George Monbiot is upset that nobody has criticised the private weather forecasting firms for getting the long-range forecasts wrong.
The Met Office, like the BBC, is the subject of intense tabloid hostility, because it refuses to accept the consensus in the rightwing press that man-made climate change is a myth. Perversely, it prefers to rely on data. The incompetence of the Met Office and the superior skills of other forecasters are now part of the litany of climate change denial. Weather forecasting, in the hands of the press, has become a political science.
This has prompted a must-read analysis of Monbiot's history of politicisation of the weather from Climate Resistance's Ben Pile, including a timely reminder of Monbiot's hilarious argument that last winter's freeze was caused by global warming.
It's hard not to recall Monbiot's fulminations about libertarian astroturfing, an argument he advanced while helping to run the Campaign Against Climate Change - an astroturfing organisation.
He's some guy, that Monbiot.
Bishop Hill
Barry Woods notes that Monbiot's article uses the d-word:
That sleighbell winter? It's all part of climate change denial
Which is unfortunate, as they had said they were no longer going to use this offensive terminology.