first published as weblog two hundred and seventy five on Monday 2nd October 2006

From William of Normandy in 1066 to Dwight Eisenhower in 1944, England’s fortunes have been hostage to the weather. The ferocious winter of 1941-42 was an ordeal for the long-suffering English Speaking Peoples of these war-torn European Offshore Islands cowering in their air-raid shelters. But for Nazi Germany it was a catastrophe. Its impact on their invasion of Russia was as devastating as the storms that scattered the Spanish Armada.

At the end of 1941 temperatures on the continent dropped to minus forty…the same number in Centigrade and Fahrenheit…machinery froze and hundreds of thousands of troops froze to death. Hitler’s Blitzkrieg was stopped dead in its tracks. The Nazi Military Machine never recovered and was destroyed at Stalingrad. We were very lucky.

Two years ago Swiss Climatologists figured that Hitler should have consulted his Argentinean Agents instead of his Astrology Charts. Then he would have seen it coming. The right kind of El Niño set off the disturbances in the stratosphere. This surged like a wave across the globe and created the extreme conditions in Europe. Wonderful stuff hindsight.

But with stories like this doing the rounds it is no wonder that the Global Supremacy Boys show such a keen interest in Climate Meddling. It will all end in tears. But put out enough propaganda and the idiots will put down the ensuing disasters to Global Warming…and dig deep into the Public Purse to solve the problem by redoubling the Kyoto Carbon Emission Targets. Useful Idiots was Lenin’s phrase for people who could be fooled all of the time.

A study from the Supporters of Nuclear Energy, the Society of Motor Manufacturers, the European Chemicals Association or the American Petroleum Institute will normally be broadly supportive of the issuer’s publicly stated positions…otherwise the report will be hidden away in a bottom drawer. Normal people bear this in mind.

The same is true for reports from the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, the Soil Association, the International Society for Ecology & Culture or The Ecologist. More enlightened people bear this in mind…in much the same way. Leaks and Whistle Blowing complicate matters because some is bottom drawer stuff…and some is disinformation.

Whatever the source, an Act of Discernment is required to discriminate between Fact and Truth on the one hand and Prejudice and Untruth on the other. Whether any particular individual is capable of Right Discernment is another matter…the discernment of a Third Party might be called upon.

Governments once provided such a service by taking the Public View. They were the Competent Receiver of the Common Wealth and the Impartial Discriminator of the Common Sense. But no longer. Nowadays Government are rightly seen as just another Outside Interest Group…with their own Special Pleadings and their own Private Agendas. So who is sound? Where resides Common Sense?

In these days of public relations, media manipulation and advertising, Front Organisations distribute results and a Tied Tenancy carries out the studies. Scientific Research is tuned by the Piper’s Patrons. The Congress of Racial Equality, the Joseph Rowntree Trust, Scientific Alliance, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation? Where do they stand? Who do they represent? These are not disinterested bodies. They have their own agendas…some of them open and some of them hidden…and they have paymasters with other agendas. What to do?

http://climate.blog.co.uk/2008/07/24/shepherd-on-climate-list-of-contents-4491538">more from Shepherd on Climate