13 December 2004
Funding problems? You're getting warm
One has to admire the sheer effrontery of Norfolk environmentalists. Not only have they ganged up to try to stop the Norwich northern relief road at a time when the county has been discriminated against yet again in its attempts to get a decent trunk road system; some of them even have the nerve to attack scientists sceptical of global warming because they had funding from an oil company.
So pure scientists who promote the idea of human-influenced climate change get no funding at all? Well, not exactly. They are totally dependent on funding, and some of it comes from the Government, which loves global warming.
If climatologists got no funding, they would have to find other jobs. So it is rather to their advantage to have people panicking about the climate.
This may not affect their research at all. But then receiving funding from an oil company may not affect other scientists’ conclusions. In the interests of balance, a distinguished professor of geology has just said he finds the current debate over global warming “difficult to fathom”. Dr Martin Keeley, visiting professor at University College London, has just pointed out that climate always changes. “If the global climate were not getting warmer, it would be getting cooler; stasis is not an option. We know from the geological (and archaeological) record that weather variations and extremes are the norm. “Such extremes occur gradually and rapidly, and obviously were not human-induced. How then can they represent a threat greater than that of terrorism, as the UK's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, maintains?”
But wait a minute – he’s a professor of petroleum geology. So no need to listen to him.
The real problem with our obsession with global warming is not so much politicians’ misuse of figures, or the arrogance of people who think they can affect the climate of a planet by changing their mode of transport. It is that the money wasted on futile reduction of carbon dioxide emissions could go a long way towards wiping out world poverty, giving everyone clean drinking water, cancelling Third World debt and eradicating Aids. All real and immediate problems.
Disturbing voice in West Norfolk car park
Noted Norfolk explorer Richard “Volcano” Meek, who has been lost in West Norfolk for some time, has found something disturbing in a car park in King’s Lynn.
He reports: “As I fed coins into the ticket machine I was startled to hear a disembodied Dixon of Dock Green voice telling me: ‘Do not leave henny value-haybles in your vee-hicle’.
“This prompted me to wonder whether this technology could be adapted. For example, manufacturers could be compelled to install a tamper-proof box in all new cars which could be programmed to give good advice. “As you get in the car in the morning and switch on, the helpful voice might say: ‘Now...are you sure you can't go by bus? Tell you what...I'll take you to the bus stop, and if a bus doesn't come within 30 minutes I'll take you into town. OK?’”
Mr Meek was reluctant to share this revolutionary idea with readers in case someone in authority commissioned a study, but I have assured him this is unlikely, unless the UEA’s School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing gets to hear of it.
Drawing a line under speed cameras
Norfolk’s widely respected chief constable, Andy Hayman, would like to “draw a line under the controversial speed camera issue”, according to recent reports. This was after the cameras had “delivered cuts in the accident rate that the county should be proud of”. Presumably he was not referring to the 46 people who died on Norfolk’s roads in the first eight months of the year, compared to 42 in the same period last year. Better draw a line under that too.
Fat chance of more rail passengers
Attacking earlier John Prescott predictions on transport, Conservative Tim Yeo reminded MPs in the Commons at the end of last month that the Deputy Prime Minister had said “rail passengers were to increase by 50%”. This had clearly not happened, Mr Yeo pointed out.
Maybe he has not heard the Government announcements on obesity. Or does he think they are an attempt to prove Mr Prescott right?
Moving tale of bus stands
The buses may not be going where you want them to, or often enough, but apparently the bus stands on Castle Meadow in Norwich are moving around quite nicely. I am reliably informed that a notice there recently informed customers that "from Monday Stand D will be back in its usual position between stands C and E". Bit of a relief, really.