Thursday 16 December 2010

Don't need a weatherman

Scientists trying to convince the public that human activity is causing irreparable damage to the world's climate often seem to be their own worst enemies.

It's not that long ago that we learned that the main UK academic centre of climate change research had seen fit to destroy all of the original data it had collected in support of its climate change research, thus making it impossible for anyone to review (or more pertinently, challenge) the results. It transpired that this was pretty much par for the course within the climate change community, with dissenters routinely denied access to academic publications and subject to ad hominem attacks. None of this seemed to square with the supposed "scientific method" of doing things, but remarkably, it was all forgotten soon enough.

Cut now to the current winter in the UK, which is turning out to be colder than average, as was last winter. (I've seen this month described as the coldest December since 1981, since 1890 and even since 1659, which makes you wonder what kind of records these people keep). Evidence against global warming, perhaps? Not according to the experts, who are rather patronisingly telling us that we mustn't confuse "weather" with "climate".

Strangely, when we had warmer than usual winters and summers a few years ago, these same people had no hesitation in telling us that the benign weather was a sure-fire indicator of climate change. I can't be the only person who's questioning my previous willingness to believe the climate change story, and it's not just because I'm dreading my gas bill.

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