spunkmaster

By Tim Blair

July 14, 2007 12:00am

LAST month Australians endured our coldest June since 1950. Imagine that; all those trillions of tonnes of evil carbon we've horked up into the atmosphere over six decades of rampant industrialisation, and we're still getting the same icy weather we got during the Cold War.

Not that June should be presented as evidence that global warming isn't happening, or that we're causing it. Relying on such a tiny sample would be unscientific and wrong, even if it involves an entire freakin' continent's weather patterns throughout the course of a whole month, for Christ's sake.

No such foolishness will be indulged in here.

Sadly, those who believe in global warming - and who would compel us also to believe - aren't similarly constrained. A few hot days are all they ever need to get the global warming bandwagon rolling; evidently it's solar powered. Here, for example, is an Australian Associated Press report on May's weather, which in places was a little warmer than usual:

"Climate change gave much of Australia's drought-stricken east coast its warmest May on record, weather experts say.

"Global warming and an absence of significant cold changes had driven temperatures well above the monthly average, said meteorologist Matt Pearce.

According to Mr Pearce, May's temperatures were "yet another sign of the widespread climate change that we are seeing unfold across the globe."

If that's the case, shouldn't June's cold weather - coldest since 1950, remember - be a sign that widespread climate change isn't unfolding across the globe? We're using the same data here; one month's weather. And, in fact, the June sample is Australia-wide while May only highlights the east coast. Fear the dawn of a great "coldening"!

While Australia freezes, it's kinda hot in California. Again, local toastiness is evidence of global warming; one San Francisco Chronicle writer this week referred glibly to their "global-warming-heated summer".

What phenomenon was responsible for previous summers? Maybe they got by on the superheated fumes radiating off Lateline host Tony Jones.

Snow cone Tone hosted an in-studio discussion Thursday night after the ABC presented The Great Global Warming Swindle, and he was hotter than a Christina Aguilera video. "Welcome to our debate on this deeply flawed and utterly mistaken documentary, which is wrong in every regard and was made by a zombie," Jones said in introduction (I'm only lightly paraphrasing).

During an interview with filmmaker Martin Durkin Tone was visibly sweating; no easy achievement during a typical summer in the UK, to where he'd flown for his heated little chat. Perhaps Tone was anticipating the phantom British summer forecast by The Independent's environment editor, Michael McCarthy, in April:

"The possibility is growing that Britain in 2007 may experience a summer of unheard-of high temperatures, with the thermometer even reaching 40C, or 104F, a level never recorded in history.

"This would be quite outside all historical experience, but entirely consistent with predictions of climate change."

As Wimbledon watchers would be aware, what with the rainiest tournament since Jimmy Connors defeated John McEnroe in 1982, those unheard-of high temperatures remain unheard-of. Someone might conclude, therefore, that the not-hot summer is not entirely consistent with predictions of climate change.

But climate change is like Michael Moore's tracksuit - it can fit anyone. In 2005, Greenpeace rep Steven Guilbeault helpfully explained: "Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with."

What we're dealing with, apparently, is weather.

What will the weather be like 100 years from now? Don't ask Britain's Guardian, which, like the Independent, is full of Warmin' Normans whose warm warnings never come true. "It could be time to say goodbye to defining features of British life," the paper claimed a few months ago, "like rainy picnics and cloudy sunbathing . . ."

Other defining features of British life - screaming, inaccurate nonsense from the Guardian, for example - will never be farewelled. Cue wet Wimbledon, the coldest day for Test match cricket (7.4C) in English history, and this BBC online headline: "Where has the UK's summer gone?"

Maybe it migrated to Australia, like Augustus Owsley Stanley III, the American LSD enthusiast and manufacturer.

Possibly influenced by his product, Owsley moved to outback Queensland about twenty years ago, reportedly convinced that imminent global warming would cause - in the tradition of warm meaning cold - the whole Northern Hemisphere to be covered with ice.

Owsley, now 72, is still in Queensland, and likely not a little confused. Things didn't exactly turn out as predicted. While his former Californian haunts melt due to "global warming", this year Queensland has gone frosty. Townsville's June was its coldest since 1940; June 24 saw the coldest Brisbane morning on record.

Think of these little factoids the next time your read a report linking a hot day or month or year to global warming. And, if you run into this Owsley bloke, please ask him to quit adding things to environmentalists' water supplies.

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GreyWolf

Another Rupert Murdoch paper? Looks like a quality piece of balanced journalism saying very little *lol*

stickyfingerz

Webby you are a retard.

chapecito

its true.. here in Argentina we are going thru the coldest winter in 90 years.. last week we got Snow in Buenos Aires for the first time since 1918 !!!! at at 2pm !!!!!! things are very freezy in southern Argentina (patagonia) with record low of -25º and an average temp well under -5 (C)

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Mr.Right - Banned For Life

It has been very cold here, this is the coldest winter i have ever had in mebourne in my entire life

GreyWolf

Yep - Same climate variation elsewhere - UK and other regions are having shit weather for a summer.

PS Not saying the author of that "piece" is not correct in quoting from elsewhere - it's just the fact that's he's spewing his own agenda ie another "media opinion" mouth.

spunkmaster

Do you get snow there ?

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GatorB

You know god damned well Rupert Murdoch is a Republican and is VERY biased. And if don't then you are the retard. Just because he's on your team doesn't mean you need to deny it. Are you ashamed of him?

GatorB

If you know anything about science then global warming will in fact cause some areas to get colder.

GreyWolf

Hehe... Murdoch publishes "anything". He may be known as a Republican in the US, but, contrary to the "moral values" of eg Foxnews - he'll publish his "tits of the day" pictures in national daily newspapers elsewhere It's all about a buck - he could not care less and just panders to a market *lol*

GreyWolf

Think you are correct - that is the mainline thinking that there would be irregular weather change, - tho no idea of the current change is related - who knows?

sacX

The worldwide trend of temperature has been up over the last 60-70 years. You rarely hear anyone debate that, it's about what's causing it which is what the debate is.

A single month is more or less meaningless in the overall trend.

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stickyfingerz

I was unaware that Rupert was an American.....

Dvae

Republicans do not hold fundraisers for Hillary Clinton
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=%22rup ert+murdoch%22hillary&btnG=Search

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Arguing with a troll is a lot like wrestling in the mud with a pig, after a couple of hours you realize the pig likes it.

chodadog

I was unaware naturalized USA citizens couldn't involve themselves in partisan politics.

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The Other Steve

Even north of Cairns they've been recording minimums below 10.

This ain't funny - I came north to get warm and all I'm doing is freezing my nuts off. I told the boss that it was time we moved back to Tasmania

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CDSmith

I had no idea "coldening" was a word.

:D

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uno

Don't you people know things work opposite in the southern hemisphere?

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IllTestYourGirls

i love this! Things will get hotter in some places and colder in others? LMAO That is weather!

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cj_purve

yet another load of shit article based on diddly squat.

if global warming is true we will get extreme highs and lows, so wtf is this article on about? we've had our coldest month therefore its not global warming?! fucking idiots. any human being who is arrogant enough to think they have a snowball's chance in hell at predicting what's going to happen can go ahead and waste their own lives if they wish. if all the scientists in the world can't even agree on what happened in the last few million years how on earth are they going to predict the future?!

This is the biggest load of hyped up revenue generating bullshit we've experienced so far in our generation next to the war in the middle east.

chodadog

I think you missed the point of the article. He's basically saying that a couple of pointing out that we've had an extremely cold month as incontrovertible evidence of global cooling is as ridiculous as the global warming zealots who pipe up every time it's slightly hotter than it was yesterday.

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chodadog

Well, that sentence didn't come out write at all.

"I think you missed the point of the article. He's basically saying that pointing out we've had an extremely cold month as incontrovertible evidence of global cooling is as ridiculous as the global warming zealots who pipe up every time it's slightly hotter than it was yesterday."

That's better.

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EonBlue

So only Republicans are biased? Ted Turner and Al Gore aren't biased?

Besides, I am sure Rupert Murdoch doesn't vet every article published in every one of his newspapers or magazines.

TheDoc

The world is warming up, that is a pretty easy to prove. The sun will continue to melt the ice, as it has been doing for 10k+ years, as it slowly melts, the water will warm up. Less ice means different water currents. Ice also reflects the sun, water absorbs the heat & creates life.

Around the 1600's a little age happened, it lasted until around 1850. This is a bleep on the scale of the world. Lots of people died during this time. Since then, we have have had a gradual increase in global temperatures every few decades. Oh yeah, the Medieval Warm Period, was just before the little ice age.

Maybe humans are speeding it up by 20 years, but we aren't stopping global warming from happening, it's going to happen either way.

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EonBlue

stickyfingerz

I was wrong on that, I didnt realize he had citizenship to the U.S. My bad. Never really looked at his background bio etc.

Centurion

Lol..no kidding. And to pick ONE month, and use that as the standard to disprove global warming..well, it's pretty novice like!

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