Hmmm, I’ll bet they didn’t forecast this either. Might make a nice museum or art gallery though.
UK Government May Sell Off Met Office, Nature Reserves
John Vidal, Severin Carrell and Juliette Jowit, The Guardian, 13 August 2010
Some of the most beautiful areas of Britain could be sold off and wildlife and countryside protection measures cut to the bone to meet expected 40% cuts in the budget of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it emerged.
Among the plans being considered by the government, which once declared itself “the greenest ever”, are selling off national nature reserves; privatising parts of the Forestry Commission; privatising the Met Office, one of the world’s leading research organisations on climate change; and withdrawing grants to British Waterways, which manages 2,200 miles of canals and rivers.
Natural England, the government’s principal nature conservation agency, has put forward 400 job cuts next year, and up to another 400 after that, potentially one third of its workforce.
There are also concerns that the Environment Agency, which looks after waterways, air and soil, will have to slash spending on pollution and waste controls and river protection after the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, recently said she had made it “perfectly clear” that the government would maintain the level of spending on flood defences – which take up more than half the agency’s budget.
Good! Perhaps now they’ll behave more like AccuWeather and stop trying to tell us what the weather will be like in 25 years time. The Met Office’s home page is littered with “climate change” yet most people who come to the page just want to know what the weather will be like in 1-3 days time.
Sell them off as soon as possible and fire the head. :o)
Will the Brits get as much for the Met as the Washington Post got for Newsweek?
Amazing, isn’t it, how being broke and nearly bankrupt can focus your attention on the real priorities in life? ….Like flood control…. and energy for heat next winter.
Yet another sign of the ebbing tide of the faith based Man Made Climate Change hypothesis. Please, Oh Please! Let this clarity also infect the US government reps, agencies, and pols!
Thank You, Anthony, for making this market place of information, ideas, and debate possible! Thank You to every Contributor and the Moderators that keep the commentary civil and on topic!
Keep ‘Spreading The News’!
Guess what is near the top right of the Met Office’s home page? A weather pull down menu? No.
Guess what’s the next thing down on the left side?
Guess what is in the news section?
It goes on and on like this. What a crying shame. :o(
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
Has anyone noticed that if you Google “Met Office” the result shows “Met Office weather and climate change forecasts for the UK and worldwide.”??
Privatising the Met Office maintaining half the current budget?
That’s incredible.
Anthony, make them an offer.
Since the data is already difficult to retrieve, why not just fill the building with concrete?
Meant to say:
“Guess what is near the top left of….”
This is the fourth piece of ‘cuts’ news in the UK in the last week that has made me go “Yes!”. The excess has to go. The whingeing from the greenies in the Guardian article shows they haven’t got a clue. It may be desirable that ‘environmental’ things get done, but how do you chose that over all the other ‘must haves’.
Jim says:
August 16, 2010 at 1:59 pm
“How about “The Life and Times of Bristlecone Pine.” ”
or “Fellowship of the Tree Rings”
cedarhill says:
August 16, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Looks like it would be a great site for either a coal-fired power plant or a nuclear power station.
With the amount of electricity their super computer uses it probably is a nuclear power station.
——————————
“It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.” WUWT
Jimbo says:
August 16, 2010 at 2:48 pm
and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.”
====================================================
Tell me again, how many people died last winter because of their forecast? and from lack of electricity?
It could be that are trying to show us that the science is settled?
“Plans to privatise the Met Office will short-change the taxpayer by millions of pounds, the union representing over 1,250 scientists and other staff at the UK forecaster has said.”
http://www.prospect.org.uk/news/newsstory.php?news=548
A potential buyer would probably bring in some analysts to see which part of the business is salvageable and how many people are needed for that. Looks like layoffs. Many layoffs.
And:
“How can an agency that is a key contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change be privatised and still be expected to provide objective information?”
ROTFLMAO.
J. Knight says:
August 16, 2010 at 1:17 pm
“At least the UK is trying to pay their bills.
Vastly better than the crew claiming to be running the US Government.”
Very true, Steven, and did you notice that the US deficit for last year($1.7 trillion) was more than the entire British national debt, if Trev’s statistics are accurate, and I have no reason to doubt them.
All I can say is, “we’re screwed”!
For those that have not seen the scary reality of the US debt this is work a look – http://www.usdebtclock.org/ – but don’t leave it running on your laptop any longer than you need to – it’s processor intensive and likely to overheat.
It’s nice to see that the UK priority on Climate Damage is flood mitigation.
Looks like they have twigged on the age old maxim of best- defence against superior forces.
Take the high ground, guys.
Works even better against Natures, gravity seeking forces than it does against human agencies.
Rivers are pretty.
Streams are nice.
Don’t build near water,
that’s ancient advice!
You know, you’d think the people working in that expensive building could do better than a guy with frizzy hair working in a small, cluttered office.
Verity Jones says:
August 16, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Jim says:
August 16, 2010 at 1:59 pm
“How about “The Life and Times of Bristlecone Pine.” ”
or “Fellowship of the Tree Rings”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
or, “The Hockey Stick Science Forgot”
So now the UK’s nature preserves are for sale, just like its politicians. Nothing new here.
The main point of the Met Office is to give reasonably accurate weather forecasts for the next 7-10 days. The weather in the UK is complex so the supercomputer will still be required.
Beyond that – who will pay money for their climate change ‘research’? As a private company – if this ‘research’ is shown to be false, made up, or done in an amateur fashion [eg. statistical methods] they could be held liable and sued. That should concentrate minds on whether to do anything more than short term forecasts!
I would expect a much slimmer Met Office to be the result of this.
Perhaps all climate science should be outsourced to private companies – it should cut down on the propaganda, weed out the amateurs, and concentrate resources on real science.
Hilarious!
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 16, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Verity Jones says:
August 16, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Jim says:
August 16, 2010 at 1:59 pm
“How about “The Life and Times of Bristlecone Pine.” ”
or “Fellowship of the Tree Rings”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
or, “The Hockey Stick Science Forgot”
———–
“Larch of the Rings” ??
Trev says:
August 16, 2010 at 12:06 pm
“BTW – despite the word ‘cuts’ actual spending will continue to increase.”
That’s the difference between governmental budgeting and real budgeting. In governments any increase in the budget that is less than it originally would have been, even if the total is still increasing, is a cut. So if the budget required to continue status quo into next year is an increase of 15% from this year but you only receive a 10% increase, it’s a cut.
Fred says:
August 16, 2010 at 12:10 pm
“Turn it into a Global Warming Museum . . . showing the whole story of how the scam started, overlap between environmentalism and socialism/marxism, have exhibits showing how temperature data is “adjusted” and of course a rogues gallery of the scammer scientists and politicians who made so much money off the scam.
Special “Al Gore Hall” is a must
It should be a “catastrophic climate change” museum, including the “coming Ice Age” from the 1970s.