8 October 2007
True science, or a tidal wave of mush?
Al Gore’s film on climate change can be shown to children in schools, despite being described in court as containing “serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush”. But High Court judge Mr Justice Burton said the Government had to rewrite its guidance material and will rule this week that the film does contain partisan political views.
Is this a victory or a defeat for the concerned parent who brought the action? If that is not clear, the facts about climate change remain even less clear, despite the eager acceptance of one extreme version by what has been described as the soft left, soft green majority in the media, universities and politics.
Proper discussion is inhibited by the attitude of scientists and fellow-travellers who think it simplest to abuse sceptics, who they describe as “malicious” and “climate change deniers”, though neither description is remotely accurate.
No-one in their right mind denies climate change. You might as well deny rain. What is questioned by many people is that global warming is out of control, has been caused almost entirely by human activity and can be prevented by changing our behaviour.
Many have a fundamentalist religious zeal for this idea. They would like to compel other people to both believe it is right and act on it - a position that even God rejected, with his slightly greater grasp of what is right than climate change activists.
To assist them in this they suggest that the sceptics do not understand the first principles of science, which is not only a distortion of the truth: it is the opposite of the truth. It is those non-scientists who blindly follow the activist line on climate change who don’t understand the science. To be a genuine sceptic you have to research the subject: when in the past I have presented scientific evidence against the majority view, the activists invariably don’t have time to look at it.
I question their naivety, not their motives. It is disturbing that Avaaz, a growing global e-mail group that does excellent work in drumming up support to make politicians act on key issues like Darfur and Burma, has swallowed the climate majority view hook line and sinker. As a result, petitions signed by the innocent and gullible will no doubt continue to be presented to assorted summits with an appropriate side salad of moral indignation.
They and others like them think the science is settled, but this is far from the case. It has been described as “the most complex field of science ever tackled”, and many questions remain to be answered.
For example, is there any reply to the argument that ice cores always show CO2 following warming periods, rather than causing them?
Could the so-called amplification of the effect of CO2 by other gases actually reduce it? A senior scientist says the jury is out.
Why are solar scientists predicting a global cooling period by 2020, if not before, and calling it the major climate threat to the world?
Could our climate really be governed by cosmic rays and low cloud cover?
Is the effect of CO2 on the atmosphere logarithmic? If so, it means it would become smaller and smaller over time.
How is it that the 1930s were so warm, and in the USA 1934 was the warmest year on record? And how is it that the oceans have not warmed at all over the past five years?
We don’t like questions like this because so many of us have bought into the climate catastrophe model. Councils are now paying out £102 million a year for an army of officials to work on “green” issues. The number of companies set up to take advantage of new rules and laws on emissions is already beyond calculation, and few politicians nowadays would be brave enough to resists such a tidal wave.
But does that make it true? Or just mush?
Last refuge of the unimaginative
South Norfolk Council wants to charge motorists to park in Harleston and Loddon because you have to pay in Diss and Wymondham, and “charging should be consistent”.
Oscar Wilde said consistency was the last refuge of the unimaginative, which doesn’t seem to have got through to most councillors. I wonder why?
What also doesn’t seem to have got through to them is that if you just want to be consistent, you could make parking free in Diss and Wymondham.
But that wouldn’t do, apparently, because the cost of maintaining car parks shouldn’t fall on the general council tax payer.
Why not? I happily pay for schools and swimming pools, though I don’t use either. If we pay for everything we use individually, what’s the point in having a council?
Mystery surrounds short stretch of road
Most mind-boggling comment of the past two weeks came from the chief executive of Great Yarmouth Port Company, who pronounced that “for all but one short stretch, the road to the Midlands is dual carriageway”.
I suppose it depends where you start and finish, but clearly Yarmouth is not an option. There are two single-carriageway stretches before you reach Norwich, and if you persist with the natural route to the Midlands – the A47 – you soon come across more. Many more, and not short at all.
So is there another way? Well, yes there is. You could go down the A11 and take the A14.
This would give you three single-carriageway stretches, only one of which could really be described as short. But it would also mean piling another great clump of lorries on to two of the most hideously congested roads in East Anglia – the stretch between Cambridge and Huntingdon and the much-loved Elveden traffic lights feature.
So, obviously a completely new meaning for the words “short”, “dual” and “carriageway”. Oh, and possibly “Yarmouth” too.
Alternate-week collection is rubbish
I see that the main aim of the alternate weekly rubbish collections planned for Norwich soon (you may have missed the road shows) is “to reduce the amount of waste we collect and dispose of”.
Of course, not turning up at all would reduce it even more. I wonder how long before someone suggests that.
The second aim is to increase recycling rates. Why this should happen is a complete mystery. “Oh, they’re not collecting my rubbish this week. I’ll recycle it instead.”
I don’t think so.