Lies, damned lies and........

An entire day of heavy rain, unusual for France, has turned my thoughts forcibly to the weather. Temperatures are very low for mid-May and the summer seems very far from imminent. The dire predictions of the Global Warming industry seem more and more to be unrealised, hell, we could DO with a little warming here!
  I read a couple of days ago, admittedly from a warming`denier` (shocking, this but they do exist) that global temperatures haven`t in fact increased for fifteen years and the opposing camp are getting increasingly desperate. They have, it appears, `adjusted` their predictions and graphs for the FOURTH time to try to fit the theory to the actual facts, most unscientific! Also, have you noticed that the term `global warming` is being quietly abandoned for the much more convenient term of `climate change` This can be made to fit ANY climatic oddity, even earthquakes, perhaps. You must just realise that it is ALL OUR FAULT.
  Years ago, I worked in the Personnel Dept of a Navy Department organisation. My immediate boss looked at the accident statistics, which he had already announced were lower for the year, and asked me to prepare a graph, illustrating this. I said I couldn`t as the figure had actually risen! Dismissing me with the remark that my attitude was not all that could be wished, he went into conclave with a former Army Major, a noted expert on graphs and statistics. By going back to earlier years when the figure was much higher (during the War, perhaps?), they produced a table where each year`s results are added to the next year. This produced the necessary descending graph line,despite the unacceptable, but true rise in the figures. Not actually a lie, then, but very far from the truth nevertheless....
  The trouble is that someone with an interest in `proving` a fact can twist statistics to prove what he wants. The interest concerned here is the fact that LOTS of money is being made in a generally vain attempt to reduce CO2 levels, which in themselves have not been proved to increase temperature as much as foretold. The largely ineffective windmill programme has put millions into various pockets, for example. How embarrassing if the `warming` proves non-existent?

Bye for now, going to keep warm by the gaz-fire!