Stay cool about threat of global warming
AS global warming propaganda is increasingly being exposed as faked and flawed, those with a stake in the big green gravy train are becoming increasingly desperate.
Recently Friends of the Earth has been trying to scare us by suggesting that much of Belfast could be underwater by the end of the century.
Apocalyptic visions have been drawn of a watery city, with the City Hall's dome just visible above the waves. "Climate change will have dramatic implications for all our cities" we are told sternly.
Predictably the sensationalist warnings come garnished with the usual left-wing platitudes. "Many of the areas at greatest risk of flooding already experience poverty and disadvantage." said a Friends of the Earth spokesperson, perhaps giving us a glimpse of the true agenda.
But worry not: like so much of the alarmists' pseudo-science, from temperature trends (data now proven to be manipulated and unreliable) to polar bears (thriving) and from Himalayan glaciers (not rapidly disappearing) to Amazonian rainforests (logging, not global warming is the real issue), the suggestion that driving Range Rovers will cause sea level to rise and turn Sandy Row into beachside property is complete claptrap.
The warming alarmists have made much of various tropical islands that have been disappearing below the waves, but they have been less keen to acknowledge that other new islands have also been appearing. Those tropical islands are popping up and down due to natural movements in the earth's crust; they are no more affected by climate change than Brigadoon.
The paper on which many alarmists based their predictions of sea level rise and subsequent catastrophe has now also been discredited. Scientist Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol has retracted his 2009 study that suggested that sea levels would rise up to 82 cm by the end of the century after mistakes were found in his calculations and processes. In a classic piece of doublespeak Siddall said: "Retraction is a regular part of the publication process."
The extent to which unscientific climate change propaganda has been believed can be seen by myriad of "tweets" roaming around the 'Twitterverse' linking the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti with global warming. Hollywood actor Danny Glover has taken to the airwaves to make the same erroneous point.
It is frightening that the global warming agenda now so dominates all environmental debates that the facts and the many and urgent real issues facing the planet are getting second billing.
"I'm sorry, we don't have any fivers."
How often have you heard that recently? Am I alone in becoming increasingly fed up with hauling around pocketfuls of one pound coins? Why is the humble fiver becoming so scarce? And why are the ones that you do see so grubby?
The Bank of England claims that there is no shortage of fivers and says it has vaults full of them. It blames the high street banks on not doing enough to get them out to the public. The British Bankers Association, in response, express surprise at this and pretends that there is no problem (they took the same attitude to bad lending and bankers' bonuses).
The local banks say that there is no room in cash machines for fivers, and ever since people started stealing ATMs (still no prosecutions – funny that!) they are generally putting less notes in the machines anyway.
Furthermore as fivers are becoming scarce, people and businesses are holding on to them, instead of depositing them in banks where they can be replaced by crisp clean banknotes. Thus the nation's stock of circulating fivers is becoming increasingly tatty.
Privately the banks suggest that shops could be doing more to collect fivers for the till, which, as someone who can remember doing the daily change run to the bank, I accept as a good point. But then with the current levels of criminality and the police's seeming inability or unwillingness to tackle criminality in parts of the Province, who can blame shopkeepers for preferring not to be transporting cash about?
So once again the issue boils down to a failure of policing. So it is over to you Mr Ford.
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Weather for Belfast
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
