Reference :- Sky weather man , Rowan Dean, and the editor of the Sky Reply were in the UK at the same time , in the halcyon days of their youth. Who would have thought ?
Hey Rowan , guess what ? It turns out that you and I were living in the UK at the same time ! That's right ! You were doing really well in advertising and marketing , and did a wonderful job promoting Fosters Lager . The ads were hilarious . There was one involving the flying doctor and a pedal wireless that I still occasionally run as a joke , when there is a fresh audience. I wonder if you wrote that one ? The humour was based on an act of gross selfishness , if you recall .
Anyway , while you were busy winning awards for advertising , I was doing some post grad study , but also running the doctor's mess at an NHS teaching hospital . Those were the days . Clive James , Barry Humphries and Germaine Greer had taken England by storm . It was a great time to be an Aussie in Old Blighty . Earls Court had been more or less annexed by the swarms of visitors from "Down Under " , and Fosters was the beer of choice .
No doubt thanks to you , during a promotion we were able to score a free temprite for the bar in the doctor's mess. This meant we could serve ice cold Fosters on tap. So four decades later , please accept my thanks .
Well Rowan , my reason for writing is that I feel I owe you a return favour . You are making quite a prick of yourself by thrusting appalling misinformation upon the unwary with that Ice Age Watch weather report garbage . We, like most of your audience , watch it to laugh at you . But some folk may take it seriously . Others have been sacked by Sky News for being full of it , and you may find yourself joining their ranks soon if you don't smarten up .
So here are a few facts Rowan , that you might find illuminating.
Those record cold spells that you become tumescent over are predicted by global warming models . I won't bore you with descriptions of how the polar vortex in the northern hemisphere has been disturbed by record heat in the arctic , allowing cold air to spill south . Neither of us has any qualifications in climate science , you especially , so we need a simple way to understand how scientists know that the planet is warming .
This is done with a thing called a thermometer (apologies for the big word , but it's the only one )
There are many highly regarded agencies interested in global warming , and they produce vast temperature data sets . NASA is one . ( You know , they put a man on the moon when you were at school , so they know their stuff . ) Their measurements are duplicated by scientists from many countries . For example , Japan's Meteorological Agency , and the University of East Anglia , in the England we fondly remember .
These respected authorities place thermometers at thousands of places around the world . In hot places and cold . In areas populated and remote . In high places and low . In water and on land . On ships and buoys . In balloons and aircraft . Even satellites . And they measure the temperatures in thousands upon thousands of locations around the globe over and over again .
Are you with me still ? If you average these out over many years , it is an indisputable fact that the planet is warming . Some places get hotter ( thousands of increased heatwave deaths annually ) . Some places get colder ( record snowfalls ) . Some places flood . Some places suffer drought . Most glaciers retreat . Some glaciers grow . But the overall average temperature of the planet climbs steadily higher .
So that's it Rowan , you are full of it old mate . Sky News will inevitably sack you . My advice is that you stop promoting yourself like a circus clown and start writing ethical journalism so there is something nice to say about you at your funeral . Neither of us will be alive for much longer Rowan , but you still have time to produce something worthwhile .
Anyway , let's crack a Fosters and toast the good old days . Cheers! Your comrade , Ken
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