Climate change or a sick joke?

I was driving and listening to the radio yesterday, when the news came on. I usually avoid listening to the news if I can, but this was just a short bulletin.

When I heard the presenter's grave, Home Counties voice announcing that 2017 is set to be one of the hottest three years on record, I nearly choked.

I know these figures refer to average global temperatures, not just temperatures in my little corner of the globe, but when you have just endured one of the coldest, wettest and greyest summers you can remember, bad even by normal west of Scotland standards (which is saying something) this type of pronouncement is like a sick joke.

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

I sometimes feel as if Scotland is part of a parallel universe. Global WARMING? Are you serious?

OK, so I am being a little facetious, and we did have a small sprinkling of sunny days, but it does make me wonder – how unquestioning are we expected to be?

The climate change report was based on data from the World Meteorological Organization. It says:

"Temperatures in 2016 and, to an extent, 2015, were boosted by an exceptionally strong El Niño. 2017 is set to be the warmest year on record without an El Niño influence. The five-year average 2013-2017 is provisionally 0.40°C warmer than the 1981-2010 average and approximately 1.03°C above the pre-industrial period and is likely to be the hottest on record."

But how are temperatures in the "pre-industrial period" defined? The "pre-industrial period" used by climate scientists tends to be 1850-1900. In the western world, this is the period AFTER the industrial revolution. Shouldn't that be described as the "post-industrial period"?

Changing the goalposts

According to a paper published earlier this year by the American Meteorological Society (AMS), this "pre-industrial period" is not really defined at all. From the abstract:

"…what period is preindustrial? Somewhat remarkably, this is not defined within the UNFCCC’s many agreements and protocols. Nor is it defined in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in the evaluation of when particular temperature levels might be reached because no robust definition of the period exists."

This paper seeks a more suitable historical reference period, and has suggested 1720-1800. The problem with this period is, according to climate scientist Ed Hawkins, who contributed to the aforementioned paper, "the limited availability of observed temperature records".

The AMS paper states, "Our assessment is that this preindustrial period was likely 0.55°–0.80°C cooler than 1986–2005 and that 2015 was likely the first year in which global average temperature was more than 1°C above preindustrial levels."

With the scientific arguments behind these scary climate change news pronouncements so mutable, and with the baselines against which the data is measured changing so frequently (the WMO report states: "WMO now uses 1981-2010 instead of the previous 1961-1990 baseline as it is more representative of current climatic conditions and allows for more consistent reporting of information from satellite and reanalysis systems (some of which do not extend back to 1960) alongside more traditional data sets based on surface-observations. The change in the baselines has no influence on trend analysis.") – is it surprising that many people are questioning the whole thing?

Audacious questions

What really astonishes and dismays me is the way that people who question the "official" fear-inducing narrative in any way are castigated for daring to express any doubts about what the "authorities" tell us.

Maybe climate change is happening. But to what extent? Is it really on an unprecedented scale? Is it really "man-made"?

And if it is "man-made", how much of this is due to people keeping themselves warm and running their cars, and how much is the result of large-scale deforestation, or due to industrial efforts to tinker with the climate – to guarantee sunshine for certain events for example, or to produce snow for winter sports?

When the widely-celebrated Paris Climate Change Conference of 2015 took place in the very same week that the UK Parliament voted to authorise military action in Syria, with airstrikes carried out just hours afterwards, I did question the real motives behind the facile pronouncements of our dear world leaders. Has anyone even bothered to calculate how much CO2 bombing emits?

In Morrissey's recent single "Spent the Day in Bed", he very wisely advises us to stop watching the news, because:

The news contrives to frighten you

To make you feel small and alone,

To make you feel that your mind isn't your own.

I would say question the news. Just because it's said in an authoritative voice doesn't necessarily make it true.