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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am
Robert Fisk advises us to fear climate change, not our enemies:
It was a warning. Scratched, of course after more than 50 years, but a home movie, shot by my mother in colour. But most of the colour is white. Bill Fisk, the 57-year-old borough treasurer of Maidstone, is standing in the garden of our home in his long black office coat, wearing – as always – his First World War regimental tie, throwing snow balls at his son.
If you were Robert Fisk’s father, you too might have attacked Robert Fisk.
I am 10 years old, in short trousers but up to my waist in snow. There must have been two feet of it in the garden. You can even see the condensation from my mouth. My mother doesn’t appear on the film of course. She is standing in the snow behind my father, 36 years old, the daughter of café proprietors who every Boxing Day would host my own and my aunt’s family with a huge lunch and a roaring log fire. It really was cold then.
It must remain ever so.
I think was it Andrew Marr, when editor of The Independent, who first made me think about what was happening. It was a stiflingly hot summer and I had just arrived in London from Beirut and commented that there wasn’t much difference in temperature. And Andrew turned round and pointed across the city. “Something’s gone wrong with the bloody weather!” he roared.
Why is there always so much roaring around Fisk?
Now I acknowledge it silently: the great storms that sweep across Europe, the weird turbulence that my passenger jet pilots experience high over the Atlantic. Because I have never travelled so far or so frequently, I notice that at year’s end it’s 15 degrees in Toronto and Montreal – a “springtime Christmas”, the Canadian papers announce in a land famous for its tundra.
These days Canada is famous as the place where Fisk once took his pullover off because of the sun. By the way, if Fisk is so concerned about global warming, why is he flying more frequently than ever before?
Water levels in the world’s oceans may rise 20 feet higher, we are told. And I calculate that in Beirut, the Mediterranean – in rough weather – will be splashing over my second-floor balcony wall.
I curl down deep in my bed, because the nights are strangely damp …
The splashing! It’s already happening! From his dampened sheets, Fisk solves the threat of terrorism:
The only way to lessen the risk of attack in London or Washington is to adopt a moral, just policy towards the Middle East. Failure to do this – and the Blairs and the Bushes clearly have no intention of doing so – means that we will be bombed again.
Care to outline just what might be a “moral, just policy towards the Middle East”, Robert? No? Well, let’s just move on to what we should fear:
I think we should be afraid – of what we are doing to our planet. But we should not fear our enemies in the world. They will return.
They’ll return; so we shouldn’t fear them. Not making much sense there, Bob.
Meanwhile, watch the world and the weather and the turbulence at high altitude. And remember the snow in Maidstone.
We’ll try.
UPDATE. Some sound points from eeniemeenie:
Fisk was 10 years old in 1956.
According to professor Gordon Manley’s table of mean temperatures in England (1659 to 1973) February 1956 was an unusually cold month (-0.2 C) so if his home movie was taken then there probably was snow.
No other month in the entire decade seems to have been cold enough for snow to last on the ground.
I’d guess the reason the home movie was taken in the first place was because the snow was unusual – yet Fisk is using it as evidence that there is something wrong with the weather because it doesn’t snow like it did when he was a kid.
Yes, we must fear. We must wake every morning in fear. We must bend our entire political system into a machine of fear. Organised society must revolve around our fear.
Fisk channels Wronwright seeking spear, et al.
Our western occupation of so many Muslim lands have assured us of this fate.
Step #1: move back to Maidstone; enjoy snow.
Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 01 20 at 02:14 PM • permalink
- It was a dark and stormy night…
Gawwwd what a moron.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 20 at 02:38 PM • permalink
- “I curl down deep in my bed, because the nights are strangely damp …”
That’s ok Bob, being an adult bed wetter is nothing to be ashamed about. Now your prose, on the other hand, is a reason for you to hang your head.
The Battle of the Bulge was fought during the worst winter in a long time in Europe. Since Europe has been peaceful, the world has gotten warmer. Ergo, we must let, nay, demand that Europeans go back to killing each other.
- “It was a stiflingly hot summer and I had just arrived in London from Beirut and commented that there wasn’t much difference in temperature.”
It’s true, it’s true! Last summer was a stiflingly hot summer and I had just arrived in Boston from San Juan, Puerto Rico and commented that there wasn’t much difference in temperature!
But nobody there turned round to point across the city to say, “Something’s gone wrong with the bloody weather!”
Hmm … Maybe that’s why I never made it to journalist.
Posted by ElectronPower on 2007 01 20 at 03:31 PM • permalink
- #6, rbj1:
You’re on to something there but I think you missed an important connection.
A ‘coldest winter’ also occurred when Napoleon was marching around Moscow.
So, the connection seems to be the french.
Therefore, war must originate from france or be conducted in france for the anti-warmening to take place.
That’s my theory, anyway.
- I curl down deep in my bed, because the nights are strangely damp …
Well, Bob . . . oh, wait. Rbj1 up there at #6 already beat me to it. Shoot!
Anyhow, Bob, you should consider buying a carton of Piss-Activated Cover Odorizers. Resembling diapers (but manly diapers, Bob!), they’ll help keep your sheets and covers dry, and prevent your bedroom from smelling like an alley on Skid Row.
adopt a moral, just policy towards the Middle East
I agree 100% with RF.
As a sign of our moral and just intentions we should:
1. Find the cruelest head-of-state in the Middle East (someone who’s throwing people in wood-chippers, for instance.)
2. Kill his psychopathic offspring (and eventual successors.)
3. Hang said head-of-state.…
Oh, wait.
- I offer Fisk a bit of wisdom from The Underground Grammarian, Richard Mitchell:
Writing is public evidence of private acts, the concrete record of knowledge ordered, or not, thought-pursued, or not, and understanding discovered, or not.
And:
If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be.
And finally, I offer this truth:
We have become a nation of mindless rabble incapable of judgment and easily ruled by the illogical notions and faddish devisings of self-appointed social engineers. … Where knowledge and reason fail the pigs will lurch and waddle on their hind legs, and the other beasts will gawk in admiration and envy.
Mitchell wrote that last in 1979.
- It was a stiflingly hot summer and I had just arrived in London from Beirut and commented that there wasn’t much difference in temperature.”
Try telling that to some blokes i used to work with. They went from 35-40 degrees in Port hedland to standing on the runway in Bejing in -4 with a howling wind. In shorts.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 20 at 05:16 PM • permalink
- Somewhat O/T:
The Age today reports that “MELBOURNE is losing out on a million litres of drinking water every year from continued logging in the city’s main catchment area.”
Shock and horror. The end is nigh etc.
Well, not really: A million litres isn’t enough to fill (or even half fill) a typical Olympic pool. (Source: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/JeffreyGilbert.shtml).
Conclusion:
1/ The Age is a beating up a non-story
2/ The Age hires lousy reporters and the word should be something other than “litres.”
or
3/ Now that Terry Lane’s column isn’t appearing, he’s doing shifts on the subs desk.
- I remember the astonishment in my childhood when the glacier receded over Manhattan to reveal the Empire State Building. Damn this unprecendented climate change…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 20 at 05:22 PM • permalink
- Great limericks, lyle!
…the Mediterranean – in rough weather—will be splashing over my second-floor balcony wall.
And with any luck, Bob, you’ll be trapped on the first-floor balcony.
Just when you think his writing can’t get any worse…gad. That was like reading stream of consciousness. I hate stream of consciousness.
”…the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq is inexorably leading to the disintegration of the very fabric of civil society.” It was “a situation where an entire generation of Iraqis has been physically and morally crippled”.
Agreed, but while those quoted (and Fisk) blamed the sanctions regime, I blame the Hussein regime.
Fools are in a terrible, overwhelming majority, all the wide world over.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 01 20 at 05:51 PM • permalink
- 23.
When do they start prosecuting the investigtors? After all the council is paying them to go and have sex.
Why do I have this vision of Detective Paco in a gimp mask???
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 20 at 06:09 PM • permalink
- But we should not fear our enemies in the world. They will return.
Fiskthink favours strange, portentous Soundbites of Silliness, which are all printed as he’s immune to subediting..
He means: ‘Just put out our welcome mats and prayer mats for them, and realise that the whole world, including Maidstone, is turning into a Huge, Warmening Caliphate’.
Those following FiskThink will find
A permanent frozen-up mind,
He’s sure that Nasrallah
Is a warm, friendly fellah,
But he’s cold -as a Maid’s stone behind.
- “in short trousers but up to my waist in snow”
THATS what happened to his testicles, they are icicles instead.
A ready made harem eunich, no wonder he salivates at the caliphate.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 20 at 06:43 PM • permalink
- Seems Mr. Fisk would welcome the return of the Little Ice Age, which caused famine, social dislocation and political upheavals.
<<Until recently, it took 9 out of 10 workers in Europe just to grow enough to eat. The deteriorating climate put them under even more stress. By 1600AD when the coldest two centuries began, a worsening food crisis had been developing for nearly 300 years.>>
Yeah, that was a much better time. Sadly, because of George W. Bush the world started warmenizing in 1850. But if we all stop driving cars and using plastic bags, maybe together we can bring back the Big Chill!
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2007 01 20 at 06:45 PM • permalink
- #23,
Pay them? They actually had to pay them? Why did they not ask first? Why Detective Paco would have done that for free! Hell, Detective EP would have done it for free.
Posted by ElectronPower on 2007 01 20 at 06:47 PM • permalink
- #34 When will water levels rise 20 feet higher? Tomorrow? Next millennium?
This ‘20 Feet Myth’ is now a widespread idiocy like the Plastic Turkey.
It turned up in Adelaide, Soputh Australia where it was supposed to happen ‘by 2050’ drowning half our city.
This means, of course, a sea rise average of 6 inches a year.
No-one in the media asked where that was…
- It’s -12 degrees C here near Toronto now – does that mean the gorebal warming that Canada’s ‘springtime Christmas’ heralded has now been solved?Posted by Crispytoast on 2007 01 20 at 07:18 PM • permalink
- For this year, at least, Minnesotans were not forced to wear life jackets to celebrate Hockey Day.
God only knows though, if we don’t create a “moral, just policy” in the Middle East, by next year we could be celebrating Beach Day. That is, if Bush and Blair don’t get us bombed first.
- In an unhappy moron coincidence, Carbon-Neutral World Traveller Monbiot is on TV Ontario right now, babbling about his statist wet dream carbon credit bury-that-CO2! solution to a junk science omgTHEPLANETISBURNINGproblem. Monbiot has the gall to outright LIE and claim goreble warmenitizing ‘science’ is as solid as science gets. What a fucking tool. Alan Gregg laps it up, throws softball questions, and has nary a single critical observation.
Unfortunately, these idiots ARE going to have their way.
Posted by Crispytoast on 2007 01 20 at 07:28 PM • permalink
- Hey Tim, PETA finally got a new marketing trick. Slightly off topic, but still interesting. Considerably better if you turn the sound down.PETA Nude State of the Union
By the way, Definately NSFW
- Water levels in the world’s oceans may rise 20 feet higher, we are told. And I calculate that in Beirut, the Mediterranean – in rough weather – will be splashing over my second-floor balcony wall.
Well, that takes care of the “Middle East Problem”
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 20 at 08:02 PM • permalink
- “Fear climate change, not our enemies”
Here Fisk admits “we”, presumably US, have enemies. Personally, I think it better council to fear our enemies rather than the weather.
“Yes, we must fear. We must wake every morning in fear. We must bend our entire political system into a machine of fear.”
Didn’t Adolf Hitler and Jo Stalin and Mao actually achieve this. Read “darkness At Noon”.
To be kind to Fisk, he has decended into rambling jibberish. Either that or he is serious. Personally, I like to wake in hope and the glory of a new day.
It goes on “Organised society must revolve around our fear.” And Adolf Hitler and co, see above, can organise it. Or mayube his ol’ frien’ Osama.
BTW At the same time Toronto was warm, South California was cold. He doesn’t mention this. Fisk is shit an idiot.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 20 at 08:11 PM • permalink
- #8 Fisk isn’t the first person to ask the question, “Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?” Francois Villon asked it in 15th century. So global warming isn’t new then..but this was at a time of the little ice age.
I publicly denounce Robert Fisk of stupidity, ignorance and cowardice.
PS Delighted to be able to use an Aussie link to this.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 20 at 08:21 PM • permalink
- #11 Can we enter you into some “Limerick of then Year “ competition, or somethiong. Excellent.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 20 at 08:26 PM • permalink
Our western occupation of so many Muslim lands have assured us of this fate
.Now which lands would those be?
Spain? Hungary? Austria? France?
- Ahh, so turbulence is caused by GLOBAL WARMING! Why don’t the pilots just tell us? “Folks, I’ve turned on the seat belts lights again, looks like we have a bit of global warming up ahead…”Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2007 01 20 at 08:43 PM • permalink
- #40 Crispytoast, turn the TV off man!! For your own good.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 20 at 08:46 PM • permalink
- Fisks’s words are so evocative, so powerful, one can almost see the dribble running down his chin.
I for one am very jealous of his ability to discern a 0.6 degree rise in average temperature over 30 years. Interestingly, if that video is more than 50 years old, the global temperature back then was the same as it is now. All this “warming” is calculated from the early 70’s, when temps had been in decline for a few decades.
- #1 – “Meanwhile, watch the world and the weather and the turbulence at high altitude.”
Geez, did this guy used to write for “The Outer Limits” or something?
Perhaps, but he must have been writing B-grade screenplays in the 1950s as this is similar to a line from ‘Earth VS The Flying Saucers’-
People of Earth, look to your sun for a warning. Look to your sun for a warning.
A great film, BTW. Many of the scenes were parodied in ‘Mars Attacks!’ and the saucers were identical.
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 01 20 at 10:10 PM • permalink
- And I calculate that in Beirut, the Mediterranean – in rough weather – will be splashing over my second-floor balcony wall.
It is that time of day when late afternoon edges into early evening. The sun has just slipped below the horizon, and the flaming pink and orange of the glorious sunset are fading to those few moments of magenta and lavender, before retreating before the dark blue of night. Robert Fisk, swathed in a comfortable gamboge muu muu featuring a pattern of red camelia blossoms, is sitting on his balcony. He is tucking into his mezzawith good appetite, and pauses to pour himself a glass of arack, to which he adds water and a little ice. He swirls it gently, savoring its delicate bouquet; however, as he touches the glass to his lips, he is enveloped in a great slosh of sea water, which leaves him spluttering with rage, and his muu muu sticking to him like some jaundiced, blistered second skin . . .
Works for me!
- 58.
“Bloody Jews sending their Tsunamis at me” He sputtered reaching for his typewriter he began, “I have witnessed first hand the deadly new top secret Jewish death machine in operation… 2 million dead….wetter than normal water…”
2 hours later he wrapped it up and sent it off to that paper of record the Gaurdian…Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 20 at 10:57 PM • permalink
- Only Robert Fisk could be conned into believing a basement flat on the waterfront has a balcony…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 21 at 12:14 AM • permalink
- The latest on the Weather Channel Inquisistion:
Veteran meteorologist James Spann has told Gorebal Warmening High Priestess Heidi Cullen to piss up a rope.
I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them. Here are the basic facts you need to know:
*Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story. Even the lady at “The Weather Channel” probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change. No man-made global warming, no show, and no salary. Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab.
*The climate of this planet has been changing since God put the planet here. It will always change, and the warming in the last 10 years is not much difference than the warming we saw in the 1930s and other decades. And, lets not forget we are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North America and Northern Europe.
If you don’t like to listen to me, find another meteorologist with no tie to grant money for research on the subject. I would not listen to anyone that is a politician, a journalist, or someone in science who is generating revenue from this issue.
Tee-hee.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 21 at 12:51 AM • permalink
- Fisk was 10 years old in 1956
according to professor Gordon Manley’s table of mean temperatures in England (1659 to 1973)february 1956 was an unusually cold month (-0.2 C) so if his home movie was taken then there probably was snow.
No other month in the entire decade seems to have been cold enough for snow to last on the ground
I’d guess the reason the home movie was taken in the first place was because the snow was unusual- yet Fisk is using it as evidence that there is something wrong with the weather because it doesn’t snow like it did when he was a kid
(for comparison the average mean temperature for february in the period 1931-1960 was 3.9 C, the coldest february on record was in 1947 (-1.9 C)and the warmest ever in 1779 (7.9 C))
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 21 at 01:04 AM • permalink
- I blame Bush and Texas for the wettening:
Texas view on environment is 18 lanes wide-critics
HOUSTON (Reuters) – As President Bush readies a new plan on global warming, environmentalists say an 18-lane highway going up in Houston speaks volumes about how people in his home state of Texas view the planet.
…
Environmentalists … had sought to preserve a rail line that ran along I-10 for a commuter train that someday might bring workers to the city from distant suburbs. But after 15 years of study and discussion about the highway, state officials decided to go with a highway-only strategy.<Mr Burns voice> excellent…
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 01 21 at 01:13 AM • permalink
- #66
In planning the Sydney ‘Green’ Olympics, the Greens imposed restrictions on the Olympic Village, to later become an up-market housing estate, along the lines of ‘the car was not to be seen’ … but imposed a lot of single-car parking spaces (e.g. to the home units’ underground parking) and so cars were strewn along the roads to the extent that rubbish collection became difficult.
Dogma.
- Uh, Toronto and Montreal aren’t even close to being near tundra. That’s so moronic that it’s kind of like saying, “Australia is just a patch of desert.” (I’d suggest Fiskie look up the phrases “Near North”, “Far North”, and “Great Lakes-St.Lawrence Lowlands”.)Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 21 at 02:36 AM • permalink
- #2 J.M. Heinrich –
Fisk channels Wronwright seeking spear, et al.
Oh, oh that’s so wrong, on so many levels.
(wronwright writes the name J.M. Heinrich in Book of Righteous Retribution, Volume 3)
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 21 at 02:30 PM • permalink
- You know, he’s on to something here. I recall when I was but a lad, enjoying a frosty cold Slurpee from 7-11. At least up until junior high school… they sort of tapered off around the high school years.
And suddenly it occurred to me – I have not had a Slurpee in over thirty years! No Slurpees for thirty years, and I only now noticed it!
Wake up people! What happened to all the Slurpees I used to drink when a kid? What else but gerbil worming could account for it?
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 21 at 07:05 PM • permalink
The true meaning of the physiological “private dick”.
I thought Private Dick was the actual name and rank of the ADF memmber Fisk interviewed on military matters, El Cid? No?
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 21 at 09:52 PM • permalink
- Oops, I meant “member”.Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 21 at 09:52 PM • permalink
- http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/cities/can/pages/CAMB0244.htm
If it’s that warm where I live Winnipeg maybe Mr fisk would like to do some camping.
Bring Lots of sunscreen!Too bad I didn’t see this thread earlier when the windchill was -48°C a week or so ago.
Now its only. -10°C, -5°C out of the wind.
However it’s funny Toronto is famous for it’s tundra? Its only a thousand or so km from actual tundra. Just south of toronto they grow grapes pears in great abundance in the tundra. This is almost as funny as al gore saying houses are sinking in the permafrost when there are trees beside them. Anyone who can grow houses in their freezer do let me know.
So if Toronto is warmer than usual but winnipeg and New Zealand colder is this global warming?
Oh and if Montreal was this year why is environment canada saying the days of record highs were 1950 and 2004 and record lows 1981 and 2004?
But none of these is quite plus 15 and if the record high was reached in 1950 is it possible that the world isn’t warming? That we are within normality except in Fisks case.
Extreme Maximum (°C) 12.8
Date (yyyy/dd) 1950/04
Extreme Minimum (°C) -33.5
Date (yyyy/dd) 1981/04Posted by hollingshead on 2007 01 22 at 06:16 PM • permalink
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Keep watching the skies! Keep watching the skies!!
But stop when it rains, or the water will run up your nose and drown you like a baby plastic turkey.
Geez, did this guy used to write for “The Outer Limits” or something?