7 February 2005
Living between cataclysms
Just as a red sky at night tells us that the next day will be wonderful for shepherds, the warm glow of an approaching February 16 means it has been a delightful few weeks for alarmist climatologists and their political friends. Yes, next week the Kyoto treaty comes into effect. It will make no difference to the climate, but it means we have been treated recently – and will no doubt continue to be treated over the next month or so – to any number of dire predictions from Exeter and elsewhere.
Most of these predictions, if you listen carefully to responsible scientists, will be on the impossible side of highly unlikely, but those are the ones seized on by the media, who love a good scare story. They are the people who, if you remember, told you that the Asian tsunami was caused by global warming, or if it wasn’t, the next one would be – as blatant a piece of rubbish as you are likely to hear. You will have heard, no doubt, that Antarctic ice is pouring into the sea and the Greenland icecap is melting at an alarming rate. Polar bear numbers are falling and the sea level is rising.
In fact Arctic temperatures fluctuate naturally in cycles about 40 years long. The warming phase now happening in the Arctic is similar to one between 1900 and 1940. The near-surface Arctic air temperature was higher in 1940 than now, despite all the greenhouse gas emissions since. Interestingly, the ice caps on Mars are retreating, which presumably means that Martians are burning more fossil fuels than we thought they were.
Polar bears are plentiful, and in a study published this year Dr Nils-Axel Morner of Sweden, using observational records and satellites, found that sea level rise hysteria is overblown. He said: "There is a total absence of any recent 'acceleration in sea level rise' as often claimed by IPCC and related groups."
Scientists at UEA have also cast doubt on the famous hockey stick graph used to convince us that global warming is a recent phenomenon, with no allowance made for the well documented medieval warm period and the later Little Ice Age. The graph and its scary supporters assume that the climate in northern Europe over the past millennium has been roughly constant, but Timothy Osborn and Keith Briffa conclude that the true variability is likely to be much greater, and if it is, “the extent to which recent warming can be viewed as ‘unusual’ would need to be reassessed”.
The tsunami should not be overlooked, however. What it actually tells us is that nature is a gigantic force that we can have no effect on. As a writer in an Asian paper put it, “ecologists have created the myth that nature represents a harmonious equilibrium threatened by human excesses. In fact nature's apparent harmony is a short-term illusion between cataclysms”.
Principle of plenty overlooked again
The recent pronouncement from the National Audit Office that there are too many surplus places in Norfolk schools is yet another example of accountants missing the point completely.
It is essential that there are surplus places, just as it is essential that there are surplus beds in hospitals – a rather obvious need that was overlooked when the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital was built.
It is equally vital that there should be more hospitals than would be assumed if you worked on financial principles alone, and closing small hospitals in Norfolk is just as huge a mistake as axing the railway network all those years ago. There is no way we can calculate exactly what we need, and so we have to make provision for our needs to increase. We need space. This is just as essentially human an argument as the equally valid though paradoxical one that small – in the case of schools and hospitals – is beautiful.
The principle of plenty, reflecting what we see in nature, is one that we reject at our peril when it comes to the key areas of our lives.
Astonishing interest in Irmingland
My passing mention of the elusive non-coastal hamlet of Irmingland seems to have excited more interest than I anticipated.
Reader David Little of Old Catton reveals that noted Norwich School artist John Sell Cotman stayed at the hall in 1841 and sketched his bedroom by candlelight. The drawing – “Oliver Cromwell's bedroom at Irmingland and my bedroom Oct 10/11 1841” – is in Norwich Castle Museum collection.
At the time the hall, although owned by the Rev S Pitman, was rented by Cotman's wife’s niece, Katherine, the wife of local farmer George Cross. Katherine was the daughter of Anna Maria and John Hicks. Anna Maria was one of six Miles sisters; others included Ann – who married John Sell Cotman – and Elizabeth, who married another Norwich School artist, John Thirtle. A different correspondent, Tony Foulke, was interested in the booklet that was my source for placing Irmingland five miles north-west of Hunstanton, a rather wetter spot than the banks of the Bure.
He and a colleague had read the same booklet some time ago and spotted the anomaly. “Initially we thought it something to do with ley lines or the Peddar's Way magnetic field,” he writes. “But after religiously checking every place name, we found many more hamlets either slightly adrift or even a long way from where they should be.”
Apparently a second edition corrected the errors, but the original is highly collectable.
Mr Foulke, who no longer has his copy of the booklet, wonders whether the Autonomous Republic of Hingham is accurately placed. Astonishingly, it is. I can only put this down to space-time distortion.
Move to keep everyone out of city
A shock report leaked from City Hall this week reveals that Liberal Democrat plans for Norwich city centre go much further than anyone thought.
It shows that a blueprint is in place for erecting substantial gates at all the entrance points to the city centre, joined together by a substantial wall, “possibly of flint”.
The gates would be closed most of the time. “People cannot expect to drive into the city centre whenever they want to,” said a spokesperson. “We have the keys, and we will decide who can come in.”
Buses will be issued with electronic devices to open the gates, but police cars will be kept out because of the risk of collision. “We will have cameras everywhere,” said the spokesperson. “For safety reasons.”
Apparently a scheme to allow no-one but councillors into the city has been put on one side temporarily “while practical problems are sorted out”.