2009

April may be the cruellest month, but December is the most bizarre. December 2009, anyway. Some time during the night – I will not say which night – the Earth has split and is now inhabiting two parallel universes. In…

Read: Life in parallel universes

On one side we have what is known as a scientific consensus on climate change, but it is really a political consensus, with many scientists in supporting roles. On the other we have perhaps a smaller number of scientists who…

Read: Confusion in the air

Strange emissions that may or may not have an effect on the future of the planet have been detected this month. Scientists not funded by anyone in particular have got to the bottom of it, and have found that these…

Read: Is climate tide turning?

The trouble with democracy is that quantity always wins out over quality. This is a dangerous thing to say, because it is now very easy to brand me as a fascist, right-wing totalitarian dictator. But as Anatole France said, if…

Read: Quantity distorting climate

The war between cyclists and motorists is dragging on, with no sign of a solution. A cyclist writing to my local newspaper, the Norwich-based Eastern Daily Press, recently lamented the “daily slaughter of the roads” and added, with grammatical casualties…

Read: Loose cannons on roads

You do sometimes wonder about the quality of the research that backs up government policy – especially policy relating to driving. I suspect that the kind of research indicating that speed is a major factor in road accidents goes something…

Read: The heart of driving

Or to put it another way, we really, really don’t want you to debate it. BBC newsreader Peter Sissons has revealed that the BBC, in common with many other news media, is complicit in keeping quiet about any challenge to…

Read: The debate is over…

We are coming close to a time when our entire civilised and relatively liberated way of life is threatened needlessly by people who feel themselves morally superior and therefore qualified to control us. I have always tried to avoid criticism…

Read: Rupert and the bears

Scare stories and strange predictions like those seen in many areas last week will become “the norm” in the years ahead, an expert warned last night, as newspapers forecast once again that climate change will affect “every aspect of our…

Read: Scare stories to be norm

There is a television series called Numbers, in which a mega-brained young professor of mathematics assists the FBI in solving crimes by using statistics, algorithms and formulae that predict what criminals are going to do. Its appeal lies partly in…

Read: Playing with numbers