News Post by Ryan Maue
A government issued report from the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sounds the alarm about the incredible impacts of climate change upon UK: Wi-Fi signal range and strength will be greatly affected because of warmer temperatures. Of course, there are other concerns like railroad tracks buckling, better wind turbines to deal with higher winds, and flood protection.
I think the UK Telegraph and Guardian are sort of mocking the story, especially with the deadpan language and imagery in their stories. To me, it seems there are better ways to promote infrastructure stimulus funding rather than highlighting the effects of climate change on Wi-Fi signals.
Climate change ‘threatens UK wi-fi connections’, says government report — UK Guardian
Climate change ‘could disrupt wi-fi and hit power supply’ — UK Telegraph
[note: commenter wiglaf says: They are missing a word in the title. It should read: Climate change regulation ‘could disrupt wi-fi and hit power supply’.]
Stacey,
You must have read all the horror stories about train derailments and related catastrophes in central Africa, Australia, and the U.S. southwest, where temps routinely get well above 40°C.
[/sarc]
Oh no. Now the providers can blame any lack of this service on the Planetary Fever. And given the chance, they will.
Oh come on, everyone knows ‘Global warming’ started with the introduction of Radio Communications. As the years have gone bye the frequency’s in use have got higher and higher until we got to cellular communications when we started to microwave the planet big time 🙂
did she do this in a legal state of mind?
I fear you are in error.
Caroline Spelman isn’t a “Crazy Bureaucrat”.
She is a Crazy Member of Parliament for Meriden and Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
She hasn’t even enough intelligence to be a bureaucrat.
The Romans had a phrase for this type of argument:-
“reductio ad absurdum”
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reductio+ad+absurdum
If the exercise was to show how utterly stupid and ill-informed the British politicians really are then we scored…… big time.
The name ‘Louise Gray’ on any so-called environmental article is similar to the food warning lable, but with a minor change – ‘This article may contain information dreamed up by a nut.’
“• More heat-resistant rail tracks to prevent buckling…”
Beyond stupid. Doltish, ignorant, idiotic pseudoscientific drivel without any connexion to reality. This makes Homer Simpson look like Aristotle in comparison. Tell me this is a May Fool’s joke. Please. Has the entire UK government gone barmy?
Have not observed much (here in the field) aside from raising the overall ‘noise floor’ and making ‘frequency planning’ more of a challenge for those radio engineers charged with that responsibility … and aside from an occasional RF/radio/wireless transmitting source that malfunctions and emits on/outside the band it was licensed/type accepted for; it’s not uncommon to experience one or two of those a year now too, but if it emits, it can be tracked down, although it can be a challenge with some ‘sources’ that may transmit only intermittently or affect systems some distance away during periods of, say, ‘enhanced tropospheric ducting’ …
There was the time that Nortel (down the road just a little bit) was doing open-air testing (not in a screen room; gear hooked up to outside antennas, etc.) of a 450 MHz-based/AMPS-compliant cellular infrastructure radio base station for a South American market … all would have gone unnoticed probably except for the fact they chose the input frequency for a local 440 amateur radio repeater! The giveaway was the AMPS ‘registration’ transmissions (periodic buzzing) that went on … DFing with a small Yagi-Uda beam and receiver pinned it down to the Nortel complex and a phone call later the situation was remedied …
.
Why not simply go with :
“Global warming will destroy your for capacity for rational thought?”
Given the overwhelming body of observational evidence, even the most hardened sceptic would be hard-pressed to refute that one…..
crosspatch says:
May 9, 2011 at 11:50 am
“But they have already convinced the children that things are warming.” This is a huge problem in the USA. Is there some way to prevent the government from programmatically lying to children? The upside is that this behavior weakens the public school system, which should allowed to collapse, and strengthens the private school system.
…amazing what only 1/2 of a degree can do, isn’t it
Small point about Blackfriars station mentioned in the Telegraph. The local power system for the trains is 750 volt DC. So whilst solar panels may provide some power it will only be to tell the commuters that there are no trains!
More’n likely it was anomalous ducting; excessive refraction owing to the same effect that created the fog (much cooler air mass near the surface) … think ‘lens effect’ where the radio signal was bent away from the intended path by a non-homogeneous medium through which the RF signal path passed … it can also take on characteristics of ‘waveguide’ and duct your signal away from an intended path.
.
JohnOfEnfield says:
May 9, 2011 at 12:23 pm
‘The Romans had a phrase for this type of argument:-
“reductio ad absurdum” ‘
I’ve got a phrase for it too: Absolute bollocks.
This story was wacky enough to merit a whole cluster if posts today on the extremely large readership site Instapundit (http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/120220/).
Philip Peake says: May 9, 2011 at 11:40 am
[Where does she get her “science” from?—————Absolute garbage – for which she should really be looking for a new job. Since she isn’t her boss most certainly should be!]
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Philip Peake. Louise Gray has been writing crap for the Daily Telegraph since she began. She is always torn to shreds in the comment section. I can only conclude that the DT wants this reaction and has set it up for that purpose. The DT cannot be so stupid as to subscribe to the crap she writes but they at least know who their readers are..
Douglas
Well, it’s clear that Ms Spelman is outstanding in her field.
The goal of these types of reports is that a large portion of readers will just run with it, not stopping to think or check facts. If the reporter believes it, so too must a few of his readers! This has got to stop, it is a sort of libel affecting us all, I hope somebody is keeping track. Perhaps the threat of prosecution for spreading false information will at least slow this insanity.
If you can raise a posibility that you may be impacted by the possibility of future adverse climate change, then you gain access to the certain and real river of money for climate mitigation.
These departments may be cleverer than we think – they may be just securing funding by whatever insane method works.
Guess WiFi doesn’t work close to the equator?
Who will rid the UK of these crazy people? Worse – who is advising them? These are the real Lysenkos.
Do any sane people run for office in the U.K.?
What the world is witnessing here is a typical product of the UK’s policy of “Care the Community”