THE world’s climate has cooled during 2011 and 2012, temperature data from Britain’s Met Office reveals — just before this year’s talks on cutting global greenhouse gas emissions. The figures show that, although global temperatures are still well above the long-term average, they have fallen significantly (sic) since the record seen in 2010.

The findings could prove politically sensitive, coming ahead of the United Nation’s climate summit in Doha, Qatar, where the global system for regulating greenhouse gas emissions faces collapse.

The threat comes because the Kyoto treaty, under which developed nations pledged to cut their carbon emissions, expires at the end of this year. Doha is seen as the last hope of securing an extension.

In such a febrile situation, any data casting doubt on climate scientists’ predictions is potentially explosive. The World Meteorological Organisation, which oversees the publication of climate trend data from the four main global centres, including the Met Office, has been strongly criticised for its policy of releasing such data just before the UN’s key annual summits.

“In the past two years we have seen a slight decline in temperature,” said Peter Stott, the Met Office’s head of climate monitoring and attribution. “However, it is such a short period that it is scientifically meaningless. Climate change can only be measured over decades — and the records show that the world has warmed by 0.75C over the past century.”

The Met Office figures show that, for the first 10 months of 2012, global temperatures averaged 14.43C; 2010 was significantly (sic) hotter at 14.54C.

Stott says the heat of 2010 was caused by an “El Niño” event, where warm water currents in the Pacific released unusual amounts of heat into the atmosphere. “It is a natural short-term fluctuation and nothing to do with climate change,” he said.

The longer-term record shows global temperatures have hardly risen for about 15 years. Stott said, however, that the key point was that, although global temperatures had not risen as predicted over the past decade or so, they had remained consistently above the long-term average.

“This is why the Arctic icecap is melting and extreme weather events are increasing,” he said.

The Sunday Times, 18 November 2012

Editor’s Note: The cooling of global temperature since 2010 is statistically insignificant.

Oh the humanity!!

If it saves just one NHL player…..

These poor young men are undergoing the excruciating, massive pain of adjusting to living on as little as $200,000 a month. Help them please…..

Many people think of labour unions as organisations to benefit workers, and think of employers who are opposed to unions as just people who don’t want to pay their employees more money. But some employers have made it a point to pay their employees more than the union wages, just to keep them from joining a union. Why would they do that, if it is just a question of not wanting to pay union wages? The Twinkies bankruptcy is a classic example of costs created by labour unions that are not confined to paycheques. The work rules imposed in union contracts required the company that makes Twinkies, which also makes Wonder Bread, to deliver these two products to stores in separate trucks. Moreover, truck drivers were not allowed to load either of these products into their trucks. And the people who did load Twinkies into trucks were not allowed to load Wonder Bread, and vice versa. All of this was obviously intended to create more jobs for the unions’ members. But the needless additional costs that these make-work rules created ended up driving the company into bankruptcy, which can cost 18,500 jobs. The union is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

….read more about the ultimate consequences of Government Unions HERE