[ YouTube Credit : The link to the video above comes thanks to the endeavours of that most fair and balanced individual James "no net global warming since 1998" Delingpole. "No net global warming since 1998" ? James ! You're quoting Pat Michaels, but did he perhaps make that up ? Or was it something that Christopher Monckton might have made up ? ]

The BBC puts the blame on Climate Change – almost – in a report on the Russian heatwave-wildfire disaster.

But they just can’t bring themselves to admit it as an organisation – and put the claims into the mouths of others – using quotation marks in the headline (‘partly to blame’) and ascribing the opinion to “researchers”, the “UK Met Office” and “experts” :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10919460

“10 August 2010 : Climate change ‘partly to blame’ for sweltering Moscow : By Katia Moskvitch : Science reporter, BBC News : Global climate change is partly to blame for the abnormally hot and dry weather in Moscow, cloaked in a haze of smoke from wildfires, say researchers. The UK Met Office said there are likely to be more extreme high temperatures in the future. Experts from the environmental group WWF Russia have also linked climate change and hot weather to raging wildfires around the Russian capital. Meteorologists say severe conditions may linger for several more days…”

Well, I’ve got a bit of a question to pose – it might not be possible to ascribe the current weather conditions in Russia (and Pakistan and China and and and…) to Climate Change, statistically. I mean no one weather event can be said to have been caused 100% by Climate Change. But would these extreme weather events have happened without Climate Change ?

That is by far the most important question to ask, and Michael Tobis does just that :-

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/08/moscow-doesnt-believe-in-this.html

“…Are the current events in Russia “because of” “global warming”? To put the question in slightly more formal terms, are we now looking at something that is no longer a “loading the dice” situation but is a “this would, practically certainly, not have happened without human interference” situation? Can we phrase it more formally? “Is the average time between persistent anomalies on this scale anywhere on earth in the undisturbed holocene climate much greater than a human lifetime?” In other words, is this so weird we would NEVER expect to see it at all?…”

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph is more certain :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7937269/Pakistan-floods-Climate-change-experts-say-global-warming-could-be-the-cause.html

“Pakistan floods: Climate change experts say global warming could be the cause : The world weather crisis that is causing floods in Pakistan, wildfires in Russia and landslides in China is evidence that global warming predictions are correct, according to climate change experts. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent, Published: 10 Aug 2010 : Almost 14 million people have been affected by the torrential rains in Pakistan, making it a more serious humanitarian disaster than the South Asian tsunami and recent earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined. The disaster was driven by a ‘supercharged jet stream’ that has also caused floods in China and a prolonged heatwave in Russia. It comes after flash floods in France and Eastern Europe killed more than 30 people over the summer. Experts from the United Nations (UN) and universities around the world said the recent “extreme weather events” prove global warming is already happening. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-president of the body set up by the UN to monitor global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the ‘dramatic’ weather patterns are consistent with changes in the climate caused by mankind. “These are events which reproduce and intensify in a climate disturbed by greenhouse gas pollution,” he said. “Extreme events are one of the ways in which climatic changes become dramatically visible.”…”

Meanwhile, back in never-ever-a-problem-land :-

Grist Magazine asks “How foerked are we ?” in the promotional picture for their Copenhagen Diaries.

For Professor Corinne Le Quere, from the British Antarctic Survey and East Anglia University, the answer is “very” :-

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26375158-401,00.html

“Catastrophic climate change ‘inevitable’, scientists warn : The Daily Telegraph : November 20, 2009 12:01am : (*) Temperatures likley to rise 6C in 90 years (*) Would render parts of globe uninhabitable (*) Earth’s ability to absorb CO2 declining…THE world is spinning toward a catastrophic climate change scenario, with temperatures now far more likely to rise by 6C by the end of the century, a leading international team of scientists has warned. An increase of 6C would have irreversible consequences, rendering large parts of the globe uninhabitable and destroying much of life on earth. The study by Professor Corinne Le Quere, from the British Antarctic Survey and East Anglia University, is the most comprehensive so far of how economic changes and shifts in the way people used land over the past 50 years have affected CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. It also claims the Earth’s natural ability to absorb CO2 into soil, forests and oceans is declining. The nightmarish possibility of a 6C temperature rise was made public by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, when it was then only a worst-case scenario. But according to Professor Le Quere it is now all but inevitable…”

Some areas of the world which are already hot and dry are already beginning to suffer the effects :-

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZJHU0y8_YefeQrBFWBf-3v_xC3g

20 November 2009 : “‘Catastrophic’ warning as fires flare in Australia : By Amy Coopes : SYDNEY — Australian firefighters battled dozens of bush blazes on Friday as record-breaking hot weather sparked “catastrophic” warnings in two states, just months after the country’s worst ever wildfire disaster. Major lightning storms set off about 100 blazes in South Australia alone, most of which had since burned out, according to the state’s Country Fire Service. Emergency crews also battled scores of fires in the most populous state of New South Wales, some on the outskirts of Sydney, the Rural Fire Service (RFS) said. More than a quarter of the state was considered at catastrophic risk and lightning strikes set two homes in the city ablaze. “We have seen more than 80 fires across New South Wales today,” said RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons. “The biggest challenge today and into the weekend is the continuing of this hot air mass dominating much of the state,” he added. Hundred-year records tumbled this week as the south and southeast of Australia sweltered through a heatwave which dried out vast tracts of bush and farmland already in the grip of a decade-long drought.”

There will always be some people who don’t understand why this is significant, who don’t accept it’s a process of change that is caused by burning Fossil Fuels.

But you’ve got to admit, even if you resist reading the Climate Change Science, that the observations match the projections : hotter, droughtier, stormier.