Legacy media filled its columns last week with poppycock ‘attribution’ stories suggesting that recent heatwaves in Mali (the hottest country in the world), Burkina Faso and the rest of the Sahel would have been impossible without human-caused climate disruption. Needless to say, a number of important facts were missing from this latest bout of climate catastrophism. Average temperatures in both Mali and Burkina Faso have barely risen in the last 85 years, rainfall in both countries has increased slightly in recent times, agricultural production is up, while de-desertification is under way across the entire Sahel region.
This last fact is never likely to be mentioned in these footling stories dreamed up to promote Net Zero collectivisation. To do so would be to open a Pandora’s Box showing global plant levels have accelerated due to the recovering levels of carbon dioxide in a previously denuded atmosphere. A recent science paper revealed that over the last two decades, plant growth had accelerated over large areas of the planet. During the last 40 years, it is thought that there has been 14% more plant growth, bringing immeasurable benefits for local biodiversity as well as more food for human consumption.
The above illustration shows the boost to the natural world over just the last 20 years. Big increases in leaf growth are reported across India, Europe, Brazil and significant parts of Africa. The growth across the Sahel region south of the Sahara desert can be clearly seen.
None of this seems to attract the interest of activists writing in the mainstream media, seemingly concerned only to fear monger and push populations to embrace the insanity of Net Zero. The Guardian wrote of a protracted heatwave in the Sahel that “filled hospitals and mortuaries”. Matt McGrath of the BBC reported a claim that additional heat “would have been the difference between life and death for many people”. Both media operations were reporting the findings of World Weather Attribution (WWA), an operation partly funded by green billionaire Jeremy Grantham, that the “deadly heatwave” would have been “impossible” without humans ratcheting up the climate thermostat.
Regular readers of the Daily Sceptic will be aware of the model-driven crystal ball gazing of WWA. The service produces pseudoscientific opinions, but fails the test of the scientific process since its claims cannot be falsified. Further details are available here. Despite this lack of scientific rigour, the service provides useful ‘scientists say’ cover for legacy media in their Net Zero work.
Both the BBC and the Guardian picked up on the claim by WWA that the temperature rose above 48oC in the Mali city of Kayes on April 3rd, with the Guardian claiming the 48.5oC was the hottest day ever recorded in the country. Some doubt on this figure us cast by the data below provided by Time and Date.
According to this data, April 3rd saw a 44oC high, which was over four degrees lower than the claimed record, and this dropped away two days later to 41oC. As we have seen across the world, the collection of surface temperature data is subject to numerous corruptions. In the U.K., the Met Office compiles nearly 80% of its data from stations that have ‘uncertainties’ set by the World Meteorological Office of between 2-5oC. WWA states that “extreme five day maximum heat as rare as the observed event over Mali/Burkina Faso would have been between 1.5oC cooler and 1.4oC cooler over the larger Sahel region if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels”. Quite where such precision comes from is anyone’s guess, including, it might be suggested, the computer wizards claiming their garbage-in-gospel-out models can unlock the mysteries of a chaotic atmosphere.
Away from the elites catastrophising about the weather for domestic political purposes, the countries of the Sahel including Burkina Faso and Mali have actually enjoyed a remarkably stable climate over the last 85 years.
Both Burkina Faso and Mali show similar average temperature trends and in common with many countries near the equator recent warming has been much less than territories further north. In fact, a large spike during the 1930s, presumably unrelated to humans burning hydrocarbons, was followed by an 85-year pause with little or no warming. The five year 2022 smoothed average temperature of 29.57oC in Burkina Faso, shown above in a World Bank climate graph, is almost exactly the same as that recorded in 1938. In Mali, the temperature difference between these two years is just 0.2oC.
Of course rainfall is very important, and in both countries precipitation amounts have risen in recent years. In Burkina Faso, annual amounts rose from 798.04 mm in the period 1961-1990 to 831.07 mm in 1991-2020, while in Mali the rise over the same period was 313.7 mm to 328.93 mm. Meanwhile, in the course of the BBC story, it is claimed that Senegal is seeing “decreasing rainfall as a result of climate change”. Not according to World Bank figures which show an annual rise in precipitation from 707.87 mm in 1961-1990 to 722.91 mm in the latest 30-year period.
Overall then, the great story missing from the headlines is that the Sahel is slowly turning green. A few thousand years ago the Sahara desert was full of vegetation. Natural process and climate change turned it into a desert, a process that can easily go into reverse. The desert has shown a greener image over the last 15 years notes Britannica with heavier summer rainfalls reported. “This is a blessing for the desert as the vegetation recovers,” it notes. Sub-Saharan Africa is a difficult place to make a living on the land. The area needs aid in the form of inorganic fertilisers to improve the soil and hydrocarbon power to boost productivity. But more rain from the heavens and higher levels of CO2 all have a part to play. What it really doesn’t need is the BBC and the Guardian spreading nonsense stories inspired by green billionaires about the mortuaries filling up because hot countries have a few hot days.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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“Equality” —–A cautionary tale.—– “Equality” according to who? Does “equality” mean the same to a black person who are convinced they are oppressed as to white person who does not feel like an oppressor? Does “equality” mean the same to someone on minimum wage as it does to a billionaire? Do people want “equality” of opportunity or do they think we should have “equality of outcomes? —–I suggest “equality” is in the eye of the beholder.
Vernal looks like a total mincer to me, what do you think Varmint?
Not by looking at his face. Only by listening to his words and looking at his actions. The whole “equality” business is just like every other commie scam.
Vernal look rather effete to my gimlet eye. Why are we giving non jobs to such utterly mediocre mincers?
If you give someone a well-paid job with prestige and power, and you call it “Head of Equality”, they have no incentive to increase “equality” because if they did then they’d be out of a job.
Exactly
Like SAGE, who only exist when there’s an “emergency”, or the WHO who peddle “pandemics”, or pharma companies who may prefer us to rely on their “treatments” instead of looking after ourselves.
Orwell prediction comes true, yet again!!!
And what a surprise he’s not Mother’s Pride.
Any organisation with an ‘Equality Officer’ deserves to be shut down in its entirety.
Off-T
Slightly.
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/islam-demands-labour-will-comply/
Even Frank Haviland is issuing words of warning as sectarian politics pushes in to the space vacated by the Uniparty.
How precisely does expressing oppositon to the policy and actions of the state of Israel in the middle-east compromise the safety of Jewish students at Oxford?
Are you actually serious? I’d guess you are just plain stupid but hey, maybe you think you are right and there is nothing to see here just like 1936.
I guess that you don’t have an answer to the question and that’s why you’re trying to insult me instead.
The excerpt mentions two demands of the protestors:
Professor Goldman asserts that this would compromise the safety of Jewish students […] at Oxford. However, he doesn’t state why he believes so and you calling me names and waving Nazi tokens doesn’t demonstrate that, either. Hence, so far, there’s no reason for this assertion. I can think of a meta-reason, namely, both Goldman and you really want someone powerful to shut these protests down, nat-con style.
I actually find it impossible to believe you said that to be honest. Does it not occur to you what “From the River to the Sea” means? How would you feel if a bunch of your co-workers chanted, day after day, a slogan which meant they wish to kill you?
Seriously, does it really not compute that they are deliberately and knowingly targeting Jewish students? I cannot, for the life of me, see how you can not see this.
Does it not occur to you what “From the River to the Sea” means? How would you feel if a bunch of your co-workers chanted, day after day, a slogan which meant they wish to kill you?
I “feel” you’re making an incoherent statement. “From the River to the Sea” refers to the country between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea which is supposed to be liberated from Israeli control. This doesn’t express a wish to kill aynone, not even necessarily for someone to be killed there, as a peaceful solution is perfectly conceivable and not really more unlikely than any other, ie, totally unlikely, as Israel is the military great power in this area and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
BTW, my position on that is that I resent being dragged into the petty squabbles between J-semites and M-semites in a “distant country I know (next to) nothing of” and couldn’t care less about. Except maybe a bit of Schadenfreude that our former enemies (ie, enemies of the central powers) in this region are still at each other throats fighting for the spoils of 1918.
I did think this was funny, mind. The terrorist-supporting, Jew-hating rape-apologists won’t see the humour though. To them every word reported by actual terrorist organizations, who can’t stop declaring how much they hate, well, everyone who isn’t them, is the Gospel;
https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1788257560182571464
Many years ago the leftie nutcases stood solidly behind the Jews at the Battle of Cable Street. Today they are the Nazi’s. Socialism does not really change much, it just has a change of clothes now and again. The sad thing is that people like this fool, and those in the camps, do not even realise who they are.
The Black Shirts of Oswald Mosley were fascists but not antisemitic, at least until their marches were sabotaged by Communists & Jews.
The rise of Oswald Mosley:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4ZZkPTTkrM
Maybe Nigel Biggar, the Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at Oxford should resign as he has obviously lost his “moral” compass by supporting the Jewish slaughter of the indigenous Palestinians.
Do please look up some history and remove the “indigenous” bit. Also, did you know that Israel has the best record in the world for not killing civilians? They make a point of warning exactly where they are going to attack and give civilians time to move.
Perhaps the terrorist-supporting Jeremy Corbyn fan club on here could remind us of a time when Israel actually initiated a conflict in the Middle East, in comparison to their many hate-fueled, barbarian jihadist neighbours that surround them. I’d rather be surrounded by a load of Jews than live in a Muslim majority neighbourhood any day of the week.
You are hilarious.
Love the satire.
This is hilarious:What are the conspiracy theories MPs have been warned about? (msn.com)
Good grief. More taxpayers money wasted. So if the usual “fact checkers” – ‘trusted news initiative’ FFS – declare a conspiracy theory then we are supposed to believe it.
Yeah right.
So there is no ‘reset?’
There is no ‘replacement?’
We really are living through ‘1984’ and 2 + 2 definitely equals 5.
I thought this letter written by Jewish students to the community of Columbia University was excellent. I will never ever, for as long as I live, understand why people would wish to deny these people their fundamental right to self-determination in their homeland. Muslims have 50+ nations, many of which they got rid of Christians and Jews from, and if there are any still left in some of those places they live like second class citizens, persecuted and murdered every single day. And yet they have the absolute audacity to begrudge and war over a tiny piece of land, approx the size of Wales, which is the only place the Jews get to call ”home”. There is no sense, no rational to that sort of mindset, none.
And yet these ‘useful idiots’, these cheerleaders of terrorists have the temerity to show their ignorance by accusing Israel of ”ethnic cleansing”?! LOL Well I think opening a history book might be a good place to start before you accuse Jews of ethnic cleansing, because the Muslims know a thing or two about being ‘colonizers’, to put it mildly. Approx 2 million Muslims/Arabs live peacefully, enjoying equal rights in Israel. How many Jews and Christians can say the same living in the majority Muslim countries?
”Many of us sit next to you in class. We are your lab partners, your study buddies, your peers, and your friends. We partake in the same student government, clubs, Greek life, volunteer organizations, and sports teams as you.
Most of us did not choose to be political activists. We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you. Those who demonize us under the cloak of anti-Zionism forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities.
We proudly believe in the Jewish People’s right to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental tenet of our Jewish identity. Contrary to what many have tried to sell you – no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.
Many of us are not religiously observant, yet Zionism remains a pillar of our Jewish identities. We have been kicked out of Russia, Libya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Poland, Egypt, Algeria, Germany, Iran, and the list goes on. We connect to Israel not only as our ancestral homeland but as the only place in the modern world where Jews can safely take ownership of their own destiny.
The evil irony of today’s antisemitism is a twisted reversal of our Holocaust legacy; protestors on campus have dehumanized us, imposing upon us the characterization of the “white colonizer.” We have been told that we are “ the oppressors of all brown people ” and that “the Holocaust wasn’t special”. Students at Columbia have chanted “we don’t want no Zionists here”, alongside “death to the Zionist State” and to “go back to Poland” where our relatives lie in mass graves.”
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vRQgyDhIjZupO2H-2rIDXLy_zkf76RoM-_ZIYsOfn9FkI7TETgRtOfXK9VobMvGh6iEZfDPgALXJTCR/pub
Well 10 out of 10 for consistency, at least. 0 out of 10 for common sense, decency or democracy.
He managed to mess up the police then move on to Oxford? His credentials must be brilliant because from Essex to Oxford is quite an upgrade. Whoever appointed him should be ashamed. Mind you, these days every HR department has to kowtow to Stonewall. Diversity champion my foot!