The Chancellor made his autumn statement today - five days into December! You can read the entire speech here and the BBC's synopsis here. Two things stand out for me. First, the projections for future economic growth are pure guesses - it is hard to see the UK economy growing at 2% plus after 2014. Second, Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock Asset Management have been brought unto the nation's balance sheet, adding £70bn to national debt! The Labour government had conveniently kept most of the financial interventions from 2008 off the nation's balance sheet. Including these interventions increases UK national debt dramatically - click here.
The Berkeley Earth Project , an independent study of global warming, has found that the earth has become a degree warmer over the past half century. However, the statistical uncertainty surrounding pre-1920 estimates makes it very hard to say much about long-term trends - click here for graph . This is one of my concerns with the global warming debate - we simply don't have trustworthy long-run data which looks at temperature changes over the last millennium (or two). My second concern with the global warming debate is that it is very hard to prove any sort of casual link between global warming and human activity. The scientists may be able to show correlation between global warming and our production of carbon dioxides etc., but correlation is not causation. My third concern with the debate is that those who are sceptical or agnostic are stereotyped as flat-earthers or intellectually-challenged crackpots. This only stifles debate and the progress of science itself.