Just for once, I’m going to loose my cool. This may put me at risk of being deleted, but what the heck.

You are a genius! My god, what a wonderful thing to discover, that all ice is floating – when all along geologists have been believing that 9/10ths of global ice is on land! Try this experiment. Take a cup, half fill it with water and measure the level. Take 10 ice cubes. Put one in the water and leave the other 9 to melt in a jug. When they have melted, pour the nine melted ice cubes into the cup and remeasure.

There are a couple of other ‘minor’ issues to do with sea-level rise too. Sea and glacial ice is fresh water. Fresh water is not as dense as salt water so iceburgs float higher. When they melt, more water is displaced. Try the experiment above again with freshwater icecubes and salt water in the cup.

Then there is the warming of the seas. This causes thermal expansion, thought to be the biggest contributor to sea-level rise in the 21st century.

Please will you post evidence of ice in the south that is expanding. Australia has just had it’s hottest winter in recorded history (in Australia, winter is April to September). http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs18a.pdf

The Antarctic ice sheet is melting much faster than predicted. A whole ice shelf had broken away. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/melting-ice-sheets-threaten-defences-1831648.html

I have been a victim of one of the three unprecedented floods to hit the UK in the last three years. It is the business of insurance companies to asses risk. They have been measuring the increasing numbers of natural disasters and are are predicting a time soon when many things will be uninsurable. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/susanwatts/2009/11/insuring_against_climate_chang.html

I have heard the ‘ice cube in a cup’ one before, so I know you are getting your ideas from someone else.

Unless you can satisfy yourself completely that whoever sold you this crap about global government and climate change is right, I strongly suggest you punch them on the nose from me, from the 1300 home-owners in Cumbria whose homes have been damaged for the third year running during the UK’s wettest November in recorded history, from the families of more than 40 people killed in Turkish floods this September, the families of more than100 people killed in the Jeddah flash floods this November and from the millions of people suffering from unprecedented drought in Ethiopia and Kenya.

One final thought.

Denial is a response to something you feel that you’ve got no control over. But we do have the technology and the technological ability to invest in energy that doesn’t depend on burning fossil fuels. And we can support third-world countries to develop life-saving strategies and oil-free technologies. That is what the Copenhagen meeting is about, no matter what the oil industry funds the Heartland Institute to say.

What those bitter twisted racists don’t realise is that being in a subsidised show (which only attracts an audience from that incestuous little group of other would be show people who turn up to tell you how good your show is and how shows are a great force for healing and cohesiveness) is the greatest calling known to mankind…or at least that part of mankind who can’t do anything else….and any suggestion that my show is a hopped-up, derivative, hackneyed, humourless vanity project is just an evil rumour spread by evil racists who can’t be in shows because they can’t say “of course I’m a socialist”….even though my actual knowledge of socialism would shame the average 15 year old ‘X box philosopher’.

Anyway…on with the show.

Did you notice the way I cleverly snuck the word show into my post so many times…that’s because I’m in a show…wot I rote.

WTF is a “nothingless”?…you fuckin useless goon.

FFS use a spellcheck or learn to write…who wrote your show btw? D’you get funded by the dyslexia association?

If you “spoof” me do I not shout “RACIST”?

If you prove I’m talking out of my arse, do I not shout “RACIST”?

If you point out I’m barely literate, do I not shout “RACIST”?

If you show me to be a barely formed intellectual midget, do I not shout “RACIST”?

And even though I keep shouting “RACIST”, nobody takes me seriously as an informed political thinker like the ‘big boys’ on Liberal Conspiracy…I always thought it would make me sound radical and progressive but it seems I’m just a hopeless one-trick pony who wants to try and fit in but keeps making such a twat of myself that all I can expect is to be a marginalised oddity playing the class clown.

Not even sure why I do this spoofing thing…I suppose it’s some sort of cry for help..I’m desperate…my show’s shit…everyone treats me like a performing monkey…Oh god…I wish I’d never started it all now..sob..

I’m not really chairman moo…sob…please like me…and come to my show…you can have a free sausage roll…sob

Considering you haven’t bothered with one comment in 80 on this thread but now post two in an apparent dig, in an apparent extension of another dig from another thread, and just ten minutes after I post a comment, I think I just might have picked up a bitter thread stalker in you.

Least, that’s what it looks like to me….

“It wasn’t me, m’lord, it was identity theft”

“case dismissed”

Putting words into others mouths should, perhaps, be punishable with a rather long custodial sentence. What do you think?

I do not always agree with DHG, but if he has been the victim of identity theft, as he claims, you are arguing against a chimera.

So I will assume that Curious Freedom on here, saying:

What a nuttter!

has had their identity stripped too.

What a truly surreal experience it has been ‘brushing up’ against someone like DHG on this site

Can anyone tell me, have the “spoofed DHG” comments stopped since he started spoofing someone else?

What a nuttter!

I have my show of course. Where would any of us be without shows?
Naturally, my show will be a huge success once everyone realises that, despite my inability to string a sentence together (see my appalling efforts above), develop a consistent argument, maintain any remote shred of credibility, I am actually a hugely talented entertainer and deep political thinker. It’s difficult to reconcile with the ridiculous, logic-devoid, unbalanced ranting which I so regularly demonstrate on here but ..honest…everything will be OK if you just all come and see my little show…pleassse…just come and see me..it’s all about me and I’m in it.

I see I was starting to get just a little bit riled before. Can’t think why that is but I’m going to calm down before my next post…got to focus..for the show…deep breaths and count to ten as Chris always says.

Fuckin hell…dunno what came over me before..how did I get to Darlington? And what’s that old woman’s festering corpse doing in the armchair?

Right…deep breath…one…two…three..

In fact I was in it last night…and for all those people who said nobody would come well…hah!…Chris my case worker? Maureen from Greggs?…the guy who did the lights?…aren’t they people?…too right they bloody are matey…and they were at the show…in fact, Chris stayed right to the end…and we had a party…some Gregg’s pasties and I could have had some of Chris’s lager but it would have interfered with my midnight medication…so there!

And it was a really good show too…everyone said so. Chris said “yeah…er…really quite..er…entertaining”

So anyone who says I’m not in a show is a big fat liar and it probably isn’t them anyway; it’s probably someone impersonating someone else or something. In fact, it’s probably not me who’s writing this; it’s probably someone else pretending to be someone who’s pretending to be me…or someone else…it’s so hard to tell when the medication kicks in…did I tell ya? I was in a show last night.

I’ll probably get a call from Sandy Toksvig soon to go on one of those hilarious Radio 4 panel shows…they’re always looking for right-on, witty liberal types..as long as they’re in shows…and then everyone will see how funny and cutting edge I am..and how I managed to single handedly prevented the BNP taking over the whole world by shouting ‘racist’ and swearing alot and then everyone will say…you’re really great…you’re like a cross between George Orwell and Freddie Starr…and a Gerbil…and I’ll be on the telly all the time…except it’ll probably be someone impersonating me or something.

I love shows.

You could be found at the scene of a terrible house fire, reeking of petrol, covered in soot, armed with a petrol can, a bag of rags, and a box of matches, with several witnesses willing to swear that they saw you stuffing petrol-soaked rags through the letterbox and then setting them on fire, and they’d say “The last time a house like this caught fire, it was an accident.”

Thanks for that, but I do not agree with your theorys.

Firstly there is a difference between weather and climate.

“we do not know enough about climate processes and drivers to be able to predict climates”

We do know enough about climate to predict what it will be with considerable accuracy.

For the past 10 years climatologists have predicted hotter temperatures, melting glaciers, higher seas and more extreme weather conditions. They have got all of that right. In fact, many of their predictions have been proved to be conservative.

Take a look at this short lecture at the Oxford TED talks.

http://www.ted.com/talks/james_balog_time_lapse_proof_of_extreme_ice_loss.html

The graph used is quite telling.

For more than 2 million years our earth has cycled in and out of Ice Ages, accompanied by massive ice sheets accumulating over polar landmasses and a cold, desert-like global climate. Although the tropics during the Ice Age were still tropical, the temperate regions and sub-tropical regions were markedly different than they are today. There is a strong correlation between temperature and CO2 concentrations during this time.

Historically, glacial cycles of about 100,000 years are interrupted by brief warm interglacial periods– like the one we enjoy today. We are on the cusp of a cycle that scientists believed would take us into another ice-age.

However, things are getting hotter. (ref. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8377128.stm).

Not cooler as Mr Lawson has led many to believe. Take a look at his web site: http://www.thegwpf.org. Check out the headline graph in the top left-hand corner. It is based on global temperatures over the past 9 years. Five of which have been higher than recorded in human history (but of course, he doesn’t tell you this). Additionally it does not include the particularly extreme 2009 figure (see BBC link above). But hey – what is accuracy when you have a book to sell and an organisation to run (that charges £100 to join)?

Higher seas? Check http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aU6tyGmdGPPQ

More extreme weather conditions? Some links above plus http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/facts_and_figures/impacts/storms.cfm).

This discussion is based on whether Cumbrian flooding is connected with climate change. Your evidence is based on there being big storms before (you point out one in 1771). However, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. As predicted.

John Q: fair play to you. It would have been a shame to see you and Tim J not mend the quarrel as you both clearly know and care a lot about Africa

Bizarrely, neither of us seemed to know it about the other.

Over-commitment is not an excuse for crankiness but it is a reason; the last week has contained both management of a real ale festival and a (very late) high-intensity writing commission which still isn’t quite shipped. I think I let it get to me.

I’ve learned a lot from reading John Q and Tim J on the subject of African economies here: it would be interesting to read both of you posting on this subject again.

It might be very interesting if we could find an opportunity to prepare an investigation together; I’m not, in general, particularly good on Southern Africa due to it being a very, very long way from my manor. Also, my knowledge base is sociological, linguistic and religious more than it is economic, outside of the instance of Ghana. I suspect Tim has a deeper knowledge of pan-African economics, and probably politics, than I do. If nothing else, my viewpoint is biased; Ghanaians see Nkrumah and Rawlings as the two leading statesmen in the slow march towards peace in Africa. I suspect the rest of the continent would debate that view

Possibly a good complementary skill-set. Now we just need something to write about which we’re both engaged with

I’ve learned a lot from reading John Q and Tim J on the subject of African economies here: it would be interesting to read both of you posting on this subject again. Not so sure about the ‘contributions’ from Chairman Moo, though…

Talking about weather, that’s what the recent floods are all about, nothing to do with climate change or our use of fossil fuels. The washing out of a few bridges after heavy rain is not unprecedented, not even in the past 300 years, never mind 1000. The UK’s Environment Agency says (Note 1) QUOTE: Climate change will bring wetter winters, stormier weather, sea level rises and great extremes in weather conditions. After the floods in Cumbria a few years ago, work began in Carlisle to defend the city against similar significant floods. Such events could be expected to become larger and more frequent as a result of climate change. UNQUOTE. It keeps repeating that floods of this nature ARE (not MIGHT BE) due to climate change and says QUOTE: Climate change will bring wetter winters, stormier weather, sea level rises and great extremes in weather conditions UNQUOTE as though this is a given. It is nothing of the sort. It is simply weather extremes which we’ve had before and will have again.

The Agency talks about floods in Cumbria a few years ago (2005 in Carlisle) but makes no mention of the far worse floods 238 years ago just along the A69 in the South Tyne valley. Back in 1771 every bridge on the river Tyne in Northumberland excepting one (Corbridge) was washed away (Note 2 – take note that this is also from the UK’s Environment Agency). Can you guess why? Our intense use of fossil fuels over the previous 150 years perhaps? The Agency pushes the IPCC propaganda about future climates (Note 3) as though there is absolutely no uncertainty about these projections. In fact, because of the poor level of understanding of the science behind climate processes and drivers these IPCC projections are little better than fortune-telling. Get wise people.

There is no sound evidence to support scientific, political or environmentalist claims that our use of fossil fuels is having any significant impact upon global climates. The current furore about those leaked University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit files, first on the Internet, then in the mainstream media and now among politicians (Note 4) is opportune, just ahead of the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. It should encourage our politicians to act in our best interests, not their own, for a change (if that is possible – think expense scandal, weapons of mass destruction).

NOTES:
1) see http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/planning/109005.aspx
2) see http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Research/text73new_1085389.pdf
3) see http://publications.environment-agency.gov.uk/pdf/GEHO0709BQBW-e-e.pdf
4) see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/lizhunt/6649323/Climate-change-Why-Im-warming-to-Lord-Lawson.html

Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnos(cep)tic