How Hot Are We? Ice with That?

 

Readers of these pages will know that I am somewhat sceptical of the claim that we are hurtling towards mass extinction because of global warming. But it looks like the UK government is moving towards a position where flying around the world will be severely curtailed, if not outright banned, as they demand a state of “zero net emissions”. So I thought I might just review where we are.

Here is the graph of the Annual Global Mean Temperature Anomaly Over Land & Sea – 1880 to Present. As you can see, there was cooling from around 1880 to 1910, then warming from 1910 to 1940, then nothing much either way from 1940 until around 1970, then warming until around 2000, since when there has been nothing much (maybe some slight warming). You can make your own minds up about whether the warming from 1970 to 2000 (a period when CO₂ levels went way up) is that much more drastic than the warming from 1910 to 1940 (when they did not).

 

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Ash Racket

Congratulations to Australian tennis player Ashleigh Barty, who has just won the French Open.

She is an elegant player, mercifully free of the grunting that plagues many women in her sport, and a delight to watch play. By all accounts, she is also a rather good egg,  which is an added bonus.

The flopsies are hailing her as “indigenous” and an aborigine. Now, that is a bit dubious.  Real aborigine women are

The Rogue on Prorogue

What a cheek!

I suggested progroguing parliament back in March in order to get Brexit through.

If Rory Stewart did not like the idea, he should have said so then. Far too late now, on Peston, I’d say, to start suggesting that the idea is unconstitutional, or “just wouldn’t work”.

No excuse for him to say he does not read these pages. He should be

Bee Happy

It will come as no surprise to those familiar with the absurd overegulation in this State that it is illegal to help the bees by having bee hives – or even a single bee hive – on one’s property without a licence and even then a pile of regulations apply.

So I have built a bee hotel for my local bees, and hung it up on the back of my workshop. There is a lot a lavender here, so hopefully this will make their visits more comfortable for them.

I have incorporated a couple of glass jars, on the basis that I might put some

Which Jeremy?

POTUS Trump has been behaving himself since the wheels of Air Force 1 touched down.

Meanwhile, the Magic Grandpa has refused to attend the state banquet. The thing is, he is happier on a picket line, or a protest march, than in the corridors of power. So he would be an utterly disastrous PM.  Especially since his friend John McDonnell would presumably become Chancellor of the Exchecher, and his avowed aim is to destroy economy as it presently is: he is still a Marxist who thinks Marx has not yet had a fair run and who wants the UK to rerun the Venezuela experiment.

The Tory wets would like Jeremy Hunt to be the next PM. A bright guy, for sure, but he also would be a terrible PM. In answer to the question, “How should the chicken cross the road?” he says: “Compromise. Stop half way.” Which might appeal to a parliamentary conundrum, but which would be serously unwise for the country, which is baying the answer: “Get on with it!”

If the Tories fail to elect