Amidst all the electioneering, I fell out of the habit of checking up on the vacationing Philip Stott - is this why I need to get one of those RSS readers or whatever? Anyway, the good professor has returned after taking October off, and has leapt back in the saddle again with his usual bracing, charming rants against global warming hysteria and the like. Today's post is a call to arms:
...May I encourage you to telephone, or to write, in to editors and producers if you ever have to suffer one of the following climate-change examples of mediaese:
"Stop climate change" or "halt climate change": nobody can stop climate change. Climate has always changed, is always changing, and will always change. Even if we put 4 billion people worldwide out-of-work, scrapped every car, grounded every aeroplane, and shut down every factory and energy plant, climate would still change, and often dramatically. Remember the Ice Age, folks?
"Bring climate back to an equilibrium": there is no such thing as a climate equilibrium. This is wishful thinking based on false philosophical roots;
"Stable climate": there is no such thing as, and never has been such a thing as, a "stable climate" - the very concept is an oxymoron;
"Make climate sustainable": there is no such thing as a single "sustainable climate". The phrase, "a sustainable climate", is again an oxymoron. This is uncritical, PC twaddle;
"Carbon emissions that cause climate change": carbon emissions are just one factor out of millions that drive climate change. Always challenge dangerously naive and uncritical monocausal media statements;
"Climate change will be a disaster": climate change is neither universally disastrous nor beneficial - different places will experience it in different ways. Competitive advantage will simply move and alter. The only defence against climate change is to maintain a strong, flexible economy and to develop sensible planning with respect to flooding and other phenomena.