That global warming, it's a bastard

Peru declares state of emergency amid plunging temperatures

Over the past three or four years we have seen temperatures during the winter months get lower, and people are unable to survive this," said Silvia Noble, from Plan Peru, an NGO. "This cold weather is now extending into areas that never saw these low temperatures before and children and elderly people are especially at risk as they are not physically strong enough to last month after month of sub-zero conditions.

Better crank up the SUV and go out for a long drive, then.

On your bike, Boris

There’s a superb article here by Brendan O’Neill about the way cyclists are elevated into modern-day secular saints. “When cyclists are continually told that their mode of transport is saving humanity from doom,” he says, “it’s no wonder so many of them are annoying pricks.” He concludes:

Look, we’re never going to have ‘cycling cities’. Why not? Because people have children whom they don’t want to transport to school on a tandem thanks very much; because we do weekly shops which won’t fit into a wicker basket; because workmen need to deliver big things to businesses and building sites and that can’t be done on a BMX; and because some people like the speed and wind-through-the-hair feeling that comes with driving a Ferrari but not a Chopper. More cars and fewer bikes is a sign of progress, which is why 80 per cent of Beijingers used to slog through that vast city on bikes and now only 19.7 per cent do. Our rulers need to deal with this fact, and find ways to accommodate it, rather than pushing forward the cyclist to do their dirty work of making drivers feel so guilt-ridden that they sell their hatchbacks and pedal like it was 1939.

End of the road for Labour’s kilometre

Excellent news that the new Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, is planning to end the use of kilometres in official transport statistics, and revert to using units that most people can actually understand. If only the BBC would also stop their constant and often laughable pandering to the metrication lobby.

It must be said that Hammond has got off to a good start by proclaiming the end of the “war on the motorist”, even if the coffers are empty for funding new road schemes. He certainly seems to have rattled the cage of the Guardianista lentil-munchers.

We know where you live

Aware that they are slowly but steadily losing the argument, Greenpeace are now resorting to naked intimidation in their climate campaigning:

If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few.

This really underlines their utter contempt for free speech and democratic values.

But, sorry greenies, according to recent opinion polls, I think we be increasingly many, and you be increasingly few.

A natural death?

There’s been a lot of handwringing over the decision by the Press Complaints Commission not to censure the Daily Mail over Jan Moir’s article about the death of Stephen Gateley. Some have interpreted the decision as a kick in the teeth for gay people.

But surely the key point of the article was not that Stephen Gately was gay, but that he led a promiscuous, drug-fuelled lifestyle that contributed to his death. Men of 33 don't generally just die from "natural causes".

If a heterosexual man went out for a night's clubbing with his wife, brought another man home, then went to sleep on the sofa and died while the other man was in bed with his wife, should the tabloids abstain from comment?

And should they keep schtumm about Tiger Woods, John Terry and Ashley Cole?

Also the question must be asked how many gay civil partnerships are genuinely monogamous.

Why vote for Cameron?

In the Guardian, Julian Glover suggests that Australia’s new opposition leader Tony Abbott offers a foretaste of what we might end up with if Cameron becomes Prime Minister. I say bring it on!

This theme is echoed by Matthew Parris’ piece in today’s Times, in which he says the main opposition to a Cameron government is likely to come from the climate-sceptic Right. Absolutely!

Viva Pinera!

Excellent news from Chile where, after twenty years of centre-left governments, conservative Sebastian Pinera has been elected as President. Let’s hope this presages a domino effect for leftist rule across Latin America, especially the vile and incompetent Socialist dictatorship of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Climbing a molehill

There’s been a lot of talk about the reduction in social mobility in recent years. But isn’t it really the case that it was the social mobility of the 30 post-war years that was a historical aberration, sparked by a one-off shift from manual labour to white-collar jobs, and we are now returning to more normal levels? It’s a simple fact that intelligence and capability are largely inherited traits (although obviously there are exceptions) and thus, unless there are changes in the structure of society, most children will end up in the same kind of station in life their parents occupied. Even if you took children away from their parents and brought them up in collective nurseries you would probably end up with similar outcomes.

And, while Gordon Brown says that in future there will be more “middle-class” jobs, many jobs in the “knowledge economy” are very vulnerable to both computerisation and offshoring. The real growth in jobs in the future is likely to be in those that require an actual physical presence to carry them out – nurses, care assistants, plumbers, hairdressers, gardeners, mechanics etc. Which are precisely the kind of jobs that are too often dismissed as low-status, and for which we are not doing enough to train our young people. The wealthy in the future will be more and more defined as conspicuous consumers of services rather than goods.

Driving aspiration

So, in a bid to target middle-class voters, Jonah McDoom says:

A fair society is one where everyone who works hard and plays by the rules has a chance to fulfil their dreams whether that's owning a bigger house, taking a holiday abroad, buying a new car or starting a small business.

WTF, buying a new car? Surely this can’t be the same Labour Party where John Prescott said his mission in life was to get people out of their cars, and which has spent the last thirteen years relentlessly persecuting motorists through turning roads into obstacle courses, jacking up fuel duty, installing thousands of speed cameras, slashing speed limits and cutting the roads programme to the marrow. Surely the car has no place in a true Socialist utopia where the happy workers catch the bus to their job at the tractor factory.

Eco-Nazis are for real

The term “eco-Nazi” is often criticised as a cheap gibe directed at those with a concern about the environment. But, as Bishop Hill points out, it is becoming all too true as climatologists lose patience with the democratic system that slows down the implementation of the anti-global warming project.