The rain in Oz..

...is not was.

My concerns are still more about reporting standards than bias as such, but I have to wonder about this from the BBC email digest:
Wind power speed record bid fails A team hoping to break the world land-speed record for a wind-powered vehicle blames global warming for its failure.

Once you get in at least it settles back on 'climate change'.

I happen to be one that thinks it is daft to trade hot and colds, wet and drys on a year by year basis when dealing with climatic or geographical issues, and hence get rather frustrated when those of a more climate pessimistic bent, and their supporters in the media, throw such things about with gay abandon to try and make cases that seem almost set up to be demolished.

I fear that all I could think was that lack of wind seemed a new one on me, and hard to equate with some reports only the other day with increased hurricane activity. And was it not so long ago there was a lack of rain in Oz? (I am one who will admit to thinking that such extremes are worth wondering about, but not yet ready to pin on man as the only cause).

Can't they all just belt up 'til they, and the rest of us, have a slim chance of knowing what the heck might be going on?

This kind of thing just makes even folk like me want to kick back, which surely has to be counter-productive to their charter-busting, social-re-engineering, subjective agendas.

Go West!

That was the cry of early US settlers once the passes through the rockies to the green and pleasant California lands were opened. Well, those green and pleasant lands appear to be fast becoming a barren desert.

This, from the Guardian, reports on the Californian wild fires and what is likely to be the main underlying problem, a distinct lack of rainfall (and snowfall) and rapidly falling man-made reservoir and natural aquifer levels. It does not point directly at climate change, but to the fact that this part of the world is arid by nature, and man's continued excessive use of available water supplies is depleting what is already a scarce resource.

"The people who move to the west today need to realise they're moving into a desert. If they want to live in a desert, they have to adapt to a desert lifestyle."

I think I'll stay put in cold and damp Shropshire!

Meanwhile, Australians are also suffering from appalling drought problems. This from NineMSM caught my notice, not least because I have a 'Drizabone' golf waterproof outfit, and brilliant it is too, but it looks like the bottom has rather fallen out of their outback market.

"with farmers telling of toddlers outgrowing their gum boots before needing them and their cattle becoming skittish at the unaccustomed pitter-patter of rain on their backs, Drizabone days are now scarce".

Now this article does point directly at climate change. Interesting to note that the Australian government is now offering large grants to farmers to leave the land as the billabongs slowly disappear!