Having struggled against a pretty strong tide for some years in a bid to get the causes of climate change reconsidered, I suppose I should be delighted to find the water suddenly flowing in the other direction.
Even such august institutions as the BBC and the Guardian newspaper have switched from being unquestioning backers of human-caused climate change to asking awkward questions about the methods used to arrive at such a verdict.
E-mail messages that somehow slipped out of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit have revealed that crucial climate data was omitted, manipulated or mislaid, and that dubious methods were employed to silence sceptics and get round the Freedom of Information Act.
It has been revealed elsewhere that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made a hugely inaccurate claim about the speed that Himalayan glaciers are melting, and that this claim was made specifically to encourage politicians to take "concrete action".
In similar vein, IPCC allegations that global warming is linked to natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods have been shown to have no scientific basis, but were based on publicity from organisations with political rather than scientific motives.
Article continues here.
Elsewhere
A superb watercolour artist based in Norfolk writes about his views on climate change, among other things.
Website of Norwich artist Sandra Rowney, with whom I collaborated for the groundbreaking Norwich Twenty Group exhibition, Voicing Visions.
Webcams around the world bring you views of the weather other people are having while it’s raining here (0r even if it isn’t).
Earth history – a new approach
Confused by the inconsistencies in the different views of how life began on Earth? Try this intelligent new approach, which contains some surprises.
New online magazine of text and visuals, edited by Rupert Mallin. Some really good stuff, as well as one or two of my poems, lurking uneasily in such classy company.
Did you know that there are only three perfect numbers smaller than 1000, or that two is the only even prime? Much more than this about all kinds of numbers.
Time on your hands
Ever felt that time goes by too fast? Or even that it can, sometimes, drag? Get a completely new perspective on the passage of time at this brilliant website, where photography is used to expand perception.
So how far is that?
Want to know exactly how far it is from Kathmandu to Moscow, or Canberra to Fiji? This is the site for you. It also tells you the exact position of each place and includes a currency converter. Plus, handily, a short course in Indonesian. But don't worry, the site is in English.
Keeping track of flights, especially those over US air space but also many others. Includes information about the flights least likely to incur delays, which might be useful.
Clever use of Bible verses to get across God’s love for his children. In case you were wondering, you’re one of them.
Facts and figures about speed and accidents that may make you think twice about the usefulness of speed cameras.
A guide to walkers on the Lakeland Fells, together with some stunning photographs that make you want to get up there right now.
Another kind of Mawkin
An enthusiastic young band performs an eclectic selection of traditional music ranging from Celtic airs to the haunting sounds of klezmer, from foot stomping Irish reels to Shetland strathspeys. Have a listen.
.
No delight in climate
This is the website of writer Tim Lenton. I have worked most of my life as a journalist, during the latter part of which I wrote commentary columns for the Eastern Daily Press, based in Norwich, England. I am also a poet, a walker, a chess player, a driver, a husband, a father, a grandparent, a guitar player, a reader, a TV watcher, a pensioner and a Christian, among other things. I like to look at things sideways and not go the same way everyone else is going. I love Norfolk, Scotland, the coast, mountains and almost everywhere I find myself. I like freedom and hate the nanny state.
Exciting new education ideas!
Philosophy for children? They think, therefore they learn.
Yes, even primary school children. Click here.
Quotes
If we were less arrogant we might see ourselves for what we are – children sent on an errand, who first forget our instructions and then realise we have forgotten the way home.
-
Lindsay Clarke
-
The children of the hour of darkness were born, I'm afraid, in the midst of the age of darkness; so that although we found it easy to be brilliant, we were always confused about being good.
-
Salman Rushdie
I was much too far out all my life.
And not waving but drowning.
-
Stevie Smith
-
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
-
Voltaire
-
-
Society is like a stew. If you don’t stir it up every once in a while, then a layer of scum floats to the top
Edward Abbey
“Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, while we were underneath it?”
“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh after careful thought.
A A Milne
It is never too late to give up your prejudices.
H D Thoreau
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
Oscar Wilde
Hypothesis establishes itself by a cumulative process: or, to use popular language, if you make the same guess often enough, it becomes a Scientific Fact.
C S Lewis
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticise it.
Pierre Gallois
My belief is that the green craze, at its maddest – which is what we are going through just now – will pass over like the hula hoop.
Playwright and commentator Keith Waterhouse, March 2008
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Walter Lippmann, US author & journalist (1889 - 1974)
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn
Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working.
Anonymous
The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.
Tom Clancy
There’s a reason
for this
article
A pleasant weekend among the hills and dales of Derbyshire recently was marred by the bizarre speed limits – not in the hills but on the roads.
Even more annoying than the ridiculously low limits were the patronising signs reading "It's 50 for a reason".
Of course it's 50 for a reason. Even I don't think it's a totally random figure. But is it a good reason?
Too often the reasoning seems to be: take a perfectly safe speed and subtract a minimum of 10mph.
Deeper down, the reason could simply be that the highways authority are a bunch of hopeless drivers.
