The Moruya Bowling Club not only offers a reasonably priced lunch but also a free book swap. I often bring a book along and swap it for another. Today's selection was fairly ho-hum until my eyes caught the title of this slim 150-page book.
We'd left home early for an appointment with my solicitor to discuss a mortgage that's falling due - no need to worry: I am the mortgagee - and then once again suffer my very efficient German doctor's "deutsche Gründlichkeit", who checked my weight, my blood pressure, and my heart rhythm, rate, and ageing strength. If only Donald Trump had a heartbeat as even as mine, we would all be sleeping better at night.
Mind you, my heartbeat did a little skip when I saw BHP jump by 88 cents to $49.36 in early-morning trading. However, Trump must've still been sulking about not getting his Peace Prize or threatening to invade Greenland again, because by the time we had finished our lunch, the shares were down to $47.92, but we still managed to pay for our lunch.
We even managed to look for some books at the Vinnies shop. Apart from a stack of CDs of four childhood classics read by Alan Bennett - The Wind in the Willows; Alice in Wonderland; Through the Looking Glass; The House at Pooh Corner - which should help to send me off to sleep for the next few nights, I also picked up Professor Robert M. Carter's thoroughly researched and footnoted book "Climate - The Counter Consensus". Its opening remarks by Paul Johnson sum it up neatly:
"The idea that human beings have changed and are changing the basic climate system of the Earth through their industrial activities and burning of fossil fuels -- the essence of the Greens' theory of global warming -- has about as much basis in science as Marxism and Freudianism. Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.
Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof -- of which history offers so many examples -- that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science. If people are in need of religion, why don't they just turn to the genuine article?"
Paul Johnson
The blurb on the back says it all: "... it's a cracker. By the end, your're left feeling ... that the scientific case against AGW is so overwhelming that you wonder how anyone can still speak up for so discredited a theory without dying of embarrassment." I'll be sleeping well tonight.
Oh, and before I forget to put your mind to rest, the book I picked up at the bowling club was about a girl who went through anorexia, bulimia, bulimarexia, strict dieting and binge eating. Thankfully, I grew up in post-war Germany with never enough to eat. It was a simpler life then.
