Gerald Warner: Weathering the true lies of global warming Newspeak

Beware, above all, of succumbing to a false consciousness, of imagining that a few snowdrifts somehow discredit the metaphysical reality of global warming. Those gifted with climate gnosis arguably have a duty to proclaim their faith by dressing in Bermuda shorts and bikinis, to dispel the illusion of Arctic conditions. This is another area in which the Scottish Parliament, a tabernacle of AGW piety, might profitably impose a ban on people wrapping up in warm clothing, for is that not implicit climate change denial?

These are challenging times for climate jihadists. Last week the Met Office was forced to issue a press release stating it "categorically denies forecasting a 'mild winter' ". In fact, in October, its long-range probability map predicted an 80 per cent probability of warmer than average temperatures from November to January in Scotland. It claimed Scotland, along with Northern Ireland, the eastern half of England and Cornwall, would experience temperatures above the 3.7C average, more than 2C higher than last winter.

Perversely, those are precisely the regions most ravaged by blizzard conditions; but the Met Office now insists that was not a forecast. Apparently, just as weather is not climate, a Met Office map predicting an 80 per cent likelihood of higher temperatures is not a forecast. The Met Office is notoriously zealous in warmist propaganda. Its chairman, Robert Napier, is also chairman of the trustees of the Carbon Disclosure Project and of the Green Fiscal Commission - so, no conflict of interests there.

The global warming Mormons of Nasa are so disturbed by public perception that this winter is verging on the chilly across the northern hemisphere that they have produced a map showing areas where they claim alarmingly high temperatures are prevailing, such as the middle of the Arctic Ocean. As sceptics have pointed out, all the hotspots highlighted coincide with places where there are no weather stations, so clearly it is the trusty computers that are generating these high temperatures.

Of the fragile construct of global warming mythology there is hardly a domino left standing. Declining polar bear population? Since 1970 the world population of polar bears has 'declined' from 5,000 to 25,000.The notorious 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, claimed up to 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest could be drastically reduced by even a slight decrease in rainfall caused by global warming, replacing trees with tropical grassland. This year a study funded, ironically, by Nasa completely discredited that theory. And who can forget the imminent disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers fiasco?

The suggestion of a connection between "man-made" global warming and hurricanes has now been rejected by the scientist who first advanced it, Professor Kerry Emanuel, after further research. Melting ice-caps? When Lewis Pugh tried to paddle a kayak to the "ice-free" North Pole he had to stop 600 miles south of his destination and 100 miles short of where a canoeist had reached a century before. Even the IPCC has been forced to revise its forecasts of rises in sea level dramatically downwards. Global average temperatures reached a peak in 1998 and have been declining since.

That, of course, is nave empiricism, unlikely to deter the warmist fanatics. Gore's propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth contained nine major factual errors; Michael Mann's discredited 'hockey stick' graph is a global joke. So is the Piltdown Institute of Mann-made Global Warming ("Hide the decline!") at the Creative Research Unit, University of East Anglia. The whitewash job done on the jokers there was so blatant as to be counter-productive.

Our MSPs - mostly people who give cretinism a bad name - have gone overboard for a world-leading role in climate crusading. How much energy did Scotland's ice-bound wind turbines generate this month? The regulation director at ScottishPower Renewables has stated: "Thirty gigawatts of wind maybe requires 25 GW of backup." Few Scottish windfarms attain even 28 per cent of capacity. Cutting-edge technology, eh?

But who cares? Hey, this isn't about science - it's about cash. Specifically, $130bn from Western taxpayers (though the mid-term elections in America mean Joe Public there has firmly said: "Include me out!"). It will take more than a few tax hikes and power cuts to deflect Civic Scotland from embracing the latest leftist fantasy. So, on with the motley! And if you are venturing out, take care to apply plenty of sunblock.