Climate change or climate change swindle?

10th July 2010, 19.30 hours. While I am working on this article it is still 35 deg C outside in Mainz. Clearly, it was not a day one should spend outdoors. Two days earlier, the world weather forecast on TV reported that a temperature of 50 degrees had been recorded in Baghdad – a downright life-threatening temperature!

It is clear that weather and tempera- ture extremes have been experienced during many eras, both past and present, in virtually all corners of the globe, and it is, of course, wrong to imply a major climate shift on the basis of short-term events in a limited area. Weather is not the same as climate.