Bravo, Keith Barton

Birmingham councillor dismisses climate change doom as fantasy - Birmingham Post

Predictions that climate change will lead to loss of life in Birmingham and put scores of firms out of businesses if more is not done to tackle global warming have been dismissed by a leading Tory city councillor as about as likely as Aston Villa winning the Premier League.

Keith Barton rubbished dire forecasts by the council’s head of sustainability and insisted that estimates of huge economic, environmental and social damage from changing weather patterns resembled something that National Lottery clairvoyant Mystic Meg might have written.

Coun Barton (Con Longbridge) dismissed a scrutiny committee report by sustainability director Sandy Taylor, which warned that Birmingham has until 2011 to respond more effectively if threats posed by global warming are to be reversed.

He said: “Aston Villa could win the championship, but sadly they probably won’t.

“Let’s have some facts here, not visions and dreams. We could have got Mystic Meg to have written this.”