Plunging Towards Gomorrah
Posts tagged Global Warming
How Not to Measure Temperature: NOAA
Jul 16th
The NOAA will be making headlines with the “news” that the last three months have been the “hottest on record.” They’re kind of right. The only problem is the way they’re recording. The recording stations the NOAA uses scattered throughout the world are flawed. Watts Up With That? has documented how bad they are in the United States. Here’s another example where the station recorded a temperature five degrees warmer than it actually was… You see, any time a temperature station is put on a roof, a sidewalk or next to a parking lot, the data recorded is worthless. The satellite data is .8 degrees cooler than the NOAA data. I’m not sure how they’re getting away with such flawed data.
Hence, anytime you see a headline citing “extreme temperatures” and it’s based on the NOAA just ignore it. I know I will.
The Economist Believes in Weird Science
Jul 12th
I think I’m falling out of love with The Economist. It continues to be a great source of information about foreign affairs, but it’s becoming less of a source for “economics.” This is especially true when they endorsed the hideously awful ObamaCare bill simply because it was “something.” That’s not intelligent; it’s simply bad economics. Another area where they’ve missed the boat is the theory of man-made global warming. The great Climategate whitewash has begun.
Greenhouse gases still warm planets, carbon dioxide is still a greenhouse gas and the amount of it in the Earth’s atmosphere is still shooting up. The temperature rose over the 20th century in a way that follows from these basic truths. Other mechanisms at play in the climate complicate the issue, but none of them offers a remotely satisfactory alternative explanation for the temperature rise.
Really, is this the best they could come up with to defend the theory? Yes, temperatures increased in the twentieth century. There wasn’t a spike, it wasn’t alarming, and history is littered with centuries of increasing and decreasing temperatures. “In a way that follows from these basics truths.” Huh? I think I’m giving up on this issue because the people who choose to believe this hogwash are beyond reasoning with anymore. No matter what happens there will always be a group of people who believe things are getting worse. They’ll always have a group of thick headed scientists to check off on the theory. What concerns me is that The Economist shouldn’t be falling for idiotic apocalyptic scenarios. Didn’t we learn anything from Thomas Malthus?
Here's a panel of leading experts.
Throughout history politicians have fanned the flames of paranoia, moving us on from one imaginary disaster to the next. Every time it’s sold as being done in our best interest and every time it only ends up doing more harm than good. The writers at The Economist should know better, but instead they believe in that age old shallow argument that we have to do “something.”
Climate Change Officially Jumps the Shark
Apr 16th
President Obama became Head Shark Jumper in January 2009. Congratulations!
Let’s face it. This whole “green” thing has officially jumped the shark and turned into an Urban Legend of mythic proportions. For instance, I have a friend who took issue with one of my posts and compared my indifference to Global Warming (or whatever it is depending on the current weather) to someone who wouldn’t do anything if an asteroid was on a collision course with the earth. The argument was a little more nuanced than that, but that was the crux of it.
This idea that climate change is leading to catastrophe and apocalypse is absurd. Why is it that Global Warmongers can never see the silver linings? Is warming catastrophic? Sure, if you live on Venus. But Venus is a greenhouse gone made because it’s so close to the sun, not because Venusians are drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups.
The truth is that a warmer earth is a friendlier earth. According to “scientists,” or at least those engaged in studying the history of climate change:
By 5000 to 3000 BC average global temperatures reached their maximum level during the Holocene and were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today. Climatologists call this period the Climatic Optimum. During the Climatic Optimum, many of the Earth’s great ancient civilizations began and flourished. In Africa, the Nile River had three times its present volume, indicating a much larger tropical region.
Hmmmm. Let’s see… So an earth 1 to 2 degrees C warmer than it is today is called an “Optimum” by so-called climatologists. But according to Global Warmongers, an earth that warms will rain destruction on mankind and the various species which he (or she) shares with them. Can we at least wait until the earth reaches its Optimum before we regulate ourselves back to the Stone Age?
When environmentalists predict disaster, gird your loins and hold onto your wallet, because “environmentalism” is a penny-ante version of Liberation Theology (a.ka., Marxism). It is less science and more like religion. It has its holy days (Earth Day), its priesthood (scientists in search of grants) and its Apocalypse (climate change).
Like any religious cult, when they predict doomsday and it doesn’t happen they find an excuse and move on to the next doomsday prediction. In the past few decades we’ve had the Population Bomb (didn’t happen), the DDT scare (wasn’t true) and now Global Warming. But, of course, Global Warming is morphing into Climate Change, because how the hell can you argue against that? The climate changes all the time and always has! So there!
Richard Cowan, Reuters, and Poor Journalism
Apr 15th
Here at The Daily Plunge we’ve been diligent in posting about the horrendous coverage of climate change in the United States. There’s no other issue today where people are so hideously uninformed and where press bias is so prevalent. Take this article about the climate change bill in in the Senate by Richard Cowan at Reuters.
Despite vocal climate change skeptics in the United States, leading scientific groups have been hoping the United States, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, would take action.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Thursday the world’s combined land and ocean surface temperatures in March were the hottest on record.
Who defines “leading scientific groups?” Are they the ones who manipulate data or hide the decline? Richard Cowan has written a lot of articles about climate change and not one article about Climategate. What about the increasing ice in the Arctic? The cold winter in the northern hemisphere? Am I supposed to be concerned that March is supposedly the warmest on record? What about the medieval warming period? How does cap and trade reduce temperatures? Do we want to reduce temperatures? What is the optimal temperature? Are people stupid? I think we know the answer to that question.
Theater of the Absurd: Climate Change and Skiing
Apr 7th
Arapahoe Basin, a ski area west of Denver, is holding its second annual Save Our Snow Spectacular, the announcement of which, ironically enough, came the same morning you couldn’t get there because of all the snow in the Colorado high country.
The Little Ice Age was great for skiing, but not so great if you were a European farmer.
While the concept of the event is admirable, which is basically to raise awareness about conserving and protecting our natural resources, some of the event’s supporting organizations hold extreme views that bear scrutiny.
The main beneficiary of the event, the High Country Conservation Center, claims that climate change debate is irrelevant. In other words, if you disagree with the so-called scientific “consensus” shut up! This philosophy flies in the face of the scientific method, essentially stifling scientific inquiry.
While the High Country Conservation Center may claim consensus, there is none, unless you call consensus “everyone who agrees with us.” For more on this attitude among climate-change/global warming true believers and how the numbers are skewed to cause a false alarm about warming, go to the Watts Up With That? blog’s section on Climategate.
Yesterday, the University of California at Santa Barbara released the global climate change findings of one of its geologists: “[UCSB geologist Lorraine Lisiecki] concludes that the pattern of climate change over the past million years likely involves complicated interactions between different parts of the climate system, as well as three different orbital systems. The first two orbital systems are the orbit’s eccentricity, and tilt. The third is ‘precession,’ or a change in the orientation of the rotation axis.”
So there is consensus that the earth’s climate changes; it has been for billions of years. The disparity in opinion is about its cause and relative severity. Some believe it’s a complicated interaction of events directly related to the earth’s orbit and the changing intensity of the sun. The sun, by the way, is a medium sized star which accounts for 99.86 percent of the solar system’s entire mass.
However, according to those who hold the human-caused view of climate change/global warming/global cooling or whatever it is based on current weather patterns, the sun is really a non-factor despite its ubiquitous presence here and its impact on the surrounding planets.
On the Climate Change page at its website, the High Country Conservation Center further states: “Even if you disagree with the consensus of the scientific community, there is something called the Precautionary Principle that dictates that action even without 100% certainty is prudent.”
One wonders if the High Country Conservation Center applies the Precautionary Principle equally to all matters of science, including climate change. The Precautionary Principle cuts both ways, and should not be used as an argument unless the person or organization making it is prepared to be 100 percent consistent in applying it.
Another participating group, called Protect Our Winters, goes a step further. It claims that climate change can be reversed! If climate change were reversed wouldn’t that also be climate change? If we had the power to set the earth’s thermostat, so to speak, who gets to decide what the ideal climate is? The ski areas? The beach resorts? Icelanders? At what point in history do we hit reset button? 1980? 1985? 1654? 5 million B.C.?
The fact is that if one were able to create the ideal climate in North America (whatever that is), it would affect the climate negatively somewhere else. The system itself is far too complicated to simply “reverse” it and revel in the successful reversal without having to apologize to someone in Asia or Europe about the extra cold weather they can now expect. Thanks for nothing, those who know what’s best for everyone else in the world!
Protect Our Winters also advocates on behalf of the climate policy bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives, but was stalled in the Senate. Most Americans are opposed to the bill, also known as Cap and Trade or Cap and Tax to its more vocal opponents, because it regulates individual consumption and will force energy costs through the roof in favor of inefficient and unproven alternative energy sources.
Most fair-minded people are in favor of conservation and want to protect the environment as much as possible. What irks them is the intervention of a massive centralized and uncaring bureaucracy that is increasingly infringing on their individual liberties while funneling a greater portion of their income into pointless programs and governmental agencies.
Ironically, while the ski resorts support such groups, the policies pursued by those groups will ensure that fewer people have the discretionary income available to ski as they pay more for energy and the ski resorts jack up prices to pay for their increased costs. But that’s how it works in socialist societies; the gap between the haves and have-nots increases until all that’s left is a rich and powerful minority.
For more information, please peruse a history book. I also recommend Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom or any of the writings by America’s founders, including The Constitution of the United States of America and The Federalist Papers.
The Great Global Warming Swindle
Feb 15th
I have to admit, watching the great “Global Warming consensus” retreat has given me a great deal of satisfaction. When it comes to the theory of man-caused Global Warming I have never been a blind ideologue. There are many environmental issues that I think are much more important than this frenzied paranoia about climate change.
Thomas Malthus was wrong about population trends, but he is proof that being an alarmist never grows old. In fact, all the cool people are still afraid of over population.
Many of the issues I’ve had with temperature data over the past 20 years or so has to do with how temperature is measured in the first place. Due to urban heat the temperature in cities is often much warmer than the surrounding countryside. Anthony Watts has covered this issue effectively for years, but his observations have always been shot down with the blood curdling screams of consensus. Or should I say “liberal condescension.” This is groupthink on a massive scale. The world has witnessed people like Al Gore fly around the world and receive standing ovations, Oscars, and a Nobel Peace prize for a fraud.
My guess is there will never be an Oscar given out on a documentary that discusses the great Global Warming swindle. The alarmists on the left will act like none of this ever happened, just like the Population Bomb and Silent Spring. In fact the theory will go on; it will never die. “Scientists” will reinforce the theory and cast aside the fraud. There’s too much money at stake. Climate Change is a billion-dollar research industry. Like William Wallace in Braveheart, researchers will cry, “You may take our lives, but they’ll never take our research dollars!”
The New Climate Change Strategy: Contradiction and Confusion!
Feb 14th
Back in the good old days, the sun was the primary culprit of Climate Change and our ancestors adapted by migrating to warmer, more hospitable areas.
In the not-so-distant past (defined here as three months or so ago), every time the weather changed Climate Change-ocrats and Global Warm Mongers (a.k.a., True Believers) would remind us that these were the signs of the coming climate apocalypse. Whether hurricane, tornado, blizzard, drought, or even drizzle, any deviation from San Diego-like weather was an I-told-you-so moment.
Now that the climate worm has turned, the tune has changed. With the earth in a cooling phase and much of the climate change “science” thoroughly debunked as pre-conceived political ideology, fear not! The True Believers are now here to remind us that “weather is not climate.”
In other words, an unusually cold winter does not indicate a cooling trend; it’s just the weather! Still, thanks to man-caused climate change or global warming or global cooling (wording dependent on the current trends) we can expect more severe snowstorms! Confusing? Contradictory? Sure it is, but confusion and contradiction are fuel for the progressive fire. It’s how progressives try to trick the average American into believing the unbelievable. It applies to any topic, from economics to sociology, but is most prevalent in the environmental movement.
Thus, while any change in the climate is sure to bring catastrophe, it is also acknowledged that regular climate change has been part of the earth’s natural cycles for the past four billion years. Moreover, while progressives are hard-line Darwinian evolutionists, all adaptation to the environment has apparently come to a halt. Now, when the climate changes we will not migrate to higher ground or more temperate areas as our ancestors did. Instead we will stubbornly refuse to move, and drown… very slowly.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the True Believers are officially desperate. Pay special attention to the messages being disseminated by the True Believers, namely that “weather is not climate” yet “weather is climate.” The more contradictory their messages become, the more fun it will be to watch.
Global Warming: Now With More Snow
Feb 10th
The sheer audacity of the media on the left is hilarious. No matter what happens with the weather alarmists are going to blame it on man-made climate change. This was evident during the “global cooling” balloon during the 1970s. When things started warming up everyone jumped on the global warming train. Now that the world’s climate is taking a colder turn alarmists are left scrambling. Here’s where Time magazine comes in…
Brace yourselves now — this may be a case of politicians twisting the facts. There is some evidence that climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm. As the meteorologist Jeff Masters points out in his excellent blog at Weather Underground, the two major storms that hit Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., this winter — in December and during the first weekend of February — are already among the 10 heaviest snowfalls those cities have ever recorded. The chance of that happening in the same winter is incredibly unlikely.
No, this is a case where liberal journalists are “twisting the facts.” It gets annoying pointing out all inaccuracies. The world hasn’t “continued to warm.” The Earth has gotten slightly cooler over the last decade. Time reporter Bryan Walsh doesn’t know this, though, because he’s an ill-informed “journalist” who works for Time. The real story here is buried in the last paragraph.
Weather is what will happen next weekend; climate is what will happen over the next decades and centuries. And while our ability to predict the former has become reasonably reliable, scientists are still a long way from being able to make accurate projections about the future of the global climate. Of course, that doesn’t help you much when you’re trying to locate your car under a foot of powder.
Huh? If scientists are still “a long way from being able to make accurate projects about the future of the global climate” why all the alarm? No alarmists predictions have come true. The Arctic isn’t close to disappearing, sea levels are normal, and hurricane activity is down. What exactly are we supposed to be worried about again? A crowd of brain-dead intellectuals may sit around a fire and complain that more isn’t being done about global warming, but that doesn’t make it so. It’s just another example of how supposedly intelligent people can be utterly disconnected from reality.
cnn’s definition of experts
Dec 15th
When I read the CNN headline: “Experts clash at CNN/YouTube climate change debate,” it caught my attention. This sound awesome! I love a good debate. Unfortunately, the headline is misleading. It was obvious when I saw the list of “experts.”
The panel included Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, U.S. journalist and author Thomas L. Friedman, Bjorn Lomborg, author of the “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” Hollywood actress and environmental activist Daryl Hannah and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
None of these people are experts on atmospheric sciences. The panel has two U.N. bureaucrats, an overrated New York Times columnist, an economist, and Daryl Hannah. That’s right! Daryl Hannah is now considered an expert. Was it the time spent on the set of Splash? If she’s an expert on climate change, I’m the king of Montenegro. Simply taking an interest in a topic automatically makes one an expert these days. I guess I’m an expert as well. Thanks CNN for reaffirming my cynicism.
where is the unprecedented warming?
Dec 12th
Here is a great video that sums up the current “climate crisis.” There is no crisis, nor is there is an alarming or unprecedented warming. It’s puzzling that people believe in this unproven theory with such fanatic devotion.
