Britannia Radio

Who pays these people to make such utterly wrong predictions ?  
Mystic Meg would be cheaper and better

The first is total baloney.  The water companies are crying "Wolf!" 
not because of a shortage of water but because they haven't provided 
enough storage reservoirs, which, incidentally, right now are full to 
the brim!

Then we get the Met Office not only getting the future wrong but 
getting the past wrong too.  Just read what it is that 'we are 
supposed to take seriously' - and pay for!

FINALLY REJOICE IN the third piece here!  - "Top 10 dud predictions"
It's a wonderful assemblage of the world's worst mad Global Warming 
predictions! - ALL wrong!

xxxxxxxxxxxx cs
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TELEGRAPH    29.12.08
Half of England and Wales at risk of extreme drought, report warns
Nearly half the households in England and Wales live in areas that 
are at risk of extreme drought, according to a report by the 
Environment Agency.*
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
*[ The Environment Agency is a non-departmental public body of the 
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Water Management 
Responsibilities
. 3.1 Flood and coastal erosion
. 3.2 Water resources
. 3.3 Wildlife, recreation and marine
. 4 Environment Protection Responsibilities
. 4.1 Air quality
. 4.2 Land quality
. 4.3 Water quality
Water resources
The Agency manages the use and conservation of water through the 
issue of water abstraction licences for activities such as drinking 
water supply, artificial irrigation and hydro-electricity generation. 
Its remit also extends into Scotland in the River Tweed and River 
Solway catchments where special arrangements exist with SEPA to avoid 
duplication but retain management on a catchment basis.
Complex arrangements exist for the management of river regulation 
reservoirs, which are used to store winter water in the wetter parts 
of England and Wales in order to maintain levels in the summer time 
so that there is sufficient water to supply the drier parts of the 
country with drinking water.]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
By Ben Leach

More than 24 million people, and 10.5 million households, have less 
water available per person than the population of Morocco and Egypt.

The report, due to be published in the New Year, is the most 
comprehensive yet on the state of water resources in the UK.

It concludes the huge pressure on water supplies from large and 
wealthy populations in areas with relatively low rainfall means that 
nearly half of England and Wales now live in areas of "water stress".

It warns that many rivers, lakes, estuaries and aquifers are already 
being drained so low that there is a danger to wildlife and a risk to 
public supplies in dry years.

"Water stress", which is where supply might not keep up with demand, 
is a problem usually associated with parched regions such as north 
Africa and the Middle East.

The agency is expected to highlight the report to lobby for increases 
in the number of homes with water meters to reduce demand.

It will cite the fact the average water use in the UK is 148 litres 
per person per day and as high as 170 litres in the south-east of 
England.

This compares to the government target of 130.

The agency is also expected to argue for a new system of regulation.
Under this plan, companies would be allowed to earn more profit if 
they reduce demand, a system pioneered in California and already 
being considered by some UK energy companies.

Trevor Bishop, the agency's head of water resource policy, said: "We 
[will] have 10-20 million extra people, we have got climate change 
[YES!  But it's got colder and wetter! -cs] ; all the things we have 
done in the past will get less and less certain and more vulnerable, 
so what we're doing is trying to manage demands down.

"What [water stress] means for us is the risk of extreme drought and 
the infrastructure we rely on to supply our water resources would 
come under stress."
=========================
EUREFERENDUM BLOG   31.12.08
We are supposed to take this seriously?

Next year in the UK is set to be one of the top-five warmest on 
record, according to the Met Office.

The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 
0.4 degrees celsius above the long-term average, making it the 
warmest year since 2005. The Met Office also says there is a growing 
probability of record temperatures after next year.

The record year was 1998, [Oh, NO, it wasn't!  They corrected this 
quite casually right back to - er - 1938, I believe -cs]  and this 
one, we are led to believe, will not be far behind, even if it will 
not beat the hottest year. Thus, says Professor Phil Jones, director 
of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, 
"global warming had not gone away despite the fact that 2009, like 
the year just gone, would not break records."  [They just ignore all 
the facts and say, in effect, 'black is while' -cs]

Taking a quick reality break, courtesy of Steven Goddard over at 
Watts up with that?, we are reminded that the Met Office in April 
last year predicted that the 2008 summer would be "warmer than 
average" with "rainfall near or above average."

That was immediately picked up by The Observer which happily 
reported: "Britain set to enjoy another sizzling summer after new 
evidence from the Met Office suggested above average temperatures for 
the season."

As the country basked in warm spring sunshine over the Easter 
weekend, the paper went on, "the new research suggests that it could 
be time to say goodbye to defining features of British life, like 
rainy picnics and cloudy sunbathing."

By 29 August, however, someone had obviously been looking out of the 
window, allowing the Met Office unashamedly to report that the summer 
of 2008 had been: "one of the wettest on record across the UK." And 
here they go again, "predicting" that 2008 [sic - 2009?-cs]  will 
give us another warmer than average summer.

Meanwhile, as we shiver in the unaccustomed cold, The Daily Telegraph 
is telling us: "New Year's Eve set to be colder than in Iceland." 
Even then, the memory-free journos - Duncan Gardham and Jon Swaine - 
have imbibed the fantasia and are solemnly repeating the Met Office 
mantra.

Funny enough, all Met Office forecasts carry a health warning. We are 
told that, "Our long-range forecasts are proving useful to a range of 
people, such as emergency planners and the water industry, in order 
to help them plan ahead."   [But the Environment Agency - see first 
posting above - allocate our money bassed on observable nonsense -cs]

They are not, we are cautioned, "forecasts which can be used to plan 
a summer holiday or inform an outdoor event." But, it seems, they are 
good enough to predict global warming well into the next Century.

And we are supposed to take this seriously?
------------------------------------
Posted by Richard North
=====================
HERALD SUN [Melbourne)   19.12.08
Top 10 dud predictions
Andrew Bolt

GLOBAL warming preachers have had a shocking 2008. So many of their 
predictions this year went splat.
Here's their problem: they've been scaring us for so long that it's 
now possible to check if things are turning out as hot as they warned.

And good news! I bring you Christmas cheer - the top 10 warming 
predictions to hit the wall this year.

Read, so you can end 2008 with optimism, knowing this Christmas won't 
be the last for you, the planet or even the polar bears.

1. OUR CITIES WILL DIE OF THIRST
TIM Flannery, an expert in bones, has made a fortune from books and 
lectures warning that we face global warming doom. He scared us so 
well that we last year made him Australian of the Year.

In March, Flannery said: "The water problem is so severe for Adelaide 
that it may run out of water by early 2009."
In fact, Adelaide's reservoirs are now 75 per cent full, just weeks 
from 2009.
In June last year, Flannery warned Brisbane's "water supplies are so 
low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 
months".
In fact, 18 months later, its dams are 46 per cent full after 
Brisbane's wettest spring in 27 years.
In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney's dams could be dry in just two 
years.
In fact, three years later its dams are 63 per cent full, not least 
because June last year was its wettest since 1951.
In 2004, Flannery said global warming would cause such droughts that 
"there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century's first ghost 
metropolis".
In fact, Perth now has the lowest water restrictions of any state 
capital, thanks to its desalination plant and dams that are 40 per 
cent full after the city's wettest November in 17 years.
Lesson: This truly is a land "of drought and flooding rains". 
Distrust a professional panic merchant who predicts the first but 
ignores the second
.
2. OUR REEF WILL DIE
PROFESSOR Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, of Queensland University, is 
Australia's most quoted reef expert.
He's advised business, green and government groups, and won our rich 
Eureka Prize for scares about our reef. He's chaired a $20 million 
global warming study of the World Bank.
In 1999, Hoegh-Guldberg warned that the Great Barrier Reef was under 
pressure from global warming, and much of it had turned white.
In fact, he later admitted the reef had made a "surprising" recovery.

In 2006, he warned high temperatures meant "between 30 and 40 per 
cent of coral on Queensland's great Barrier Reef could die within a 
month".
In fact,, he later admitted this bleaching had "a minimal impact".
In 2007, he warned that temperature changes of the kind caused by 
global warming were again bleaching the reef.
In fact,, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network last week said 
there had been no big damage to the reef caused by climate change in 
the four years since its last report, and veteran diver Ben Cropp 
said this week that in 50 years he'd seen none at all.
Lesson: Reefs adapt, like so much of nature. Learn again that scares 
make big headlines and bigger careers.

3. GOODBYE, NORTH POLE
IN April this year, the papers were full of warnings the Arctic ice 
could all melt.
"We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free 
of ice for the first time," claimed Dr David Barber, of Manitoba 
University, ignoring the many earlier times the Pole has been ice free.

"It's hard to see how the system may bounce back (this year)," 
fretted Dr Ignatius Rigor, of Washington University's polar science 
centre.

Tim Flannery also warned "this may be the Arctic's first ice-free 
year", and the ABC and Age got reporter Marian Wilkinson to go stare 
at the ice and wail: "Here you can see climate change happening 
before your eyes."
In fact, the Arctic's ice cover this year was almost 10 per cent 
above last year's great low, and has refrozen rapidly since. 
Meanwhile, sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere has been increasing. 
Been told either cool fact?

Yet Barber is again in the news this month, predicting an ice-free 
Arctic now in six years. Did anyone ask him how he got his last 
prediction wrong?
Lesson: The media prefers hot scares to cool truths. And it rarely 
holds its pet scaremongers to account.

4. BEWARE HUGE WINDS
AL Gore sold his scary global warming film, An Inconvenient Truth, 
shown in almost every school in the country, with a poster of a 
terrible hurricane.
Former US president Bill Clinton later gloated: "It is now generally 
recognised that while Al Gore and I were ridiculed, we were right 
about global warming. . . It's going to lead to more hurricanes."

In fact,, there is still no proof of a link between any warming and 
hurricanes.
Australia is actually getting fewer cyclones, and last month 
researchers at Florida State University concluded that the 2007 and 
2008 hurricane seasons had the least tropical activity in the 
Northern Hemisphere in 30 years.
Lesson: Beware of politicians riding the warming bandwagon.

5. GIANT HAILSTONES WILL SMASH THROUGH YOUR ROOF
ROSS Garnaut, a professor of economics, is the guru behind the Rudd 
Government's global warming policies.
He this year defended the ugly curved steel roof he'd planned at the 
rear of his city property, telling angry locals he was protecting 
himself from climate change: "Severe and more frequent hailstones 
will be a feature of this change," he said.

In fact,even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits 
"decreases in hail frequency are simulated for Melbourne. . ."
Lesson: Beware also of government advisers on that warming wagon.

6. NO MORE SKIING
A BAD ski season three years ago - right after a great one - had The 
Age and other alarmists blaming global warming. The CSIRO, once our 
top science body, fanned the fear by claiming resorts such as Mt 
Hotham and Mt Buller could lose a quarter of their snow by 2020.
In fact, this year was another boom one for skiing, with Mt Hotham 
and Mt Buller covered in snow five weeks before the season started.

What's more, a study this year in the Hydrological Sciences Journal 
checked six climate models, including one used by the CSIRO.
It found they couldn't even predict the regional climate we'd had 
already: "Local model projections cannot be credible . . ."
It also confirmed the finding of a study last year in the 
International Journal of Climatology that the 22 most cited global 
warming models could not "accurately explain the (global) climate 
from the recent past".

As for predicting the future. . .
Lesson: The CSIRO's scary predictions are near worthless.

7. PERTH WILL BAKE DRY
THE CSIRO last year claimed Perth was "particularly vulnerable" and 
had a 90 per cent chance of getting less rain and higher temperatures.
"There are not many other parts of the world where the IPCC has made 
a prediction that a drop in rainfall is highly likely," it said.  [nb 
The IPCC is the body all the other maniacs quote to justify their 
scares! -cs]
In fact, Perth has just had its coldest and wettest November since 1991.

8. ISLANDS WILL DROWN
THE seas will rise up to 100m by 2100, claims ABC Science Show host 
Robyn Williams. Six metres, suggests Al Gore. So let's take in 
"climate refugees" from low-lying Tuvalu, says federal Labor. And ban 
coastal development, says the Brumby Government.
In fact, while the seas have slowly risen since the last ice age, 
before man got gassy, they've stopped rising for the last two, 
according to data from the Jason-1 satellite.
"There is no evidence for accelerated sea-level rises," the Royal 
Netherlands Meteorological Institute declared last month.
Lesson: Trust the data, not the politicians.

9. BRITAIN WILL SWELTER
The British Met Office is home to the Hadley Centre, one of the top 
centres of the man-made global warming faith.
In April it predicted: "The coming summer is expected to be a 
'typical British summer'. . ."

In fact, in August it admitted: "(This) summer . . . has been one of 
the wettest on record across the UK." In September it predicted: "The 
coming winter (is) likely to be milder than average."
In fact, winter has been so cold that London had its first October 
snow in 74 years -- and on the day Parliament voted to fight "global 
warming".
Lesson: If the Met can't predict the weather three months out, what 
can it know of the climate 100 years hence?

10. WE'LL BE HOTTER
SPEAKING of the Met, it has so far predicted 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005 
and 2007 would be the world's hottest or second-hottest year on 
record, but nine of the past 10 years it predicted temperatures too 
high.
In fact, the Met this month conceded 2008 would be the coldest year 
this century.

That makes 1998 still the hottest year on record since the Medieval 
Warm Period some 1000 years ago.  [Oh, NO, it wasn't!  They corrected 
this quite casually right back to - er - 1938, I believe -cs]   
Indeed, temperatures have slowly fallen since around 2002.

As Roger Pielke Sr, Professor Emeritus of Colorado State University's 
Department of Atmospheric Science, declared this month: "Global 
warming has stopped for the last few years."
Lesson: Something is wrong with warming models that predict warming 
in a cooling world, especially when we're each year pumping out even 
more greenhouse gases. Be sceptical.

Those, then, are the top 10 dud predictions of that hooting, 
screaming and screeching tribe of warming alarmists. Look and laugh.

And dare to believe the world is bright and reason may yet triumph.