Green washout

As the wettest British summer on record drags on and on, it's interesting to see the environmentalists contorting themselves in an effort to explain that this is what they had predicted all along.

Just a few months ago, there were fears that the UK was facing its worst drought in almost four decades, thanks to a succession of dry winters.  We told you this would happen, said the alarmists, and we're warning you now that you had better get used to it -- as the climate changes, there will be many more droughts in the years ahead.

To protect water supplies, a number of water companies in the worst-affected areas imposed restrictions on household use of water, which became effective on April 5th.  As if on cue, God threw a big switch.  The skies opened, and have basically stayed that way ever since.  Wettest April on record.  Slight respite in May.  Wettest June on record.  July, so far, on a pace to be the wettest on record.

Must be mortifying for the climate alarmists, you'd think. But not a bit of it.  This is the latest (and worst) in a depressing sequence of six wet summers.  The apparent culprit: as a result of climate change,  the jet stream has moved south, exposing the UK to Atlantic weather systems that normally pass further to the north.  Well and good, except that until this happened, the climate change models had all suggested that the jet stream would move north, not south!

A couple of years ago, there was a lengthy debate on man-made climate change in the letters pages of one of the UK papers.  One sceptic got so exasperated that he finally wrote in to suggest that the alarmists could save everyone time if they would simply list any weather events that they would NOT regard as evidence of climate change.  A very short list, it would seem.  For most scientists, "I don't know" is considered to be a perfectly respectable answer to a question. For climate alarmists,  the more honest answer seems to be "I haven't a clue, but I'm not about to admit it".