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Remind me again, what are we fighting for?

Ken Ring

Science prides itself on accuracy. It is an attempt to approach precision. Fundamental to this precision, so that experiments can be repeated is that we all agree on terms and conditions. That includes, presumably, the words we use.

The word ‘weather’ comes from the Indo-European root ‘we’ meaning ‘to blow’. From it we also get wind, wing, vent, window and fan. The word ‘air’ comes from the Greek ‘aetmos’, meaning ‘breath’, or is literally ‘that which is blown’.

From that we get ‘awe’( literally ‘to take the breath away’) and ‘atmosphere’. Therefore weather is already the air and atmosphere, and so cannot come from the air or any properties of it. Something cannot come from itself.

Nothing put into the atmosphere can change the weather because it has already changed to become weather. The weather got there first. Talk of emissions injected into the atmosphere to change the weather, is like saying we can put a ball into a box which will change the box into the box that was here before we put the ball in. It is pure linguistic nonsense.

Neither can certain clouds create certain weather. Instead, weather creates clouds. By the same token, air does not create wind, sea current cannot create tides, evaporation does not create sunshine, snow does not create cold and fault lines do not create earthquakes.

Man can not have created the universe, nor can anything create the universe such as the notion of a deity that has arisen from Man. These are all effects. Coughing does not bring about a cold, and man cannot create the environment that he finds himself in.

So how about climate change? A look at any dictionary will reveal that ‘climate’ comes from ‘klei’ and means ‘to lean’. Climate is a function of latitude, the idea being to ‘climb’ up the curvature of the earth.

Being entirely the domain of latitudinal zoning, the climate of any place is governed by its distance from the equator.

For example, Perth sits at the western end of Australia and Taree at the eastern end, a tenth of the world’s surface diameter away. Broken Hill is roughly midway. All have the same annual average temperature regimes, averaging 24C for maximums and 12C for minimums, because all are equidistant from the equator.

The fact that Broken Hill is a thousand feet above sealevel and Perth only 16 feet makes no difference whatsoever to their respective climates.

The only climate ‘change’ would be if and when countries suddenly found themselves at different distances from the equator. There is no way that walking to work or cutting down rain forests will achieve that.

Perhaps if we think something is threatening our planet the problem is only that we have found some way and reason to think it, and we grab nearby words to describe it. It does not mean a threat exists, and an analysis of the words used shows how irrational alarmism has been.

Problems are like beauty – they are always in the eye of the beholder. The nature of a problem is that it is something perceived by a force or factor in opposition. A “problemo” in ancient Rome was the occupying army’s out-jutting of land towards the sea. It was impossible to attack but easy to defend. It was a ‘problem’ only for the others.

An attacking army may perceive a problem in the shape of a high wall, but if the same wall is not a problem to the defenders then it cannot be that the wall is the problem, rather what it represents as temporary obstacle. If the attackers find another way through, the wall-problem evaporates.

Problems are individualised, they are not universal and cannot be applied universally. If we imagine we should make changes to what we see around us, be it the sky, land, sea or home, the real question is whence this requirement for change arose.

Just as there are no colour clashes in nature, so there can be no threatening events to the planet. The planet itself is the result of an event. It is not getting ready to become something else. Barring transformations of state like birth and death, things usually only change to restore themselves.

Sometimes need for change is perceived to restore power or control when the sense of either is lost. Change can provide restoration unavailable by waiting. This is work to be done on the self.

In ancient Rome the "addictus" was the one ‘given over to’ in the manner of a slave. Nowadays the word refers to becoming slave-like. The ‘addict’ is controlled but fantasizes being in control.

Those who call themselves contented and self empowered often say there is no imminent danger and see no need to change the world. They are occupied with other things, like earning a living or looking after family.

The alarmists insist that the ‘environment’ must be saved. From what? Environment merely means ‘surroundings’. Whatever surrounds us is always going to be, by definition, our environment, even if it is changed.

If the alarmist army want us to join their new green anti-democratic World Government and fight for an end to pollution in the name of the planet and the universe such that future generations will profusely thank us, then perhaps they need to spell out more clearly what and where the enemy is.

Until then, if they persist in their militancy the rest of the world may come to regard them as one of the main threats to world peace.

For more writing from Ken Ring, visit www.predictweather.com