Is our understanding of global warming based largely on lies which have deceived the world? That is the view of a Sussex Conservative MP who has put his reputation on the line by airing his highly controversial views.

Reporter MILES GODFREY finds out why Andrew Tyrie thinks it is time the big green myth is shattered.

Andrew Tyrie must be brave - because he is about to take on the world.

The Chichester MP, once a senior economist for the European Bank, believes we are all being taken for a ride when it comes to the environment.

While stopping short of entirely denying global warming exists, Mr Tyrie has aired major doubts about the phenomenon, which he believes is now being used to underpin a political agenda.

The first, and perhaps most controversial, claim Mr Tyrie has made is that we should not be reducing carbon emissions.

This, he says, could be largely a waste of time which will cost the world's economies billions of pounds with little real benefit for the environment.

He said: "I support the view that mankind may be contributing to global warming but there is little evidence to support the view that the correct response at this time should be to rapidly decarbonise the economies of the world.

"Such a policy will cost a fortune and it will represent a massive undertaking.

"It will also almost certainly mean a fundamental change in our way of life and will leave us less well off.

"We are embarking on such a policy without having properly thought through the consequences, or the alternatives."

The point above about Mr Tyrie being a former economist is relevant because at the heart of his argument is that changing our lives to "fight" climate change is affecting our economy.

"Acting swiftly to reduce carbon emissions across the world could be as economically imprudent as it would certainly be morally reprehensible,"

he claimed.

We have, Mr Tyrie says, swallowed the populist orthodoxy, which dictates that by reducing carbon emissions we can save the planet.

Global warming, Mr Tyrie said, has become like a new religion, with those who deny its existence being labelled "flat earthers" or "selfish and immoral".

Toeing the line has become akin to a "moral comfort zone" - a "seemingly unassailable moral high ground".

Mr Tyrie said: "We need to be very wary when our political culture suspends the application of all reason and common sense to this debate.

"We need to be clear that it would be just as immoral to make mistakes in responding to climate change."

The Chichester MP is not arguing we should ignore global warming.

But he believes the science and "propaganda" which have been used to determine our current understanding of the issue is, at best, flawed and that we should be far more critical in our thinking on the subject.

The same propaganda tools have been used, he believes, to make people think we are about to run out of oil (a myth, Tyrie says) and in the past to make claims that the world faced an era of unparalleled mass starvation (another myth, according to Tyrie).

The MP said: "There are a lot of measurement problems with global warming.

"There has not been any global warming for the past eight years, although that is not well known.

"And whether there was a rate of faster growth in the temperature of the planet in the 1930s or in the 1990s is hotly disputed.

"There are also some interesting disputes about whether the past century, or the mediaeval warm period, was the warmest in the past millennium.

"I have studied a good deal of the material carefully and come to the conclusion that we are rushing to take action about which we should be very cautious."

Mr Tyrie points to films such as Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, which argues that carbon emissions are killing the world, as an example of the myth creating machine. The film has been sent to every school in the country He said: "The Gore report is a scandal.

"It has been comprehensively rubbished by a series of top papers produced by the American Academy of Scientists, so much so that even a judge felt the need to intervene in the debate.

"It should be withdrawn from our schools. There are many mistakes in it."

Speaking in the same Commons debate during which Mr Tyrie aired his doubts about climate change, Bexhill and Battle MP Gregory Barker likened Mr Tyrie's stance to "appeasing Hitler".

He told the House: "Is not thinking about the welfare, livelihood and liberty of future generations at the heart of the matter?

"Was that not the driving force behind our forefathers who fought in the Second World War?

"If they took my honourable Friend's line, those people would have appeased Adolf Hitler, done a deal and kept the British Empire, and perhaps things would have carried on very well for a generation or two.

"However, it is surely incumbent on politicians to think about future generations and their welfare and to act accordingly, and not to take selfish, self-interested, short-term decisions."

What do you think? Leave your comments below.