Well, I said that posting would be intermittent. Obviously, what I should have said was that posting would be next to non-existent. It is very difficult to become sufficiently animated about the UK’s descent into collective, paranoid hysteria when living on the front line of the Libyan adventure (OK, I’m in the south of France).
However, a new scientific paper has breached the defences of my rural idyll and jolly exciting it is too! Titled “Impact of Polar Ozone Depletion on Subtropical Precipitation” it purports to show that our old friend, the Antarctic ozone hole, has been responsible for a great deal of climate change (no, don’t switch off just yet). Do you remember the ozone hole? That was the last climatic event for which we were allegedly responsible and we all had to buy new fridges to appease Gaia – although some deluded souls suggest that we were appeasing Dupont Chemicals who just happened to hold the patents on the new refrigerants – but not us eh, reader?
Anyway, we fixed the ozone hole by banning those nasty CFCs. OK, the hole’s not actually gone yet and, yes, it might actually have got a little larger since the 1987 Montreal Protocol but don’t be cynical: those vested interests, Dupont moneymen, fridge salesmen, clever scientists assure us that it will go just a little while after we all die somewhere towards the end of the century – take their word for it! (I’m seriously considering investing in cryogenics just to be able to return in 2100 and say “Told you so”…).
But back to the paper and one of the horse’s mouths: according to Professor Lorenzo Polvani, one of the paper’s authors, “While the ozone hole has been considered a solved problem we’re now finding it has caused a great deal of the climate change that’s been observed..” And according to the lead author, Dr Sarah Kang, “It’s amazing the ozone hole, located so high up in the atmosphere over Antarctica can have an impact all the way to the tropics and affect rainfall there”.
As seekers after truth and light, I’m sure you are as excited by these revelations I am but there’s a large group of people in our midst who are incapable of understanding logic and complex problems. Hell, it’s why we invented politics so that they could pretend to have something useful to do. So, for the politicians amongst us, here’s the real meaning of this new paper in simple, easy to understand and completely free of difficult-to-understand-science bullet points:
- the authors categorically admit that the ozone ‘hole’ has been a major cause of observed climate change (and, let’s face it, observed climate change has been minimal and non-cataclysmic during the industrial period);
- the authors admit that the IPCC (the body that gives authority to the CO2
scam,consensus) has taken no account of the climatic effects of the ozone ‘hole’; - the authors, climate scientists, admit amazement at the ways in which climate works.
The logical outcomes of these admissions are:
- industrial CO2 has a minimal effect on climate change;
- the science cannot be ‘settled’ as claimed;
- the climate is, as yet, something that nobody can claim to fully understand;
- the inevitable and irrefutable rendering of any view based on the current CO2 orthodoxy as suspect.
As the ozone ‘hole’ has already been cured by the ban on CFCs, there is no need for any further political action. Alternatively, if you’re a slightly brighter politician and you’ve already worked out that the ozone ‘hole’ is a natural phenomenon, you’ll know that (a) you’ve already been had once and (b) as it’s a natural phenomenon, you still don’t need to do anything.
Except give us our £18.2 billion a year back and stop building those useless windmills on our beautiful landscape…
Adventures in Time Travel 
I was working in HVAC when the rules from the Montreal Protocoal came down, so I’m pretty familiar with the whole “changeover.” I hadn’t thought about ozone depletion as having a climatic effect, so let me think on that one. I say that because I’m so worried that there’s a nonsensical trap-within-a-trap here. It goes more to my suspicion about the Greenies than it does to your bit.
When Climategate hit the fan, I told many friends that I expected any scientist with a shred of professional self-respect to begin to slowly backing toward the exit. This may be an example – potentially B.S., but just an escape route. I’m not sure, but the whole debacle has me very suspicious of the scientifice community and its ethics. Perhaps the greatest shame of all.
Thanks for dropping by!
Referring to your trap within a trap, Dr Kang has since stated that this study does not exempt the alleged human culpability for CO2 but, instead, compounds our crime by adding CFCs to the mix! As I tried to outline here though, I think it will prove to be something of an own goal although I sincerely hope that you are right with your ‘backing toward the exit’ prediction.
On the other hand, if you saw anything about yesterday’s story in the Sunday Telegraph (a late but welcome expose about the Climategate whitewashes) you’ll know that corruption and self-interest run deep in the UK climate establishment and will take some shifting. I suspect that our best hope for avoiding permanent, ruinous taxation is that America and Australia continue to withstand their respective versions of Cap and Trade…
I did a piece today on the case where several states (for reasons that are utterly beyond my comprehension) have sought to create a common law cause of action against utilities (or cows, even, Justice Scalia noted) for their noxious CO2 emissions. Thank God it looks like the whole thing will be delivered DOA.
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