clarkson school of meterology

So they call this global warming?

Yes, we’ve just come through a sustained period of cold weather; yes the country came to an abrupt standstill because no one can function at less than -2° or if half an inch of snow frosts our roads; yes some experts have been predicting that this could be the coldest winter in forty or something years;

but...

Will people please stop using this sentence along with a knowing (smug) smile as if it is some kind of irrefutable evidence that global warming is a myth cooked up by the liberal press and scientists in need to funding. As far as I am aware no one ever said that global warming was going to do away with winter - now if the snow’s still here come June...


Climate warming skeptics confuse me. Now I don’t claim to have all the evidence at hand - I haven’t read every study published on temperature since the mid 1800s - I don’t suggest that human caused CO2 emissions are 100%, definitely, irrefutably, unquestionably, undeniably, directly leading to global temperature rises - but all things considered I think it does look pretty likely that what we take from our rocks and pump into the atmosphere in great quantities may have some effect down the line.

What I struggle to understand is why climate skeptics refuse to even listen to both sides of the argument. I’m an English teacher who grew up doing debates and the like, just for the fun of it. I remember making the most ludicrous arguments seem almost plausible by the mystical power the human voice has over logic. But I also remember that the best way to win any debate was to listen closely to both sides of the argument. Putting your hands over your ears and going “nah-nah-nah-nah-nana” when your opponent was speaking was never seen as a good tactic.
Yet it seems that skeptics take every little jot of evidence they uncover as proof that the huge weight of research for human influenced warming is completely wrong.

In Northern Ireland we used to have an Environment Minister who was a Global Warming skeptic - yes, Environment. The man we had appointed to look after our interests environmentally didn’t believe in global warming! About a year ago he banned a UK government information initiative on climate change because he said it was an “insidious propaganda campaign” This was the man speaking on our behalf on environmentally issues!


For the fourth time in five minutes I’ve explained the meaning of the word ‘unconventional.’ I used it in a description of Atticus Finch’s parenting style in To Kill a Mockingbird. I used it as a positive thing - to show him in a favourable light - but let me be very clear on this:

Just because something is unconventional does not make it valid.

In fact, quite often, the weight of public and scientific opinion gets things right.

The idea that being different simply for the sake of being different, while interesting, isn’t admirable. I say this as someone who has had his own Devil’s Advocate hat made up. I’m saying this as someone with a heavy heart - for I know many people who smile smugly, look at the snow and say “Global warming? Can’t wait.” I have friends who are skeptics. And they are too good to descend to argumental depths like this.

It’s an argument directly from the Jeremy Clarkson school of scientific opinion. Jeremy Clarkson; the man whose day job is staging ‘spontaneous’ crisis in car related challenges; the man who’s policy on immigration involves sinking all boats bound for these shores; whose favourite page three girl is Zoe, 28, London; a man whose main arguments against global warming seem to be that he likes cars - and he’s not French - so he must be right. And if you disagree - you smell. A man whose hair style, dress sense, gender opinions and politics got trapped somewhere in the 70s. A man who writes one of the most widely read newspaper columns in the country, who is seemingly on a least one TV channel 24 hrs a day, who has written several highly selling books (two of which I have read and enjoyed - I love his tongue in cheek tone) He has sold ‘quite literally’ millions of copies. He has fans throughout the world and a petition to make him Prime Minister of the UK attracted 49,457 signatures...

Actually, perhaps public opinion isn’t always right after all.


[update] Shortly after writing I was pointed towards the column Mr Clarkson had published in the Sun that day. Coincidence abound.

Now that the whole global warming argument is buried under seven feet of snow, eco campaigners are getting desperate.
In a last ditch attempt to keep the debate going, they are now claiming that polar bears are being poisoned by the electronics in your laptop.
They seem to have arrived at this amazing conclusion by poisoning a fox. And then saying that if you poison an animal it will not be very well.
My suggestion is: They all shut up and get jobs as council snowplough drivers.

accompanied by a photo of Clarkson wearing a winter coat and a furry hat. Well then. I guess that proves it. Sorry for wasting your time.

i don't know what to do

I was reading the Observer last night (yes I know it came out on Sunday - sometimes I'm a slow reader) and now I'm all confused.
I try to be an ethical buyer; I do my best to look after the environment; I tend to walk on my tiptoes when it comes to carbon footprints... but I find it very hard to know what is the right thing to do.

The Observer magazine ran an item on orange juice. I like orange juice. Fresh orange juice though, not that sweetened dilutable stuff. But just what is the most ethical way to buy your juice?

In the photo you can see Carl Pescosolido (a man ahead of his time in fruit efficiency terms)standing in a pile of thousands of rotting oranges somewhere in California. Such waste makes me despair but there are other ethical challenges I'm struggling with. Oranges tend to come from either Spain or Florida - so it makes sense that I should buy European ones to reduce the airmiles. But I like the Tropicana style juice which comes from the States. The most efficient form for travel is pasturised pure orange made from concentrate. It can travel in its concentrated form thus minimising the effect of travel. Plus it has a longer life so can be shipped rather than flown. All good... except the actual pasturisation process uses a lot of energy so its environmentally harmful.
Okay, the thing to do then is to buy (unwrapped) Oranges (European of course) and juice them myself (using a manual juicer of course). I would have to make sure that the Oranges were ethical produced, maybe even organic (no nasty pesticide issues) and that they were shipped, not flown. Except the oranges come in their own natural wrapping. All that skin and pith that is thrown away at the juicing stage added to the bulk on route making the travel stage highly inefficient.

Ahhhhh! Somebody tell me what I should do. My head is slowly frying in fairtrade, non GM soya fat. I'm worried that I will never again drink juice without having nightmares. I need guidance. In the meantime I think I'll read the Josua Jackson interview instead.

A neo-liberal version of the good samaritan

I was sitting in my classroom pondering which of my selection of hot beverages to choose when a colleague came in wanting to fill his kettle at the sink in my room. We passed the time of day and he helped me choose. As we chose he noticed the fair trade logo on the three types of coffee, and all the teas and hot chocolates. I was a little worried what he thought. This guy is what I would describe as straight talking, no nonsense, say it as you see it kind of a man. And in my little world of stereotypes he would be the kind of man who would sneer at the whole concept of fair trade.

How wrong can you be? He was, it turns out, a great advocate of fair trade - in fact he went far beyond the little I do. His wife is a Amnesty Internation rep, he bans non-fair trade chocolate from his house (pity the poor kid who brings a mars bar in) he is officially the most liberal non-liberal I have ever met.

Now I have never been able to have a decent conversation about coffee bean taxation with the badly-knitted-woolen-jumper-wearing-arty-types that hang round the university, never been able to discuss moral premium with the local religious leaders and yet here was a leather coat wearing, mountain of a man with slicked back hair chatting with me about how coffee growing doesn't have to involve chopping down rainforests in Peru as it can be grown in the shade. The man's a computer teacher - not even a biologist or geographer. Once I picked my eyebrows off the ceiling we went on to discuss how famers here have a nasty time making ends meet and how that pressure is multiplied when you, and your family, are surviving on the edge as they are in many third world countries. We talked about how during this harvest thanksgiving season we should be looking for positive ways to level the playing field and praying for those less well off - the man's a non-practising atheist! We finished up with a fascinating discussion about Sri Lankan spices. I'm still in shock - he's knows everything there is to know.

Who is your neighbouring environmentalist? Look around, you could be surprised.