Devine retribution: Most stupid ever?

I’ve had a run-in with our Miranda over climate change so I completely get this, from Giles Parkinson:

Heaven knows the competition is stiff: every day throws up extraordinary claims by any number of columnists in the Murdoch media. But we think we have found what could be the dumbest thing ever written by a Murdoch employee on climate change.

It’s by Miranda Devine, the columnist who once wrote for Fairfax and now graces the pages of the Daily Telegraph in Sydney. I was skimming through it in the local cafe this morning and came across her article: “Calm down, everyone. It’s hot, not the Armageddon.”

The basis for Devine’s article was that the recent heatwave – which the Bureau of Meteorology describes as record breaking, and included a record 46.9°C high for Penrith in Sydney’s west – was just another hot summer.

Proof? Why, in 1837, Sydney had recorded temperatures of 54°C, Devine claimed.

“Take March 18, 1832, which The Sydney Gazette reported as “insufferably warm”,” Devine wrote. She then went on to quote that newspaper: “At 1pm, the thermometer was 54°C in the sun. The cattle suffered much. Working bullocks dropped dead.”

Now, how to explain this. As most 6-year-olds might understand, when you take a temperature reading, you do it in the shade, not in the sun.

Google “how to take a temperature reading” and you come up with: “When you are measuring the air temperature, be sure to have the thermometer in the shade. If the sun shines on the thermometer, it heats the liquid. Then the reading is higher than the true air temperature.”

Australia’s BoM makes the same point, noting that it monitors temperatures in a louvre box known as the “Stevenson” screen.

Just as an experiment, the air temperature where I am writing this article is 28°C. So I took the thermometer out to the sun. Even with the clouds, it rose to 36°C. When the clouds parted, it quickly jumped to more than 50°C before I brought it back inside.

Meanwhile, from the Bloomie:

The U.K. government is seeking to convince Donald Trump to support the landmark Paris climate deal, touting the economic benefits of clean energy while steering clear of the debate about climate science, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

British government representatives stationed in Washington have been talking to officials in the U.S. president’s administration about climate policy, focusing on the jobs and growth that tackling pollution can bring to the U.S., according to an energy official who isn’t authorized to speak to the media and asked not to be named.

Trump has sent mixed signals about U.S. climate policies. He pledged during his campaign to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 United Nations accord on greenhouse gases and to support burning coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. Since then, he told the New York Times that he was keeping an “open mind” about the deal and named Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, who supported the UN effort in Paris and said the U.S. should retain a seat at the discussions.

…The British official said Trump may be more inclined to listen to the U.K. over the European Union because he has backed the U.K.’s decision to leave the EU. Trump lauded Prime Minister Theresa May at a meeting in Washington last month and set in motion the groundwork for a trade deal between the U.S. and Britain.

Let’s hope she proves persuasive. My advice is offer money.