July 17, 2009

Talk about lively weather

By crikey, the weather is distinctly on the frisky side today. It’s raining buckets, cats and dogs with multiple lightning bolts and deafening thunder claps thrown in for good measure. Despite hopeful looks, the dog can forget about a walk. The weather is truly grim – and it seems to have been like this for weeks.

Yet during Wimbledon, when the weather was actually rather nice – the government got concerned. A hot weather warning was issued. Obviously not enough people were dropping dead from Swine Flu to be concerned about – so they were worried about some sunny weather instead.

I am probably one of the silent majority not to believe in global warning. I still believe in the phrase ‘nice summer’s day for example. And I like to sit outside with a drink – despite the hidden dangers lurking in all that sunshine.

To my mind the eco-terrorists that believe me changing my light bulbs will make a better world are missing a few salient points. Look at 1976 for example – there were a good few summer’s days that year too. It was bone dry for months on end. Yet nobody bleated about global warming. No government minister read stupid platitudes from an autocue. We simply made the most of the hot weather, safe in the knowledge that we wouldn’t see another year like it for years.

We still haven’t of course. In point of fact, ever since somebody invented global warming, carbon footprints, ozone layer holes etc – our summers have been largely cold and distinctly damp. Which is all down to global warming of course.

There was an interesting photo in the Times yesterday. The village of Lynmouth in North Devon had been hit by a freak storm of biblical proportions. Nine inches of rain fell in 24 hours. Over 100 buildings were destroyed. 34 cars were washed out to sea from roads that had become raging torrents. 420 people were made homeless – and a staggering 34 people lost their lives. It happened in August 1952.

The eco-warriors are simply busting for some such tragedy to strike again – or a hurricane to sweep in and turn Sevenoaks into Oneoaks as happened so memorably in 1987.

The funny thing is it WILL happen. Britain is a temperate island that occasionally has violent storms. The very worst one on record occurred in November 1703 – even I don’t remember that one. But global warming was not to blame – it is simply a fact of nature.

There is no such thing as average rainfall and average sunshine. They are simply convenient statistics. So it is nonsense to take random events and extrapolate a bleak future.
Sure Britain and the world are warming up. It has been for a few hundred thousand years since the last ice age. But Britain now is colder than it was in Roman times. So if you wanted too – you could claim with statistical back up that we are actually suffering global cooling. And all those flatulent cows, gas-guzzling cars, Indian and Chinese power stations are doing us a big favour.

Talk about lively weather

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