Bêtes noires combined

Over the past few years I have been accused by my nearest and dearest of being obsessed with:

• the global warming scam, and
• the 'progressive' agenda of the BBC

Fair enough. I am also 'obsessed' with civil liberties, the corruption inherent in statism, ahistoricity, the collapse of standards in education, bad writing and above all the arrogant ignorance of those who pose as public intellectuals, particularly in Britain.

But the Bitchy Boys have once again inflated a balloon (hat-tip to ShaunB) to try to lift their treasured global warming religion out of the mud into which it has been driven by its flagrant internal contradictions and the malpractice of the scientists who hitched a ride on it. So I can't resist popping it. Here's the lead (my italics):

The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers. They identified a link between fewer sunspots and atmospheric conditions that "block" warm, westerly winds reaching Europe during winter months.
But they added that the phenomenon only affected a limited region and would not alter the overall global warming trend.

The article then goes on to announce, sound of trumpets, that the UK Met Office is 'working on research into incorporating better representation of the stratosphere into our seasonal and decadal forecasting models'. Seems to me that they are guilty of gross professional negligence for having previously dismissed the effects of solar activity and jet streams on climate, but what do I know?

Only this (courtesy of Watts Up With That): in 1810, the English astronomer William Herschel established a link between sunspot activity and the price of grain in Europe - an unimpeachable proxy for climate. So, the Met is only now coming round to examining a 200 year-old hypothesis that has never been refuted.

The authority for the significant effect of solar activity on climate cited by the Bitchy Boys is Professor of Space Environment Physics Michael Lockwood of the University of Reading. This is the same 'authority' cited by the Bitchy Boys on 10 July 2007 for dismissing the effect of solar activity on climate. 'This should settle the debate', Lockwood stated.

The only debates that remain to be settled are how the product of departments such as Lockwood's, which are outgrowths of the global warming funding cornucopia, can be legitimately cited as 'science' at all. And why the hell we should all be paying a poll tax to keep the propagandizing Bitchy Boys in the totally unmerited luxury to which they have become accustomed.