Monday, 3 January 2011

A distinct nip in the air - by Richard... Monday, January 03, 2011


To the fury of diverse warmists, who tend to lack humour or a sense of irony, the range of countries suffering from unusual coldness has now expanded to India, with a cold wave hitting the north, claiming 27 lives.

Close to 24 people died in Uttar Pradesh alone, three deaths were reported in Jammu and Kashmir with Qazigund in south Kashmir shivering at minus 7.4°C, while Kokernag town in Anantnag district recording a minimum temperature of minus six degree C. Srinagar, which experienced a heavy snowfall two days earlier, froze at -2.4° C, against 0.8°C last Saturday.

The temperature in Leh nosedived to a scary -23.6°C. The Srinagar-Jammu national highway was snowed-in, turning the place into an island with no links to the world outside. The lack of basic woollen clothing and heating facilities to the millions out there, didn't help matters either.

Even, it is said, Delhi – home of Rajendra Pachauri - quivered as temperatures dropped to 14.6°C, one of its coldest winters in years. It has been hit by thick fog which disrupted flights. The elderly and the children seem to be the most affected with a 70 year old man and a two year old boy succumbed to the extreme weather in Bahraich and Farukkhabad districts respectively.

The Times of India is recording the coldest period for seven years in Bombay, with the temperature dropping to a frigid 12.9°C overnight between 31 December and 1 January a degree less than last year's record. With increasing cold in the north, the mercury is likely to dip further, the weather department predicts.

"There was a western upper air system disturbance over Jammu and Kashmir, which caused almost a five-degree-drop in the temperatures in the northern region. Even though this system is moving eastwards, the easterly winds continue to affect the southern and western parts of India," said an official from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune.

"The northerly winds, too, are quite strong and there is snowfall in some northern regions. Because of the five-degree drop in the north, Mumbai is experiencing a distinct nip in the air," he added (pictured).

COMMENT: NEW GLOBAL WARMING THREAD

Print ready

And they don't mess about - by Richard...


This could be an interesting spring, if this report is correct.

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

Your money, their waste - by Richard...


The Independent runs a story this morning about how the NHS wastes over £1 billion of taxpayers' money a year as managers spend vastly differing amounts on the same supplies.

This is from John Neilson, managing director of NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), who said cash was being needlessly squandered by health trusts which are paying multiple prices for identical equipment - ranging from stationery to surgical instruments.

The story struck a chord, as a "been there, done that one" hardy perennial, that makes you groan inwardly when you see it crop up, yet again – with no fix in sight.

Many years ago, when working as an advisor to a small cleaning chemical manufacturer, we tried to break into the NHS market, selling dishwashing detergent for commercial dishwashing machines at a fraction of the price sold by then the "big three". And we were talking serious money, our price – with a very healthy profit – less than a third of what the NHS was paying for identical products and service.

I will not bore you with the details, but after several years of trying, with impeccable references and going through all the hoops, our sales were exactly nil. And that was by no means the only product or service, where the NHS is being ripped off, as John Neilson once again points out.

What is so utterly bizarre is that this information is well known and long known. Any number of people – including myself - given a few months in the NHS with sufficient powers could save millions. But it never happens. Year, on year on year, the money drains away.

We pay, they waste ... and we're supposed to be grateful when they come back for more?

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

It's back! - by Richard...


Snow in North Yorkshire is causing havoc only a few days after the thaw ... and it's feeling distinctly nippy here as well.

Meanwhile, local authorities are doing what they do best – sweet Fanny Adams. That means that hundreds of thousands of households are now suffering from rubbish mountains as refuse has not been collected. We no longer need a "winter of discontent" to have piles of rubbish in the streets. This is a normal event in 21st Century Britain.

The piece in the paper (linked above) has as one of its (three) writers, the fair Louise Gray, fresh from her recent triumph of telling us that, when the wind doesn't blow, windmills don't produce any electricity – as has been the case over most of the holiday period.

Even then the dumb broad (American English does have its uses ... "dismal tart" sounds too aggressive), can't get her the figures right, claiming that wind provides nearly half of ten percent of our electricity, when the actual output from renewables is 6.7 percent, and wind delivers 2.3 percent, with an average load factor of about 26 percent. And for this, we spend a £1 billion in subsidies, a fact which Gray conveniently fails to mention.

But it is omissions like this that mean the dots are never joined. Local government – as always – is whingeing about the "cuts" and that provides the excuse for doing even less for their money, while keeping a goodly number of over-paid, well-padded arses on comfy seats.

But, with a billion pounds in subsidies on "climate change mitigation" being just the tip of the iceberg, and global warming back in town, you would think some of these people could make the links. "Climate change" is an obsession we can no longer afford.

Perversely, the only sight of council workman we have seen over the Christmas period is a little man distributing leaflets telling us when our recycling collections are to be. How good it is to see the council get its priorities right, as the poor sod picked his way through the snow and the overflowing refuse bins.

The same, it seems, is happening in New York City, where garbage is piled high as well, although they have some little excuse there as the sanitation trucks are used for snow clearance. Here, no one has seen a garbage truck - or rubbish cart, as we used to call them - for weeks.

And now the United Nations agency UNICEF is warning that children in flood-hit areas of Pakistan, suffering from acute respiratory infections and malnutrition, are at risk because of the harsh cold weather. It wants another $82.1 million "to continue its life-saving and recovery programmes for children in the affected areas".

This, presumably, is the same United Nations which regards global warming as one of the greatest ever challenges to mankind, drinking from the same well of stupidity as the officials in this country who pour money down the drain on climate change and then cannot even organise the rubbish collections.

It is getting so that "third world" would be a compliment for these morons.

COMMENT: NEW GLOBAL WARMING THREAD

Print ready

Crises in the East - by Richard... Sunday, January 02, 2011


Since 30 December, Russian ships have been trapped by ice in the Sea of Okhotsk, part of the Gulf of Sakhalin, and rescue attempts have so far been frustrated. The drama, redolent of the 1983 ice crisis, apparently involves ten ships, including a research vessel and what are described as three "fishing boats". With crews totalling 400, it is more likely that these are factory or processing ships.


The BBC report, claiming to cite the Russian news agency TASS, refers to ice of 12-inch depth – which seems unlikely. Ice hardened ships, which would be needed in these waters, can usually handle up to three feet (1 metre) of ice. Sure enough, the TASS report talks of ice approaching two metres thick, with the icebreaker Magadan (pictured below) struggling to reach the trapped ships. Such is the density of the ice that it had to halt four miles away from the vessels.


According to a second report by TASS, Magadan will be joined by the Admiral Makarov icebreaker, one of the largest in the far eastern icebreaker fleet. Rescue operations will then resume, scheduled for 4 January. No lives are said to be at risk. Currently, temperatures are reported down to -22°C and the extent of ice has clearly caught the Russian by surprise – and indeed the thickness, as the Magadan has been unable to cope.

Separately, but in the same general region, Japan Times, via Tom Nelson and UPI are reporting record snowfalls in Japan. Members of the Self-Defence Force had to be drafted in to help clear a huge New Year's Eve traffic jam in Tottori Prefecture involving about 1,000 vehicles. A local express train was stranded between stations and was rescued only after a 34-hour wait, with about 130 passengers on board.

Record snowfall in region on the Sea of Japan coast forced about 1,200 people to ring in the New Year aboard stalled trains.. Others were not so lucky. In Daisen, an 82-year-old woman buried by a rooftop avalanche Saturday afternoon died after the ambulance took about five hours to arrive after being summoned by her family.

Other roads have remained closed throughout today, including one where about 300 trees were found to have collapsed over a distance of about five miles because of the weight of the snow. According to a local meteorological observatory, three feet of snow had accumulated in Yonago, the most since 1940.


Previously, the heaviest snow in recent memory was in January 2006, the picture (above) showing children making their way along a street in the city of Iiyama in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Then, over 100 people died in weather-related incidents.

The extremes of temperatures, icing and snowfall in the Far East give a lie to British Met Office scientist Julia Slingo's claim that recent bad weather in the UK and Europe were localised, and that global warming was proceeding apace. With heavy snowfall in the United States, and in China and Mongolia, the extent of cold conditions has now spanned the northern hemisphere.

COMMENT: NEW GLOBAL WARMING THREAD

Print ready

Bastardi and Corbyn - by Richard...

Print ready

And so it came to pass - by Richard...


... a paper via WUWT which tells us that there is no correlation between CO2 levels and temperature changes – something that has been obvious for some time.

With total silence from the political establishment and the claque, the debate goes on elsewhere. When it is over, and the church of global warming lies in ruins, there will be a reckoning. People will want to know why their politicians wasted billions and trillions on this fantasy, taxed them to the hilt and lectured them interminably about saving the planet – and lined their pockets into the bargain.

The fascinating thing at the moment is how detached and isolated the political classes have become, so much so that they do not have the least idea of what is happening in the real world, what the real issues are, and how much merde is poised to cascade over their collective heads.

COMMENT: NEW GLOBAL WARMING THREAD

Posted by Britannia Radio at 20:58