More like this
Global warming ‘bullshit’, says Ryanair boss O’Leary
‘Fucking ecowarriors and the media’ only say ‘climate change’ because ‘global warming’ has been disproved, O'Leary claims
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has waded into the debate on climate change, saying he believes global warming is "bullshit". While his position is unsurprising coming from the boss of a budget airline company facing green taxes such as a huge increase in air passenger duty in November, his pronouncements on the subject make for entertaining reading.
Speaking to the Independent, O'Leary doesn't deny that the earth's climate has changed, but he does suggest (wrongly) that global temperatures haven't risen in the past 12 years and that "fucking ecowarriors and the media" have therefore changed the language they use from 'global warming' to 'climate change'.
But it is when he talks about the history of science that O'Leary really finds his stride:
"The scientific community has nearly always been wrong in history anyway. In the Middle Ages, they were going to excommunicate Galileo because the entire scientific community said the Earth was flat. I mean, it is absolutely bizarre that the people who can't tell us what the fucking weather is next Tuesday can predict with absolute precision what the fucking global temperatures will be in 100 years' time. It's horseshit."
He does have a point about computer modelling, but in fairness, scientists are making considerable strides in perfecting their collection of climate data. A team of Dutch and American scientists announced only this week that the Greenland ice cap was melting at half the rate previously thought. The new estimate was made possible by more accurate satellite data. Another team, meanwhile, has for the first time accurately measured the amount of carbon stored in Amazonian rainforests (it was less than previously thought).
These advances have come thanks to a surge in funding for climate science, a trend that it seems O'Leary is against: "Scientists argue there is global warming because they wouldn't get half of the funding they get now if it turns out to be completely bogus," he says.
Realising O'Leary is a serial publicity-seeker, Greenpeace would only dignify his intervention with a jokey riposte. Spokesman Joss Garman said: "Personally, I wouldn't trust 'O'Really' to tell me the price of a seat on his own airline, but to be fair his position does have the support of such intellectual heavyweights as Nick Griffin, Sarah Palin and George W Bush." ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
@John Thornton, I can only agree with you, you can almost hear the man saying "Safety checks? Invented by scientists, they take up time and money, don't bother doing so many of them". I hope he didn't but I still won't fly with them.
If he believes scientists are not credible, it makes me wonder was sort of illogical attitude he has regarding airline safety! I wouldn't want to fly with an airline headed by a man like that.
He has made a good few points here. Perhaps the profanities could have been less, but the problem exists that the UK is skint and the money is going to have to come from somewhere. He will pass on any 'green' taxes to his customers so his harping is well, questionable.
Perhaps we would need less taxes if we reviewed the amount of money we send abroad for various escapades.
This mans understanding of science is so poor that I'll never travel on Ryan Air. He's too stupid to be trusted with my safety. Climate change is a reality. However, its causes are debatable.
Where did he get the idea that the middle ages HAD a scientific community? Until Ben Franklin flew his kite in the rain in 1750, there was no such thing as science per se [with a (very) few honourable exceptions] ... and that's hardly the middle ages.
Also, there is no documentary evidence whatsoever that anyone in the middle ages thought that the world was flat ... even the serfs in the fields knew the planet was round, and for the very same obvious reasons that the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians and Chinese did ...
Finally, the only way that Michael O'Leary is ever going to stop this s***e from getting in his mouth in the first place, is by taking his head out of his arse before he starts speaking.
But I shouldn't imagine that that bothers this particular conscience-free money-worshipping philistine one iota as long as Ryanair get in the papers again ... as they have done. Sad stuff.
I never believed in global warming until now.