Essay by Eric Worrall
The British people have finally had enough, after attempts by the MET to link the heatwave to climate change triggered an unprecedented social media backlash.
Weather forecasters faced accusations of LYING and scaremongering during this month’s extreme heatwave as leading meteorologists condemn unprecedented levels of trolling in hundreds of abusive tweets and emails
- The Met Office’s lead meteorologist asked for ‘a bit of respect’ for his colleagues
- It comes after reports linking the heatwave to climate change riled up viewers
- Climate change made the unprecedented temperatures ‘ten times more likely’
- Online abusers even accused TV meteorologists of lying and being blackmailed
PUBLISHED: 22:20 AEST, 29 July 2022 | UPDATED: 01:18 AEST, 30 July 2022
Weather forecasters have been the target of ‘unprecedented levels of trolling’ this month, as keyboard warriors took to social media to accuse TV meteorologists of spreading hysteria during the heatwave.
The BBC‘s weather team said they were inundated with comments on social media telling them to ‘get a grip’, while others questioned the accuracy of their reports as the nation sweltered in heat that got as high as 40C.
Social media trolls seemed whipped up by reports linking the heatwave with secular trends caused by climate change, according to the Royal Meteorological Society who said their forecasters were also targeted along with forecasters from the Met Office.
…
According to the Met Office, climate change made the heatwave ten times more likely – although it is not possible to conclude causation definitively.
BBC meteorologist Matt Taylor said he had found the amount of online abuse levelled at him this month ‘depressing’.
He said: ‘Ít’s a more abusive tone than I’ve ever received.
‘I switched off a bit from it all as it became too depressing to read some of the responses.’
The Royal Meteorological Society also weighed in on the pushback received by their members during the heatwave.
The society’s chief executive Professor Liz Bentley said members had faced ‘public ridicule, accusations of lying or suggestions of being blackmailed’.
…
WUWT does not condone physical threats or violence. But I understand the anger. Britain faces a horror winter of spiralling price rises and shortages, in my opinion largely a consequence of a long term MET office and BBC climate scare campaign which undermined mainstream political support for reliable energy.
My question, what are the people hurling abuse and threats expecting to achieve?
Before I read Climategate I thought alarmists were all scientific frauds, but after I read Climategate I realised there is a range of motivations. Many if not all of them actually believe. Even when they hide declines or try to have open minded science journal editors fired, or manipulate data from New Zealand which strongly suggests the MWP was global, they think they are being the good guys. So there is no point threatening or hurling abuse. People who believe they are the good guys put up with abuse, because they believe their mission to help others is more important than their personal comfort.
So how do we fix the unaffordable green energy mess the MET and BBC have helped create?
The best course in my opinion is to find and vote for politicians whose priority is fixing today’s problems, rather than politicians whose obsession is what the weather will be like after we are all dead. Even if this means voting for minority party candidates.
Please don’t fall for the political canvasser canard that a minority candidate vote in Britain’s first past the post system is a wasted vote. Politicians watch minority votes like hawks, minority candidate support is their weather vane for what their voters really want.
So long as mainstream political canvassers can cajole you into voting mainstream, they don’t care if you have a few gripes. But a large breakout in favour of climate skeptic candidates would be a real shock to the political system.
Just look at Brexit. Nigel Farage‘s UKIP never achieved sizeable representation in Westminster Parliament. But they came close to a breakthrough. The threat of a voter support breakthrough was enough to persuade then Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the Brexit referendum, which Cameron thought would put the issue to bed. Cameron misjudged and lost.
If nobody had voted for UKIP, even though they knew their candidate was unlikely to win, in my opinion there would have been no Brexit referendum.
The same political formula could work for fixing Britain’s broken, overpriced energy system. If enough British people vote for politicians whose focus is today’s problems, even if those candidates don’t win, politicians will be panicked into responding. It will no longer matter what MET and BBC climate scaremongers believe or say, if they lose their position of influence.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C.S. Lewis.
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Nah, just doing what they’re paid to do. HINT: no journalist (or any other entertainer) ever ‘worked for the public.’
The question is always “Who’s paying?”
The BBC weather forecast is provided by Meteogroup and not the meteorological office.
That is true, but in the run up to the so-called heatwave both the BBC’s weather presenters and especially their newscasters/reporters continually used words like “according to the Met Office”
The Met Office was once a highly respected, professionally run organisation of meteorologists. These days it’s a joke – computer gamers running models with no understanding of meteorology just a woke belief in a cult.
Hubert Lamb would be turning in his grave if he knew what the Met Office was like now. Being the founder of the Climatic Research Unit in 1972 in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia his professionalism is missed.
WUWT does not condone physical threats or violence.
____________________________________________
I didn’t see any threats or reports of violence in the quoted article or link.
It’s implied in the picture reference. Don’t forget that, following the ‘gunpowder plot’, Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators were hung, drawn and quartered.
Thanks, I didn’t give the headline image a thought.
The bureaucracy spent 20 years lying about climate change. They spent the last 2 years destroying peoples lives by lying about COVID. Now in a combination of lies about climate change & the corrupt government of the Ukraine they are destroying peoples lives, driving up the cosy of essentials, and telling them to accept freezing this winter. The bureaucracy worked hard for the contempt they are receiving now. They deserve no sympathy.
This ^
Remember safe and effective 😉
You mean like the cure for “one of the most profitable products ever”.. ?
Yep
The bureaucracy spent 20 years lying about climate change.
________________________________________________
Twenty years? It’s been forty by my count.
Warming Warning 1981 YouTube Search.
Before that, they were warning that the Ice Age Cometh, also, caused by fossil fuels and CO2.
Not CO2 they said it was SO2 from Fossil Fuels causing reduced insolation. Then when SO2 was removed by the clean air acts and temperature went up they blamed CO2.
No. The time for politeness is long past. This is war. And forget trying to second-guess their motives, or where they happen to be on the Belief scale. They are the enemy.
Proof that ridicule works. Alarmists feelings got hurt. Good.
I must respectfully, and partially, disagree.
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” There are very few true sociopaths in the world; I can agree that the majority of these people have good intentions.
But if they ignore the “Road Closed” signs that we have been putting up, one must have traffic barriers with blinking lights to hopefully cause them to stop. It’s not yet time for the concrete Jersey walls for them to crash into.
The signs are the facts that disprove their beliefs. Social media backlash is the blinking lights. One can hope that those lights cause them to reconsider their course, and stop before they hit the hempen ropes that are the concrete.
These activists pretending to be scientists needs to be shamed, confronted, refuted.
People today are in many respects no different than they were in the days of Galileo. Just as gullible and equally uneducated. Propaganda ranks #1 in population control and is so evident.
That is not true. The people of Galileo’s day were far different than today. The Church did not object to Galileo’s theory because of religion but because Galileo did not have the scientific proof for his theory. The Galileo controversy is one of the most misunderstood historical events in Mankind’s entire history.
This series of blog posts is the best treatment of the Galileo affair that I’ve ever read. It covers the entire process of how heliocentric cosmology came into being. I encourage everyone to read it. It is an example of how science should be done. It is not being done in this way today. We have gone backwards, not forwards.
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html?m=1
This, too, is good.
Galileo’s vain ambition
https://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/galileos-vain-ambition/#comment-34327
What they are doing is evil, not for the good of the people but for personal gain. And they should be rewarded for it by the silence of good manners.
The fact they are disturbed by unfavorable comments shows they wish to do their destructive work with impunity.
The BBC’s logo should incorporate the 3 wise monkeys in it!
Have they explained what the mechanism is? I’ve heard them say it was caused by climate change but not by anthropogenic CO2.I’d understood that CO2 slows cooling but how does it raise Tmax? I can understand hot air being blown to the UK from Africa/Sahara but how is that anything to do with CO2? I can understand that the removal of SO2 from the atmosphere (Clean air acts) could increase insolation but what’s that got to do with CO2?
Nothing whatsoever to do with CO2. The Met Office and BBC, as usual, are peddling an unoriginal idea without the slightest idea of whether it’s true, how it works, how much it costs or anything about it. They are the very definition of blind clueless followers.
Unprecedented because no one had twatter accounts or email in the past
Respect is earned, it’s not a right
TV weathermen and women did spread hysteria
It wasn’t a heatwave, it was a couple of days of warm weather
So, no evidence then. I guess that’s why they had to spread hysteria to keep the narrative going.
Awww, poor lambs.
Maybe if they did their jobs properly instead of screaming the end is nigh all the time, they wouldn’t be ridiculed so much.
Those Two days in England were Scotland’s summer where for the most part it has been cloudy, rainy and often aggravated by cold, nagging, near gale force winds.
I have no recollection of any Scottish airport temperatures being published as examples of UK wide records.
They “the alarmists” want you cold and dead … return the favor
I think you are wrong on this Anthony. The ‘consensus’ has marginalized sceptics very successfully and scientific arguments from us are now easily dismissed because people, certainly outside the US, believe we are dangerous D*Myers and right wing knuckle daggers.
I myself a have been advocating here for shaming of the consensus individuals There is a policy- created human disaster looming not just for Europe/UK but the world because of deliberate damage by totalitarians to the fossil fuel industry – regulatory, financing, restricting access to resources, banning pipelines etc. Fertilizers are even made by gas forming and this reactant is now more than 10x the price.
Politicians are always easy prey. They always go with the (faux) ‘science’. I say go after these misery purveyors running the ‘science’ wholesale. They are not innocent. When their forecasts failed they quickly began moving the goalposts (from 1950 to 1850 and now 1750). They shoehorned data to fit the failed GHG crisis warming theory. You know they even relied on UHI and bad siting to harvest warming and moved or shutdown stations that were not showing warming. This is not the behavior of innocent scientists!!
I now name and shame individuals like Richard Betts wh prevailed on a departing Prime Minister May to put up another Billion £ of beleaguered taxpayers cash for ‘climate’ on her way out of office. He is a contributor to the misery.
+100
It’s finally dawning on the common man that the heavy lifting on CO2 elimination is going to be done by him, and that it will result in a significant reduction in his standard of living, and all for nothing. Why wouldn’t he be mad – he should be outraged. Green activists are liers – they’ve been telling the gullible that the transition would be easy, painless. Just blame the oil companies for producing the product they say, when it’s their consumption that’s the issue. Dawn is coming and it’s not going to be pretty.
Like some of the women I woke up next to in the light of dawn.
Coyote ugly ?
Asking for a friend .
😉
Only because you asked and against my better judgement, Bob: Coyote Ugly refers to a girl you have spent the night with and, upon waking up, you get your first good look at her in the light. She is so ugly that you want to sneak out without having to talk with her. But she is asleep on your arm! To avoid waking her up you chew off that arm like a coyote caught in a trap.
Now, Double Coyote Ugly is when you chew off your other arm to remind yourself never to do that again. I’m told it works but I never went that far even after a number of adventures with Coyote Ugly girls, always at closing time. That one time in Spokane, WA is particularly memorable.
UKIP was a political movement – a few ‘trolls’ do not a movement make
Eric, get Farage on board and you might have a goer
If you want respect, you have to give respect.
Lying to your audience is not respectful.
The Weather Men (and women) have “jumped the shark” with their All In On The Climate Crisis thing — blaming a Clmate Change Crisis for perfectly normal weather, It is SUMMER and summer, in the norther hemisphere in many place is HOT. Repeatedly referring to summer weather as a Heat Wave cause by Climate Change has been just too much – in the USA as well.
It is just plain SILLY.
So what is the Hot Summer days as a degree or two hotter than last year — they werre just as hot five years ago, then years ago, 50 years ago.
Every winter snowstorm now must be named to make it seem unusual, out of the ordinary and somehow more dangerous than all the other snow storms of the past.
It look to me like the sensible Englishmen/women have just had enough.
It might be coincidence but this backlash does correlate with market clearing of energy prices after some bit of shielding and lag time. That shielding is much like third world countries and thugocracies that temper uprisings with nonmarket fuel prices as long as they can. Prior to that it was just political arm waving and theatrics. Now it’s real.
When politicians who oppose bandwagon policies start to become popular, the major parties unite in turning against them as though they were rabid dogs who must be shot dead before they infect anyone else.Almost always those united actions are successful.
I’ve been observing this for the last 20 years. Trump achieving something by being elected was the only real exception I’ve noticed. The shotgun hunt didn’t \gain much momentum until after he was elected.
Love the quote from CS Lewis. The problem in a nutshell
My 3 week jaunt through the UK has left me somewhat depressed, as a gardener from Calgary it’s great and also defeating to see what can grow in a warm climate.
I’m now hoping AGW will lead to much longer summers and shorter winters back home
And maybe please no more -40 in winter.
Climate change I can believe in and get behind.
You would be a fool indeed if you lived in the UK and ignored the plain evidence of UK weather and UK weather statistics this century….
…climate change is impacting the UK.
right on cue
That “heatwave” has passed you by. What are you complaining about now?
You would be a fool indeed if you lived in the Pacific Northwest and ignored the plain evidence of Pacific Northwest weather and Pacific Northwest weather statistics this century….
Where it has been much hotter than what YOU and your whining unprepared experienced.
It is forecasted to be 110 degrees F (43 C) in my area and already has been the previous days of 109 F, 109 F, 108 F, 108 F, 107 F 103 F.
Tomorrow is expected to be 105 F (41 C)
No mass deaths showed up because most people are prepared for it.
“Face Unprecedented Social Media Uprising”
Keep telling a lie frequently over time only leaves the public to judge that this is indeed a lie when reality bites. The responce is uprising in all forms especially social media. This will only get worse the more this restricts peoples freedom.
“According to the Met Office, climate change made the heatwave ten times more likely – although it is not possible to conclude causation definitively.”
Lie number 1
It wasn’t a heatwave with it not lasting 5 days. (most of the UK didn’t even have hot weather for 3 days) Even by their own definition that has been in operation for decades up until just the recent few years.
Lie number 2
There hasn’t been an increase in heatwaves yet, so how can they be ten times more likely when occuring within natural variation. The UK has not even had one heatwave this year using the proper heatwave definition. There use to be more extreme weather and longer droughts in past history going back centuries than recent decades.
Lie number 3
This is an assumption not based on any science that global warming had an influence. The very high temperatures come from North Africa directly via Spain and France towards the UK. Since when has global warming caused the wind direction from the South? It hasn’t, the Atlantic ocean will provide its usual westerly winds over time.
From this southerly direction it would had been hot/very hot 100 or 200 years ago and still wouldn’t had been a heatwave unless it lasted longer than 5 or more days.
The source with the highest temperature will give the most extreme temperatures when they reach the UK.
3rd July 1976 from Spain (35.9c)
https://www.wetterzentrale.de/reanalysis.php?uur=1800&var=2&nmaps=24&map=1&model=noaa&jaar=1976&maand=07&dag=03
https://www.wetterzentrale.de/reanalysis.php?uur=1800&var=2&nmaps=24&map=1&model=noaa&jaar=1976&maand=06&dag=29
10th August 2003 from Spain (38.5c)
https://www.wetterzentrale.de/reanalysis.php?uur=1800&var=2&nmaps=24&map=1&model=noaa&jaar=2003&maand=08&dag=10
https://www.wetterzentrale.de/reanalysis.php?map=1&model=noaa&var=2&jaar=2003&maand=8&dag=6&h=0&nmaps=24
19 July 2022 from North Africa (40.3c)
https://www.wetterzentrale.de/reanalysis.php?uur=1800&var=2&nmaps=24&map=1&model=cfsr&jaar=2022&maand=07&dag=19
https://www.wetterzentrale.de/reanalysis.php?map=1&model=cfsr&var=2&jaar=2022&maand=7&dag=13&h=0&nmaps=24
“African deserts are the sunniest and the driest parts of the continent, owing to the prevailing presence of the subtropical ridge with subsiding, hot, dry air masses. Africa holds many heat-related records: the continent has the hottest extended region year-round, the areas with the hottest summer climate, the highest sunshine duration, and more.”
Spain has hot Summers but they are cooler than North Africa. The air from Africa is very dry and low humidity promotes higher air temperatures. The high on 19th July 2022 for central England was absolutely unparalleled bacause the source of air had come from a hotter and drier region of North Africa not Spain, like the other record high temperature events from 1906, 1911, 1976, 1990 and 2003 just to name some examples.
Could this had occurred say 100+ years ago?
Yes
A warmer planet is likely to cause slightly higher temperatures but not needed in this case.
For example 35c/36c was widely recorded in England over the 1st and 2nd of September 1906. July is around 3c higher than September so 38c/39c could had been easily expected even back in 1906.
Was this source from 1906 extreme like from North Africa?
No
Saharan dust was reported to reach the UK around 18/19th July 2022 and is relatively common in the UK often happening a few times a year when big dust storms in the Sahara coincide with southerly wind patterns. On this occasion the air source was directly from North Africa unlike usual southerly wind patterns.
The source in 1906 was from Spain again so even though still very hot not as hot as North Africa. This means that if the source was from North Africa back in 1906 then temperatures would had been higher still. One or two degrees higher than the possible July temperatures back in 1906 of 38c/39c would lead to the current 40c recorded today. That provides the scientific evidence that the hot weather was not caused by climate change, but via the extreme source of air by the temporary pressure pattern highlighted by the ridge of high pressure.
https://www.wetterzentrale.de/reanalysis.php?jaar=1906&maand=9&dag=1&uur=1800&var=2&map=1&model=noaa
The source of air from North Africa seems very rare in mid-summer so if this happens again like nature, it may happen shortly again in the near future or not happen again for decades. I have looked back at previous records back to 1906 and not found another example. This was a very usual weather event, not a pattern that often occurs in causing hot weather over the UK.
Summary
The biggest problem people face with these lies and the poltical laws forced on them to fight an invisble enemy. Are the hardship this brings and is already happening with increased communism and less freedom.
Towards the end before the summary, “this was a very unusual weather event”, not usual.
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it.” – H.L. Mencken
“If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.”
– Joseph Goebbels
This describes the Believer meteorologists. If they do truly believe in CAGW, it’s only because they have fallen victim to their own lies. I have no sympathy for them.
Besides, they define disagreement as abuse, so it’s diffiuclt to know how “abusive” people really were. Either way, given the hell on earth they are trying to impose on their fellow humans, I have little sympathy for them.