Farage on QT and Global Warming

Triggered by a post on Norfolk Blogger, I have remembered that on Question Time the other night Nigel Farage (leader of UKIP) made some disparaging comment about global warming in the context of the recent cold weather. Later on an audience member made the point that with global warming, the weather in the UK would likely actually get much colder. Farage's response was an incredulous "Really!?".

Now I assume that what the audience member was referring to is the gulf stream which could be weakened or even switched off by global warming although he did not get a proper chance to elaborate.

I am not a climate scientist but I do try to keep abreast of the issues and for the leader of a fairly large political party in the UK to not even be aware of this but to still feel free to make sneering remarks about the cold weather appearing to disprove global warming is a pretty sorry state of affairs.

I have heard many other (usually right wing) commentators and politicians make similar comments and it strikes me as very simplistic and almost childish to say things along the lines of "IT'S BEEN A BIT COLDER RECENTLY SO HOW CAN THERE BE TEH GLOBAL WARMING!!!111". As usual, misleading soundbites substitute for serious debate.