Sun’s Out, Big Climate Alarm Guns Out
The jet-setting, climate-campaigning celeb and poet Emma Thompson recently dismissed Britain as a “tiny little cloud-bolted, rainy corner of sort-of Europe, a cake-filled misery-laden grey old island”.
And presumably since the vote for Brexit, we’ve sunk even further in her estimation. However, not all of us are misery-laden these days, especially since the referendum. (NB, what on earth has she got against cake – any idea?)
But the “rainy” and “grey” bits are quite accurate, as, I suppose is “cloud-bolted” (although if you think about it, clouds are notoriously difficult to attach bolts to, being wispy masses of water vapour, essentially). And she’s in good company – fellow poet William Shakespeare must have had the British weather in mind when he had the Fool in King Lear sing “the rain it raineth every day”.
Even in the UK, though, it doesn’t actually rain every day. Once in a while, the skies clear, the sun comes out and – miracle of miracles – daytime temperatures briefly rise to 30 degrees Celsius (or heavens, even slightly above.)
Good news, wouldn’t you think? Well, think again! Even as the thermometer rose, the BBC – in its inimitable way – went over the top in a short, sharp climate alarm offensive. Here’s a transcript of David Shukman’s report that was broadcast during Wednesday’s 6 o’clock news on BBC1.
The language is relentless. “Climate experts say… we are now close to dangerous levels of climate change… a record rise in temperatures… a planet that’s getting hotter… scientists are surprised at the scale of the increase… they’ve been warning for years… we’re scarily close to dangerous levels of climate change… The fear is of more scenes like this… a war zone… a warmer world is set to see more violent rainfall… this year is on course to be the hottest on record.”
Indefatigable climate blogger Paul Homewood has a different take on this story of “the hottest June around the world in modern history”, pointing out that according to the satellite records, June 2016 was nowhere near the hottest. But the interesting divergence between GISS and RSS, from 1998 onwards, is not a topic that the BBC are likely to spend much airtime on, as it woefully fails to conform to the “dangerous levels of climate change” narrative.
Now they’ve moved swiftly on to fresh stories deemed newsworthy, such as the Melania Trump Speech Crisis which is apparently engulfing the U.S. at the moment. And the brief UK heatwave has also run its course.
But we’ll probably have another hot spell or two before the end of September, here in Britain. And then the BBC will no doubt wheel out the big guns of climate fear and alarm again.
In the meantime, my advice would be to remain calm and enjoy the sunshine, while it lasts.
And do please have some cake – it’s good for you.
Climate Scepticism 
I took “ bolted” from “cloud-bolted” to be a metaphoric allusion to a bolt of cloth. Is so she would be referring to low altitude cumulo-stratus clouds know to have on balance a cooling effect.
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My first introduction to Emma Thompson was a dreadful comedy series (just the one), where each and every sketch was missing the right or indeed any punch line. I’ve never seen it repeated and was probably universally criticised. The next time I saw her she was being terribly, terribly English in Hollywood. She’s made a name for herself due to the American fondness for our outdated class system and less than perfect looks. She’s grown too used to the fawning flunkies that surround celebs.
So out of touch are the likes of Emma that they don’t realise that we don’t actually respect their opinion. The anti Brexit dream team were made up of discredited politicians and over opinionated elites. The Band Aid and Live Aid concerts were a massive success because people already believed it was a good cause and not because they saw Bob as an honest and influential alternative to politicians. Live Earth was a complete failure by the same process.
Remain should have been a landslide. That it wasn’t should be a lesson for those (including many of the Brexit leaders) who stopped listening to the public ages ago. They form an echo chamber of celebs, journalists and politicians. It turns out that you can’t pee on the public from a great height and expect them to be greatful. Who knew?
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Pretty sure it was me in Twelfth Night.
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Emma T seems to have been remarkably quiet since the Brexit vote, considering her outspokenness just prior to it. I’m guessing she has flown Little England at the (absolutely horrifying) prospect (darling) of it becoming even more cloud-bolted, rainy, miserable and cake filled and . . . . little, I guess – not to mention ever so much more racist (darling). But it has been quite sunny and very warm of late, as you rightly point out.
The alarmists’ tactics are very familiar now. Wait for a few hot days, or a few very wet, very windy etc. days, tell the plebs we can expect much more of this sort of thing when climate change really kicks. blah, blah, blah (ignoring the fact that they’ve probably told us previously that climate change has kicked in and is making its dreadful presence felt here and now).
Enjoy the weather while it lasts. Not too long hopefully. Personally, I’m rather fond of cool, cloud-bolted, windy – not so much rainy! Oh, and cakes, definitely cakes.
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Alex, no, cake is bad for you. You should have a delicious organic watercress, cucumber and celery salad instead.
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Emma Thompson is flying to Baffin Island next month to watch Greenpeace install solar panels at an Inuit cultural centre 270 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The centre is dedicated to preserving and propagating traditional Inuit knowledge and, from August to May, offers courses in hunting & fishing (men only), meat & fur preparation (women only), dog-handling, weather lore and so on. It is hoped that the panels will reduce the centre’s reliance on diesel during the nightless summer months (May, June, July).
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Thanks all for your comments!
@ Feste, good sir, yes ’tis thy song and not from King Lear, certes thy pardon I must now beg for a foolish error.
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PS: It looks like Thompson’s visit to Baffin Island will be a more than ordinarily stupid luvvie antic. The solar panel scheme has been planned for about a year as part of an attempt to butter up local Inuits so that they might forget their decades-long hatred of Greenpeace and support its battle against Big Oil. Locally, this battle means opposing seismic testing in Baffin bay – and it looks like that battle was won last month when Shell took everybody by surprise and donated the relevant concessions to Canada’s Nature Conservancy.
Poor old Greenpeace. It spent years sucking up to an Arctic hamlet that hated it and everything it stood for (Greenpeace even congratulated Clyde River when it killed a whale) and hoped to keep the nascent love alive by giving it some almost wholly pointless solar panels.
Then what happens? Big Oil caves in, that’s what.
So do we still give these whalers and seal-bashers the still almost wholly pointless solar panels?
We’d better. It’d be churlish if we didn’t.
And let’s throw in an almost wholly pointless luvvie. She won’t know, bless her. And if she bangs on about seismic testing, it’s not our fault.
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Who knows, maybe ET and the Greenpeace gang will be sure of a big surprise up in Nunavut – exeunt pursued by an ursus maritimus? 😀
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Talking of ursus maritimus, we all know of course that climate change/loss of habitat is the single biggest threat to the species and so allowing a few Inuits to make a ‘decent’ living by guiding sick trophy hunts for commercial gain is really ‘nothing’ in comparison to the threat polar bears face by virtue of allowing millions of people to have access to cheap fossil fuel energy. So, to keep the Inuit on side, keep the warped, psychotic hunters happy, the Chinese and Russian luxury fur buyers happy, we can allow guided trophy hunts of endangered polar bears to continue, because it’s controlled and ‘sustainable’ and ‘science’ will tell us if it risks getting out of hand. Hence the trophy hunt apologists at WWF, Greenpeace etc. will be free to continue their campaign against the world number one threat to ALL species everywhere – climate change – untroubled by trifling concerns about native ‘subsistence’ hunting.
http://theconversation.com/polar-bears-climate-change-is-a-bigger-threat-than-trophy-hunting-59217
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ALEX
“maybe ET and the Greenpeace gang will be sure of a big surprise…”
The knowledge of pre-internet culture diplayed by you youngsters never ceases to amaze. For the rest of you, the quote comes of course from the popular song of the thirties – “The Polar Bear’s Picnic”
If you go down on the ice today you’re sure of a big surprise.
If you go down on the ice today you’d better go in disguise.
For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain, because
Today’s the day the Inuits wield their ice picks.
Icepick time for Polar Bears
The little Polar Bears are having a dreadful time today.
Watch them, catch them unawares
And plant an icepick in their derrières.
See them gaily gad about
They love to play and shout;
But nobody really cares;
At six o’clock the Luvvies and Greenies,
Will hie them home to bed,
Because they’re dead little Polar Bears.
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Fishing for Seals
– by J R Hartley
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/sor-93-56/page-3.html
(Note that in Clyde River they generally use traditional hooks – hakapiks – rather than guns to kill seals because guns do more damage to the pelts. So that’s alright, then.)
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“2016 has been one of the coldest wettest June’s for years here in London” the presenter of BBC WS The Fifth Floor (3 episodes ago) as he introduced a segment about about his Muslim colleague coping with Ramadan.
…Oh dear a BBC presenter speaking against received wisdom. will he keep his job.
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