Climate change: the charade continues

By Richard North - July 19, 2022

Before the cultists renamed it a “climate emergency”, and before its transitional phase of “climate change”, it used to be known as global warming – that descriptor at least implying that the whole planet was heating up.

But, if one breaks away from the obsessive focus on western Europe and the United Kingdom, the one thing that cannot be said about the current heatwave is that it is a global (or even a northern hemisphere) phenomenon.

Largely because of the unusual persistence of the meridional pattern of the jet stream – which we saw throughout the winter – with its highly amplified troughs and ridges, we are seeing atmospheric blocking and the appearance of different regions presenting simultaneously with below- and much above-normal temperatures.

That certainly is the case at the moment as we see from the temperature distribution map of Europe and Scandinavia. While western Europe is experiencing higher than normal temperatures, areas in central and eastern Europe and much of Scandinavia are exceptionally cold for this time of year.

To take one spot more or less at random, we see the town of Narvik in northern Norway – which averages 17ºC highs during July recording temperatures as low as 13, 14 and 15ºC. Many other areas are showing similar patterns.

It is also the case that a South Pole weather station experienced six months of record cold temperature in 2021, but whether this is significant is anyone’s guess. What one tends to see is that episodes of record cold are unrelated to climate change while any new high temperature record – or near record – is instantly attributed to climate change.

Thus, even the Guardian was prepared to take a relaxed view at the end of this May when South America was experiencing unusually chilly conditions as southern Europe was facing exceptional heat.

As to whether the meridional flow Jetstream is directly or indirectly the result of climate change, I am not qualified to comment. Suffice to say that there are differences in view and, in the nature of this subject, this is more often a belief system than science. People tend to believe what they want to believe.

But, as we struggle through the hyperbole of today’s heatwave, and watch BBC presenters struggling to contain their joy as they report on the potential for excess deaths as a result of the high temperatures.

What we are not seeing, though, are any reminders from these sources that more people die in the winter as a result of the cold, with a recent study suggesting that each year in England and Wales, there were on average nearly 800 excess deaths associated with heat and over 60,500 associated with cold between 2000 and 2019.

Interestingly, London had the highest heat-related mortality rate, with 3.21 excess deaths per 100,000 people, which translates to 170 heat-related excess deaths each year. Heat-related risks were also much greater in urban areas across the two countries.

In contrast, the risk of death associated with the cold was highest in the Northeast of England and Wales, with an excess mortality rate of 140.45 deaths and 136.95 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively. London had the lowest risk associated with cold temperatures, with 113.97 deaths per 100,000 people (almost 5800 cold-related excess deaths each year).

The research findings showed that the impacts of cold, and to a lesser extent heat, were more prevalent in deprived areas. In addition, older people were the most vulnerable to both heat and cold, with mortality risk of over 85-year-olds twice as high as that of people aged 0 to 64.

On balance, therefore, it is clearly the case that “global warming” – at least in England and Wales – has the potential to save many lives, if we are able to enjoy milder winters as a result.

However, it seems that any marginal gain from changes in average temperatures – as opposed to no change at all to summer temperatures due to the implementation of “Net Zero” in the UK – is about to be wiped out by the latest move by Mr Putin to reduce Europe’s gas supply.

Only a week ago we were reporting on concerns that the NordStream 1 gas pipeline might not be restarted after its annual maintenance shutdown, and now it appears that those fears were justified.

Yesterday, Reuters reported that Russia’s Gazprom had told customers in Europe, in a letter dated 14 July, that it could not guarantee gas supplies because of “extraordinary” circumstances, declaring force majeure on supplies, starting from 14 June.

Uniper, Germany’s biggest importer of Russian gas, was among the customers who said they had received a letter, and that it had formally rejected the claim as unjustified. RWE, Germany’s largest power producer and another importer of Russian gas, also said it has received the force majeure notice.

It has since been confirmed that the notice concerned supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Currently, flows through the pipeline are at zero as the link undergoes annual maintenance that began on 11 July, but this period is meant to conclude on Thursday.

Whether this will happen seems in part to depend on the whereabouts of a gas turbine being maintained in Canada by equipment supplier Siemens Energy. According to reports, this turbine was flown to Germany on 17 July and will take another five to seven days to reach Russia.

But some doubt is being aired as to the relevance of this turbine as it is not intended to be installed until September, meaning its absence, according to Reuters, could not be the real reason for the fall-off in gas flows prior to the maintenance.

The agency thus sites Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro, who says that the force majeure notice “sounds like a first hint that the gas supplies via NS1 will possibly not resume after the 10-day maintenance has ended”.

“Depending on what ‘extraordinary’ circumstances [the Russians] have in mind in order to declare the force majeure, and whether these issues are technical or more political, it could mean the next step in escalation between Russia and Europe/Germany”, he adds.

Throughout Europe, individual nations are scrambling to make up shortfalls in gas supplies due to previous Russian actions, and while the combination of the measures will have some effect on mitigating the effect of gas shortages, every step in the “energy war” taken by Russia further increases the stresses on European systems.

This latest step cannot help but make life more difficult and bring closer the already high prospect of electricity outages during the winter. And yet, even as the news was breaking of this latest development, we had all four of the remaining Tory leadership candidates pledge their undying loyalty to the life-sapping creed of “Net Zero”.

This included the Tory Right heroine, Kemi Badenough who, despite her billing as a free market champion, is a dyed-in-the-wool warmist, shackled to the cult and determined to inflict it on the nation.

The development also comes as fellow warmist Kwasi Modo launches what he calls “the biggest electricity market reform in a generation”, which turns out to be nothing more than “proposals out for initial consultation” which could take years to come to fruition, if at all.

Over the bodies of soon to be frozen citizens, therefore, the “climate” charade continues, making the Tory leadership contest even more irrelevant as the change from Johnson to A.N. Other will herald no change in policy.