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Nicola Sturgeon’s Self-Destructive Net Zero Policies Are Based on Make-Believe Data

by Chris Morrison
21 March 2022 12:31 PM

Always keen to stay one step ahead of the English, Nicola Sturgeon has set the Scottish Net Zero target at 2045, five years ahead of England’s. No longer can anyone pretend that the climate catastrophe is some abstract event, the Scottish First Minister told the recent COP26 conference in Glasgow. “You only have to see the increasing numbers of severe weather events around the world to know that the climate, and the planet is changing rapidly”, she added.

Alas, it appears some pretence is now required to promote the Scottish Net Zero agenda using the ‘climate fireball’ scare tactic.

According to the Met Office graph (above), the temperature in Scotland has stalled and has barely moved for almost 20 years. Indeed Scotland seems to be leading the way in plateauing measurements. Satellite data show that the global temperature pause is almost eight years long, although, as in Scotland, the start of the slow down can be dated before 2000. Of course, Sturgeon is never going to be short of a bit of bad or severe weather somewhere in the world to point a finger at. And, needless to say, climate change must also be seen as a “feminist” issue.

But old scare habits die hard. Last week, the Government-sponsored Climate Change Committee (CCC) issued some nannying nonsense about tackling climate change in Scotland, and stated that the process had “stalled”. The chairwoman of the CCC adaptation committee Julia King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, told the BBC that the average temperature in Scotland “has risen by 0.5°C” over the last 30 years. According to the Met Office graph, the figure is around 0.4°C. In addition, King’s figure is clearly cherry picked, since most of the rise occurred in the last century.

Many of the forecasts for future climate change in Scotland were produced in 2018 by the Met Office Hadley Centre. A useful summary of the predictions was compiled by the Scottish Government-funded Adaptation Scotland, and can be seen here. Assuming the current ‘medium-high’ carbon dioxide emissions scenario, it said that temperature would rise by 1.5°C by 2050. By 2080, the temperature could rise to 3°C, with a top limit of 5°C. Back in the real world, the Met Office graph would shoot up nearly vertically with a high point well past this article’s headline. Inaccurate doesn’t even begin to describe it!

Turning to rainfall, the Met Office predicted about 12% extra precipitation by 2050 in winter and around 8% less in summer. These figures, along with those for heat, are of course just guesses made by constantly wrong climate models.

Met Office

The actual figures from the Met Office show that Scottish rainfall has been stable for over 30 years, albeit with a recent marginal fall. As with the previous chart, both temperature and rainfall showed a rise for a short period from the 1970s. It is likely they were linked – slightly higher temperatures leading to increased water evaporation. A link with CO2, the vital connection that must be proved to justify Net Zero, remains scientifically unproven. The Scottish temperature chart is similar to other northern hemisphere countries. Carbon dioxide rose throughout the 20th century, despite pauses, dips and rises in the temperature. From 1900 to 1940, before mass industrialisation took off, it rose by 5.2%.

For old times’ sake, climate alarmists still promote the fireball narrative but their hearts cannot be in it. The once fashionable global cooling scare of the 1970s was killed off by the small jump in temperatures during the 1980s and 90s. It is likely that a decade of flatlining will do the same to the warming alarm. The more scientists look at the Earth’s climate, the more evidence accumulates that the changes seen since the turn of the 19th century have occurred countless times in the past. The Earth has been much hotter and colder in the past, CO2 levels have been 15 times higher in the atmosphere and plant and animal life has been abundant. Short-term temperature movements are commonplace.

Meanwhile, Scotland is saddled with a nationalist Government supported by green activists that seeks to close down the oil and gas industry, which for a while gave an enormous boost to its fragile economy. In barely 23 years, the Scots plan to warm their homes in the depth of a bitterly cold winter by drawing heat from the outside frozen air and ground. As well, they will be forced to rely on battery cars to safely move around the under-populated wilds of the freezing north. Recently Sturgeon came out against developing the Cambo oil field off the coast of the Shetlands.

It is not as if Scotland does not have enough problems already to contend with. Writing in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, Camilla Tominey noted that the SNP Government had presided over failure after failure. These included a toxic nationalist debate, falling education and health provisions, rising drug abuse and broken public finances. This has occurred at a time when the funding per person for public services is 30% higher than in England, much of which arises as a result of the Barnett Formula. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining why the SNP “thinks it can afford to run the country like a banana republic”, suggested Tominey.

The all-in energy bet being made in Scotland is for subsidy-hungry, intermittent wind, a process started by Sturgeon’s predecessor Alex Salmond. In 2014, Salmond suggested that Scotland’s green energy resources could power much of Europe. With its natural energy resources the envy of Europe, Scotland, he continued, “could be the Saudi Arabia of renewables”. The bet is being placed despite the local Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders warning that Scottish green policy was likely to lead to “severe electricity blackouts”.

If only there was a way to harness the windy rhetoric of Scottish politicians, Scotland could light up the globe.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor

Tags: Climate AlarmismClimate changeClimate ModelsNicola SturgeonScotland

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90 Comments
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crisisgarden
crisisgarden
3 years ago

I mean, you can see where the Great Reset conspiracy proponents are coming from – these sanctions look like self-inflicted wounds. I keep coming back in my mind to that video the WEF put out some years ago, predicting that the unipolar world would come to an end by 2030. Perhaps, the financial volcano dwellers could see the writing on the wall a long time ago and after the covid caper, these sanctions are simply the coup-de-grâce needed to push the West off a cliff and grease the skids for the multipolar world order?

37
0
stewart
stewart
3 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

The Nazis looked incredibly well organised, great strategists and basically unstoppable, right up to the point where their delusional fantasies collided with reality and were crushed into a heap of ruble.

If there are some crazies out there with a masterplan to reorganise the world (and I don’t dare say there aren’t) I expect them to be overwhelmed by the task.

In the past, those with ambitions for world domination have had to resort to and rapidly escalate their use of force which eventually pisses too many people off.

But I don’t doubt their ability to create an immense amount of misery in the process of trying. That much has been proven time and again throughout history. What a shame we’re going to have to live through one of those periods.

Last edited 3 years ago by stewart
31
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RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  stewart

The Nazis looked incredibly well organised, great strategists and basically unstoppable, right up to the point where their delusional fantasies collided with reality and were crushed into a heap of ruble.

What’s that supposed to refer to? During the reign of the Nazis, the German army conquered almost all of Europe and it took a year long war effort by three major world powers who were vastly superior in both numbers and materiel to crush Germany into the heap of rubble it ended as in 1945.

Last edited 3 years ago by RW
8
0
stewart
stewart
3 years ago
Reply to  RW

Yep, that’s pretty much what I’m saying.

Eventually delusional fantasies of world domination are crushed when they collide with reality and a greater force but not without causing enormous misery.

The global oligarchy is determined to subjugate us under the yolks of climate control tyranny, health control tyranny, financial tyranny and any other tyranny they care to impose on us but will at some point fail. But many lives will be wrecked in the process.

17
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Yep, that’s pretty much what I’m saying.

Eventually delusional fantasies of world domination are crushed when they collide with reality and a greater force but not without causing enormous misery.

I’m not aware of any fantasies about world domination during this period. Insofar the NSDAP had any foreign policy goals, these were the restoration of a unified Germany as European great power with various other European Germanic states attached as satellites and conquering enough territory in Eastern Europe to settle the German population surplus there (this preferably being amicably tolerated by Great Britain or even actively supported). One could argue that the idea of winning a Blitzkrieg against Russia was as delusional as Napoleon’s earlier effort to conquer it with infantry an cavalary due to the enormous expanse of basically empty countryside. Hitler, with his western front experiences, was no more able to imagine that than his equally unsuccessful predecessor. But I don’t think that’s what you meant.

But considering what actually happened, the Nazis were incredibly well organised, great tactitians and basically unstoppable that’s why it took a coalition of three great powers (Great Britain, USA, Russia) to stop them which only succeeded after they had maneuvered themselves into a pretty hopeless strategical situation.

1
-1
JayBee
JayBee
3 years ago
Reply to  RW

I will never forget a Times article by, I think AA Gil, which started like so:
“Forget today’s Germans, the Nazis were a far more impressive lot.”
I didn’t expect his assessment to be confirmed that soon.

4
0
RTSC
RTSC
3 years ago
Reply to  stewart

The Nazis came from one country and just had a few like-minded allies. We’re now facing what is effectively Fascism from a Global Elite, with deep-rooted tentacles spread throughout the Western world.

The difference this time is Information Technology – the most effective mechanism for control Fascists have ever developed. Which is why they are desperate for their Social Credit System and Digital Currency.

11
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Uncle Monty
Uncle Monty
3 years ago

I’ve just googled ‘Ukraine frontline combat footage’ there is nothing to be seen that is more recent than May 2022.
Surely if this were a genuine crisis one would expect to see daily news of the ongoing war.
The Ukraine conflict strikes me as a ruse to convince the gullible western taxpayer into accepting inflation, economic ruination and fuel poverty because ‘Russian man bad’.

Last edited 3 years ago by Uncle Monty
48
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Monro
Monro
3 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

Shooting frontline combat footage might be considered by experienced war correspondents to be unwise in urban areas being reduced, grid square by grid square, to a smoking ruin by intensive and indiscriminate artillery bombardment?

1
-34
Uncle Monty
Uncle Monty
3 years ago
Reply to  Monro

Does nobody own phones in Ukraine?

37
0
acle
acle
3 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that the Ukrainian government introduced a ban on filming any war footage with a phone. And someone (in Latvia maybe?) was imprisoned for circulating footage.
The easiest explanation is that the war is not going the way it was anticipated to. On the DT now I have to scroll through quite a few sections to get to a couple of articles about the Ukraine war. Which given the feeding frenzy it was at the beginning seems a bit unfair on the poor Ukrainians living through it.

19
0
stewart
stewart
3 years ago
Reply to  acle

You can be sure that if Ukraine were pushing the Russian’s back and beating them, we’d see plenty of footage.

42
0
Uncle Monty
Uncle Monty
3 years ago
Reply to  acle

It’s against the law in this country to film whilst driving but plenty of people do it. This does not explain the complete absence of recent war footage.

26
0
Monro
Monro
3 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

There was good recent footage of the Russian missile strike on the supermarket but standing around during an Artillery barrage on the front line filming it with your mobile phone?

Maybe a member of Bunter’s cabinet might think that was a good idea.

And, no doubt, the entire country would encourage them……

4
-16
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago
Reply to  Monro

Monro, there is a very good reason to film things from the ground, and it’s called journalism. Some journalists see it as their mission in life – safety be damned. I am with Uncle Monty on this one.

And not just because Withnail and I was such a brilliant film…

Granted, it is possible the footage is there, but being censored. However, there are plenty of platforms which do not censor anything, and their numbers have only been growing recently.

But what I cannot accept is your assertion, that nobody is filming anything because they think they would be breaking some rules and/or because they believe it would be too dangerous! That’s BS – if my home, livelihood, neighbours, friends, family were being destroyed, I would make damn sure I was at least recording it in some way. And then publicising it at the earliest possible opp.

Possibly the areas are just without grid electricity…

Last edited 3 years ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
18
-1
Monro
Monro
3 years ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

Yes they do…..but they don’t stand around filming artillery barrages on their mobile phones.

And that is all the fighting that has been taking place.

I can’t find much recent mobile phone footage of fighting in Yemen or Syria either.

But, hey, let’s all have another cookie conspiracy theory.

I’m blaming the NHS pill culture…..

3
-19
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

Yes but the videos they make are in Ukrainian. So basically useless to journalists.

/sarc

4
-1
Monro
Monro
3 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

Loving the humour.

1
-10
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

There you go, telling facts and stuff. Bad habit, mate.

10
-1
BurlingtonBertie
BurlingtonBertie
3 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

Google searches are highly censored & filtered so you won’t find anything which is not part of the proscribed narrative.
Independent journalists working in Ukraine are the only source of information which is outside of the MSM narrative. Eva Bartlett is a Canadian who is on a kill list, so she must be doing something right if they wish to silence her. Graham Phillips is a UK one, Patrick Lancaster from the US who does go to the frontline to film the battles, & there are others who have sadly been silenced. All of the above are on Telegram. Youtube only has pro-narrative videos or ones which don’t counter the narrative, anything else is just removed. Odysee or Rumble are the places to go to seek out war footage.

Eva has her own website as Telegram is being censored, although only lightly so far…
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/about-me/

The Ukrainian conflict is the USA fighting Russia to obliterate the Euro as a global currency & Europe as an economic & political force. The aim is to fight to the last Ukrainian & devastate Europe. All in hope of bringing down Russia…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JxdHm2dmvKE

Saudi Arabia & Venezuela are turning to BRICS.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/biden-factor-saudi-arabia-discussions-join-brics-coalition-china-russia-move-away-us-potentially-explosive-consequences/

14
0
Monro
Monro
3 years ago
Reply to  BurlingtonBertie

America has no need to reduce Europe as a political and economic power.

As we have seen, Europe has very little political and economic power as it is.

That, amongst other things, is why we left.

3
0
Monro
Monro
3 years ago

When it comes to a good old crisis, it’s not really Europe though, is it.

It’s every man for himself.

One of so many different reasons why we left.

Last edited 3 years ago by Monro
9
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago
Reply to  Monro

Governments, bureaucrats, politicians, lawyers, doctors (well, “health experts”), bankers – all over you when you don’t need them, absent when you do (need them to fix the crap they caused).

Too many people telling everyone how to do stupid things, and too few people doing useful things.

Last edited 3 years ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
14
0
ebygum
ebygum
3 years ago

I couldn’t agree more that the ridiculous, We won’t buy your oil, but how dare you not sell us gas…is utterly ludicrous….and is obviously utterly immoral….no doubt it’s one of the new, much parroted….’rule based orders’ that benefit the West and no one else…..

Spain’s energy minister, Teresa Ribera has urged energy firms to reduce gas use this week as Russia became their second biggest supplier…only beaten by the US.
German ‘leftists’ in the Bundestag want to stop sanctions altogether, and open Nordstream 2….although the Government don’t agree..yet. But now that Nordstream 1 is ‘closed for repairs’ we shall have to wait and see what happens.
There are protests throughout Europe, including in Poland because of fuel prices….it remains to be seen how much longer people are willing to go without for a war that they don’t want, no matter how much sympathy they have…..and what effect that will have on Governments who will have to decide on their own countries needs, and how to best please the people who put them into power.

14
0
RW
RW
3 years ago

These so-called sanctions generally don’t make any sense. They’re imposed by the USA as political theatre because the USA won’t be negatively affected by them. And copycat introduced by the European satellites of the USA despite the populations of these countries will be negatively impacted. One can also suspect that certain European politicians are not entirely unhappy about the situation. After all, net zero requires drastically higher energy prices and this would seem like a good opportunity for introducing them.

13
0
JayBee
JayBee
3 years ago

Germany has also now officially declared itself to be a Banana Republic:
The 2 CSU politicians who cashed in millions for arranging mask deals have been found not guilty by the High Court and may keep their stolen millions.
I prefer the more honest and transparent African way of doing business and politics by exchanging suitcases of cash now.

22
0

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