Note to my future self

Dear Mike,

you’re in a much better position to know how the last year went … but ignorance is bliss and I’m not cringing at everything I got wrong. But right now things are looking really really good.

The kyoto protocol is looking as dead as bachelor Dodo. Yes, everyone can still hear it squawking and they say it is still alive, but the reality is that this particular species became extinct at Copenhagen. Nothing has changed since – they are no closer to an extension to Kyoto than they were the day the Climategate emails were released.

Scientifically, we are really in the ascendant. I feel like those individuals at the end of WWI who suddenly find 1000s of the enemy walking up to them and asking to be made their prisoner. It’s not so much that I personally fought a heroic battle, it’s just that reality caught up with the other side.

And the BBC, Guardian and the other zealots. They just want to keep quiet now. They are just keeping quiet hoping that no one notices what really amount to criminal misconduct.

Which leaves the politicians. How could they have got themselves into such a mess? They are stuck with a policy which which makes them look like twats. … or like fish flip-flopping on the beech as the tide recedes. It must be very similar with whale strandings. It’s very easy watching to know that the creatures ought to be making a headline rush to deep water, but for some suicidal reason they just keep trying to move into shallow water where they are going to get cut off and left on the beech to be hung up for dog-meat. And nothing seems to convince them to go the other way. Worse, the more one tries to get them to turn, the more they seem to want to go the other way.

So, here are a few of my questions for the year.

• Is Alex Salmond still first minister? I can’t ask sceptics, as none seem to take the question seriously. But as you know, from where I stand it does look like he is being led into a trap.
• Was there a police investigation? Most of the other scares just faded out. But they didn’t have the huge costs, the economic destruction … and bruised egos of the politicians. I can’t see the politicians meekly taking the blame for this.
• What is the current scientific thinking about that “missing warming” in the 20th century they blamed on “feedbacks”? Indeed, I’m really keen to know whether there was any substantial feedbacks and were they positive or negative? I’m tempted to pick either “positive or negative”, because zero would suggest there is none. So, instead, I’m going to guess around 0.3°C feedback, but not give the sign.
• Solar activity. I’d say 95% confidence there is a link. The big question is whether that link could lead to significant global effects. I’d guess eventually this could become a serious issue, but next year is far too soon.
• Did we ever learn who released the climategate emails?
• Questions not worth answering as we know the answer (I hope): Did Michael Mann drop court case? Is John Napier still in post? Did the UK science establishment find a way to say black is white and that they always supported the science that the climate changes naturally.