What Ever Happened To Monbiot’s Global Meltdown?
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dennis Ambler
Back in 1999, the Moonbat was warning us that the world was already collapsing around us thanks to climate change:
Global warming means that flying across the Atlantic is now as unacceptable as child abuse
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 29th July 1999.
The global meltdown has begun. Long predicted and long denied, the effects of climate change are arriving faster than even the gloomiest prophets expected.
This week we learnt that the Arctic ecosystem is collapsing. The ice is melting, wiping out the feeding grounds of whales and walruses. Polar bear and seal populations appear to have halved. Three weeks ago, marine biologists reported that almost all the world’s coral reefs could be dead by the end of the coming century. Last year scientists found that between 70 and 90 per cent of the reefs they surveyed in the Indian Ocean had already expired, largely as a result of increasing water temperatures.
One month ago, the Red Cross reported that natural disasters uprooted more people in 1998 than all the wars and conflicts on earth combined. Climate change, it warned, is about to precipitate a series of “super-disasters”, a “new scale of catastrophe”. The demographer Dr Norman Myers calculates that 25 million people have already been displaced by environmental change, and this will rise to 200 million within 50 years. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reports that nine of the ten most dangerous diseases carried by insects and other vectors are likely to spread as a result of global warming. The British Government’s chief scientist has warned that climate change could cause the Gulf Stream to grind to a halt.
https://www.monbiot.com/1999/07/29/meltdown/
In the twenty years since, every single one of his claims has been proved wrong.
- Polar bear and walrus populations have increased.
- Arctic sea ice has remained stable since 2007.
- Coral reefs have not disappeared from the Indian Ocean.
- Super disasters have not occurred.
- Hundreds of millions have not been displaced.
- Tropical diseases are not spreading because of global warming.
- The Gulf Stream has not ground to a halt.
Not that this will stop him from making the same sort of silly claims now.
As for flying across the Atlantic, Emma Thompson evidently did not get the memo!
High-flying hypocrite: Dame Thompson is spotted on a British Airways flight from Heathrow to JFK on Friday morning, despite earlier demanding: ‘We should all fly less’
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Just Tweeted him to ask how his predictions went.
That’ll be you blocked then!
Yet another badge to sew on my Climate Realists anorak.
A fair while back one of the BBC fools (McGrath possibly) had story up about it being so warm in Greenland that flowers were blooming all over the place etc. The picture supporting this was of Arctic Cotton Grass. I’m not on facetwit or whatever but an associate asked him about it, was he aware that Paradise Valley is famous for this, and that it is normal for Arctic Cotton Grass to be in bloom in the Arctic! He was blocked instantly too.
You might note, it is most definitely BA’s First Class, so no slumming it with the proles, then.
‘We should all fly less’ – meaning: ‘less than me’.
On the BBC newspapers review the night before they covered the Emma story in the Mail. Oddly, when they read it out they said “swilling Laurent-Perrier champagne”, and scoffed, ‘how very tabloid’, to try and deflect and denigrate the story. I was quite surprised when it only said ‘drank’ in my copy the next day.
The radio today announced the new UN report on threatened wildlife: an addendum to Attenborough’s pseudo-scientific assault. So far as I can see, all the claims are based on theoretical effects of climate change from the long-disproved climate-models, but that won’t hinder the hype-machine.
While watching the end of Line of Duty, I kept wondering who are the “Hs” behind the frenzy to destroy the western-world’s economic systems on the grounds of climate change??? Emma Thompson doesn’t have the brains to be at the top table …… or does she?
They shouldn’t refer to this as the UN’s report: it would be more truthful to call it the ‘Mencken Report’, in honour of the man who came up with the memorable apercu: “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
The global meltdown has begun
That was the alarmist brain meltdown. The sea ice meltdown never quite materialised as predicted, but what there was of it stalled about 10 years ago.
The man’s an ignorant moron – he should go back to school and LEARN something this time !
More of these
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/02/22/old-climate-fears-revisited/
I particularly like the idea of the Gulf Stream “grinding to a halt” – even his English is rubbish.
Ah there you are P44, you may have noted that the IMF just came out and suggested some extortionate ideas for your ‘right price’ for carbon, and explicitly stated that the revenues must NOT be used to reduce other taxes.
Cyclone Fani didn’t affect India, according to the BBC, it ‘slammed’ into India.
Yes the BBC got ‘Fani’ and ‘slammed’ into the same sentence.
MrGrimNasty – yeah I noticed the “Fani” and “slammed” coincidence. My first thought was that someone had won themselves a bet with that.
His quote that “scientists found that between 70 and 90 per cent of the reefs they surveyed in the Indian Ocean had already expired” reminds me of the old advert for MacDonalds burgers: “made with 100% beef” – which really meant that whatever the beef content was it was 100% meat, but the burger was not 100% meat.
In this case, it could just be that those surveying coral reefs chose only those that looked unhealthy in the first place. Thus, of those, truly 70-90% could be correct, but a poor use of statistics – which does not surprise me.
My understanding is that certain types of coral reef which are close to the surface are very temperature sensitive. Any of the normal cyclical fluctuations that take place over the years cause the death of those least suited to temp flux. The result is that competitive species move in to fill the now vacated niche. When temperatures cycle back to a previous norm the coral reef selection process is reversed.
Because the first coral reefs appeared a couple of hundred million years ago, I suspect they still have a few more years to go. They have endured all manner of climates in that period. A comparatively tiny change of one degree or slightly more can be counted on to benefit some species of coral reef.
It is like the issue of the red fox replacing the more northerly grey fox. If true, that is a good thing. Red foxes are far more pleasant to look at and watch than the drab and slightly creepy, skulking grey fox. Red foxes are cutie pies. Grey foxes are just too damn boring.
Since the environmentalists are all using post-modern rhetoric to put down any objections, I am entitled to have my own narrative just as much as they are. To quote Oprah’s now famous academy awards remark…. I am seeking my own truth.
“Here are some of the things I try to fight: environmental destruction, undemocratic power, corruption, deception of the public, injustice, inequality and the misallocation of resources, waste, denial, the libertarianism which grants freedom to the powerful at the expense of the powerless, undisclosed interests, complacency.”
“Deception of the public”…George Monbiot has made a career with it?
Yes, she & most green ‘climate worriers’ are hypocrites…
they shout to stop the use of gas & oil, while wearing clothes, shoes, spectacles, using phones, cameras, banners ALL made from gas & oil, when they finish their party most go home on transport powered by gas & oil, they watch themselves on TV, while eating food in centrally heated homes all made & powered by gas & oil.
None of them will give up their lifesyles…but they want every poor person around the world to have less.
They are either very cynical hypocrites or very ignorant gullible fools.
#
“carbon dioxide – the main driver of climate change ”
NO, the climate constantly change,s mainly due to – Milancovich cycles, Tectonic Plate movements, Volcanos, Solar Wind, Planetary Gravitational Effects.
The oceans & water vapour (clouds) are the principal controllers of temperature (the thermostat), [ water vapour = ~2% ; CO2 = 0.04% ] carbon dioxide is only a bit player.
Read a book on atmospheric physics… not the daily mail !
CO2 is a trace gas, one ppmv weighs billions of tonnes. And they want us to lower it with impossible technology? Not just gullible, but stupid hypocrites.
Holy cow, is there nothing the BBC can’t bend to climate change propaganda?
See the end of this Chernobyl program write up – they’ve got it the wrong way around – it’s the people exposing the dangerous man-made climate change belief that are the persecuted, the heroes – when have any been allowed a platform/balance on the BBC as claimed!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48090834
Still waiting for the UK to get the “south of France” climate I was promised “within ten years” by some “expert” at the Met Office in 1999.
Still, it’s good business for the plant nurseries, all the people that planted heat and dry loving gardens as recommended, that were wiped out by cold and wet. The second coldest England December in 360 years in 2010 and the Beast blast, and the winter of relentless rain systems and floods – that was then pronounced the new normal, but hasn’t repeated since!.
I am from Canada. Our Federal wants to and is going to tax fossil fuels to discourage use. We live in cold climate, half the year the country is so cold you need heat in your homes to survive. We are talking minus 10 or more cold.The country is huge and you have to drive everywhere unless you live in a city. Even then a lot of people drive because the transit system isn’t adequate.There is a Germany company over here pushing wind turbines.They are now in bankruptcy proceedings in Germany. I live in a rural area and there is going to come a time when you are not going to be able to heat your home or drive to town. The green energy people came from Europe and solar power from Japan. It is too expensive to use here in Canada and the energy is subsidized at a very high rate. Where have all these green energy people come from. They are just pushing their ideas to sell solar power panels and wind turbines. Is there not enough smart people in the world that can push back against all the propaganda or is it the big money people pushing their green energy products.
Canada has its own oil and we can’t even get pipelines built to get it to market because of all the out of Country interference
Climate has always been changing in the world. There is no climate crisis
All good stuff you contributors but is there not a big problem we cannot address ?
We are only talking to ourselves and nobody else is listening or reading our pertinent comments ?
Attenboro’ has not acknowledged his mistakes / nonsense yet – I must point out .
Presumably the old fellow is still believing the triple he regurgitates .
This is the nub of the fear-campaign / Fake-news problem that has infected the world. The proponents seem to have no duty of care to present balance at all, and are being funded by governments and wealthy supporters to take a one-sided view. The IPCC and CCC are perfect example, both were formed based on the assumption that the “Science is proven”. The debate on the science was effectively stopped until Trump appeared.
The big benefit to governments is the ability to set draconian laws and taxes to save us all, and they have leapt on this opportunity!
I meat Tripe of course
The issue isn’t the claim that the science is proven.
The issue is that scientific principles are no longer necessary or advisable since it is all a demonstrable fact. Examination of the assumed facts being presented will just get in the way of your understanding of the situation.
My ten year old grand daughter comes home from school with an assignment to draw a picture of Orangutans threatened by loss of habitat due to deforestation, complete with a picture of a forlorn looking Orangutan (don’t they all look that way) to use as a model. She is convinced that this is what natural sciences means because she is being taught that natural science is what she is doing.
She fully believes that she is doing science of the natural kind. Here is a picture of a forest being cut down. Here is a picture of a apparently sad Orangutan. What else does anyone need to know? That is all the science that is required. The only additional thing that is required is to practice various forms of protest until you find one that appeals to you. That is what science is all about for her. Mild outrage, a pervasive sense of guilt and some degree of need for action to expiate her guilt.
I expect in another couple of years she will be telling me that we only have twelve years left and then we will all die unless we do what her teacher tells her should be done. She will point to the evidence all around us. Out will come the equivalent of a sad Orangutan, hungry polar bear, a big honking iceberg, the last of the ice sheets from the ice ages disappearing (glaciers). What else do we need to know? The picture, the feeling, the claims made by activists …..that’s it, there’s all the science all tied up in a nice package for us. And anybody who says that it isn’t all tied up in nice package is….anti-science.
You don’t have to wait twenty years: his claim that in 1999 “Polar bear and seal populations appear to have halved” was nonsense even at the time (unless by “seals” he meant harp seals in the North Atlantic but then, he didn’t say that’s what he meant).
In 1993, the global population of polar bears was estimated at 25,000 by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group. In 1996, the IUCN Red List down-listed the species from ‘vulnerable’ (due to overhunting) to ‘least concern. The bears were listed as ‘least concern’ for the following ten years because their numbers had climbed continuously since international protection was put in place in 1973.
Which means Monbiot’s claim about polar bears in 1999 was nowwhere near the truth. Why would anyone believe anything else he claimed after that whooper?