Each year, the 23-degree tilt of the planet we live on causes seasons to change as it orbits the Sun. We also know that on top of this regime, heat is moderated, and sometimes intensified by particular weather systems, to create ‘heatwaves’. For most of history, people had no explanation for either seasonal change or differences between a season from one year to the next, or even one week to the next. Now we do have explanations for such things, yet some people are still surprised to discover each year that we in Britain, at roughly 53 degrees latitude, occasionally experience weather that some find uncomfortable. Even more remarkably, and despite these explanations, some people think that warmer temperatures are a harbinger of doom. They are ‘extreme weather events’, such voices claim, and they are ‘getting more frequent and intense’, and soon they will rip society from its foundations – just you watch. But what is ‘extreme weather’, and is it really capable of destroying civilisation?
The New Scientist proclaimed that “Europe’s heatwave is the hottest and most humid ever” and “temperatures in western and central Europe would have been virtually impossible 50 years ago”. The claim, of course, originated in the widely-debunked climate propaganda outfit, World Weather Attribution (WWA), which responds to weather events by being the first scientists to ‘estimate’ the contribution of anthropogenic global warming to such events. The problem is that “attribution” is not science, new or otherwise. It’s just games with computer simulations that
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Travelling home after a few days away I notice many farmers around where I live are enjoying the chances the fine, dry weather is giving them to start harvesting their crops. Little rain on the horizon to spoil crops and they’ve obviously ripened a tad earlier than usual. I will be interested to see if the doomsayers cry ‘poor crop yields’ then see the ACTUAL crop yields this year !!
Here’s a different perspective to all this and relevant to the comment about us being a tropical species.
I run naturist events and am the chair of a naturist club.
The summer, so far, has been the Best Summer Evvar…
Excellent, again. A slightly amusing typo towards the end, otherwise the usual very high quality of investigation and expression. Thanks Ben.
MODERATOR HERE
Thanks for the typo alert. Have re-read the article and cleaned up a few small things, none of which affect the story at all. Great article
The long, hot Summer of 1976 happened in the middle of an unusually cold decade, supposedly leading to a new ice-age. How do the Warmists explain that?
I was brought up in houses (1950s/60s) with coal fires and heaps of blankets on the bed in Winter and a hot water bottle. I recall hot Summers with water shortages, melting tar on the roads, buckling railway lines, long before global warming/climate change was invented.
I also remember Summer school days so warm we were allowed to take our ties and jackets off in class – not wearing a tie was normally a flogging offence. And days in Winter missing school because the bus couldn’t manage the hills and dales because of snow and ice.
Some years were worse than others.
That was normality.
I remind my wife, when she complains of being uncomfortable in the heat, that people fly thousands of miles for two weeks of this weather.
Whether or not the weather has changed is arguable. I’m 59 and undoubtedly winters used to be colder when I was young.
What has changed those is the hysteria.
Everything is “unprecedented”, “amber alert”, “red alert”, danger to life, take action, don’t go out, don’t travel unless absolutely necessary, rolling headline, TV presenters looking worried, serous faces, Justin Rowlatt gesticulating, Greta Thunberg screaming, a relentless sense of hype and panic.
There are some people who wish to be considered as important – and that influences their choice of career. Nowadays they must shout louder with more extreme language to keep their position at the trough.
The notion that social media should pay more attention to the ‘established’ media will just heighten the struggle for the trough. Until climate change ( or any of the -isms) becomes unfashionable.
These clowns only pretend to care about preserving the british way of life when it aligns with their rhetoric.
In practice they are actively working to destroy it. And us.
Is there any scientific proof that our actions could affect climate change? Especially when other countries are not aligned with this policy. I seem to recall that extensive lockdowns in the times of COVID ‘crisis’ did not show up in the climate or weather.
That is also exactly true.
The solution to Britain’s “extreme” weather is monochrome weather maps on TV. We never had heatwaves when telly was only available in black and white.
And temperatures were in whole numbers and averages for an area but some places might be a bit warmer or cooler, and not presented as accurate to two decimal places.
Also temperatures were “a bit above/below average for the time of year” – not “hottest ever”.
Not to mention that sometimes the symbols on the map fell off or moved of their own accord. The actual weather didn’t seem to notice.
The other side of the coin is that classifying something as “extreme” can be used to avoid investing in features that help us cope with such events. E.g. not building more water reservoirs, or investing in things that mitigate heavy rain etc. Passing the blame across the shelf, as it were.
Spot on. There’s a massive religious element to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgYEuJ5u1K0
Need more water? Build reservoirs. Need more energy? Build up energy supplies.
But no, that’s not allowed any more. Far better to treat the drought, or the harsh winter, or the heatwave, as a Judgment from God which shouldn’t be evaded. Because the suffering (only of the plebs, natch, not of the Prince Bishops) will make them properly meditate on their sins (having AC, going on holiday, having showers), make them purer, Greener and let some of them into Net Zero Heaven.
Exactly. Bad management practices can be explained away as “climate change” so there is nothing we can do to mitigate except reduce our economy to penury in the hope everyone else follows.