James Delingpole: 'Deddy. What is this strange white stuff falling from the sky?'

 

(James Delingpole in the UK Telegraph) On days like this it seems positively churlish not to remind the Independent of its most famous comedy headline ever:

Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past

Problem is, I don't think they meant it as a comedy headline. Nor, I fear, did the "expert" from (where else?) the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia intend it as some manner of obscure climatological joke.

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become

"a very rare and exciting event". "Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.

Actually they are, as Anthony Watts notes at Watts Up With That?

It seems despite the sage advice from that East Anglia CRU scientist, a new record for snowfall has been set for the month of December. From the Rutgers University Snow Lab, we have this graph for the Northern Hemisphere for all months of December. December 2012 was a clear winner.

Some might argue that it's quite wrong to mock Dr Viner for the failure of a silly prediction he made more than a decade ago. But I'm not so sure. I'd buy that argument if he had shown a degree of contrition for his error which – after all – is part of a broader misapprehension in the field of climate science which has had disastrous and expensive consequences for us all. But he hasn't has he?

After leaving the University of Easy Access he got a job as “climate change specialist” at the government quango Natural England (which, incidentally, is supposed to be dedicated to helping the English countryside but which is bizarrely pro wind farms); then he was appointed “global director” at The British Council, advising on its climate change programme.

Now he has just walked into a cushy job at the £1 billion global consultancy Mott MacDonald as “principal advisor for Climate Change,”  where presumably he'll be among the beneficiaries of Britain's vast and pointless DFID budget. (H/T Frank K at Watts Up With That?)

Does this strike you as the career path of someone who is in any way embarrassed or contrite about his part in the biggest junk-science Ponzi scheme in the history of the world?

It doesn't strike me that way. Which is why, in my book, the occasional humiliating blog post is the very least Dr David Viner (formerly, did I mention this?, of the discredited Climatic Research Unit at the University of Easy Access) deserves for that fatuous, misleading, hysterical and costly prediction he made back in 2000.

In fact personally, I'd say he deserves worse. Much, MUCH worse.