Piers Corbyn

Poers Corbyn in 2020.

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Piers Richard Corbyn (10 March 1947–) is the British owner/operator of WeatherAction, a website that claims to accurately predict the weather in Great Britain and Ireland for much longer than the standard accuracy time frame of 5 days that most meteorologists agree on. Currently, he makes predictions 30, 45, and 60 days in advance. In the past, Corbyn claimed to be able to make predictions between 9 months and a year ahead. Corbyn has an honours degree in physics at Imperial College London and studied astrophysics in 1979 at Queen Mary College (no degree recorded).

Before 2020, his prime claim to fame was his rampant climate change denialism. He is now most prominently known, however, as a COVID-19 denialist, becoming a relatively prominent face in the UK's anti-mask and anti-vaccine movement and hosting/attending numerous demonstrations and protests, as well as producing an array of stultifyingly awful denialist content on social media.

He is the older brother of former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.^[1]

Weather and climate[edit]

He also frequently bets on the accuracy of the results, and he founded a company to profit off his predictions in 1997. It was later taken private in 1999 due to staggering losses of £70,000 in the first year, and £480,000 in the second.^[2] Corbyn claimed that the failure was because of his company's small size compared to high overhead, which is bizarre after public statements that the business was doing great, "turning over" £250,000 compared to overhead costs of ~£70,000.

Most scientists, on the other hand, completely ignored him, as his estimates are so vague that the weather needs to be well off to be wrong. Taking into account how vague he can be, like giving "high winds" and "heavy rain" as a prediction, he is still largely wrong when compared to the observed weather.^[3] In 2007, some people who had tired of his whining took a look at his forecast for killer storms to lash Britain on the 17^th of October, and the last week of November…^[4] which never happened. Undeterred by his abject failure, he predicted January 2008 to be a period of intense cold (-17°C)^[5] — it turned out to be one of the warmest Januarys on record. Corbyn has made it a bit difficult after those highly-mocked failures to criticize his inaccuracies due to him banning the use of extracts of his works and suing most anyone who tries.

Corbyn claims an 85% accuracy rate^[6] due to predicting landfall of a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal between May 24^th/26^th 2009 (a pretty common event that time of year), and a peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics.^[7] The journal has a history of publishing a number of badly-written global warming denialism papers from seemingly anyone who can fit a piece of paper in the mail slot with proper postage that is not covered in feces. This includes Peter Laut's paper "Solar activity and terrestrial climate: an analysis of some purported correlations"^[8] and Henrik Svensmark's theories on cosmic rays destroying clouds.^[9] Corbyn is also a very big proponent of global cooling^[10] and states quite firmly that CO₂ doesn't cause warming while being interviewed by tin foil hatter Alex Jones.^[11]

Conspiracy theories and denialism[edit]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Corbyn organized an apparently mostly-maskless rally at Trafalgar Square, after which, he was arrested and fined "£10,000 for the offence of holding a gathering of more than 30 people in an outdoor place."^[12] The rally included a coalition of denialists and conspiracy theorists: anti-vaxxers, 5G conspiracy theorists, and QAnon.^[12] These groups appear to have been invited, as they align with Corbyn's beliefs:

• Anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, including those involving Bill Gates and George Soros^[13][14]
• 5G conspiracy theories^[15]
• QAnon^[16]
• Depopulation conspiracy theory (blaming his frequent targets, Gates, Soros and Greta Thunberg)^[17]

Following the rally, Corbyn did a TV interview with his namesake journalist Piers Morgan (who also has a brother called Jeremy) in which he:^[18]

• Denied the existence of COVID-19 and called it "a psychological operation to close down the economy in the interests of megacorporations".
• Tried to trick Morgan into promoting his next rally.
• Claimed that modern vaccines are poisonous and that the original vaccines "might have worked".
• Peddled debunked myths that hydroxychloroquine is a cure for COVID-19 and that 5G WiFI masts damage people's immune systems.

Other conspiracies that Corbyn has promoted:

• Pizzagate^[19][20]
• Deep state^[21][22]
• That Antifa is a fascist organization run by Soros^[23][24]

Inciting violence[edit]

Corbyn was arrested in the early hours of Sunday 19th December 2021 after video emerged of him urging supporters to burn down the offices of MPs and to 'hammer to death those scum' responsible for lockdowns and COVID-19 vaccines.^[25][26][27]

Miscellaneous[edit]

Corbyn also has a history of being an activist in the International Marxist Group (IMG) for squatters rights in the North Paddington area of Westminster throughout the 1970s.^{[28] [29]}

His brother Jeremy was the leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020 and has been MP for Islington North since 1983. Unlike Piers, Jeremy holds the scientifically-accepted position on anthropogenic global warming, i.e. that it exists and is a serious problem. He also, again unlike Piers and again in line with the scientifically accepted position, accepts that COVID-19 exists, that COVID-19 is a real problem, and that the vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 are safe and effective; although he is (coincidentally, and for entirely different, less stupid reasons than Piers) against government vaccine mandates.

See also[edit]

• Astrophysics
• Squatters rights

References[edit]