Ostrich syndrome?

The other day Mrs Rigby found herself talking at length to somebody who said they were a proactive Liberal Democrat. In amongst all the ordinary conversational stuff Mrs R had asked what they thought about the new government - because it's something people are talking about 'these days'. Any other time Mrs R would have been more careful, and wouldn't have touched politics with a barge pole, especially with somebody she had only just met. Anyhow, this other person said they were quite happy with the coalition because it's given the Lib Dems power, and their policies will be in the government timetable.

They then said their main political concerns were about climate change and reducing CO2 emissions. They thought this government's priority should be to build lots of green, renewable, electricity generators (wind turbines) then get rid of the fossil fuel power stations and decommission the nuclear power stations. They thought there should be cash set aside to research alternative energy sources, including heat sinks and solar power.

They weren't worried about things like money, they said it would be found somewhere because the government is rich.

It's quite hard to be too serious about a person's political views when combatting AGW is the sum total of a person's political aspiration. It's hard to be too serious about an individual's political opinion when they only had a Lib Dem campaign board outside their house because there wasn't a 'Green' candidate - which might help explain stuff like this.

Anyhow, to keep the conversation ticking over we became typically British and turned to the weather - in particular the long, freezing, winter followed by an unusually cold spring with frosts and snow in May, leafless oak trees and, of course, the impact of that volcano nobody can pronounce. All those things are, apparently, our fault - because there are too many people breathing out CO2 and because cows are putting too much methane into the atmosphere. Heavy machinery is causing earthquakes and aircraft are destroying what's left of the atmosphere after the cows have done their worst.

Mrs R is eternally grateful that this article was published today, not last weekend!

The leadership of Climate Camp – which is opposed to flying and airport expansion – have been accused of hypocrisy after they sent two members on a £12,000 mile round-trip to Bolivia.

In retaliation Ben Hart, one of the activists who flew to Bolivia, wrote on Facebook

‘Get over it, if you wanna play this liberal self-denial game...I’ve been vegan for 17 years of my life and gone many years without a car.

‘If I died tomorrow and didn’t take my return flight or any others in the future, the planet would still be being ruined.’

Lovely to see a purist in action, Ben. Fantastic to see somebody prepared to take a stand and make personal sacrifices for what they truly believe in and, of course, for the good of the planet.

Mrs Rigby thinks you're a wonderful example to all the kiddies who've been told their puppies and bunnies will drown because of all the selfish grown-ups!
..........

Oh, and thanks to CF and American television, we know that Bolivia is in South Africa! No, it's true, it must be because it was on the television and CF has a screenshot.

P.S.
Bolivia is in South America. CF's screenshot shows South America, it has been wrongly labelled, which is why it's funny.
South Africa looks like this.

....

Glaciers in hiding

A group of intrepid scientists from Manchester went to Albania and found some things for polar bears to stand on.

They found some glaciers that nobody had seen before, well, at least not anybody British - it's likely one or two Albanians had noticed them.

The glaciers are, apparently, in a place they didn't ought to be, because they're at too low an altitude for such a southerly latitude.

Maybe nobody told them they were in the wrong place, or maybe they were hiding from gunfire because ...

“The fact that the mountains were until only recently surrounded by war and lawlessness might explain why they have proved so elusive.”

*insert little chuckle* Presumably it's the glaciers that have been elusive rather than the mountains.

Good luck to these scientific geographers though, because it seems they've accurately reported something that shouldn't be there - which is yet another spanner in the works of the "establishment".

The existence of these frozen rivers, in a place where previous knowledge says they shouldn't be, might even make Mr Brown and Mr Gore think twice before they next consider hurling insults relating to the shape of planet Earth.

But it's hard to imagine those chaps worrying their little heads about it too much and, well, perhaps Mr Brown will have other things on his mind today? (see here)

2009 December was coldest for 30 years?

Surely the BBC must have got it wrong, they must have misunderstood the Met Office data

"Provisional Met Office figures for December show temperatures for much of the UK were 1.5C and 2.5C below the mean temperatures for the last 30 years. Scotland saw temperatures dip still lower - from 2.5C to 3.5C. On Tuesday, temperatures in Scotland plunged to -15C in places, while parts of Germany dropped to -19C."

Read more here.

There's a nice picture or four too, but they won't transfer to this blog.

Maybe the meeting of like minds in Copenhagen did the trick after all, and warmist 'groupthink' made the weather gods turn down the planet's thermostat.

Or maybe all the stuff about warming was a load of twaddle, designed to find an easy way of taking money away from lots of gullible people so it would line the pockets of a select few.