Philippe Verdier, a popular weatherman on the France 2 television channel, found himself suddenly unemployed after publishing a book entitled Climate Investigation in which he charges the “climate change industry” is “a war machine whose aim is to keep us in fear.”
According to an article written by James Delingpole at the Breitbart news website, “this went down very badly with his employer, which is funded by the French government and is ideologically committed to promoting the global warming scare narrative."
“I don’t think management liked it, let’s be honest,” said Verdier, who received a letter on Monday telling him not to return to work. “I'm in shock," he stated. "This is a direct extension of what I say in my book, namely that any contrary views must be eliminated."
In a promotional video that has since been removed from YouTube, Verdier said: “Every night I address five million French people to talk to you about the wind, the clouds and the sun. And yet there is something important, very important that I haven’t been able to tell you because it’s neither the time nor the place to do so."
He also indicated:
We are hostages to the planetary scandal of global warming -- a war-machine designed to keep us afraid. At its heart, it’s a science manipulated and politicized, of conflict of interest, of corruption, of sexual scandal, then the politics, which serves nothing but their image and their thirst for power.
In addition, he wrote an open letter to French president Francois Hollande attacking upcoming climate talks.
“In two months, France welcomes the COP21, the conference of nations united for the climate,” the weatherman noted. “Your political strategy team has told you that it will all come to nothing, like the 20 before it. Then why continue to pretend to be saving the planet?”
“You, president of the Republic,” Verdier wrote that “you cannot support the ultra-politicized scientists of ... the corporate lobbyists, the NGO [Non-Governmental Organizations], environmental groups, nor the self-proclaimed apostles of the new religion of climate.”
According to the weatherman, top climate scientists -- who often rely on state funding -- have been “manipulated and politicized.” Verdier charges that top climate scientists, who often rely on state funding, have been “manipulated and politicized."
The 330-page book also contains a chapter on the “positive results” of climate change in France, one of the countries predicted to be the least affected by rising temperatures.
“What’s shameful is this pressure placed on us to say that if we don’t hurry, it’ll be the apocalypse,” he added, saying that “climate diplomacy” means leaders “are seeking to force changes to sit their own political timetables.”
Speaking of timing, the book's release comes at a critical time since the nation's capital city is due to host a critical United Nations climate change conference in December.
According to Verdier, top climate scientists, who often rely on state funding, have been “manipulated and politicized.”
He specifically challenges the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, saying the organization uses “blatantly erased” data that went against their overall conclusions and casts doubt on the accuracy of their climate models.
The IPCC has said that temperatures could rise by up to 4.8°C if no action is taken to reduce carbon emissions.
However, France isn't the only nation dealing with a controversy over climate change. In the United Kingdom, judges are proposing making it illegal to utter any statement criticizing global warming.
One of the major proponents of the potential legislation is Philippe Sands, a professor of law at University College, London.
Although his supporters, Sands said, would agree that the scientific evidence for man-made climate change was "overwhelming," there were still "scientifically qualified, knowledgeable and influential individuals" continuing to deny "the warming of the atmosphere, the melting of the ice and the rising of the seas and that this is all due to our emissions of CO2.”
“The world’s courts, led by the International Court of Justice,” Sands asserted, could play a vital role "in finally scotching these claims.”
"The most important thing the courts could do," he said, was to hold a top-level "finding of fact" to settle these "scientific disputes" once and for all so that it could then be made illegal for any government, corporation (or presumably individual scientist) ever to question the agreed "science" again.
Furthermore, he went on, once "the scientific evidence" thus has the force of binding international law, it could be used to compel all governments to make "the emissions reductions that are needed," including the phasing out of fossil fuels, to halt global warming in its tracks.
Just when it seemed that "global warming" had finally fallen off the radar, along come more members of the "Church of Climate Change" to increase the heat on people who disagree with their extreme policies.
