More fraud from alarmist Michael Oppenheimer

One of the authors, Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, said, "The more we learn about the problem, the more severe the risk becomes and the nearer it looms. Cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases promptly is the surest way to reduce the risk, and that's how governments should be responding."

How you pay for tomorrow’s scares, today

Stern has rather a close working relationship with Munich Re. Understandably, Munich Re is rather proud of the fact that its dirty insurance money funds such a high profile environmentalist.

Professor Lord Sir Nick has nothing to be embarrassed about, because nobody - least of all the BBC - seems at all bothered by any such conflict of interests. They are all too busy worrying about who Exxon is funding. Those who shriek the loudest about climate change - whether it’s insurance companies, Stern, the Royal Society, Lord Adair Turner or the Tickell dynasty - often have the most to gain from alarmism.

The insurance premiums we pay are largely based on the historical record - but they also include some measure of the risk of the risk of damage tomorrow. This needs to be rational calculation: if the risk of catastrophic climate change is exaggerated, then we are paying too much.

It seems that the greens have been right all along: an economic tail really does wag the scientific dog.