Sir Nicholas Stern talks out of his arse

I don't take much notice of the weather reports on TV , not only are they inaccurate for the next 24 hours, after 7 days they are worthless. So when a former World Bank chief economist tells me what the weather is going to be like in 100 years ( a rise in the average temperature of 2 -5 degrees Celsius) I don't take much notice.

I heard him spouting his dangerous nonsense on the BBC 4 Today programme this morning ahead of launching his 700 pages of hot air and windbaggery on a frightened nation ...apparently if we continue with the current trends ..... global warming will bring many more storms like Katrina.

I sat up. Lord Patel not only forecast the consequences of the Iraq invasion

Bush's gang of mad beekeepers March 19, 2003

I've taken Baghdad what do I do now?

What is uncertain is the aftermath. This is the variable never publicly factored into the thinking(?) of the Tony Sopranos of Dubya's gang; their deeds plant the seeds of future, furious, frightening resistance. As many as half a million Iraqi soldiers may be intentionally killed and perhaps 100,000 civilians written off to collateral damage. Think of the grief of millions after this slaughter, the conversion of that grief into rage, combine that with the internecine struggles based on historical ethnic fault lines (that the Ba'ath Party has repressed), and we begin to appreciate the explosive complexity of post-invasion Iraq.

This invasion will also ignite the well financed fires of Arab and Muslim (of all shades, hues and fealties) humiliation and anger. Either in the sands of the desert or on city streets, far from this war, the body bags will build up.

Counting the cost... eventually

The course is charted, arrogant use of the military is all the US ruling class has to maintain its dominance. After Iraq, asymmetric warfare, "terrorism," will be directed at Americans, American institutions, American targets, and American allies. When the rest of the world recognizes how thinly spread the US military is, thinly spread physically, and economically, because it is not a sustainable institution in its current incarnation, rebellions will occur. Indeed they have already started.......

Military might is a sign of strength, but the US military is not invincible worldwide. America's use of force as both first and last resort is a sign of profound systemic weakness.

but also the likelihood of a Force 5 Hurricane hitting the Southern US.

The National Weather Service in the US expects a major Hurricane every 70-80 years. One is overdue. If a Force 4 or 5 step Saffir Simpson hurricane force scale hits the Gulf of Mexico this year, the impact on gas and gasoline supplies in the US will make 9/11 look like a tea party in terms of economic cost to the US economy.

The Economic Consequences of the War on Terror / Investigating New Imperialism

Not on nodding terms , but familiar with the work of Max Mayfield for 34 years the Director of the National Hurricane Center, William Gray, expert forecaster from the Colorado State University . I knew both of these world leading experts and hurricane forecasters castigated anyone who made a connection between global warming and Katrina and the post 1995 increase in Gulf Hurricanes (anyone in the Press notice what a quiet season we have had this year ?). Max Mayfield testified to Congress to that effect.

So whatever Lord Hi Pooh Bah Stern has been paid the money has been wasted. Not only has he not understood the evidence, he now wants to provide us with an array of faulty evidence.

The UK produces at best 2% of the world's CO2, if we produced no more from midnight it wouldn't make a bit of difference to the climate .. but it would certainly fuck up the economy.

Climatology shares with economics the dubious description of being the most inexact science .. so perhaps the choice of an economist did make sense. The variables are not fully known, ranging from Solar radiation to farting cows.

The tropospheric and atmospheric coccoon that surrounds the Earth reflects and returns heat due to many factors, the principal one is layers of water vapour - what we scientists call clouds. The understanding of their origin, structure, destruction and effect on climate is simply not even near to being understood. Which is why their effect is left out of all climatalogical models used to promote global warming / climate change.

Carbon Dioxide is measured in parts per million.. like homoeopathic remedies. If you imagine a scale 1 million millimetres long i.e 1 Kilometres, the levels of CO2 as measured at a few discreet spots on the Earth's surface at specific heights over a lengthy period show a change from at best 340 mm to 380 mm on that scale.... ( and the corrollary is something has been replaced by that amount).

For a period in my postgraduate studies I looked at the palynology of the English Lake District, the trapped pollen grains from the ground cover plants which followed the retreating Glaciers and colonised the land revealed were the earliest studies detailing a previous period of localised global warming.... a period blissfully unaware of Central heating and gas guzzlers.

The climate is changing - wow ! get used to it Sir Nicholas. The level of carbon dioxide as measured in a very specific and limited way has changed ... and so have many, many more variables affecting the climate.

The connection between burning fossil fuels, carbon Dioxide levels changing and global catastrophe are juvenile, simplistic and the tools of politicians fuelling the fear factory. Emissions trading - a financiers scam for trading pieces of paper and screwing the public.

Now if he could tell me what the future holds for the 3.00 at Haydock next Wednesday or the chances that BAE are going to be taken over by Boeing.... or what the Dow will be next week, month , year ...now that would be useful.