‘Arrogant’ Reform Wales branch chairman slammed over ‘ignorant’ climate change claims
Emily Price
A Reform Wales branch chairman has been branded “ignorant and arrogant” after making incorrect claims about climate change online.
Interim branch chair for Carmarthenshire Gareth Beer described Met Office scientists as “peak clown” following the publication of a new study which found that sea levels in the UK are rising faster than the global average.
The Annual State of the UK Climate report found that from 1993 to 2024, the UK’s sea level had risen by 13.4cm – higher than the global estimate of 10.6cm.
Experts warned that many coastal parts of Britain could be completely underwater by 2050.
The study, co-authored by the National Oceanography Centre, also showed how climate change is making Britain hotter and wetter.
It was based on observations dating back as far as the 19th century.
Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the report Mike Kendon said it provided “hard evidence” of the growing impact of climate change in the UK.
‘Unfit’
But Gareth Beer – a local businessman and Kidwelly Town councillor – disputed the work of experts and branded the Met Office “unfit for purpose”.
In a post published to X on Tuesday (July 15), Mr Beer said: “This has got to be the daftest thing I’ve heard in ages!
“Peak clown. How can the sea level be rising faster in the UK, water finds its own level, have we got a fence around us, uniquely more pull from the moon???
“Met Office unfit for purpose!”
The Reform Chair’s post received hundreds of views, likes, and shares.
We sent Mr Beer’s post to the scientists behind the new study and asked them to explain in simple terms why his theory that sea-levels do not vary globally cannot be true.
A Met Office spokesperson said: “Sea level rise around the globe is not uniform. Different parts of the ocean are warming at different rates.
“Warming causes thermal expansion and therefore changes the density of sea water so rates of rise will not be uniform at this large spatial scale.
“Wind, evaporation and precipitation are also factors making it extremely complex.
“An additional complication is that sea levels are affected by changes in gravitational field due to ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.
“There is also vertical movement of the land surface. So there are multiple reasons why it is not uniform across the globe.”
Warming
Co-author of the report Dr Joanne Williams from the National Oceanography Centre agreed with the Met Office’s statement but wished to add: “Parts of the ocean are warming more quickly than others, and as ice melts the extra mass of water has to distribute around the globe.
“Changes in currents also affect the sea-level in different places. So it’s not surprising that there are regional patterns.
“This is one of the reasons that we continue to monitor sea-level rise in many places, so as to be able to make appropriate local plans for adaptation, and to take account of other local factors such as land movement and changing tides.”
The National Oceanography Centre also provided Nation.Cymru with graphics to illustrate how several factors cause sea-level to vary globally.
Reform’s Gareth Beer came within 1,505 votes of unseating the sitting Labour MP for Llanelli, Dame Nia Griffith, at last year’s general election.
He is the husband of Michelle Beer, a Reform councillor who won the party its first seat on Carmarthenshire County Council in May.
Mr Beer is expected to make a bid to stand at the Senedd election next year.
‘Complex issues’
Former Welsh Government minister and Llanelli MS Lee Waters said the Reform hopeful’s climate change theory showed that he is “unfit to deal with complex issues”.
He said: “This man came within a thousand votes of being an MP and could very well be in the Senedd next year.
“He thinks he knows more than the National Oceanography Centre and the Met Office.
“His comments are both ignorant and arrogant.
“He’s playing to a climate-denying echo chamber on social media but if he’s elected he’ll have the responsibility of voting on laws and on budgets and he’s shown that’s he unfit to deal with the complex issues that face us”
Incorrect
We contacted Mr Beer via his Kidwelly Town Council email address and asked him why he was sharing inaccurate claims about climate change online.
Our email pinged back because an “incorrect email address” had been used.
We later discovered that the email address for Mr Beer on Kidwelly Town Council’s website had been incorrect for almost a year.
It has since been updated.
Nation.Cymru contacted Mr Beer again via his private email address and asked:
*Why have you made up these false claims about climate change?
*Do you think you know more than the scientists who carried out the study?
*Will you be making a bid to stand at the Senedd election next year?
*Do you think it’s important for elected officials to be honest about climate change?
We did not receive a response.
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Perhaps he can explain the thinking of his political colleagues in the states who simultaneously believe that eight billion people burning oil can’t affect the climate yet the Dems can cause Texan floods at the drop of a hat. That’s what you call peak clown.
Andrea Jenkins is in full denial and climate change denier (recent interview). Mind you not a lot there between the ears that impresses anyone except reform.
And Tice, have to wonder why all that oil and coal money is going their way. It is not to make the world a better place, it is to make a very small select few even richer at our expense and reform are happy to trash the UK for the people that fund them.
Not make the UK and world a better place for us, very important.
Dear oh dear, I hope they don’t let Beer out on his own, or allow him to play with scissors… on the other hand, that might not be a bad idea…
Brave or stupid to demonstrate your ignorance. Or both.
If he is going to call it then produce his own research to counter just about every climate scientist going.
Of course he wont.
Dunning Kruger effect in action again I see.
KIndergarten ‘Science’ vs. The Met Office. No contest.
I think he is unfit to be a human being.
Farage has on several occasions indicated that he is a climate change denier and doesn’t want the UK government to take the only effective action that will combat it – “net zero”. It is Reform UK’s policy in spite of the fact that scientific evidence for climate change (increase in global temperatures), mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels by humanity, has been absolutely conclusive and overwhelming for many decades. One wonders whether Nigel Farage is also a “flat-earth” man, as well as his followers.
There are only two varieties of Reform UK supporters: there are the ghouls and there are the fools.
I wonder which one Adrian is.
Leave the poor dab alone. He’s got enough problems being a Reformer!
Maybe we might ask him?
Reform are intent on dumbing down the entire country, all so they can manipulate people more easily. They are intent on setting us back decades in so many ways. Their goal is ignorant serfdom for the masses. They must be called out each and every time they make ridiculous claims. Very loudly and very publicly.
So according to that Reform UK clown Gareth Beer, the hole in the O-Zone layer was a conspiracy and not the cause of CFCs, or is the rise in sea temperature not a threat to those low lying nations or the cause of weather extremes, but a cash cow for woke snowflakes and tree huggers. These Reform UK morons are highly dangerous akin to Antivaxers who peddle lies & conspiracy theories on social media to those naive enough to believe their misinformation and disinformation. This isn’t a game. Once past the tipping point there’s no return. Areas of Wales are… Read more »
You could have tried contacting him at his business’s contact address and spoken to his part time office manager, Mrs Beer. I won’t give his business free publicity by naming it, but it doesn’t appear to have a website or phone number. It only appears to exist on Companies House website.
About ten years ago the Swiss and German governments built a bridge over the Rhine at Laufenburg. Germany uses the North sea as a base to calculate heights and Switzerland uses the Mediterranean as the base for its calculations. As they were building the bridge they realised that the difference in heights between the two roadways was over 50 cms which is proof that the level between the two connected bodies of water are different and Mr Beer is wrong about sea levels all being the same.
Nothing to do with global sea level. Silly mistake when using mean sea level. The mean sea level in Pembrokeshire is higher than the mean sea around Gwynedd. The effect of the Atlantic drift current. An effect that pre-dates recent and historical warming. Relies on the velocity of the current.
Like all climate change deniers he is unwilling to change his behaviour for his children and grandchildren and wishes to ignore scientific fact for his own selfish purposes. This from a fanatical Pentecostal protestant who believe that we are facing the end times and environmental destruction is simply a sign of god’s work.
I’m wouldn’t knock anyone for having a faith except when they use it for political ends or persecute others, but you’d think that Gareth Beer and his wife would have a bit more respect for God’s handiwork.
“I know better than the Met Office because I read it on Facebook…”
“This is the daftest thing I’ve heard in ages.” Really? He’s got a plethora of high profile Reformers to choose from. Paul Nutall, to name but a few.