502

Canterbury Adscene recently published reports that Tory John Gilbey was a ‘Climate Deny-er.’ Gilbey, Conservative councillor for Blean Forest (University of Kent campus ward) and leader of Canterbury City Council, responded to the reports by saying: “This was a frankly scurrilous press release issued by the leader of the opposition and one of his cronies.”

The Liberal Democrats on the council accused Councillor. Gilbey of having “Flat Earth” opinions after Canterbury City Council decided to replace the words ‘climate change’ with the words ‘environmental impact’ following the debate on the council’s four-year Corporate Plan. He reportedly also said, in an interview on BBC Radio Kent, when discussing his supposed comments on climate change: “I stand by everything I have said…It is a natural phenomenon. What man does has very little effect.”

Whilst it is true that ‘climate change’ does not feature in any of Canterbury City council’s documents, Gilbey affirms that he personally asked for the words ‘climate change’ to be removed, however only to widen the brief to include environmental issues not related to climate change. Some environmental groups in Canterbury have pointed to Councillor Gilbey’s career as a geologist, working with such firms as Shell Oil, for his possible ‘denial’ of climate change, or at the very least his wish to remove the words from council documents.

Councillor Gilbey responded to such, by saying: “Whatever you and your readers may think, we all know what the expression ‘well he would say that wouldn’t he!’ means. I am afraid this is all about political shenanigans and nothing to do with climate change!” When inQuire Live pressed Gilbey on his views on Climate Change, he at first stated, “my position on climate change is probably the same as yours.” When asked to clarify, he said “I am certain that we can have no influence on natural, astronomical climate change but we have to work extremely hard and continually to lessen our own malign add-on influence.”