- OK, to recapture the fading thrill of youthful apocalypticism alarmists may have turned to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current or ACC to do us all in. But they haven’t forgotten their old beloved harbinger-of-doom Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation; the AMOC is going to go amok too, we are yet again assured.
- Also, if winter’s going to end, for good or even just once, can we please stop with “Major snowstorm stretching from Alberta to Quebec” and “Hundreds of thousands in Ontario still without power on third day of spring storm”, a spring storm here meaning one with lots of snow and ice so really kind of a winter storm? And “UK cold weather: 10 day freeze hits Britain as Arctic winds put nation in path of collapsing Polar Vortex”, or Heatmap’s emailed “Ice storms left more than 900,000 customers without power across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana” while hail threatens to lash 24 states? Oh, and Ottawa just set the “all time record” (aka since 1872) for consecutive March days with at least 10 cm of snowfall, albeit at two, so shared with five other years going back to 1876, though we only reached 5th on consecutive March days with at least 5 cm, behind 1926, 1937, 1916 and 1874. Still, if it were heat, or days without snow, it would be an ominous warming trend not just “cold weather”, right? On the plus side, kids here still know what snow is. Just not what these “flowers”, “birds” and “grass” old people keep mentioning might be.
- The Red Green show may have ended in 2006 (the world-famous-in-Canada one, we mean). But the globalist one seems to have gone into syndication, with endless reruns of stale unfunny plots like “Europe challenged to step up as China’s solar boom powers record renewable energy growth” and forgettable actors wandering through painful dialogue to a bored audience, like Simon Stiell’s: “The clean energy transition can be Europe’s economic engine-room now - when new sources of growth are vital to buttress living standards and for decades to come” or UN “Gates of Hell” Secretary-General António Guterres burbling “Renewable energy is powering down the fossil fuel age. Record-breaking growth is creating jobs, lowering energy bills and cleaning our air. But the shift to clean energy must be faster and fairer.” Yeah. And it would be nice if it also delivered clean reliable energy and jobs instead of deindustrializing chumps like Europe while China roars ahead with coal. Meanwhile, can somebody please change the channel?
- Not to this show, though. A piece in Bloomberg attempts to elevate public climate discourse by starting: “We’ve long known President Donald Trump is a climate-change denier. And we knew that, during last year’s campaign, Trump promised to make the dreams of fossil-fuel tycoons reality if they bankrolled his candidacy. But nothing could have prepared us for the breadth or intensity of the assault on climate action that Trump has unleashed during his first months back in office.” OK. You didn’t see it coming. Why should we expect you to analyze it instructively? Then they insult the audience with “There’s a chance you’ve seen one or 20 news reports in recent weeks detailing some of this activity. Far more likely is that you don’t even know the half of it.” And, you’ll be sorry to hear, that we’re not all dismayed.
- Science News (“Independent journalism since 1921”) offers a trendy Taylor Swift hook that concedes her equally trendy jet-setting “carbon offsets” have raised some doubts even among fans, and adds “Over the last few years, though, carbon credits have faced increasing scrutiny. A string of academic studies and media investigations have concluded that many credits do not represent genuine emissions savings. One investigation concluded that over 90 percent of carbon credits issued for rainforest protection by the largest carbon credit certification body ‘had no benefit to the climate.’ Two reports published in 2023 found that credits for forest-based projects in North America, South America, Africa and Asia may in fact increase net emissions.” And if people with stars in their eyes are beginning to notice that all is not well in their Green New World we consider it a real step forward.
- It probably doesn’t really need saying. But when they let their guard down even the great and good admit that people prefer warmth. Thus the Executive Editor of the Times emails that “Finally, the daffs are out, birdsong fills the air and, give or take the odd blip, spring has arrived in abundance. All of which means it’s time to get outside and enjoy things, which is why Christopher Somerville is here with 20 of his favourite walks for this time of year.” He then goes on to recommend a discount spa in Bulgaria which may or may not be everyone’s ideal. But if the daffs were out as opposed, at least where we are, to being buried in snow at time of writing with freezing rain forecast, we’d be happy too.
- The Guardian runs a typical, and typically obtuse, piece saying “Record 4.5m children in poverty in UK as cuts condemned as ‘morally repugnant’” and “Data published on day after Labour announces cuts that analysts say will hit children and disabled people hardest”. World ends etc. But it’s dimwitted to deplore “cuts” when the British government, like that of nearly every other Western country, has been on a half-century-long spending spree that now threatens to bankrupt even the wealthiest of economies. And to have campaigned relentlessly for two decades to make energy unaffordable, and with it everything made with energy (and without it was not any thing made that was made), as that publication has, and then turn around and say life is hard for the poor and we need more of what made it hard is so blockheaded as to qualify as cruel. (And to leave energy costs out of the piece borders on dishonest.)
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02 Apr 2025 | News Roundup
