Tuesday, July 24, 2007

UK Flooded...

...with pundits desperate to pin the latest floods on to 'man made climate change' (anyone else notice that the phrase 'global warming' is being rapidly replaced with the phrase 'climate change' - you can bet your life that when it gets hot again they'll revert to talking about warming again).

There's been frequent mention that these floods are the worst since 1947, but the obvious question of what caused the floods in 1947 is never asked. Given that 1947 was in a cooling period and that that man-made CO2 emissions were lower it's easy to see why the obvious questions aren't asked. Instead we're treated to 'we told you so' comments along the lines of 'more rain is precisely what the climate models predict' - again conveniently forgetting that the predictions are for wetter winters, not summers.

The epitome of this was one anonymous listener emailing Radio 4's Today program to comment that no wonder we're suffering such disasters when people are complaining that the 8 litres a day of clean water being distributed to victims is not enough. I've tried to parse the logic (I'm being generous here...), and the best I can come up with is along these lines... We demand so much (i.e. more than 8 litres of water a day) and that these demands are met by industries that pump CO2 into the atmosphere and that this is causing the floods.

How can one even counter that kind of thinking?

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