EnviroSpin Watch

When it doesn't fit the model, it's just the variability of the weather.....

The fact that England and Wales have experienced the driest winter for thirty years is a bit of a blow for the climate-change modellers and for the 'global warming' faithful. 'Global warming' is meant to give us wetter winters (*witness this): (see: 'England and Wales record driest spell in 30 years', The Daily Telegraph, June 6).

Dear, dear! Ah! But, of course, the answer is simple (silly old me):

"Wayne Elliott, of the Met Office, said: 'It is just the variability of the weather. Bearing in mind the effect of climate change, we should have had a wetter winter but it was not doing that, so we cannot blame climate change.'"

Now, let's get this straight. When the weather doesn't fit the model, it's just "variability". When the weather seems to fit the model, we're all doomed! Yep! That's clear, then. Thanks.

It's all rather like the ancient test for witchcraft. On being dunked in a river, if the poor woman swam, she was a witch; if she wasn't, she drowned. The classic win-win, lose-lose ploy!

Funnily, I have a teeny niggle (no more than this) that the weather is about to enter a phase that might pose the 'global warming' faithful some little challenges. Two or more of the more cyclical controls on climate could just be starting to push us into a cooling phase. But let's wait and see. Unlike the 'global warming' faithful, I don't know what the climate will do, even in the short-term. I suspect it will always catch us out - exactly like this winter.

Thus, only one prediction is for sure: with Blair and the G8 Summit imminent, hurricanes of hot air will be whirling around Gleneagles in Scotland. Flying Berlusconis! It really is dangerous nonsense. And the Blair tornado is due in Washington this week. Yet, I suspect, it may only turn out to be a weak front.

BBC weather maps all round!

*[And if you want to read some earlier spectacular BBC envirospin on this topic, then just go back in time with Dr. Who to Our Much Loved and Much Missed AK, who was on tip-top form: 'Winters really are getting wetter' (BBC Science/Tech News, March 17, 2000) (hat tip to Dr. Benny Peiser for this reference)]

Philip, wide-eyed at some of the media rubbish that is being piled on the junk heap that is 'global warming'. And talk about re-cycling? Time to hose the whole lot down! Oh! Sorry, I can't. There is a hosepipe ban because of the unseasonably dry winter. Boom! Boom! Coffee.