Buried in this BBC article about Lord Lawson's "I don't want to spend money on prevention" critique of the recent Stern report on climate change is this gem:
Lord Lawson said Britain would see "great benefits" from climate change over the next 100 years.
Just imagine the benefits. All those desperate, displaced Bangladeshis just looking for work. The destruction of those pesky Low Countries over on the continent. You could win the big prize and have the Atlantic conveyor collapse, plunging all of Europe into a cold, famine-ridden ice age that forces everyone to import all their food from the Americas.
Of course, "it'll be good for us" is one of many well-reasoned arguments this peer gives, along with others that don't quite all connect such as 'we can't do anything about it anyway' or 'it'll be quicker and easier to build better flood devices' or this bit of clear thinking:
Even under the worst case scenario set out by Stern, future generations would only be slightly worse off financially as a result of global warming, Lord Lawson said.
"The proposition is that we should ask the people of this generation [to] make considerable sacrifices now so that their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, are seven times as well off as they are today, rather than only six times as well off."
Well, there is that issue of wars spurred by accelerated loss of arable land, flooding and droughts. But whatever. No resource or immigration issue has ever led to trouble for the UK, right?