Two Stories for you, one about the snow itself, and the other about climate law being debated and passed in the middle of the unusual snow.- Anthony
London has first October snow in over 70 years
From the Guardian
Cold snap causes flight cancellations while a motorway accident kills one driver and causes severe disruption
Parts of south-east England had more than an inch of snow last night while London experienced its first October snowfall in more than 70 years as winter conditions arrived early.
Snow settled on the ground in parts of the capital last night as temperatures dipped below zero. A Met Office spokeswoman said it was London’s first October snow since 1934.
For greater south-east of England it was the first October snow since 1974. High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire had 3cm (1.2 inches). One of the coldest temperatures recorded was -4.1C in Benson, Oxfordshire.
“It is unusual to have snow this early,” the Met spokeswoman said. “In October 2003 sleet and snow was recorded in Northern Ireland, Wales, south-west, north-west and north-east England and the Midlands, but it was mainly over higher ground.”
read the entire story here
How Parliament passed the Climate Bill (in spite of the weather)
Posted in Government, 29th October 2008 12:35 GMT
Excerpt: Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.
In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.
The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic apparatus for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute. Amendments by the Government threw emissions from shipping and aviation into the monitoring program, and also included a revision of the Companies Act (c. 46) “requiring the directors’ report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company is responsible” by 2012.
Recently the American media has begun to notice the odd incongruity of saturation media coverage here which insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent, and a British public which increasingly doubts either to be true. 60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won’t be as bad “as people say”.
Read the rest of the story at the Register, here
We have absolute idiots in our Houses of Parliament. They voted some 463 – 3 in favour of reducing by 80% the manmade CO2 output of the UK by 2050!
We are being led by morons. The only good thing is we don’t have to vote for McCain or Obama – someone has to brainwash all of them into realising that CO2 is not a poison!
I never thought I would live in a time when people were stupider than the Flat Earthers, Witchfinders and the Fools Golders!
Peter Hearnden (01:22:24) :
“But, so far this year temperatures have averaged out above average, and we’ve seen several of the warmest years on record in the past ten ”
True of course because the temperature peaked during the period and we are coming down the backside of the curve. So the temps in each subsequent year will be in the top 10, then top 12, 15,20,…and over the average.
I really do not understand the argument that it is cooler than the last several years but still in the top XX so cooling is not happening. We have a near decade trend, and an impact on the 30 year trend as well. It is not just one cold season in the UK.
[…] Read the rest of the article, click link below http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/29/snow-blankets-london-for-global-warming-debate-first-october-s… […]
Yes, the UK Parliament is in the grip of some fateful delusion – it is truly scary to watch how not only MPs, but NGOs and Development Aid organisations, and everyone down (or up) to the Womens’ Institute and Royal Society have endorsed AGW ideology – believing, of course, that it is science. Nobody seems to be studying this sociological phenomenon – which is quite unprecedented, and…I would say, about to descend on the USA. I will watch with interest, because at least over your side of the great water, you have a plethora of intelligent dissent. Will you have any effect? I doubt it.
My own theory is that we are not dealing with a blinkered idiocy – many people gain some kind of assurance from the global warming mantra and the promise to turn it all around – like a cypher for meaningless and vulnerable lives, or some kind of prayer to the subliminal earth-spirit-creator we know exists (because we have both earth and spirit) but can no longer find the means of access – whatever,
it needs understanding, not ridicule,
and not also,
throwaway remarks about the Precautionary Principle (Leon – if you have an open mind, I can refer you to writings on its evolution) – which turned around the ‘burden of proof’ on mercury, lead, acid rain, PCBs and other toxic chemicals, radioactive discharges and dumping – and enabled ‘us’ (I worked on it for 10 years) to close down hundreds of thousands of cheapskate discharge operations and replace them with modern clean production technology – and with no ill effects on the global economy (outside of China).
And watch this space – the Hadley Centre were due to release their climate change projections this November for the next decade or more (which are then used by a myriad hangers-on to devise regional climate strategies) – but are now delayed (due I think to some oceanographic input). When I talked with them a month ago, we looked at the rapidly growing blue-spot among the 20-year red of the 3 degrees anomaly in the North Atlantic – and I asked, ‘so how long will it take to lose the Atlantic’s upper ocean heat content, like we just did in the North Pacific?’
Google Habobs and visit the SST data maps!
I look forward to the Nov. numbers to come out……
This is a failure of democracy and probably… the end of democracy.
The anti-terror legislation that is already in place will be used against the people.
Any future opposition will be regarded as an act of terror (against the climate).
The political in-crowd will not accept internal opposition.
Climate Skeptics will be removed from the scientific institutions and educational systems (already happening) and robbed from their careers.
In order to meet the carbon objectives the administrations will (already have) conclude that a reduction of the population is the only solution.
At this moment in time we have 1 billion people in the world that go hungry and our governments have the arrogance to squander gigantic amounts of capital and assets
to solve a non existing problem?
UN Chapter 21, The Prince of Wales, The club of Rome, Barak Obama, Gaia, WWF, George Soros, Gaia, Angela Merkel, EU, Al Gore…the new reality?
http://green-agenda.com ?
People who have been in government for a long time begin to think of their fellow legislators as their peer-group, rather than their constituents. They spend their days with other members of government, and party and dine and get their daily socializing in with those peers rather than with their constituents. They become an echo chamber, echoing the opinions they hear from other legislators as outside voices, even from the people they serve, become harder for them to hear.
They’ve stopped thinking of themselves as representatives, and started believing themselves to be leaders. So when there is a sea-change among their constituents, they will usually miss it.
Thank goodness for democracies, which eventually self-correct. When election time comes, and its time for these dear leaders to finally turn around and address the concerns of their “followers” only to find that nobody is behind them anymore, it can come as a bit of a shock.
Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later, although with US elections in just a few days, it looks like its going to be “later” for us since the tide has not yet turned in regard to AGW legislation efforts, and everyone is still singing the same tune.
Well, at least no one can accuse Parliament of fiddling while Rome burned. Maybe of fiddling with the bill while London snowed, but the imagery just isn’t there.
“reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050”? Good luck….
Pierre Gosselin (02:20:22) :
“Obviously I’ve underestimated the bureaucrats’ potential for folly.
How naive of me.”
I hereby give up, for the course of one year, all attempts at predicting when any governmental body will learn to read the writing on the wall and rediscover common sense.
‘Or since the folks at Accuweather are GW Alarmists….’
A very innacurate comment.
You don’t read Joe Bastardi, do you?
‘A very innacurate comment.’
Very inaccurate proof-reading.
29 F in Tallahassee, FL yesterday, an all-time record low for the month of October.
flanigan: Well, you all must be right: all these scientists are plain idiots and all the politicians are much more stupid than you are. Actually, very smart people do not even try to do science or politics – they leave this to the common minds.
Still trying to hide behind the “consensus” I see. Yeah, good luck with that. Your feeble attempt at sarcasm is a mark of desperation. Your AGW religion is crumbling.
AGW scientists aren’t necessarily stupid, they just know which side their bread is buttered on. The politicians pushing AGW ideology are simply self-serving, duplicitous, hypocritical, moronic oafs. But, you knew that.
the Swiss lowlands received the most snow for any October since records began. Zurich received 20cm, beating a record of 14cm set in 1939
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/travel/Record_snow_storm_triggers_delays.html?siteSect=414&sid=9908046&cKey=1225359314000&ty=nd
‘Visions of Henry IV vs. Gregory VII . . . ?’
Not the English Henry, of course, but the harried, hapless Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Emperor who was defeated at Canosa by the Papal army and forced to stand bare-footed in the snow for three days (this was near the beginning of the Little Ice Age) as penance.
I believe that the 20th c. Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello wrote a play about him.
It is an episode
we’ re in for another mild winter in western europe Metoffice says.
Anyway there could be same interesting cold snap along the way from now to March
“Actually, very smart people do not even try to do science or politics – they leave this to the common minds.”
Actually very smart people (common minds with comman sense) do not leave their fate in the hands of scientists and politicians.
“A once proud country humbled and on their knees to AGW. Even with deeper snow and cold the religion will be believed.”
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity…
WB Yeats – The Second Coming
Brown won`t be around much longer, I don`t think the Tories will will continue with this folly, I believe they voted the bill through to keep the greens happy until they have gained power. Long live Boris.
JamesF (00:02:42) : The UK is about to embark on a huge nuclear power station construction programme. With such high GHG reduction targets, the greenies won’t be able to stop it. Could this be part of the strategy?
Only by accident!
People talk about 30 years as a minimum to see a real trend in global warming. I presume a few record years in the past are just a blip? Do we have to wait 30 years to see who was right? Less than 30 years, and it is not climate, it is weather. AGW cannot be proven wrong until we wait 30 years. It also cannot be proven right.
Though Peter Hearnden makes a valid point about weather versus climate, he might also have the grace to notice that colder than normal makes us suffer a lot more than hotter than normal. As far as I can see, most Brits actually want to leave Britain and settle in France, Spain, Cyprus etc to get some more warmth. I saw a house nameplate in Calahonda from a resettled Scot which read “Dun Shivrin”. That for me really sums up an important issue; ie while we might all accept that a lot of overall warming might be dangerous, a little warming would probably be beneficial. Alas it might not even be warmer at all in the future. In any event, we do have this remarkable capability of moving around to find a climate which suits us.
‘Climate Chaos’ is the new phrase. AGW, which is failing to raise temps so ‘Global Warming’ is out. ‘Climate Change’ doesn’t do it since the climate is always changing. But ‘Climate Chaos’, now that is a stroke of genius. My ‘AGW’ believer friends are throwing this phrase around quite a bit. “Additional CO2 added by those evil humans is causing ‘Climate Chaos’. This allows them to ascribe ANY anomalous weather (and non-anomalous for that matter) to an effect of increased levels of CO2. It is irrefutable, although none of them can tell me why a steady increase in CO2 should be able to cause temperatures to drop over a period of years, they just say, “It’s a result of the chaotic effect of CO2 on climate”.
Alaska may well be headed for the coldest October on record. Average highs in Fairbanks are running close to where the low temperatures are supposed to be.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/PAFA/2008/10/30/MonthlyHistory.html
The always honest and reliable MSM was flooded last week with stories about how Arctic autumn temperatures are the “highest on record.”
Peter Hearnden: A lot of the usual bru ha ha and conspiracy theorising from people who, it seems, don’t know the difference between weather and climate (or, more likely, choose not to know for propaganda purposes).
Yes Peter, keep banging that same old AGW drum of “conspiracy theorising”, and “difference between weather and climate” you people continually copy and paste ad nauseum. Try to at least come up with something original.
This reminds me of the version of Gladiator made in the 70s, in which Commodus says he can hear the gods laughing. I think I can too! By the way, few will ever tell you that the reason Parliament is even considering such economic suicide is because of estalished EU laws and practices on emissions. Thus, while the UK can go further than EU legislation, it cannot go backwards. That is to say, while Parliament can pass laws that are stricter than established EU laws and EU Commission regulations, it cannot say “bollux” to the whole thing and throw emissions regulations out the windows of those once hallowed halls of Parliament as the bad idea that it is. It is true that due to the financial disaster Germany, France, and others are backing off emissions, but that is only for the present. The oddest thing about the British situation in the EU is that they are routinely overridden in Council votes, and pretty much ignored otherwise, yet they do their darndest to carry out the wishes – even further than most – of their masters in Brussels. And that, make no mistake about it, is where England is ruled from, not London. London is now the equivalent of Richmond, Va or Sacramento, Ca. A big city, no doubt, but merely provincial in effect. Even if they thought emissions regulation a completely bad idea, they cannot say NO! to any legislation passed by the EU itself. They must comply. Resistance, in this case and with this blinded Parliament, is indeed futile.