Premature Speculation
A nice summer is not a climate crisis
Posted on 19 Aug 25
by Mark HodgsonIn
Not having a TV licence, my wife and I tend to browse the TV channels whenever we’re away for a few days on holiday, as we were last week in north east Wales. It’s usually a pointless exercise, as we never find anything we would like to watch (thus confirming us in our decision not to have a licence). Once more, last week, we didn’t find anything of interest to us, but while channel hopping we caught the end of Gardeners’ World, and heard Monty Don telling us that it’s great for gardeners that summer now lasts until October.
And yet, barely had we arrived home than the BBC website had a front page article with the heading “Leaves falling, berries ripe, but it’s hot. Is autumn coming early?” Not according to Monty Don, it ain’t, but is it? Well, the BBC article doesn’t exactly overwhelm its readers with science or data. Instead, as one commenter said, “[t]his isn’t news or even facts it is someone writing a column and then wheeling out people to support their views.” [By the way, the BBC opened the article up to a have your say, and the interest levels could scarcely be lower, with just 66 comments at the time of writing, and quite a few of them are the result of an ongoing disagreement between two people].
The article commences with a pretence that something newsworthy is going on:
It’s still hot in many parts of the UK, but some tree leaves are turning yellow and blackberries are so ripe in hedges that they’re tasting alcoholic.
Hmm. Some tree leaves are turning yellow in August – well, that’s nothing new. Blackberries are ripe. That’s nothing new, either. My wife and I usually go blackberry picking in August, and in some years we’re able to make a start in late July. In fact, just a week ago, we indulged in a spot of brambling, and it seemed to us that the blackberries were poorer than usual, and most of them were far from ripe – possibly as a result of it being a bit drier and warmer than usual, but the oppposite of the claims made by the BBC in this regard.
https://cliscep.com/2025/08/19/premature-speculation/
