Scottish Sceptic

Unfortunately (for very good reasons) I’m having problems at the moment finding time to put anything together for the blog and this seems likely to continue into the foreseeable future.
So, I would just like to say, thank you for everyone that has contributed. The most enjoyable part of the blog was reading the comments!
Whilst everyone really deserves equal thanks, I have to particular thank Scottish Renewables. I know your views are genuine and so more credit to you for coming “into the lions den” to make them. Your contributions were thought provoking and did at times challenge preconceived notions.
But the real thanks have to go to those who did not (to my knowledge) contribute: my wife and children who put up with a dad/husband like me.

A very strange week. I’ve not had time to do any of my usual reading. Even WUWT has had to suffice with a cursory glance. Now longannet is cancelling the ridiculous CO2 capture scheme and good riddance. Fundamentally it seemed absurd to me to reduce the efficiency of power stations to “save the world”. How is burning more limited fossil fuels “saving the world”. Moreover, I really do not believe that CO2 would stay locked away. It’s like a bottle of UHT milk, it lasts forever until the seal is broken, and then it’s just a matter of time before it goes off. It will leak out and who’s going to clear up the mess? The power company won’t be responsible – or if they are they will shelve that responsibility somehow. Continue reading →

Work toward The Scottish (insert name) organisation is progressing very well, although I quickly realised the advantages of the paperless office when I decided to print out all the correspondence for a discussion regarding the meeting.
Honestly, the folder is full! I have been overwhelmed by the calibre of the response. When I started I had no idea regarding the calibre of the people who would respond. I don’t think there is a person who I’m not going to have to rely on for some aspect or other of the campaign.
As you would expect of sceptics, everyone wants to listen to what others have to say before making up their mind. It’s going to be a really interesting meeting and I wouldn’t want to count my chickens, but I am very confidence that something positive is going to come out the meeting.

On  20nd July 1969 a man of Scottish Ancestry stepped onto the moon, to view a desolate landscape above which rose a small blue disc: a beautiful planet, an isolated lonely planet, set against the utter blackness of space.
This was a new perspective, a new global perspective and it was this global perspective which gave rise to the world wide environmental movement. Moreover it was the space race itself, the cold war of space, the impending doom of nuclear annihilation which galvanised this environmental movement. Continue reading →

As I read through the news I was looking for anything vaguely interesting other than the EPA in the US having been found to have abused its own systems in its CO2 endangerment finding.
And then it dawned on me. This lack of news … which I had put down to a lack of media interest … isn’t because the global warming bandwagon is trying to  push the scam and failing, it is because they are trying to keep the scam going as long as possible by avoiding any discussion. Continue reading →

I’ve been asked to show the following youtube video. I’d be interested to hear comments because to my way of thinking this is not the way to combat the nonsense on global warming:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91q0gG3eBnM]
Continue reading →

I should have noticed before, but the two biggest cities in Scotland are the only places with Green MSPs:

• Patrick Harvie got in on the Glasgow list
•  Alison Johnstone got in on the Lothian list and is a councillor for the Meadows/Morningside ward for the City of Edinburgh Council (terribly poosh).

So, let’s get this straight: the greens got in, in the biggest areas of electricity consumption, in the regions where …. I am just guessing … there are no windmills!

Who are the real NIMBY’s ?

And the top news on the global warming front:

As the world’s top-ranked “climate lifestyle coach,” Rue tells clients that global warming simply isn’t happening, or, if it is, humans certainly aren’t causing it, but, well, since it is happening, the thing to do is relax and enjoy it.
Yep, this is crap, and Rue is full of it, but she’s funny as the dickens. And that’s — thank you for asking — what a drag queen has to do with global warming. (Huff & Puff) Continue reading →

A while back I would not have believed sun spots could affect the world. That became more credible when I realised that it was not sunspots but magnetic fields associated with the “boiling” bubbles we see as sunspots. To recap: sunspots occur when the sun is active. An active sun increases the magnetic shielding of the earth preventing Cosmic rays arriving. Cosmic rays then cause nuclei which act as centres for cloud formation and so affect the clouds.
[It’s easy to see why this has problems …. Spots, rays, Cosmic … I just can’t help visualising some 1950s cigar shaped rocket with the hero “cosmic” with their ray gun and their dog: “spot”.]
Then I was reading an article on climate etc., and as I began reading about tidal forces on the sun being linked to some solar activity. Continue reading →

I was recently trying to find a list of instinctive human behaviour (i.e. based on experiment and not some blogger). The only one that I could find with much authoritative writing was yawning, but I was surprised to find that no one knew why we yawned. So, I was intrigued to read this in today’s Scotsman:

THE glazed eyes and the futile attempt to suppress a yawn as someone rambles on has long been seen as a response to boredom or as a sign the body is in need of a rest. Continue reading →