Chaos! From Roger Cohen in the NY Times on the European travel catastrophe:
Snow! Hit the Panic Button
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Add to that dismal stew a pinch of global warming, which some people, including Matthews [British Airports Authority chief executive], apparently took to mean the end of European winters, and you end up with the current farce. Europe, thy name is pitiful…Apparently, if you don’t want to blame greed or the cuts or Matthews or the breakdown of the French state, you can blame the North Atlantic oscillation. That, for the uninitiated, is the difference of atmospheric pressure at sea level between the Icelandic low and the Azores high. When the difference is low, Arctic air penetrates Europe. That happened a lot in the 1960s. Now it’s happening again.
This, according to some, is the result of global warming. So if all else fails, blame global warming for the freeze…
Now for some British understatement:
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Passengers may experience delays and cancellations due to adverse weather conditions at airports across Europe. Select the relevant airport below to find out the latest situation:
Heathrow Airport Glasgow Airport Aberdeen Airport …
I’m dreaming of a white…
Today across the Channel:
Paris Charles de Gaulle terminal evacuated due to snow on roof
And two days hence in the UK?
Boxing Day travellers could be disrupted by heavy snow
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Update: Guess who’s involved in the profit-making at Heathrow?
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Matthews…[is] running a vital British public service, which remains, despite BAA’s forced sale of some of its airports, a kind of monopoly – there are other London airports, but there’s only one Heathrow. At the same time he isn’t running it for its users, the passengers and airlines. He’s running it for its shareholders – Ferrovial is the majority owner, the government of Singapore and the Quebec pension fund are the others…
And it ain’t just Québec involved with British airports:
…the C$100bn (€73.7bn) Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has stakes in both Birmingham and Bristol airports…
A fellow Canadian fund, the Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, owns 26% of BAA, the UK airports operator that runs Heathrow…
Mark
Ottawa
If it only disrupted GW believers and not the rest of us it would be a great Christmas present.
Merry Christmas to all and may the word Christmas ring around the inside of you non believers heads till after the New Year..You are trying your hardest to ruin a happy time of the season you haters , but good will is still here and around the world so go suck on a piece of coal.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
If last winter’s slap upside the collective heads of AGW zealots didn’t shake some braincells loose, perhaps this one’s kick to their groins will do the trick…we can only hope.
IMHO, the only appropriate response left to those ecotards who persist with this AGW crap is a very blunt, but wonderfully succinct and to the point, “**** off!!!”
That said, it’s been a relatively positive year regarding the prevailing of common sense over AGW idiocy. The Chicago Climate Exchange closed down when their commodity finally wasn’t even worth a plugged nickel. Cap and trade is all but a dead issue stateside. And Cancun, like Copenhagen, was basically a bust.
A good friend of mine who lives and works in the heart of Vancouver’s yuppy culture tells me that global warming/climate change has attained the status of pretty much a running joke amongst most reasonably intelligent people there, mentioned only infrequently over lattes to generate a laugh or two.
I am optimistic that there’s a reasonable chance that before this it’s over, this winter will drive the proverbial stake through the hearts of the last of AGW climatards and finally put them out of our misery.
What a happy new year would that be, eh?
Snow in Europe??? That hasn’t happened in the 50 years! No-one is supposed to remember what happened 5 months ago, let alone 50 years!
D*mn the Internet!
Just how are highly respected, well paid, senior members of the scientific commmunity, NGOs and the bureaucracy supposed to maintain their sinecures if the weather doesn’t co-operate?
Just make sure the public is told that this is weather, not climate! A few more years of this will be catastrophic!! To the financial climate, at least.