Mr Gibbons seems to think temperature is like pounds or euros. If you have zero pounds, you have no money. Similarly, says Gibbons, if you have zero degrees Celsius, you have no temperature. If you start out in the morning with £2 and you end the day with £4, you’re twice as rich. Likewise, if you start out in the morning with two degrees and end the day with four degrees, you’re twice as warm.
Mr O’Neill and others endeavored to point out, politely, that temperature doesn’t work like that.
For one thing, if Gibbons is so worried by that increase in surface temp of “over 25%”, all he has to do is stop using Centigrade and convert to Fahrenheit. So the current global average is 14.5C – or about 58F. If you add 4C to it, that’s a little over 7F. So, instead of that massive “over 25%” increase from 14.5C to 18.5C, you have an increase from 58F to 65F – or about 12 per cent. Hey, presto! Global warming halved – just like that!
Still, if I understand Gibbons, it’s like the Three Degrees. If a fourth Degree were to join – Scary Spice, say, or a Nolan Sister – there would be over 33 per cent more Degrees.
This wasn’t a one-off mistake by John Gibbons, but something of a recurring theme.
