Cascades
In today's New York Times, John Tierney makes a bold prediction: global warming hysterics will seize upon every weather anomaly that they can say proves their point and will completely ignore any event that does not fit their scenarios. In other words, business as usual for the global warming racket.
I’d like to wish you a happy New Year, but I’m afraid I have a different sort of prediction.
You’re in for very bad weather. In 2008, your television will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to global warming. You will be told that such bizarre weather must be a sign of dangerous climate change — and that these images are a mere preview of what’s in store unless we act quickly to cool the planet.
Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific. I don’t know if disaster will come by flood or drought, hurricane or blizzard, fire or ice. Nor do I have any idea how much the planet will warm this year or what that means for your local forecast. Long-term climate models cannot explain short-term weather.
But there’s bound to be some weird weather somewhere, and we will react like the sailors in the Book of Jonah. When a storm hit their ship, they didn’t ascribe it to a seasonal weather pattern. They quickly identified the cause (Jonah’s sinfulness) and agreed to an appropriate policy response (throw Jonah overboard).
Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.
A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”
In other words, they are selectively manipulating the news - or to put it another, less neutral way - they are lying. This is the "cascade effect" that I have posted about before. Yes, last year saw a "record" ice melt in the arctic - but those records only go back a few decades. There was also a NASA study that showed that the record ice melt happened because there was also a record low amount of cloud cover. In other words, the sun melted the ice.
What a surprise.
A blatantly mendacious person who has enormous vested business interests in promoting global warming hysteria, Al Gore, is treated as the new messiah by the true believers. Never mind that his propaganda film has been shown in court to contain materially false statements. Gore has become personally wealthy, with an estimated $100 million in the bank, uses more energy and emits more carbon than some nations do, and still is the hero of this cult.
People froze to death in Beunos Aires in 2007 and snow blanketed the area for the first time since 1918. Australia saw the coldest June since 1950. Though the media reported on those, the true believers focused on their cascades and ignored the inconvenient weather. They confidently claim that 2007 was one of the warmest years on record. But who do you believe, their claims or your own shivering body?
Incidentally, John Tierney's blog, called Tierney Lab, at The New York Times is worth checking out. You have to love his guiding principles:
1. Just because an idea appeals to a lot of people doesn't mean it's wrong.
2. But that's a good working theory.
Indeed it is.
Environment, Junk Science | Gaius Tuesday, 1 January , 2008
By NortonPete, Tuesday, 1 January , 2008 @ 10:04 am
I see in the local paper that my congressman, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen,R-Harding, is heading for an all expenses paid trip to the South Pole thanks to the National Science Foundation. He will be observing first hand “climate change”.
He has no credentials except he is a member of the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee, which oversees the NSF.
Well NSF does have $5.92 billion to burn up this year so lets start with a cruise!
By martian, Tuesday, 1 January , 2008 @ 10:27 am
My prediction for 2008 is that the trem “global warming” will disappear from the literature - to be replaced by the new and much more “inclusive” term (liberals love to claim to be “inclusive”) “climate change”. It is already appearing in many of their handouts and media reports. This way they can claim that ALL temperature extremes, natural disasters, etc. can be blamed on mankind and our dastardly works. Yesterday I saw an interview with a firefighter from California who claimed that “climate change” (his exact words) was behind all of the wildfires in California over the last couple of years. He claimed “climate change” was creating the conditions that allowed the fires to burn so strongly. A direct quote (as close as I can remember it), “I know there are people who deny climate change but none of them are firefighters on these fire lines. We KNOW (his emphasis) that it’s real!”
Personally, I don’t doubt that the climate may, indeed, be changing - I just haven’t seen much evidence that mankind has much influence on the process. The historical record shows that climate is a dynamic process that is constantly changing , going up, down, and sometimes sideways. The climate has been changing constantly, even in historic times and without mankind producing any of the “threats” the Gore movement harps on in any quantity until the last hundred years or so - hardly enough to do much damage.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Tuesday, 1 January , 2008 @ 12:39 pm
It is sunny, partly cloudy, and 72 degrees on a certain day in May. WE WILL ALL DIE OF GLOBAL WARM-, er, CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!!
By Former Republican, Tuesday, 1 January , 2008 @ 2:47 pm
Martian-
Mr. Tierney seems to disagree with you about mankind not having much influence on climate change. In the selfsame article that Gaius quotes part of, Mr. Tierney says “The planet has indeed gotten warmer, and it is projected to keep warming because of greenhouse emissions, but this process is too slow to make much impact on the public.” Sure, climate changes frequently. It doesn’t follow that humans have nothing to do with it. There were forest fires in California a million years ago, when there were no humans there. Therefore humans don’t have anything to do with forest fires in California today, right?
If you want evidence of mankind having an impact, you can accept the consensus expert opinion on the subject, as reflected in the IPCC reports.
If you don’t want to rely entirely on expert opinion, you can look into the yourself. The IPCC reports are available on online. http://www.ipcc.ch/ There’s no simple “gotcha” proof of the anthropogenic origin of part of global warming. You have to patiently go through a long array of evidence. Even then, unless you are an expert yourself, you still have to rely somewhat on what the experts say.
I am fortunate to live in Washington DC. The American Meteorological Society holds seminars almost every month on Capitol Hill, open to the public. If you listen to what working scientists have to say about global warming, you will discover their minds are both closed and open on the subject. Closed because the evidence is in, and they find it compelling. Open because if genuinely new evidence comes in, they’ll listen to it. But don’t try to tell them that their theory is hooey because water vapor is a more important greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide or because Mars has warmed up as much as the Earth recently or because climate changes frequently. They know all those things (and more) and have taken them into account.
By NortonPete, Tuesday, 1 January , 2008 @ 6:02 pm
Note to Californians (Thanks to Martian, Blue Crab Boulevard, comments on CA fires):
——————————————————————
This is what you need to know about the fire climate in CA.
———————————————————————–
1: Every 5 years there is a rainy spell that produces an exceptional amount of plant growth. The growth is in brush which has an oil base.
2: Every few years there is also a dry spell.
3: Every year high pressure builds in the desert (usually in the Fall ), and when it does, predictably higher pressures than in the LA basin, the Santa Anas winds blow. They are forecasted many days in advance.
4. Since there are no maintained fire break lines (because of environmentalists), and all the orange tree groves have been turned into housing developments, there is a non-stop fire fuel field.
5. If someone sets a fire outside during this period, all hell will break loose.
——————————————————–
Now, I have given CA all the info needed. Keep the aircraft on call
when this simple formula adds up, and educate all citizens to the fire danger, and add fire breaks
————————————————————————
I only lived in CA for 2 years, but I’m a genius right?