Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The daily max is strongly correlated, but there is also a weaker correlation with daily mins. There is no evidence, in other words, that clearer skies result in colder nights during spring.
As the Met Office also suggested, the extra sunshine could be linked to reduced air pollution.
That Met Office study has since been buried and is only archived on Wayback.
England’s land is under intense pressure. Roughly 70% is currently agricultural (mostly livestock), yet decision-making has been fragmented, leading to inefficiencies, conflicts, and missed opportunities. Ministers call current use “highly inefficient.”
England’s new Land Use Framework, published on 18 March 2026 by the UK government (under the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, or Defra), represents a significant policy shift in how the country manages its finite land resources.
England’s land is under intense pressure.
Roughly 70% is currently agricultural (mostly livestock), yet decision-making has been fragmented, leading to inefficiencies, conflicts, and missed opportunities.
Ministers call current use “highly inefficient.”
Climate risks (flooding, drought), the need for 1.5 million new homes, net-zero targets, nature recovery, and food security all compete for the same space.
The framework’s analysis concludes: there is enough land to deliver on all priorities—without sacrificing food production—if decisions are more strategic, spatially targeted, and multifunctional (one piece of land delivering multiple outcomes).
7% of England’s land targeted for nature restoration, forests, and renewables by 2050.
Just 1% (roughly 155,000 hectares by 2050, about the size of Greater London) for solar, wind, and other renewables—conservative upper-bound estimate assuming ground-mounted solar (many will be rooftops). This supports 2050 climate goals while often combining with grazing (agrivoltaics). carbonbrief.org
6% for broader climate and nature goals (peatland restoration, woodland expansion to 16.5% cover, habitat creation).
Changes are directed away from the best and most versatile farmland. Focus is on lower-productivity areas, degraded peatlands (north-west), grasslands/woodland (south-west), and intensive farmland improvements (east).
Food production: Explicit government commitment to maintain current domestic levels (or increase via efficiency). No major loss of productive land; instead, agroforestry, habitat creation on farmland, and higher-value crops.
Housing/infrastructure: ~1% urban expansion by 2050, with “default yes” near transport hubs, biodiversity net gain, and nature-based flood solutions.
By 2030: clearer plans, spatial targeting in farm payments, new data tools. By 2050: multifunctional landscapes as the norm—resilient, nature-rich, powered by renewables, feeding the nation, and housing more people.
Data revolution: Open-access National Soil Map and updated Predictive Agricultural Land Classification (ALC) map this spring 2026. Digital planning tools, AI-assisted mapping, and reduced Land Registry paywalls for larger holdings (a step toward greater transparency on who owns England).
Farmers first: Evolution of Environmental Land Management (ELM), Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), and Countryside Stewardship toward spatially targeted payments. £30m Farmer Collaboration Fund. Farming Roadmap coming soon. Tenant farmers (32% of farmland) get stronger support via tenancy reform.
Planning boost: Updated National Planning Policy Framework, better join-up with Local Nature Recovery Strategies, and regional spatial strategies.
Nature and energy: Peatland restoration prioritized as “natural water towers.” Tighter grouse moor rules. Renewables sited fairly, with local community benefits.
The framework is not legally binding at the hyper-local level—it’s a blueprint and evidence base, updated every five years.
Conservation groups and environmentalists largely welcome it as a “long-overdue bird’s-eye view” that puts nature at the heart of planning and ends “false choices” like solar vs. farmland.
Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds: “Food security is national security… This government is making a clear long-term commitment to maintain domestic food production.”
Farmers’ groups (e.g., NFU) are positive on the food-production pledge and multifunctionality but want clear incentives, timelines, and practical delivery. Some landowners note the need for funding and certainty.
Critics on the bolder side (e.g., rewilding advocates) say it could go further toward 30% nature by 2030, but most see it as a solid, evidence-led starting point rather than a radical overhaul.
For renewables, the 1% figure is modest but strategic—multi-use solar and wind reduces pressure elsewhere and supports grid decarbonization. It also flags rising water demand from data centers as a wildcard.
Overall, the framework signals that England can hit climate, nature, housing, and food goals simultaneously by being smarter, not by choosing winners and losers.
The recent OilPrice.com piece (4 April 2026) offers a sharp energy-focused take on the same story. Outcomes will shape Britain’s countryside, food bowls, and green transition for decades.
The aim of the researchers was to assess the effectiveness of the existing land use in England and develop a more optimal plan based on human and environmental needs, considering the future energy and water outlook and potential risks the country might face, such as increased flooding and other climate challenges. The OilPrice.com has the story.
Under the new framework, roughly 7 percent of England’s land must be devoted to nature, forests, and renewable energy if the United Kingdom hopes to achieve its environmental targets.
Changing the country’s land use to meet these needs will still provide a sufficient portion of land for crop growing and housing, according to the government’s first land use framework, published in March.
Ministers have labelled the current use of England’s land as “highly inefficient” and stressed the need for imminent change.
The new rules include a “default yes” on housing projects to be developed within walking distance of existing train stations. Developers will be encouraged to include ponds, wetlands, and improved urban drainage schemes in their plans to reduce the risk of flooding.
When it comes to agricultural land, farmers will be informed whether their land would be best used for farming or for alternative uses, such as forestry, wetland, or peatland restoration.
At present, around 70 percent of the U.K. land is used for agriculture, primarily for livestock.
The government will be tasked with providing incentives to encourage (but not force) farmers to switch to the most appropriate land use.
Farmers have largely welcomed the framework, but many have called for clear guidance, the right policy framework, and incentives to ensure the plans for land use are achieved.
The U.K. environment minister, Emma Reynolds, stated, “Food security is national security, and this government is making a clear long-term commitment to maintain domestic food production at current levels.
Our most productive agricultural land will be safeguarded for food security.
This is vital for our country’s resilience in the face of geopolitical events and climate change pressures.”
A new study uses excavation evidence (wall ruins, coins, pottery) to suggest sea level rise (SLR) rates reached ~4 m in ~70 yrs (60 mm/year, or 20 times the modern rate of 3 mm/year) from 430 to 500 CE across southern England.
“[D]uring the last 6 ky, repeated, meter-scale, rapid (<300 y) rises alternated with meter-scale falls…interpreted as global.” – Higgs, 2026
A new study uses excavation evidence (wall ruins, coins, pottery) to suggest sea level rise (SLR) rates reached ~4 m in ~70 yrs (60 mm/year, or 20 times the modern rate of 3 mm/year) from 430 to 500 CE across southern England.
Sea levels reached 3 m higher than today ~1500-2000 years ago, concurrent with the Roman Warm Period. Consequently, the coasts were 1.5 – 3 km farther inland versus today at this time.
Sea level falls were similarly rapid (for example, ~2 m in less than 100 years). Indeed, “dozens of authors found further evidence for Holocene SL [sea level] fluctuations of up to 5 m.”
These SLR rates were absolute or eustatic (due to water loading from melted ice sheets), and the fluctuations were likely global in scale. Similar meters-per-century SLR rates occurred in New Zealand, France, Brazil, and Florida (USA) during this period.
A 2024 study indicated that, 8200 years ago, near-global sea levels rose 6.5 meters in a span of just 140 years. This is 470 centimeters per century, 4.7 centimeters per year, during a period when CO2 levels were alleged to be a “safe” and stagnant 260 ppm.
The net melt of the Greenland ice sheet (GIS) is thought to have been the largest contributor to sea level rise in recent decades. But, to put the GIS change in context, the entire ice sheet melt contribution to sea level rise was just 1.2 total centimeters from 1992-2020 (Simonsen et al., 2021).
Amber heat health alerts are in place across the whole of England with temperatures likely to exceed 30C for the first time this year.
The alerts, which will last until 09:00 BST on Monday, come as an expected heatwave approaches much of the country.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said increased pressures on health and social care services were likely, including increased demand.
Temperatures will widely be between 27C and 30C on Thursday across east Wales, the Midlands, and East and South East England with a few locations around Greater London and the home counties reaching 31C.
The philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Henry David Thoreau were aired in the court of appeal on Wednesday as 16 climate activists sought to convince England’s most-senior judge to quash their long sentences for disruptive acts of civil disobedience.
…
The appellants, prosecuted in four separate trials last year, appeared at a mass appeal in London before a panel led by Lady Justice Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, where they argued judges defied decades of precedent by ignoring their conscientious motives.
Among the 16 was Roger Hallam, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, whose five-year sentence for planning roadblock protests on the M25 is thought to be longest ever handed out in the UK for non-violent protest; Larch Maxey, sentenced to three years for tunnelling beneath the road leading to an Essex oil refinery; and Phoebe Plummer, imprisoned for two years for throwing tomato soup on the glass covering Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery.
…
“They are the only known examples of punishment of peaceful protesters in which no reduction at all was made for such motivation,” said documents filed with the court by the applicants.
In my opinion the protestors actions went well beyond any reasonable definition of acceptable protest. By forcibly inflicting their deranged extremism on others, the protestors caused outrage and distress, incited violence from people desperate to get home to their kids or to their jobs, and likely cost lives by blocking roads used by emergency services.
It does not need me to tell you that it was quite wet last year. It was in fact ninth wettest in England & Wales since 1766, though nowhere near the two wettest years in 1872 and 1768.
It does not need me to tell you that it was quite wet last year. It was in fact ninth wettest in England & Wales since 1766, though nowhere near the two wettest years in 1872 and 1768.
For the last decade or so, we have been going through the same sort of weather as in the 1870s and 80s, as well as the 1920s.
But averages and trends are not particularly meaningful – nature does not do averages and straight lines! You could have ten years all with the same rainfall, or you could have five years with high rainfall and five years of drought, and you could get the same average.
If you just look at the distribution of wet years, there is no obvious pattern:
But the chart of driest years strongly suggests that these are both much less frequent and severe now. The most recent inclusion in the list is 2011:
It would be accurate to say that England & Wales are not getting wetter, but are not as dry as they often used to be.
Despite the year as a whole being wetter than average, no month was particularly so, with none appearing in the list of >170mm:
The wettest day was Feb 8th, with 21.89mm. Most years see this sort of level or more.
The data shows that rainfall is not getting more extreme in England & Wales.
Now I wonder why they would pick an 18-month period? Particularly one that includes two winters and one summer. Hardly very scientific is it, Met Office?
Now I wonder why they would pick an 18-month period? Particularly one that includes two winters and one summer. Hardly very scientific is it, Met Office? Are you claiming there is any significance of this compared with other periods which might include two summers and one winter, given that winter rainfall is generally much higher.
As for the claim it broke the previous record set last month is simply absurd – they are both part and parcel of the same run of weather.
So let’s do a proper analysis instead – indeed the one the Met Office should have done. We’ll start with a 12-month period, ending March:
It was actually a much wetter 12 months in 2000/01 and 2013/14. And the last 12 months has only been marginally wetter than 1872/73 and 1882/83.
What about the last 24-months then?
The results are even less exceptional, with the last 24 months being only the 7th wettest. Again 2000/02 and 2012/14 feature at the top, and we also find that 1871/73 was wetter.
The 1870s and 80s were clearly as wet as anything seen in the last decade; for instance the 24 months to March 1877 had only 10mm less rain than the current period, whilst 1881 to 1884 saw almost as wet weather.
The Met Office are only concerned propaganda, that our weather is becoming more extreme because of climate change. And they will use whatever statistical trickery they need to do it.
I challenge them to publish the full data and let the public see the whole story.
Want to build a new home? Forget it. Thinking about a loft extension? The local council will say no. Even chopping down a tree risks becoming a bureaucratic task.
Heat Pump Intallation Sicamous BC
Want to build a new home? Forget it. Thinking about a loft extension? The local council will say no. Even chopping down a tree risks becoming a bureaucratic task.
The UK has created one of the most restrictive planning systems in the world, and one that has brought a great deal of development to a shuddering halt. The Telegraph has the story.
There are, however, some exceptions. You might soon be able to install a giant heat pump, and an electric car charger the size of a phone box, without requiring planning permission at all. But hold on this is crazy.
At the rate the rules are changing, we might soon have huge heat pumps with a single tiny apartment attached to them. It is getting to the point where it would be better to admit the technology does not work particularly well – and come up with a better way of heating our homes while reducing carbon emissions at the same time.
Michael Gove’s Department of Levelling Up is hardly noted for its relaxed, easy-going approach to building new stuff. It has even blocked the redevelopment of old department stores.
Still, it seems minded to relax the rules in a significant way for “green” products. Why?
It turns out that larger heat pumps can run at lower speeds, and therefore make less noise than models currently allowed.
Most technologies, from smartphones to laptops, get smaller and smaller as they enter the mass market. Heat pumps by contrast get bigger and bigger.
Sure, there may well be some advantages to larger pumps. And for the Government, and Mr Gove in particular, to take a more relaxed approach to planning rules is always welcome.
Yet here’s the problem: it is very hard to see where this is going to stop. If the current pumps are not big enough, perhaps we will soon need even bigger ones. Or perhaps two pumps will be required to generate the necessary level of warmth.
I don’t know about you, but I think that if I was asked to write a few hundred words for a newspaper, I’d take great care to ensure that they made sense. Because space was limited, I’d send my best arguments into battle. And I would make damn sure that they were watertight.
That was not the case when the shadow minister for insulting the public’s intelligence, Daniel Zeichner, tried to sell Labour policy in a short piece for the Telegraph.
Now, Labour policy statements are a target-rich environment. You basically just fly over them & press the red button and you’re bound to hit something that explodes nicely. So it was with Zeichner’s try. Except with extra parsnips.
Ostensibly Zeichner was there to explain Labour’s plan for farming. (He’s actually the shadow minister for farming, not insulting the public’s intelligence.) Instead he produced the sort of screed that I characterise as “Wall of Sh1t”, in homage to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. This rhetorical technique is the bane of anyone trying to respond to it, because the response has such trouble getting its shoes on. It is known in some people’s minds as Gish galloping.
ASTERISK: Spector shot Lana Clarkson, and was eventually sent to jail. Divers other accusations were levelled at him. He apparently died of Covid.
Zeichner’s opening paragraphs set the scene by trying to draw a line between climate change, inclement weather, and food shortages. Last year was the hottest on record, and food inflation reached 45%. Draw a line, ingrate!
Last year’s summer harvests were threatened by drought, and this winter’s heavy rain and flooding has destroyed crops. This perfect storm has left shortages in our supermarket shelves and driven up prices.
Well, it’s not exactly a perfect storm. What actually happened last year in the UK, whose farming Zeichner will one day soon be responsible for?
The unseasonably wet and windy weather hindered the start of the harvest, with further disruption throughout August due to localised showers and heavy downpours, with progress varying regionally. Whilst conditions were milder in September, some regions still had lengthy periods of wet weather.Defra
Yes, in fact the hot and dry summer was 2022’s, but looking at the figure, I don’t see a reduction in yield then. A miserable summer in 2023 on the other hand meant that grains did not dry out fully and were poorer quality.
Defra, ibid.
Not a great start, but then Zeichner segues into a version of reality that I don’t recognise at all.
Meanwhile, this Tory Government flip-flops and backtracks on net zero, failing to recognise the cost of inaction. Labour will protect families from unaffordable food by backing British agriculture, supporting farmers to reduce emissions and make their land more resilient to the shocks of extreme weather.
Well, the first bit is flat out wrong. Sunak and his chums have not flip-flopped and backtracked on Net Zero. Later on (see below), Zeichner says:
The Tories are U-turning on net zero while the climate crisis knocks at our doors.
But the allegation is unsubstantiated. How, exactly, are the government U-turning, flip-flopping, or backtracking? I wish they were. I’ve waited for a sign that they might. Sunak’s “great reset” was as much an insult to our intelligence as Zeichner’s description of it is. There was no U-turn. There was not even a turn. It was as if Sunak was driving in one of those cars that have a motorised steering wheel. Drifting towards the white line, the car politely but firmly pushed him back where he was supposed to be pointing. He stayed in the lane he began in, heading in exactly the same direction, having made a giant fuss about doing nothing. And the reset was over, vanished utterly in moments, with not even a dreg to corroborate it ever having been.
Labour will protect families from expensive food by…? Can you remember what their spokesman said? One, by backing British agriculture. Quite meaningless, I hope you’ll agree. Two, supporting farmers to reduce emissions. How is this supposed to make food cheaper? How are those electric tractors, which obviously cost more and do half as much work as the existing ones, going to make food cheaper? How is reducing the input of fertiliser going to make food cheaper? If Labour want to reduce farm emissions, it will make food more expensive. But Zeichner blandly argues it the opposite way around, as if no-one will notice. Three, make their land more resilient to the shocks of extreme weather. How, exactly? How do you make a field of wheat resistant to a thunderstorm?
There follows some stuff about farm payments. It would be fair to say that I have lost track of the state of play on these. I followed the debate for a time after Brexit, but have to admit that my eyes eventually glazed over. It’s a bit like live animal exports. About two decades ago I developed the idea that it had been banned after some horror stories brought the matter to the public’s attention. Recently I discovered that it had been going on unchecked all that time. It is now finally going to be banned.
We must also decarbonise the farming sector. That is why Labour will switch on Great British Energy, a new publicly owned company that will bring together public and private investment to harness clean home-grown British power: wind, wave, solar and nuclear. That means cheaper bills for our farmers.
We must also support farmers as they diversify their income streams and make use of land that is not suitable for food production – by enabling them to build renewable energy and plug into the National Grid faster.
“Must” we decarbonise the farming sector? Only if we want to partake like it’s 1799. And let us not bear this pretense that the proliferation of renewables is going to make anyone’s bills cheaper. (There may be bribes for some of us.) Perhaps Zeichner might like to consider how his party’s plan to triple, or is it quadruple, solar on prime agricultural land is going to increase food security or decrease food bills? No, we can’t go there. No-one of importance is willing to bell that particular cat.
Zeichner winds up with gusto, as if he is talking to the faithful at the party conference:
The Tories are U-turning on net zero while the climate crisis knocks at our doors. They are rowing back on climate commitments while our farmers’ fields are waterlogged and inaccessible. And they are stalling on protecting nature and farmland while family food bills go through the roof.
Labour is the party that will deliver for rural Britain. Our plan will protect the land, support farmers and bring down bills. With Labour, Britain’s rural communities will get their future back.
Pah. Your plan does not protect the land. It involves carpeting it with solar farms, wind turbines and pylons. Your idea of supporting farmers is to force them to reduce inputs and into the use of inferior technology. Rather than bring down bills, you are going to force them up.
This does not promise that rural communities will get their future back. It more likely presages the entire country getting its past back. But I’m not talking about going back to last year, or two decades ago. I’m talking about going back two hundred years, unless someone cries
“Enough!”
The country is getting battered by the incumbent Conservatives, and Labour’s offer is a bigger stick and a lusty arm.
This is a conspiracy to defraud the British public:
The loss of predictable weather patterns is “causing chaos” for nature, according to the National Trust.
It warns climate change is upsetting the regular rhythm of the seasons, making plants and wildlife more susceptible to disease.
The effects can be seen across the estates the National Trust manages.
This seasonal “baseline shift” is disrupting the annual behaviours of animals in particular but also impacting trees and plants, it said.
“The incremental shifts we’re experiencing in terms of our seasons extending may not feel like much in a 12-month period, but over a decade the changes are extremely significant”, said Ben McCarthy, head of Nature and Restoration Ecology at the National Trust.
Meanwhile low water levels in rivers, lakes and reservoirs – caused by a lack of rain coupled with the high temperatures – has been a factor in increased algal blooms.
On some occasions this has led to mass fish deaths as oxygen levels crash, causing them to suffocate.
And there were dramatic storms too, with storms Babet and Ciaran damaging landscapes and coastlines around the country.
You may have noticed the impact the changes in the seasons are having in the parks around your home or in your garden.
Grass needs to be mowed much later into the year, for example.
The National Trust rangers and gardeners report it’s because of the increasingly warm and wet conditions at its sites in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
There are two specific claims, around which the rest of the codswallop hinges, which have no basis in reality:
The loss of predictable weather patterns
The simple truth is that Britain has never had “predictable weather patterns”. Our seasonal weather has always changed from year to year, often drastically.
It is a myth that we used to have the same, predictable seasons every year. Some winters were cold and snowy, and others mild. Summers might be hot and dry, or cold and wet.
The four charts below plot the year-on-year changes in England. As you can see, we often saw swings of two or more degrees from one year to the next:
For example, the winter of 1915/16 was one of the mildest on record at the time. The following winter was one of the coldest.
The incremental shifts we’re experiencing in terms of our seasons extending may not feel like much in a 12-month period, but over a decade the changes are extremely significant
The facts show that there has been no perceptible “climate change” in the last decade. As ever, there are the usual ups and downs, but no evidence whatsoever of these “incremental shifts” they talk about:
The report gets itself horribly confused when it talks of low water levels in rivers, lakes and reservoirs – caused by a lack of rain and then goes on to say increasingly warm and wet conditions.
In fact neither claim has any relevance, as there are no trends either way in summer rainfall:
They also report about dramatic storms, with storms Babet and Ciaran damaging landscapes and coastlines around the country. UK storms have actually been declining since the 1990s in terms of both frequency and intensity. Claims like this underline the fact that the Met Office’s naming of storms has little to do with meteorology, and everything to do with propaganda.
One particularly misleading comment is this:
The idea that the moths have migrated as far north as Sweden because of global warming is utterly absurd. As with mosquitoes and other insects, they migrate via trade and transport. In England’s case, the first moths arrived accidentally in a shipment of trees from the continent. Since then it has spread across the South East because it can, not because it is getting warmer.
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