U.K. Journalist and ClimateGate Vanguard: Global Warming Debate as 'Important' as Winning World Wars

If you asked people what the two key events in the 20th century were, most would likely point to World Wars I and II because they transformed civilization. However, can something like the debate over climate change be as equally transformative? 

James Delingpole, author of "Welcome to Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future And It Doesn't Work," spoke at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change on May 17, and insisted he wasn't being hyperbolic when he likened the climate change debate to the two world wars. Delingpole, who coined the term "ClimateGate," alleged the debate of the issue and the potential policies it may lead to would in fact shape the world as those two event had. [7:29]

"[I] think that evil people like me, people who are not afraid of taking the argument ad hominem occasionally and being a bit sort of naughty - I think we have a part to play in this war," Delingpole said. "And I use that word ‘war' quite deliberately because I think what we are fighting now is a war as important in its way as the wars of violence that our fathers and our grandfather fought in the first World War, the second World War, because ultimately what we're fighting for is exactly the same thing. What we are fighting for is liberty."

Delingpole had written for the U.K. Telegraph's blog on Nov. 20, 2009, this was the final nail in the coffin of the manmade or "anthropogenic global warming" debate. However, he had expressed concern the momentum in the debate had waned and said the battle wasn't just scientific, but ideological.

"The whole debate about AGW [anthropogenic global warming] is not just about the battle for scientific truth," he continued. "It is essentially a battle between two diametrically opposed views of the world. If you look at the entire history of the global warming movement from the junk science that was Rachel Carson's ‘Silent Spring' that killed millions of people by banning the drug that dealt with malaria and mosquitoes."

He said the global warming alarmist crowd was anti-capitalism and generally more anti-humanity, hence the obsession with Malthusian theory and mankind's role on the planet.

"You look at the entire history of the global warming movement and what you realize time and again - it is the work of not of scientists pursuing truth but of activists who have a very particular view of the world," Delingpole said. "That view is essentially a view of the world which hates humanity, which sees mankind as a blot on the landscape. They are obsessed with the idea of overpopulation. They are also very much against capitalism in any form. They talk about the limits to growth."

For evidence of this hypothesis, Delingpole offered the alarmists' view of what solutions are appropriate, through big government and the doubt in man's ability to innovate. [9:55]

"So they hate people, they hate the western economy," Delingpole said. "And that believe resources are scarce. We're going to run out very soon and we must do something about it and the only way to deal with it is not as we've dealt with them in the past by inventing new technologies but by big government stepping in and telling us what to do and controlling our lives."