Lewis Page
Credentials
- Cambridge University (Engineering degree 1988-91, St John’s College) Islington Green Comprehensive.
- Royal Navy Officer 1993 – 2004.1“About Lewis Page,” lewispage.blogspot.ca, November 12, 2006.
Background
Lewis Page served as an officer in the Royal Navy from 1993 to 2004, and is now an author and authority on military matters. His books include Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs: Waste and Blundering in the Military which was published in 2006. He is a regular contributor to The Register and Prospect magazine. In 2007, Page started a full-time staff position at The Register, and in 2011 he became the editor and the man “running the show.” Page has published a large number of articles promoting science that is skeptical of climate change.2Tuesday, December 13, 2011 post at http://lewispage.blogspot.ca/ 3“Lewis Page,” The Guardian. Accessed March 17, 2013.
Stance on Climate Change
Based on a large number of articles published by Lewis Page in The Register, Page has promoted a range of views regarding climate change including that:
- Global warming may actually be caused by the sun.
- Global warming is part of a natural cycle.
- Reducing soot is more important than curbing CO2 emissions.
- Global warming may be beneficial.
- Sea ice is not melting.
- If sea ice is melting, it may absorb CO2, which would be a good thing.
- Geo-engineering is an easier method of curbing global warming than reducing emissions.
- We need to fight an impending ice age by releasing as much CO2 into the atmosphere as possible
Key Quotes
“With the recent gradual scientific acceptance – even among scientists who have spent their whole lives studying the subject – that global warming is simply much less significant than had been thought, the chance of anyone caring enough to take action is now even lower.”4Lewis Page. “Climate shocker: Carry on as we are until 2050, planet will be FINE,” The Register, January 25, 2013.
“A vote for that politician [a climate change skeptic] is a vote against this sort of vicious price rise, this sort of stealth tax targeted on ordinary folk who find their energy bills a significant cost – the sort of hit that most of us will find pretty painful, given the current economic climate.”5“EDF: We’ll raise bills 11% – but only 2% is due to energy costs!”, The Register, October 26, 2012.
“It would seem that this is highly unlikely [that the Antarctic ice sheet might melt due to global warming] given current and near-future levels of atmospheric CO2: at current rates of increase it will take a century at least to reach 600 ppm, the level at which the ice sheet formed itself, and higher levels would be needed to actually start it melting.”6“Antarctic ice formed at CO2 levels much higher than today’s,” The Register, December 2, 2011.
“All the carbon-spewing machinery the human race now possesses – powerplants, transportation, boilers, the lot – can be kept running for its entire designed life without any significant ill effects on the planetary ecosystem […]”7“All CO2-spewing kit now in existence is OK for the planet,” The Register, September 10, 2010.
Key Deeds
January 25, 2013
Writing for The Register, Lewis Page promotes a study by Norwegian researchers that indicates “humanity’s carbon emissions produce far less global warming than had been thought: so much so that there is no danger of producing warming beyond the IPCC upper safe limit of 2°C for many decades.”
The title of Page’s article (“Climate shocker: Carry on as we are until 2050, planet will be FINE”) suggests that climate change action is unnecessary.
According to Page, while “the argument will still be made that carbon emissions should be reined in sooner or later, […] global warming is simply much less significant than had been thought.” 8Lewis Page. “Climate shocker: Carry on as we are until 2050, planet will be FINE,” The Register, January 25, 2013.
January 24, 2013
In an article for The Register, Lewis Page promotes research that suggests the Greenland ice sheet will not melt. According to Page, “the models are evidently wrong and another IPCC doom warning has been consigned to the dustbin of history.”9“Greenland ice SIMPLY WOULD NOT MELT in baking +8°C era 120k years ago: Scratch off yet another IPCC doom warning,” The Register, January 24, 2013.
March 11, 2013
Published an article for The Register suggesting that “at the time of the Pharaohs the world’s climate was significantly hotter than it now is for thousands of years.”10Lewis Page. “Era of the Pharaohs: Climate was HOTTER THAN NOW, without CO2,” The Register, March 11, 2013.
January 16, 2013
In an article for The Register, Page claims that global warming is “stalled” and that “global warming has failed to occur for approximately the fourteenth year running.”11“Climate watch: 2012 figures confirm global warming still stalled,” The Register, January 16, 2013.
November 29, 2012
Page published an article suggesting that “planetary warming, which effectively stalled around 1998, has yet to resume at the levels seen in the 1980s and early 1990s.”12“Global warming still stalled since 1998, WMO Doha figures show,” The Register, November 29, 2012.
November 28, 2012
In an article in The Register, Page suggests that “one of the main factors predicted to drive rising sea levels in future has been seriously overestimated.”13“New science upsets calculations on sea level rise, climate change,” The Register, November 28, 2012.
November 17, 2012
Lewis Page suggests that “there has in fact been no measurable increase in droughts over the past 60 years.”14“Climate NON-change: No increase in droughts since 1950, say boffins,” The Register, November 17, 2012.
November 9, 2012
Lewis Page promoted a study suggesting that carbon emissions may save humanity from an ice age: “spreading peatlands are inexorably driving planet Earth into its next ice age, and the only thing holding back catastrophe is humanity’s hotly debated atmospheric carbon emissions.”15“Swedish boffins: An ICE AGE is coming, only CO2 can save us,” The Register, November 9, 2012.
October 26, 2012
Lewis Page blames renewable energy as the cause for energy price hikes, and actively encourages voters to support climate change skeptics:
“A vote for that politician [a climate change skeptic] is a vote against this sort of vicious price rise, this sort of stealth tax targeted on ordinary folk who find their energy bills a significant cost – the sort of hit that most of us will find pretty painful, given the current economic climate.”16“EDF: We’ll raise bills 11% – but only 2% is due to energy costs!”, The Register, October 26, 2012.
October 3, 2012
According to Lewis Page’s article in The Register, “there is little to fear from rising sea levels driven by global warming.” 17“New science: SEAS WILL RISE due to CO2 … but not for centuries,” The Register, October 3, 2012.
August 29, 2012
Lewis Page writes in The Register about research that “might indicate an upcoming ‘mini Ice Age’” due to a “statistical link between periods of low solar activity and very cold winters in Europe.”18“Low sunspot activity linked to rivers freezing: Mini Ice Age on way?”, The Register, August 29, 2012.
August 21, 2012
Page suggests that “geo engineering” could be “hugely less costly and traumatic for humanity than the efforts required to seriously cut carbon emissions – and thus, that geo-engineering might be politically feasible, which so far doesn’t seem to be the case for global carbon cuts.”19“Cloud engineering could SAVE HUMANITY, suggests boffin,” The Register, August 21, 2012.
June 2012
Page published a number of articles in The Register (here, and here) where he promotes the Medieval Warm Period theory which suggests that because climate was warmer in the past that man-made CO2 emissions will have little influence. See this theory debunked at Skeptical Science. Page also published an article in March 2012 where he suggests that the warm period in “medieval times was not limited to Europe, or the northern hemisphere: it reached all the way to Antarctica.”
January 30, 2012
Lewis Page promoted a widely-debunked letter that first appeared in the Wall Street Journal suggesting there is “No Need to Panic About Global Warming.” The signatories to the letter, which Page describes as “eminent scientists and engineers,” have all been found to have either (or both) significant connections to the oil and gas industry or no scientific experience related to climate change.20Peter Sinclair. “The Wall Street 16 – Hapless Happer Leads Clueless Geriatrics in WSJ Fiasco,” Climate Denial Crock of the Week, January 31, 2012. 21“SpaceShipOne man, Nobel boffins: DON’T PANIC on global warming,” The Register, January 30, 2012.
November 12, 2010
According to Lewis Page’s interpretation of the science, “Global warming is actually good for rainforests” and that “even if temperatures do climb as many forecasters predict, the consequences may not be disastrous after all.”22“Global warming is actually good for rainforests, say boffins,” The Register, November 12, 2010.
October 7, 2010
Lewis Page suggests that global warming may be caused by the sun, which “downplays the influence of human-driven carbon emissions.”23“Much of recent global warming actually caused by Sun,” The Register, October 7, 2010.
March 3, 2010
Page suggests that global warming may be “normal at this point in [the] glacial cycle.”24“Global warming may be normal at this point in glacial cycle,” The Register, March 3, 2010.
Affiliations
- The Register — Contributor and Editor.25Tuesday, December 13, 2011 post at http://lewispage.blogspot.ca/
- Prospect Magazine — Contributor.
Publications
Lewis Page has published a large number of articles for The Register as well as Prospect magazine. A full list of his publications at The Register is available here.
Other Resources
Resources
- 1“About Lewis Page,” lewispage.blogspot.ca, November 12, 2006.
- 2Tuesday, December 13, 2011 post at http://lewispage.blogspot.ca/
- 3“Lewis Page,” The Guardian. Accessed March 17, 2013.
- 4Lewis Page. “Climate shocker: Carry on as we are until 2050, planet will be FINE,” The Register, January 25, 2013.
- 5“EDF: We’ll raise bills 11% – but only 2% is due to energy costs!”, The Register, October 26, 2012.
- 6“Antarctic ice formed at CO2 levels much higher than today’s,” The Register, December 2, 2011.
- 7“All CO2-spewing kit now in existence is OK for the planet,” The Register, September 10, 2010.
- 8Lewis Page. “Climate shocker: Carry on as we are until 2050, planet will be FINE,” The Register, January 25, 2013.
- 9“Greenland ice SIMPLY WOULD NOT MELT in baking +8°C era 120k years ago: Scratch off yet another IPCC doom warning,” The Register, January 24, 2013.
- 10Lewis Page. “Era of the Pharaohs: Climate was HOTTER THAN NOW, without CO2,” The Register, March 11, 2013.
- 11“Climate watch: 2012 figures confirm global warming still stalled,” The Register, January 16, 2013.
- 12“Global warming still stalled since 1998, WMO Doha figures show,” The Register, November 29, 2012.
- 13“New science upsets calculations on sea level rise, climate change,” The Register, November 28, 2012.
- 14“Climate NON-change: No increase in droughts since 1950, say boffins,” The Register, November 17, 2012.
- 15“Swedish boffins: An ICE AGE is coming, only CO2 can save us,” The Register, November 9, 2012.
- 16“EDF: We’ll raise bills 11% – but only 2% is due to energy costs!”, The Register, October 26, 2012.
- 17“New science: SEAS WILL RISE due to CO2 … but not for centuries,” The Register, October 3, 2012.
- 18“Low sunspot activity linked to rivers freezing: Mini Ice Age on way?”, The Register, August 29, 2012.
- 19“Cloud engineering could SAVE HUMANITY, suggests boffin,” The Register, August 21, 2012.
- 20Peter Sinclair. “The Wall Street 16 – Hapless Happer Leads Clueless Geriatrics in WSJ Fiasco,” Climate Denial Crock of the Week, January 31, 2012.
- 21“SpaceShipOne man, Nobel boffins: DON’T PANIC on global warming,” The Register, January 30, 2012.
- 22“Global warming is actually good for rainforests, say boffins,” The Register, November 12, 2010.
- 23“Much of recent global warming actually caused by Sun,” The Register, October 7, 2010.
- 24“Global warming may be normal at this point in glacial cycle,” The Register, March 3, 2010.
- 25Tuesday, December 13, 2011 post at http://lewispage.blogspot.ca/
