Why our usually illiberal establishment has been so chilled out about XR’s week of vandalism.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters in Cambridge have launched a week-long campaign of obstruction and petty vandalism.

It began with the protesters issuing demands to Cambridge City Council to hold a citizens’ assembly on climate change, to Cambridgeshire County Council to organise a ‘just transition’ from fossil fuels, and to Cambridge University to cut its ties with the fossil-fuel industry. When the demands were not met, XR set about occupying the council chamber, blocking roads in the city centre, and digging trenches into the neatly manicured and near-ancient lawn outside Trinity College.

‘This is what democracy looks like’, chanted the protesters as they marched with spades and wheelbarrows to Trinity College lawn. Then they tore up the turf while chanting ‘digging for oil’. It was supposed to symbolise the environmental destruction caused by the oil industry, as well as highlight a more local concern: Trinity College’s plans to sell some of the land it owns in nearby Ipswich to property developers.

By any measure, the Trinity College stunt was a pathetic, infantile performance. Rather than speaking to the world, the feeble, moronic chanting made it sound like the protesters were trying to convince themselves that there was some justification for their actions. ‘We’ve come here today, because Trinity [College] does not value the land that is for our common good’, explained one protester. ‘So we’re going to show them that we don’t value their precious grass outside their college. It seems a fair comparison’, he added. Is it really?

Most people watching the protests, in person or on the news, could only see petty vandalism. For most people, the stunt did not raise burning questions about land use or the wrongs of colleges owning investments in energy companies. In fact, the question that most people wanted answered was, ‘Why have these people not been arrested?’. PODCASTWhy we must embrace the wonders of nuclear powerSPIKED

It is an important question. You do not have to look hard to find cases in which the police and local authorities have demonstrated near-zero tolerance of things that barely meet the category of ‘public disorder’. In recent years, the ever-expanding regulation of public space has led to buskers, beggars and pamphleteers finding themselves on the wrong side of the law. Highly subjective interpretations of what may constitute ‘offensive’ behaviour have been used by police and local authorities to crack down on all sorts of innocent activity and speech. That is not to argue for the increased regulation of protests. But if blocking roads, criminal damage and the blocking of local democracy are not public-order offences, then what are?

Criticism has quickly turned to the authorities. Rather than using their powers to clear the Extinction Rebellion protesters from their roadblock in the town centre, the police shut the roads and diverted traffic. In effect, this gave official sanction to the roadblock. According to a police spokesman, the police had to balance the right to protest against the offence of obstructing highways. Similarly, Trinity College was initially reluctant to make a complaint of criminal damage against the protesters. When officers first turned up, no complaint was made. The college later changed its mind and arrests were made on Tuesday afternoon.

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The post Ben Pile: A Rebellion That The Establishment Loves appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

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February 20, 2020 at 04:20AM

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This contradicts climate alarmist claims such as: Global Warming Is Messing with the Jet Stream. Whether 40 years of data is enough to establish what is ‘normal’, is another matter. The fastest jetstream on record of 231 mph has only just been set, we’re told.

Rapid Arctic warming has not led to a “wavier” jet stream around the mid-latitudes in recent decades, pioneering new research has shown.

Scientists from the University of Exeter have studied the extent to which Arctic amplification—the faster rate of warming in the Arctic compared to places farther south—has affected the fluctuation of the jet stream’s winding course over the North Hemisphere, reports Phys.org.

Recent studies have suggested the warming Arctic region has led to a “wavier” jet stream—which can lead to extreme weather conditions striking the US and Europe.

However, the new study by Dr. Russell Blackport and Professor James Screen, shows that Arctic warming does not drive a more meandering jet stream.

Instead, they believe any link is more likely to be a result of random fluctuations in the jet stream influencing Arctic temperatures, rather than the other way around.

The study is published in leading journal Science Advances on Wednesday 19 February 2020.

Dr. Blackport, a Research Fellow in Mathematics and lead author of the study, said: “While there does appear to be a link between a wavier jet stream and Arctic warming in year-to-year and decade-to-decade variability, there has not been a long-term increase in waviness in response to the rapidly warming Arctic.”

Scientists have studied whether the jet stream’s meandering course across the Northern Hemisphere is amplified by climate change in recent years.

For about two decades, the jet stream—a powerful band of westerly winds across the mid-latitudes—was observed to have a “wavier” flow, which coincided with greater Arctic warming through climate change.

These waves have caused extreme weather conditions to strike mainland Europe and the US, bringing intense cold air that leads to extreme cold weather.

In this new study, Dr. Blackport and Professor Screen studied not only climate model simulations but also the observed conditions going back 40 years.

They found that the previously reported trend toward a wavier circulation during autumn and winter has reversed in recent years, despite continued Arctic amplification.

This reversal has resulted in no long-term trends in waviness, in agreement with climate model simulations, which also suggest little change in “waviness” in response to strong Arctic warming.

The results, the scientists say, strongly suggest that the observed and simulated link between jet stream “waviness” and Arctic temperatures do not represent a causal effect of Arctic amplification on the jet stream.

Professor Screen, an Associate Professor in Climate Science at Exeter added: “The well-publicised idea that Arctic warming is leading to a wavier jet stream just does not hold up to scrutiny.

“With the benefit of ten more years of data and model experiments, we find no evidence of long-term changes in waviness despite on-going Arctic warming.”

Full report here.

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February 20, 2020 at 04:15AM

Policies created by a remote body have been inflexibly implemented on the ground – to catastrophic effect

Storms Ciara and Dennis have been a sobering reminder of the awful damage which flooding can cause. For those directly affected, they have been much more than that. One of my worst memories of being DEFRA Secretary is seeing such terrible destruction first-hand, visiting distraught families whose wedding albums had been destroyed and precious heirlooms irreparably damaged.

Housing Minister Robert Jenrick’s activation of the Government’s Bellwin Scheme to provide financial assistance to the worst-hit areas is welcome, and we should applaud yet again the tireless efforts of the Environment Agency staff on the ground. But the effectiveness of the EA’s teams depends upon clear direction from the top. With the UK at last able to design an independent environmental policy, these events must provide fresh impetus to design a new system tailored to our own environment, implemented through flexible, local control.

When I was Secretary of State for DEFRA, heavy rainfall in December 2013 and January 2014 caused extensive flooding on the Somerset Levels. The causes of that disaster became a lesson in the consequences of policies created by a supranational body being unthinkingly, inflexibly implemented on the ground. 

The Levels had been drained for centuries under the auspices of the Royal Bath and West Agricultural Society. Yet when I spoke to them following the 2014 floods, local farmers who had been intimately involved with drainage told the same story about what had led to such catastrophic failure. 

When the EA took over responsibility for managing rivers in 1996, it presided over a dramatic decline in regular dredging. Dredging is crucial in keeping rivers flowing. This is vital in preventing flooding; rivers provide the only means by which flood waters can escape to the sea. 

Thereafter, the approach of the EA’s leadership typified the depressingly common environmental view that the interest of humans and of “nature” must always be in conflict, and that all we can do is to take the Rousseauian view and let “nature” take its course. 

Facing a worldview like this can be exasperating enough for farmers, but it is infinitely worse when it is backed with the presumed authority of EU directives on habitats, biodiversity, silt disposal and flooding. The Floods Directive requires certain floodplains to be allowed to flood. This, in itself, need not be a bad thing; inputs of fresh water can bring enormous biodiversity benefits. But this directive was transformed into a policy which classified areas at risk under six categories, from “Policy Option 1”, where flood defences were a priority, to “Option 6’’ where, to promote “biodiversity”, the strategy should be to “increase flooding”. The Levels were covered by Option 6.

This self-regarding “environmental” thinking was, ultimately, responsible for an environmental disaster estimated to have cost over £100 million. Unable to escape through undredged rivers, the flood waters stagnated, unable to support life and drowning countless land animals and ground-nesting birds.

As Secretary of State, I was able to overrule this wrong-headed consensus, ordering long overdue dredging of rivers to begin and setting up the Somerset Rivers Authority to maintain them. Our model was the Lincolnshire Fens, where effective management is undertaken by local Internal Drainage Boards. Their success demonstrates that it is simply lazy to accept the terrible consequences of flooding as an inevitable consequence of climate change.

The UK has experienced heavy winter rainfall for centuries. We must have adequate responses to cope. Indeed, data from the Welland and Deepings IDB, which has been keeping records since 1829, reveals that the average January rainfall at Pode Hole from 1900 was 2.03in. The average between 2009 and 2019 was 1.76in, with only 3 years seeing January rainfall greater than the 1900 average. 

The system of IDBs provides useful lessons in local control.  Leaving the EU is a chance to improve our approach, removing the influence of EU directives that are ill-suited to the UK and ensuring that flood management is at the centre of an agricultural and environmental policy designed for our own environment.

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February 20, 2020 at 04:13AM

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February 20, 2020 at 04:04AM