26 March 2007

on 26 March 2007 at 09:22

Very simple guide to climate change

Thousands of people have written to me to say they are confused about global warming. Or they would have written to me if they were not too confused to do so. To help them, I have prepared the following simple guide.

The climate is changing. It always has changed, and at the moment it appears to be getting warmer. Unusual weather is not a reliable indicator of this, as we have always had unusual weather. Unusual weather is quite normal.

A quite large group of scientists believe that at least some of this warming is probably caused by humans, emitting carbon dioxide in various ways. A smaller group of scientists believe that it isn’t.

In the historical record, an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has always been linked with global warming – but irritatingly, the warming has always come before the carbon dioxide.

Most politicians like the idea of human-induced global warming because it means they can raise taxes, dictate to people, convene crisis meetings, order inquiries of various kinds and avoid doing more urgent and important things. This is why Labour’s David Miliband said he would be refuting the TV programme “The Great Global Warming Swindle” before he’d actually seen it.

The national media like global warming predictions, especially if they’re catastrophic, because it makes a good story. And of course they’re completely unbiased, which is why Mr Miliband likes to “highlight the work of the parliamentary press gallery essay competition in taking forward the message on climate change”. Hmm.

The large group of scientists say the small group are heretics who are probably getting paid by the oil or coal industries. They would like them to be gagged.

The smaller group say they wish they were getting paid by the oil or coal industries, but they aren’t. In fact, they say, all the money around is going to the larger group through government funding: the words “global” and “warming” function rather like “open” and “sesame” where cash is concerned.

Powerful people like Al Gore and big business are making, or will make, a lot of money out of global warming.

Poor people and small businesses are likely to lose money and quality of life, not so much through actual warming, which might even help some of them, but through regressive taxes, government demands for carbon reduction measures and the blocking of development in the Third World.

The large group of scientists say the research of the smaller group is obviously untrue, twisted or outdated.

The small group of scientists say the research of the larger group is untrue, twisted or outdated.

They are both wrong. And, possibly, right.

Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, admits that “scientific knowledge is always provisional knowledge” – in other words, it will constantly be supplanted by new knowledge - but adds frighteningly that this knowledge “can be modified through its interaction with society” and that scientists (and politicians) “must trade truth for influence”.

Sorry, that’s a bit complicated. Let’s just say you can’t rely on the current state of scientific knowledge, because it will change completely in ten years’ time. Either that, or the earth is flat.

I hope that’s cleared things up.

Rare sighting of democracy possible in North Norfolk

The chance of a freak outbreak of English democracy is on the cards at Cromer, where a referendum may be called on whether car parking should be included in the revamping of the delightful North Lodge Park historic clifftop area.

A 2000-name petition opposes the idea, and the town council has now gone further, successfully demanding a town poll – although North Norfolk District Council, for reasons best known to itself, ruled the first attempt out of order on a technicality.

This worthy petition stands more chance of succeeding than petitions put up on the 10 Downing Street website – the most recent of which is for dualling the Acle Straight.

The feeling that such petitions are little more than an attempt to placate a disillusioned populace refuses to go away – perhaps because of an exchange reported in a national newspaper on the subject of road charging.

Apparently the Minister of State for Transport, Dr Stephen Ladyman, had let slip in the presence of an undercover reporter that road charging legislation had been delayed because of the petition – but only until after the local elections in May, when things would have “quietened down”.

Meanwhile Tony Blair was telling people who had signed the petition: “Let me be clear straight away: we have not made any decision about national road pricing.”

So probably best not to hold our breath there. The Norwich scheme to create congestions is forging ahead, of course, with more roads being closed to ensure that there will be plenty of traffic queues on the few remaining routes in and out of Norwich when the Blair-Ladyman master plan comes to fruition.

Taking over humanity by stealth

I can’t help noticing, as I wander the Norfolk beat, the increasing number of people who have machinery growing out of their ears.

Sometimes this is combined with talking to themselves.

I can only conclude that the Borg, after frequent defeats by the Starship Enterprise, are taking over humanity by stealth instead. If the machinery spreads, we shall know, but by then it will be too late, and we shall all have numbers instead of names and stop thinking for ourselves.

The process may already have started. Soon, Seven of Nine may not be the only stunning figure on show. Just call me 14 of 40.

Road safety disappears with a smirk

A motorcycling acquaintance stopped in Happisburgh to allow children to alight from a school bus safely.

After the bus had departed, with all but one student having dispersed, he put the bike into first gear and had just begun to move when with what he describes as a “spiteful smirk”, the remaining girl stepped suddenly into the roadway so that he had to make an emergency stop.

I wonder who would have been to blame if the child had been knocked over. TV road “safety” ads that blame the driver or rider when a girl steps out in front of them and is killed? Or the motorcyclist, for existing? Place your bets now.

12 March 2007

on 12 March 2007 at 05:00

The remains of the bike

As we pulled away from the lights on Highway 41 – one of those three-lane dual carriageways that is just a normal road in the USA – a young motorcyclist accelerated past us, receding quickly into the distance.

A mile or so later we caught him up. At first we thought it was something that had fallen off a lorry – part of a tree, maybe, blackly blocking the centre lane. But it was the remains of the bike.

Just beyond lay the lad who had been riding it. He still had his helmet on, but there was a pool of dark liquid. I couldn’t see where it came from.

He was not dead. His arms were moving. Already he was protected by strategically parked vehicles, and at least two people were making phone calls. But everyone hung back from him, afraid, perhaps, of what they might find if they moved closer. They really, really didn’t want to look.

Beyond him stood a car with considerable damage to its rear end, but it was impossible to say exactly what had happened.

The boy had certainly been exceeding the speed limit the last time we saw him. It would be easy to blame him. In America hospitals call all motorcyclists “organ donors”.

But there are some sloppy motorists around too. Lane-changing is erratic. Talking on mobile phones while driving is normal, and the right to do so is fiercely defended.

I don’t mean to attack American drivers: bad drivers are everywhere. So what can be done?

In England, the knee-jerk reaction would be to lower the speed limit, but as in most similar cases, this would be pointless. The limit where the accident happened is already low: 45 or 50 mph for a wide, straight road – a speed that might be said by some to induce dangerous complacency.

Maybe someone had pulled out in front of the rider. Maybe no-one was thinking bike. Maybe someone had been trying to change a CD or light a cigarette and had swerved just a little.

There is only one way to stop accidents like this – so why don’t we campaign for it instead of hanging back and not looking?

The key is for everyone to recognise that driving and bike-riding are difficult skills, and we need to give them our full attention. Anything else is just Russian roulette.

Nice spot for a congestion charge

The tightly knit group of people who supervise the roads of Norwich and Norfolk would love the island of Captiva, in south-west Florida.

There is only one road through it, and it doesn’t go anywhere.

The maximum speed limit is 30mph, no overtaking is permitted, and there is no parking on it. There are loads of cyclists and pedestrians, all of whom get priority, especially on a “ped xing” which, in case you were wondering… No, of course you weren’t.

At one point the speed limit is 19 mph. Oh, yes it is. Don’t ask me why: presumably 20 would be excessive and 18 just too slow.

Why would the Norfolk highways gurus love Captiva? The weather, for one thing. But mainly because they would feel on familiar territory. Like Norwich, it is out on a limb. There is a huge amount of traffic, all on the one main road, and all it can do, eventually, is turn round and come back.

It’s the perfect spot for a congestion charge. There’s absolutely no escape. If only Norwich could be like this. Maybe one day, with global warming…

I thought about sending the highways people in Norfolk a postcard, but in the end decided to make do with the strikingly apposite message which I saw on a tee shirt in Naples, just down the coast: “The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful.” Introducing terrorists to Sheringham

A friend who is a bit of a naturalist once mentioned to me that adders were being reintroduced into a certain area – I don’t want to be more specific in case I frighten readers of a nervous disposition.

This struck me at the time as a bizarre idea, on a par with introducing terrorist cells into Sheringham. Adders are poisonous, and tend to multiply. They can kill people. What next? I mused. Reintroduce wolves into Scotland? And lo and behold, someone thought that was a good idea too.

But perhaps we all have a little bit of a death wish. I spent part of last week walking along waterways on a Florida island, looking for alligators. I probably came within a few feet of one or two deadly snakes at the same time.

In the end I did see a small alligator, but it was in an even more comatose state than I was. So I am reconsidering the adder idea. And how about the occasional alligator in the Broads? It might not do any harm. The only thing that worries me is that they look like giant newts, and we know where that sort of thing can lead.

On Captiva Island you can’t build on land occupied by a tortoise. No, really. They’re called gopher tortoises. You’re also supposed to help them across the road. I’m not making this up. Coming soon to a road near you.

They’ll probably call it traffic calming.

Any kind of path would do

St Edmund’s Church, Caistor St Edmund, is mysteriously situated in the nearby Roman town and not in the village. Which is why I saw mourners at a recent funeral making their way gingerly along the busy road that joins the two.

Like many country roads in Norfolk, there is no footpath, and at places not even a verge. So there was considerable risk of a further funeral in the near future.

Isn’t it time we put some effort into creating room for pedestrians on roads like this? I suspect that the reason we don’t is because all new footpaths have to be paved, fenced and wheelchair-friendly.

There are some nice paths, like the one between Great Hautbois and Coltishall, but surely if a few feet of short grass can save lives, it is foolish to put off providing safe passage for thousands simply because we can’t afford to do it for absolutely everybody.