Who runs the Met Office?
They are our official weather forecasters.
THE END OF THE WORLD
Climate Control is the new Armageddon, a worthy heir to: Judgement Days, Plagues, Pestilences, Famines and Nuclear Holocausts. When I was cutting my teeth in Fleet St I learned the power of the Armageddon scenario. Slow news day? Pull down any dull overseas story, mix it with the Cold War, evoke the threat of mushroom clouds overhead, and bingo, your story now touches everyone’s lives.
WHAT DO THEY KNOW?
I’ve just been watching a news programme where two weather forecasters were going at each other over whether the Freeze is over. The guy from the Met Office said it was over, a guy from a private weather forecasting outfit said there was more to come. I thought “Blimey, if they can’t get the next fortnight right, how come they’re so rock solid about the turn of the next century?” Don’t get me wrong, I want to hand over as healthy a planet as possible when my generation gives the reins to the next. I imagine you want the same.
We also want the truth. Churchill: “Truth is the first victim in any war”.
WAR?
It’s the USA and Europe versus the emerging giants of Asia. Only this week China was pronounced the world’s largest exporter. You probably won’t buy a single item of consumer goods this year which doesn’t swell the Chinese treasury. The story that has been going round is that the only way the West can slow down their economic march is to reduce their power supplies. Short of bombing their train tracks, which is no longer fashionable, the best we can do is…bring on an end of the world scenario:
The developing countries are going to kill the planet.
We must stop them, for our children’s sake. Of course, this is not a real war, just a rivalry. Real war means soldiers and weapons; and the Ministry of Defence.
SO WHO RUNS THE MET OFFICE?
The Met Office is now wholly owned and run by the Ministry of Defence.
And if there is any reason for that fact, other than the strategic importance of the information they control, I can’t for the life of me work it out.
January 12, 2010 at 6:23 am |
Is there a better job than being a weather forecaster?
Get out of bed in jim-jams, look out of the window, recall what it was like yesterday, check what time of year it is, e-mail 5 day forecaste, back to bed, work done.
Money for old rope: lovely.
January 12, 2010 at 11:32 am |
Mind, I think everybody’s job looks easier thasn your own.
January 12, 2010 at 8:16 am |
In that case, should we all be looking forward to weather forecasts which advise us that the weather will be: ‘Smoky, with some cannon thunder and a hail of bullets. And a 60% chance of light bombing’?
January 12, 2010 at 11:34 am |
I guess that’s the 7 day outlook for the Taliban.
January 12, 2010 at 8:35 am |
An additional viewpoint that I am beginning to believe is that this will also slow the use of the remaining resources on the planet. Oil and Gas won’t be around forever most experts agree that the production Peak of Oil is around the corner (if not already happened) and the rate and quality of extraction can only start to decline. Infinite growth economies require infinite energy….unfortunatly energy on this planet at the moment is finite.
Stalling India and China’s use of fossil fuels could be seen as vital to give the West the time to prepare for a post fossil fuel world.
At the end of the age of oil, we will certainly require some real ingenuity to stop us moving backwards. I look forward to seeing what we do.
Good topic Tommy.
January 12, 2010 at 11:39 am |
Well said. The Kyoto protocol effectively allowed the West to buy pollution tokens from poorer countries. Each country was allocated a carbon limit. If you fell short of your quota you could sell your unused tokens to the major pullutors. It appeared to me to be a cash bribe.
I expect the next tactic to be some kind of trade embargo linked to carbon burning.
January 12, 2010 at 12:15 pm
There is evidence that the Bush administration coming into power in 2001 were very aware of the oil situation, possibly fearing things were far worse than they actually were.
A National Energy Task Force was created by George Bush in his second week in office. Dick Cheney was put in place as chairman. However nearly all of the activities of this group have remained secret. Even freedom of Information requests appear to have been obstructed.
After what then took place during the next 8 years of that administration it’s hard not to wonder what was discussed…
January 12, 2010 at 8:44 am |
Theres a good two hour show in that.
January 12, 2010 at 3:24 pm |
As I am sitting with the laptop at the kitchen table I decided to count how many things in the Kitchen may have come from China, while there are many no doubt I started in the fridge and ironically my stir fry mix and black bean sauce are made in Britain for Sainsburys.
I like the Chinese,, usually very direct. Do they give a monkeys about Carbon, unlikely but then they dont have to worry about making the wrong wine choice. Having a bowl of rice every night tends to focus the mind. Anyhoo I’m not a fan of condoms so i wouldnt want to live there. So communism worked in the end. Love it.
The bank that likes to say yes – they quickly got rid of that griffin.
January 15, 2010 at 10:12 pm |
I love this tommy-intelligent questioning of the paradigm global warming,can’t begin to tell you how it feels listening to talk sport callers repeating the undisputable scientific evidence that it’s rubbish “cos if ice melts in ya bevvy it don’t spill over out my glass does it” said as if it was the most profound statement in history!
Personally Im following the path that oil companies are trying to milk the most out of the last the oil left,lobbying to restrict alternate energy and advertising that they are greener than green to promote profits,there’s countries screaming out for incentives to preserve their forests,and the massive amounts of carbon stored within but are being ignored while it’s derigeur for hardwood decking and the lowest emission 4×4 BMW-oil companies are obviously keener on moving into the biofuels Market which requires the land on which the forests stand,few thoughts from the mouth of madness and thanks for listening
January 16, 2010 at 9:11 pm |
Bob, how is Tommy’s comment “Blimey, if they can’t get the next fortnight right, how come they’re so rock solid about the turn of the next century?” anymore intelligent than the sort of knee-jerk comments made by the imaginary TalkSport callers you’re talking about?
I can’t tell you how many times a coin will come up heads if you flip it over the next two weeks, but at the end of 100 years, I can say that it’s going to be around 50/50. Yes, I have much greater certainty about the results for thew 100 year period than the two week period. And I don’t even have a degree in maths.
I find it rather astonishing how many people don’t seem to know the difference between climate and weather.
January 21, 2010 at 10:49 pm
Fat Steve,hello, I support protection of forests as carbon banks and believe in global warming, but I may have said unclearly I welcome intelligent debate on why we are encouraged to go green while things such as that electiric car in the us some years ago were quashed in favour of cleaner oil based technologies and the push for oil shale exploitation,but nice interacting chap(I’m also usually quite hammered so my thoughts don’t always appear as they do in my head due to the thinking, typing time lag!)
peace out homie
January 21, 2010 at 8:05 am |
Climate change, war, drugs, cholesterol, swine flu, these aren’t the real dangers of the world. The thing that will bring man kind to it’s knees is the stiletto heel. This object of fascination has caused more pollution, aggression, and world wide danger than any nuke or smog cloud.
The object in question has had an effect on the modern psyche of both men and women since it’s inception.
For men it has had a sublime interference in our everyday thoughts. The classic image of the long leg tottered on a shoe with dagger like props has driven the modern mans drive to power and distracted thinking. All in the aim to achieve this unconscious and conscious desire to gain and hold on to the prize of the fantasy leg moment. We aren’t after power money or status. deep down it is all a modern animal hunting the moment that will set us free in an 80′s advert style.
The heel drives all big business down to the working classes all in the hope to get some. The artificial limb extender even if you are unaware will probably make most of you daily decisions today.
The stiletto is like the bone in 2001 a moment of evolution causing a chain reaction to an unrecognised future.
Thanks all, I’m of to make loads of unconscious stupid decisions blindly driven a need that is abstract.
Dan
January 21, 2010 at 8:30 am |
Excellent analysis
January 21, 2010 at 11:33 am |
The most irritating argument used by those who believe in the whole human-attributed climate change scam is “most scientists agree that CO2 is causing the world to warm up” etc etc.
My retort, in such situations, is (or at least should be) most scientists aren’t astronomers (which of course is as great a generalisation, but I digress). Am I wrong in thinking the current warm patch the sung is going through has effected other planets within an adjacent timescale?
The climate is changing, it has always changed, and the hardest thing people are going to have to face is that habitable places will in time become inhabitable, and like our forefathers we are going to have to resettle, adapt perhaps (from a British perspective) actually BOTHER to learn other languages and be self sufficient rather than reliant on our employers to feed us.
I’m writing this looking at a scene of the usual Swedish winter. Has the weather changed much during the past 8 years I’ve been coming/living here?. Indeed it has. Oh, I believe it was 10 or so degrees colder than normal throughout the winter of 2002, and we had that summer that was warmer than usual, then the one that followed that was colder and wetter. It was -16 at times last winter, and..and… Well, you see my point.
I like the summer best of all because women don’t wear socks. I hope for a more mediterannean climate in the fyooture.
January 21, 2010 at 11:36 am |
Thanks Steven, good points.
January 21, 2010 at 6:27 pm |
Yes, Steven, you are wrong. You appear to have literally no idea of the evidence for anthropogenic climate change. I do salute you for not letting that get in the way of your having an opinion. I
February 9, 2010 at 11:41 am
What if I view the evidence, as you call it, in a different way? And you really should NOT salute me or any other person if you believe I have an opinion that is not based on facts.
I mean, I don’t think I have a right to an opinion on the growth cycles of brussels sprouts, no more would I suggest to have an opinion about the disenfranchisement of black people in Britain today; it is outside of my experience.
I regard information relating to anthropogenic climate change with a level of distrust due to, as I see it, the amount of money that is showed over any study that may be linked to said climate change.
The suggestion of this post, if you don’t mind the supposition, is that I know very little about his subject. You don’t suppose that I have actually been educated by the findings of very respectable scientists rather than non-scientist Tommy Boyd, you have very clearly said you disregard?
As it stands, humans do affect the climate, but to a much lesser degree than the exagerrated doom-mongering predictions we are force fed.
This being said, I am very mercurial in my views on things and will continue to look into this subject.
I find it curious how Americans ALWAYS seem to think they know better than we Europeans. We need to be informed.