What shall we do with the climate sceptic? - by Richard... Monday, December 20, 2010

What shall we do with the climate sceptic? - by Richard... Monday, December 20, 2010

"Take 'em to the Arctic and make 'em tread water", say the Oxford-based Sea Green Singers in their hate song – performed in a public building somewhere in England to the tune of "what shall we do with the drunken sailor?" This is sung when they are not offering "alternative" carols for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

I think we would readily acknowledge that we take a fairly robust line on this blog, but this is in a different league. After the warmist merriment at blowing up children, we now have a largely female choir advocating murder in the event that "climate sceptics", as they sing, "don't shut up".

It is difficult to tell who are sicker – these deranged women and their rejection of free speech, or the people who apparently allowed them to perform in public. Nevertheless, some readers might still like to e-mail Mike Cox, who leads the singers, and wish him a happy Christmas.

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There is a God in Heaven - by Richard...

Reuters first intimated that something was wrong, reporting that Brussels airport had said on its twitter feed that it could not guarantee de-icing of planes after 14:00 hrs GMT on Monday due to a shortage of de-icer caused by transport problems in France.

Then we had the Financial Times confirm that the airport had shut down. The airport management, we are told, is blaming the shortage on "heavy usage in recent days", along with difficulties in getting delivery of more de-icing product. Roads in Belgium and northern France have been closed to heavy vehicle traffic. The French supplier of the product is reported to have been affected by the general transport chaos enveloping northern Europe.

Then the Vancouver Sun informs us, via AFP, that new stocks of de-icer will not be available until Wednesday morning. By then, of course, it is likely to have snowed some more, making it even more difficult to get the airport running.

We should not, of course, rejoice in the discomfort of others but, when it comes to Brussels, we are always willing to make the exception. The chaos in the response to the weather is in no small measure the result of intervention by Brussels-based eurocrats – obsessed as they are with global warming. So, as they struggle to get to their homes for Christmas, it is only right and proper that they should experience some of the misery they have inflicted on others.

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A new low - by Richard...

As this month proves to be the coldest December for a century, the temperature in England is set to drop to a record low.

Last night, the temperature in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, fell to -19.6°C. A combination of snow-covered ground, clear skies and the shortest day of the year could produce a sub -26°C thermometer reading tomorrow. The previous record low, -26.1°C set in Shropshire in January 1982, could be eclipsed at an inland area that does not benefit from the warming effect of the sea.

And still the warmists argue that the cold weather "may" be the result of global warming. But then, it could be a Dalton Minimum. Somebody's been using Vim on the sun - it's spotless.

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I'm so sorreee - by Richard...

As the chaos at Heathrow intensifies, and it transpires that only £500,000 has been spent on snow clearing kit for the season, a grovelling apology for his crap performance comes from Colin Matthews, CEO of BAA. Delivered on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he bleats, "I'm really disappointed to have disrupted so many thousands of people's Christmas plans," adding:

It's absolutely distressing and heart-breaking to have been in the terminals and confronted with individuals, each with their stories of really sad and disappointing outcomes. I couldn't be more sorry, that's the case.

Matthews then warbles, "We are going to have to crawl over the details of what's happened over the last few days as soon as we've got the time to do that." Hey ho! Another fatuous "lessons learned" in the making, a precursor to yet another mess. And will even deputy heads roll?

The point is, of course, that even the born-again climate sceptic Boris Johnson has been able to leaven his enthusiasm for warming with a bit of timely populism. Even last February Boris was writing this garbage:

Our climate is changing, with London already experiencing warmer, wetter winters, hotter, drier summers and higher incidences of more extreme weather. To preserve and enhance our quality of life and maintain our status as a leading global city, we must adapt to manage these climatic shifts, which will result in increasing risk of floods, drought and heat waves.Climate change is no distant threat ...

If Boris can change his tune, you might have expected the CEO of the UK's largest airport to have seen this crisis coming.

Nor is dealing with the snow a matter of money. Readers will recall in February, just when Boris was trilling about climate change and the "warmer, wetter winters", we reported that cash-strapped Gordon Brown was buying £60,000,000-worth of "carbon credits" for Whitehall and other government offices in the UK, as well as British Nato bases in Europe.

Then I wrote that, while the rest of the country shivers in the cold, with householders wondering whether they can afford their mounting heating bills – inflated by hidden "carbon taxes" to pay for the carbon emissions produced - bureaucrats in their centrally-heated government offices can keep producing "greenhouse gasses", their emissions paid-for by British taxpayers.

This is the sort thing that should have us marching on Whitehall, stringing up these morons from the nearest lamp posts. £60 million would buy about 400,000 tons of rock salt. As a sum of money, it is more than any one of us will earn in a lifetime, extorted from taxpayers and frittered away.

Yet, no one is responsible. No one is sacked. No one loses their pension. The plebs have a hard time of it, but then they are only plebs - when they've finished suffering, they can pay the bills. Boris the mouth gets a few quid on top of his bunce as Mayor for writing a balls-aching piece in theDaily Failygraph, just to give Louise Gray a break, and the paper writes a soft little whinge. Then everything in the garden is rosy for the slime.

Until the mob kills them.

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Forum - by Richard...

The forum is open for new registrations, subject to the usual procedures. I'll keep it open until midnight GMT.

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"Us" and "Them" - by Richard...

While we are set for some more serious cold, last Saturday, we saw Charles Moore remark that our politics has become more like that of a court than of a Parliament. When electors ask, "Who is our friend at court?", he says, they cannot find an answer.

The man, even from his elevated "above the line" position, is astute enough to recognise the growing divide between "Us" and "Them", although he does not have the wit to understand that Cameron is not going to be part of the solution. He is very much part of the problem.

Another one of "Them" is Nick Clegg, he of student fees fame, who we learn has just been bought at the taxpayers' expense a £300k "bombproof" armoured Jaguar XJ (pictured) to protect him from protesters.

Given the esteem with which politicians are generally held, this is probably an extremely wise decision, although Clegg will find that, eventually, he will have to come from behind the armour and the screen of state-paid gunmen. And people have long memories.

Another man who is soon going to need an armoured limousine is Philip Hammond, the largely inoffensive transport secretary, but now in the front line having to explain why the government is so unprepared for a severe winter that everyone outside the Met Office loop could see coming.

Of course, with his warmist boss and the idiot Huhne in the cabinet, this means that Hammond is hopelessly compromised. He cannot give the real reasons why the system has failed to cope. Instead, rather lamely, he tells us that the government is consulting its chief scientific officer over whether major long-term investment is required. All that does, though, is make him look shifty.

Just how severe the conditions are is illustrated by the experience of Suffolk County Council whose gritters have spread nearly as much salt since November as they used throughout last winter. The county council has used 12,000 tons on the roads since the cold weather began. Yet last year, which was bad enough, they used 14,000 tons. For this year though, their total stocks were only 18,000 tons and with no break in the weather forecast, stocks are perilously low.

Suffolk are not the only ones running out of supplies. Elsewhere, highway authorities are having tocut back on gritting to keep some stocks available for "strategic routes", allowing ministers' armoured limousines to reach their destinations.

The only way you could get your planning this wrong is if you had completely discounted the idea that this winter was going to be significantly worse than last – and that has been precisely what has been happening. These morons have been listening to the Met Office, then predictably getting it wrong.

Thus do ministers need to retreat behind their walls of armour and gunmen, to protect them from the consequences of their own mistakes and stupidity. Thereby do they increase even more the divide between "Us" and "Them". Perversely, it is us who then have to pay for their protection, and so the disaffection and the divide grows still further.

In the end, they might have found it easier and safer to have done their jobs properly - although whether any of them have the capability so to do is another question.

UPDATE: And guess what is the "most viewed" on The Independent!

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Chickens … home … roost - by Richard... Sunday, December 19, 2010

As news pours in of the misery experienced by the travelling public as a result of the bad weather, alongside increasing evidence of the lack of preparedness of the authorities, we can only observe that the situation is very much of chickens coming home to roost.

There can be absolutely no dispute that the billions spent on global warming dwarfs the pitiful amount of money spent on preparing for adverse winter conditions. As importantly, with the Met Office and the government looking in the wrong direction, there has been insufficient planning for the eventuality of a bad winter.

One can, however, have little sympathy with those suffering the inadequacies of our rulers and administrators. Spending on winter preparedness is essentially a political decision – which makes this a serious political issue. This is the stuff of real politics.

But in this trivial, fundamentally unserious nation of ours, people have grown up with the idea that they can opt out of politics and leave them to the professionals. Well, it has been said that you either take an interest in politics, or it will take an interest in you. I have been known to say that democracy is not a spectator sport.

Many people over the past few days and the days to come are now going to suffer not only from the politicians' neglect, but their own. Chickens are indeed coming home to roost, but from some unexpected directions as well.