and this article. If UKIP can't even get such basic facts straight, they're not fit for politics.

I heard one of Farage's tirades just after the results of the election came out. He said that he would fight against "wind turbines marching across this green and pleasant land". No doubt trying to invoke images of an idyllic british countryside being swamped with turbines. But I bet he's all for the coalition government's stealthy dismantling of planning laws in this country to allow developments like housing estates, roads, industrial estates, and factories to be more easily built on that exact same "green and pleasant land".

UKIP are opportunists of the worst kind and I hope the British public come to realise that before it's too late.