Nigel Lawson winces when he hears me talk of climate change: "It is a propagandist's term, it trips off the tongue nicely," he says. He will only refer to global warming, and even then with big qualifications. Almost 20 years after Margaret Thatcher's chancellor walked out of government, Lawson is back, defying scientists and politicians in a punchy book challenging what he calls "the global warming nonsense".

He makes an unlikely Dr Strangelove: a slimmed-down, pachyderm-skinned version of the face of Thatcherism, after a diet that he turned into a bestselling book. But like Peter Sellers' nuclear scientist, Lawson has learned to stop worrying and love a warmer world.

His argument boils down to two parts: climate change is not the threat we believe and efforts to stop it are doomed and dangerous. Everyone who says otherwise is either lying or ill-informed.

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The book's title is moderate, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming, but reaction to it has been anything but. Mention of Lawson's name provokes contempt among climate professionals, who say his views are ignorant and dangerous. Bob Watson, the former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a particular Lawson hate figure, accuses him of selective quotation and not understanding "the current scientific and economic debate".

Sipping coffee in the House of Lords, Lawson bristles at the charge that his book is nothing more than an upmarket green ink letter from an ill-informed retiree. He may be famous now as Nigella Lawson's dad and for his diet tips (cut out dairy and alcohol and eat less - he lost five stone as a result) but he is still a sharp debater.

At times, though, the mask of rationalism slips. "I think that the ordinary bloke has an instinctive sense that it wouldn't be too bad if the weather warmed up," he says, when I question his repeated claim that "gentle and moderate" warming could turn out to be good for the planet.

There are moments when talking to Lawson is like being trapped in a Bird and Fortune comic routine: all assertions and sweeping statements and a stubborn and rather engaging refusal to bow to conventional wisdom.

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