Douglas Carswell

Articles and resources
Doglas Carswell is a British Conservative MP. He is currently the member for Clacton, previously he was the member for Harwich.

Disputes the Greenhouse Efect
Carswell is happy to be associated with climate skepticism although as a practicing politician he chooses his words carefully. He presents a contrarian view of climate change when he writes "Just because the climate has changed at the same time that there has been industrialisation, does that mean one caused the other? " He rejects the consensus on climate change describing it as "lunatic". Carswell is a big fan of Ian Plimer's book Heaven and Earth and in an interview with Leo Hickman of the Guardian cites it as persuading him that Climate Change is flawed.

Carswell is critical of the IPCC writing "This climate change body is involved in actually making public policy", a gross distortion.

Carswell, goes so far as to dispute the Greenhouse Effect of CO2 trapping heat which has been in the scientific literature for 150 years. He writes bizarrely "I did believe human CO2 emissions were responsible for global warming. It's just that the facts seem to have changed.  And so I've changed my mind. " Unfortunately he does not cite how or why the scientific fact of CO2 trapping heat could have changed.

Carswell's position (in the opinion of this writer) presents great scope for ridicule, he writes "Perhaps it's not climate change we should worry about, but the folly of our response to it. Once again, we presume ourselves to be at the centre of everything - rather than walk-on cameo players in the natural world."

Expenses
In 2007/8 Carswell charged £23 000 for the maintenance of his second home to the UK taxpayer. This includes £1600 for sofas, £655 for a "Maximus" love seat and a further £700 for bedding and household extras. "We need to clean up Westminster politics and take action to restore faith in our political system" he said in the run up to the 2005 election.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Daniel Hannan - coauthor

External resources
Guardian Voting Record http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/constituency/1274/sedgefield Voting record (from PublicWhip) http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/douglas_carswell/clacton#votingrecord

External articles
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