More Moths Munching Away In Palaces
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Do they think we are all idiots?
Tapestries, furniture and soft furnishings in some of Britain’s most historic buildings are at risk from a surge in household pests driven by climate change.
Historic Royal Palaces, which manages six palaces in London and Northern Ireland including Hampton Court and parts of Kensington Palace, has seen the breeding rate of clothes moths in its properties more than double.
Kathryn Hallett, the head of conservation and collection care at Historic Royal Palaces, told The Telegraph: "Over the last decade, we have seen an increase in common clothes moth activity across our sites, often seeing up to three annual breeding cycles rather than the more usual one or two."
The increase in breeding is caused both directly and indirectly by the changing climate. Longer, damper summers have provided ideal breeding conditions for moths, while earlier winters and more frequent and potent cold snaps are forcing the palaces to turn on their heating sooner and more often, further improving conditions for them.
Damper summers? Where on earth do they get that from?
I thought the Met Office had promised us drier summers anyway. As for, earlier winters and more frequent and potent cold snaps , the mind boggles, given that milder winters are usually blamed.
If palaces are turning their central heating on earlier, it does not take a genius to work out why moths are thriving.
But there is one other factor – bans on heavy duty insecticides, coupled with reluctance to use them in favour of “natural remedies”. According to Paul Bates, director of Pest Control firm Cleankill, recent bans on heavy-duty pesticides because of warnings over the indiscriminate damage they cause, has limited his armoury. “We’re not even allowed moth balls any more,” he says.
Nigel Blades, a preventive conservation adviser for the National Trust agrees: “It’s thought also that, nowadays, wool and other materials are less often treated with insecticides, so you don’t have the residual effect that may have existed decades previously,” he says. “It’s not always a wise use of insecticides, but it did have the effect of killing off moths.” In 2008, the EU banned the use of naphthalene, a toxic, flammable chemical long used in mothballs.
I really do have difficulty in understanding how ostensibly intelligent people believe that “climate change” is changing our weather so drastically in literally just the space of a few years. There seems to be some sort of mass hypnosis.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Oh my God, more moths, mankind is doomed, This is the best laugh I have had over Christmas.
Geoff:
Try the Mutant Killer Bees one in the 1970’s. They were going to migrate to southern USA and DOOM the population there. The idea was so strong that Hollywood made 2 films (one starring Michael Caine) about it.
Well they did migrate into the USA (those southern borders there don’t control unwanted entry) and ??? Nothing happened.
” Historic Palaces ……has seen the breeding rate of clothes moths in its properties more than double ”
“The increase in breeding is caused both directly and indirectly by the changing climate . Longer damper summers have provided ideal conditions for moths ,while earlier winters and more frequent and potent cold snaps are forcing the palaces to turn on their heating sooner and more often , further improving conditions for them ”
This latest climate gunk -science in The Telegraph almost reads like a Prince Charles
primp …….or a ‘psy op ” ….Are the United Kingdom’s rich ,red aristocrats like erstwhile Corbyn adviser Andrew Murray and SAGE behavioral psychologist Susan Michie tormented by global warming moth maledictions in their plush abodes too ?. What of Jez’s and Sadiq Khan’s pads , or the well furnished estates of Mark Carney Lord Deben How are climate conscious knighted celebrities homes faring ? They, and Extinction Rebellion’s toff donors, can all afford their heating costs in an age of needlessly soaring energy prices after all Mind you the organic cedar oil , pyrethrin daisy and lavender sachet deterrents are surely still effective . Unless global warming has created mutant freak moths
I think they moth protest too much if you pardon the pun .
There is nothing mind boggling about the ” earlier winters and more frequent cold snaps ” line Paul ..It isn’t true ..Just as the English “damper summers” is an exaggeration , the data shows a milder cold waves trend : ” An analysis of the entire northern midlatitudes confirms the steady decrease in severity and frequency of cold waves over the last decades in the observations ” [ ‘ Cold Waves Are Getting Milder in the Northern Midlatitudes ‘, Vautard, et al , Environmental Research Letters , 22 Oct. 2019 ]
The journal New Scientist reported that the ” longest running study of insect populations in the world shows that the total mass of moths in Great Britain is double what it was in the 1960’s but has been declining by around 10 per cent since the 1980’s ……….data from 34 sites in Wales , Scotland and England where insects have been trapped nightly starting as early as 1967 as part of the Rothamsted Insect Survey …..show there are big variations in moth biomass from year to year and from species to species , but overall biomass rose sharply from the 1960’s to the 1980’s and then began declining gradually ….the overall biomass of all insects in Great Britain is probably twice as high today as it was in the 1960’s ” [ ‘ Insect Biomass in Britain Falling But May Still be Double 1960’s Level ” New Scientist , 12 December 2019 ] .
The British Isles moth population studies can be interpreted in multiple ways . I am not an entomologist or a moth specialist, however air pollution, lethal heavy duty insecticides and the harsh British winters of the 1960’s and 70’s must be considered .The 1963 winter freeze was thought to have killed up to half of the United Kingdoms small bird species and in all likelihood , inflicted severe mortality on arthropods as well . Improved dwelling insulation , farmland enhancement [ See ” The Insect Apocalypse That Never Was ‘ Jon Entine , Quillette 25 July 2021 ] and warming ,milder temperatures were probably conducive to proliferating insect arthropod numbers. How the estimated 30 – 40 % decrease in British Isles moths since the 1980’s can be reconciled with this ridiculous Royal residence moth infestation cli -fi story is anyone’s guess. This is the nature of climate millenarianism anti – Popperian pseudoscience and the unfalsifiable hypothesis.
‘ When you can be never be wrong : the unfalsifiable hypothesis ‘ https://youcanknowthings.com/2021/02/09/when-you-can-never-be-wrong-the-unfalsifiable-hypothesis/
https://netzerowatch.com/climate-science-has-become-non-popperian/
This looks like the opening salvo on behalf of their friends in the NT – “give us loads more money”. That the NT will be tapping up HMG within the 12 month is guaranteed, but they need preparation, an explanation for why their need is not down to their own in competence, rather the forces of nature.
Just the sort of story for the time of year and with a humorous touch.
Seems to suggest that insecticides should not be effective or there is another reason to leave the EU.
It also begs the question as to why someone appointed head of conservation and collection care would not think that a change in conservation techniques might not affect the outcome.
Yet another office holder whom one might decide was not fit for purpose.
The episode is worthy of a column in Private Eye at the very least.
Mass hypnosis or mass myopia
Private Eye is all for the “Climate Change” meme – you should tr reading it!!!!
Hottest winter day EVAH in Somerset (England) … on a New Years Eve, a whopping 15C, the moths will be happy. Classic deception via a truthful but misleading statistical soundbite. The temperature will probably be around 14C in the CET region, which is not at all uncommon in December/January:
An alternative take might be “Oh dear, we’ve messed up on our primary task of preserving the nation’s historical heritage. Quick, blame it on climate change and get our arses out of the fire.”
Oh yes indeed, ‘climate change’ is the gift that keeps on giving to useless bureaucrats. The ‘get out of jail free card’ to mask serial incompetence. The EA have been playing it for years.
Two word summary: moth balls.
It’s not easy to choose which silly non-sequitur to pick but my favourite is the combination of longer wetter summers and earlier winters, presumably autumn has been “no-platformed” as its boring middle-of-the-road temperatures can’t be used to blame people for selfishly changing the climate. I can’t quite get my head around the concept that warmer weather in late autumn and through the winter is worse for moths than colder because when it’s cold humans turn the heating on and make it warmer than it would have been.
Presumably none of these properties have heating with any form of thermostatic control to keep the temperatures the same regardless of the weather outside?
The whole thing is incoherent. How can an earlier winter be bad because we turn our heating on when the alternative is that we don’t need to because it’s warmer?
The bastards just want us to be too cold (and die as a result), regardless of the cause.
I bet the grants they get (from we taxpayers) are dependent on including a CC paragraph in their submission. That helps build the ‘evidence’ for those who have a vested interest in promoting the CC trope. (If only it was a ‘trope’ – more like a tax).
Dear God!
I have twice, contacted the Telegraph about them telling me my digital subscription was not paid when the DD of £17.33 was paid on 17/12/2021. I cannot phone them, no-one answers their landline, or answers my emails!
The last edition I was able to read was well before Christmas.
I posted an item on their blog concerning climate change, to be told that my views were “contrary to the views of the Telegraph & their readers”. Really? I don’t think so!
After 40+ years of receiving latterly a daily download, and prior to that, a newspaper through my letterbox, I will be terminating my subscription and demanding a refund of my last debit!
The Telegraph is no longer fit for purpose!
Sadly Andrew this is the way things have gone. Once I read at least one major newspaper daily. Now I may bother to read 2 in a week – usually for the books and ents reviews. They have consigned themselves to the dustbin of irrelevance. Times, Telegraph are as untrue as guardian and the other dross now.
I scan through the Daily Mail & MoS, mainly looking at the headlines just to be aware of what currently interests the media children. As Dr North has pointed out, they can only handle a few stories these days, many just a reprint of some press release, compared to over 30 or so subjects in days of yore.
Tried within the last 10 years or so to poison a weed, or a mouse? Or a moth maybe? Then you will be relieved to know that it wasn’t the not fit for purpose sh1t product you used (vegetable based and eco friendly). It was climate change! The very rats are laughing round here. They thrive on it.
Mechanical traps still work. I usually kill a mouse a day in my barn – peanut butter is the perfect bait!
Agreed. Ketchup is good (and cheaper). Sweet and congeals well, so they have to bite down.
I use chocolate on ours in France. Seems to irresistible. But the little sachets of poison work pretty well too – not the “natural” bait but the lurid red artificial stuff.
I use raisins. Fantastic results!
Also in France, I used the red and blue “souricide” stuff. The only result was coloured droppings. Never thought of raisins. Will definitely give them a try.
Tried within the last 10 years or so to poison a weed, or a mouse? Or a moth maybe? Then you will be relieved to know that it wasn’t the not fit for purpose sh1t product you used (vegetable based and eco friendly). It was climate change! The very rats are laughing round here. They thrive on it.
Naphthalene mothballs are still available on eBay. I have never stopped using them and have no problem with moths whereas a friend of mine who has relied on “eco-friendly” (i.e. useless) stuff from the supermarket has had a moth infestation in a woollen fitted carpet.
Synthetic carpets and clothes are not susceptible to moths.
Que the Mothra music:
Our summers are on average slightly wetter during centennial solar minima due to increased negative NAO conditions.