Back to Biblical times and beyond, great floods and storms were the promised punishments for those who sinned against the fashionable orthodoxies and beliefs. It is of course a natural go-to for modern day prophets of climate doom. Needless to say, inconvenient scientific facts are unwelcome in the Latter Day Church of Net Zero, so alarmists are cautioned to stop reading here. The rest of us can digest recent research by Paul Homewood on the British climate in 2023 and published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. This notes that sea level rises are showing no acceleration over multi-decadal scales and rainfall is not becoming more extreme, while storms have become less powerful over recent years.
It has become slightly warmer than it used to be, notes Homewood, “but the U.K. climate has changed very little in recent years”. Long-term trends are dwarfed by the natural variability of British weather, he continues, and there is no evidence that weather is becoming more extreme. “Nothing in the data indicates that climate will become more extreme in future,” he concludes.
Homewood observes that sea levels have been rising at between 1.3mm and 2mm a year around the U.K. after taking into account vertical land movement, and there has been no acceleration in the rate of rise on multi-decadal scales. But sea level rises are an easy hit for climate alarmists promoting the Net Zero political fantasy. Residents of Gloucester were alarmed in 2022 by local newspaper reports that their Cathedral, set at 19 metres above sea level, would be flooded by 2050. In the same year, the Mirror added to the gaiety of the nation with a story stating that large parts of the Midlands would be under water. Coastal towns in Hampshire, Essex, Sussex and Kent were at serious risk, it was claimed. Belgium, Germany, Northern France and half of the Netherlands “are expected to be under water by 2100”.
All of this is the work of Climate Central, a Green Blob-funded operation that specialises in ready-to-publish stories for particularly dozy journalists. In its own words, it “provides authoritative information to help the public and policymakers make sound decisions about climate and energy”. Apart from flooding laughs, it seems we have Climate Central to thank for the establishment in the U.K. of World Weather Attribution. It claims to have “initiated conversations with leading researchers and key journalists about bringing attribution science into the news cycle”. Rarely can Green Blob money have been better spent. The pseudoscience of attributing individual weather events to human-caused climate change is well established with “key journalists” ready to peddle all the unprovable claims under the covering banner of ‘scientists say’.
Meanwhile back in the real world it is not apparent that rising sea levels in the U.K. and elsewhere – relatively tiny compared to those just 4,000 years ago – present much danger in the near future. Many Pacific island are growing in size due to natural accretion, while a recently published science paper has published the startling news that low-lying Bangladesh has grown in size over the last 34 years by 3,274 km2 to reach 137,656 km2. Bangladesh and its position on the Bay of Bengal has long been a poster alarm for coastal flooding and population displacement. However, the vast majority of the recent land expansion is shown to have been the consequence of receding relative sea levels along the coasts and synchronous seaward coastal land growth.
Earlier this year a senior meteorologist at the Met Office told the BBC that storms in the U.K. were becoming “more intense” due to climate change. In fact the opposite is true, with Paul Homewood noting that this is confirmed by the Met Office, which has made it clear that the Burns Storm in 1990, the Boxing Day Storm in 1998 and the Great Storm of 1987 were very much more severe than any storm in the last decade.
The above illustration shows clearly the decline in wind speeds going back over 50 years. One annual analysis of top wind gusts at Bingley is said to confirm this trend and suggests that wind speeds have been falling.
The British Isles are rainy places and plenty of climate mischief can be made from all the natural variations to be expected given its northern location near the top of the Atlantic Ocean. “Why is it raining so much,” asked Ben Rich of the BBC last April. Hardly headline stuff one might think since similar sentiments have probably occurred to everyone who has ever lived in these sodden lands. According to Rich, the Met Office predicts that by 2070, winters in the U.K. will be up to 30% wetter than they were in 1990, while rainfall will be up to 25% more intense.
No doubt computer models are behind this crystal ball gazing but the actual evidence of recent trends suggests something more modest. Homewood notes that annual rainfall in England and Wales has been increasing since 1980 but the 10-year average is at a similar level to earlier periods such as the 1870s and 1920s. There was a significant rise in rainfall in Scotland during the 1980s, he observed, but there has been little change in trend since. Meanwhile, rainfall trends in Northern Ireland have barely changed since 1931. As to rainfall becoming “more intense”, Homewood notes that in England and Wales only seven days have exceeded 30mm since records began in 1931, but none of these have occurred since 2000.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Highways Act 1980:
137 Penalty for wilful obstruction
(1)If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence and liable to [F1imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks or] a fine [F2or both].”
I’m not a lawyer, so am I missing something here?
I have also wondered why Joe Public can’t just make citizen arrests? It seems that you can only use those powers for an indictable offence and unforunately, it appears that blocking the highway is a summary offence.
This article explains: https://www.westminstersecurity.co.uk/news/citizens-arrest-uk-law/
The state blob – at its core – agrees with what these JSO morons are saying, even if they don’t agree with the methods. Unless the state stands up and says that oil is good, that we need it and it’s morally wrong to deprive our population of fuel and thus warmth, power and freedom of movement, these evil psychopaths have free reign.
What should happen is that the whole lot of them are tear gassed and dragged off to jail. The police were happy enough to kick the crap out of anti-lockdown protestors with a legitimate issue, but not these human garbage climate religion cultists.
Admirable restraint there Dom which I fully endorse.
Spot on. The state groupthink is one of support for these morons.
I remember 2 or 3 years ago that there was a climate protest in Cardiff and I caught a report on the radio news. They interviewed the Chief Constable – and he said something along the lines of “Whilst many of us will agree with what the protesters are saying…..”
I regret not going online after getting home (at the time) and recording his words for my files – as I found his words really shocking.
I was trying to find confirmation of the above – but failed. However, I did find this comment to an article in Wales Online from 2021 – which I found amusing:
“It is a pity the experts haven’t publicly acknowledged the amount of CO2 and other more serious toxic gases that have been pumped into the atmosphere by the volcano on the Island of La Palma for the last 6 weeks. A natural process that has, around the world, been going on since the formation of Earth.
But there’s no doubt in the minds of the great and the good that this can be easily be offset by me changing out my boiler.”
I think that’s the point of the slow march. If they don’t actually stop they’re not obstructing ‘the free passage along the highway’.
I also am not a lawyer.
It’s a great example of the letter rather than the spirit of the law.
However, by their actions the human garbage are restricting the rights of citizens to go about their lawful business.
Nor am I a lawyer, but surely their activities have the effect that they force the traffic to stop? That’s whole point of their action. The fact that the individual protesters keep moving is irrelevant.
It’s a fine point, and one which would need probably need a lawyer to clarify. My own take on it is that they are obstructing free passage along the highway.
The OED definition of “obstruct” includes: “…prevent or retard progress of” (my emphasis), and they are certainly retarding the progress of the traffic behind them.
Helpful.
They certainly fit my definition of retards.
Out of interest, supposing a group of us joined in amongst them but then unfurled a COVID or vaccine sceptic banner? What a dilemma the police would have then!
I like the idea – but it would be even more fun to raise banners pointing out how crap the idea of net-zero is and backing energy and economic security through fossil fuel investment. Probably have to have lots of cameras about to work out who throws the first punch though.
On further thought the police would probably not arrest a JSO prat for assault/ABH/GBH but arrest me for behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace.
I thought JSO activists were non-violent extremists?
Sure.
Just the same as Antifa.
Never, EVER, act like fascists.
Oh!
Wait….
Now we’re talking.
I like your thinking .. I’m currently reading a book written by a psychoanalyst (Phil Mollon) called ‘Pathologies of the Self: Narcissism and Borderline states of mind”. In it he outlines social and political narcissism (and I’m thinking Just Stop Oil/XR). “An idea, a cause, a slogan, or motif is selected as the basis for identification and idealisation”. The group is then idealised – perhaps for its moral superiority. The “idea” is seen as the solution, perhaps an urgent necessary solution, to complex societal problems. Reality and logic are systematically distorted to fit this delusional simplication of complex issues.” It goes on …. “Once the narcissistic movement has coalesced around its overvalued idea, the group and its members no longer care about the reality of their impact on others – since reality itself has been partly discarded. Members of such a group may not appear delusional because their distorted perceptions and compromised cognition are shared by others. It is the group as a whole that is delusional.”
I could go on but you get the gist of this.
Sounds like a plan
Holding a protest on the Coronation would give their cause greater visibility. Aside from the event itself and all the branded plastic waste it has already generated, there will by an RAF flypast pointlessly burning jet fuel they can highlight as a polluting waste of resources. I look forward to their plucky exploits next weekend where they genuinely take on The Establishment rather than inconvenience those who cannot afford to be on the receiving end of their faux campaign.
Oh, I say. This sort of interruption might even be worth switching the telly box on for. On second thoughts – nah, the trusted news initiative would not allow any broadcasting of interruptions of Chuckles’ ‘do.’
Jet fuel?
Surely the RAF will use the whey from His Majesty’s cheese production?
Just like he uses in his Aston Martin?
Allegedly.
The banners they are holding are made from plastic – which is made from? Plus, going slowly makes cars use more fuel, which they will get from a petrol station. Brainless idiots.
If every driver in the hold up just kept their horns blaring it might drown out both the chants and the BBC’s fawning coverage.
Just Stop Oil…
Their orange banners on which they carry their slogans are plastic…made from oil.
Their fluorescent high viz jackets…made from oil.
Their safety hats are plastic…made from oil.
Their safety glasses are plastic…made from oil.
The glue they use to glue themselves to the road surface…comes from petrochemicals which comes from oil.
The road surfaces they glue themselves to, are made from asphalt…which comes from oil.
The mobile phones and laptops they use to run their social media campaigns, are full of plastic components…which come from oil.
Right now, a world without plastic and oil would be unthinkable. It would push billions of people into abject poverty and starvation. They are so moronically ignorant about the role of oil in the world’s economy and society, to the point where stopping it would mean our entire civilisation would collapse without it. I cannot stand these misinformed idiots. How about we just stop Just Stop Oil?!
“would mean our entire civilisation would collapse…”
Bingo.
That’s the plan.
You will note they don’t try this shit in China, Russia, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Indonesia, Venezuala etc etc.
And if they did, their fuzz and courts might be just a smidgeon less “understanding”.
And that would be a good thing.
The right to ‘protest’? Absolutely. But how about when the ‘protesters’ are directly supporting the policies of the Uniparty, directly against the citizens?
Bang on.
Hear, hear.
Protesting against lockdowns etc, we did just the same as these JSO protesters (ie march around central London), but the bus/cab/ordinary drivers were extraordinarily patient with, indeed often extremely supportive of, us. And our protests were never reported on by the MSM. (BTW, I am no young rebellious type. I often say that, as an until then law-abiding citizen, I resented being forced to become a rebel in my 70s!)
How bizarre that people don’t just clamour for their own impoverishment. They actually DEMAND IT.
Indeed.