I seldom highlight stories like this, because I am more interested in the science than the propoganda of climate issues, but I just couldn’t resist this story. Via Tom Nelson, from Belleville News Democrat:
Speakers at the public forum also addressed how global warming may directly affect metro-east residents, citing this summer’s flooding and unusually cool weather, and future impact on agriculture.
"These are symptoms of global warming," said Kathy Andria, who represented the American Bottoms Conservancy at the forum.
Andria said she will help organize Belleville residents to work towards being a greener city and become designated by the Sierra Club as a Cool City.
So we want to fight global warming which is causing unusually cool weather. If we are succesful, then we will be labelled a Cool City so that we won’t have all this cool weather because we will have stopped warming.
Seriously, has there even been a more transparent "heads I win, tails you lose" argument than saying that unusually cool weather is evidence of global warming?
Personally, I don’t know why this should surprise anyone. I’m surprised it’s taken them this long to jump on the cooling bandwagon.
They took this argument right to the wall. Pretty impressive.
You called my attention to the 100 months until doom group below, I am starting to move away from the science in my blog because science is not the impetus behind the conclusions. I’m not sure it ever was.
I started this blog thinking I could contribute to the discussion as far as the Science but AGW has gone well past that now.
If you’re interested its here.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/only-99-months-until-the-end-of-the-world/
I lost the better part of a great afternoon giving myself a headache about the Guardian guys. You’d think I would learn.
Nah, if you look at this as the modern equivalent of (excuse me) burning witches, it makes perfect sense.
Global warming causes everything. Be it warmer, colder, drier, or wetter, its all global warming. And, its all the fault of homo sapiens. Its an unbeatable argument that proves you can have the cake and eat it too.
Global warming has moved out of the scientific realm (if it ever was there at all) and is now a socio-political, religious dogma. No matter what changes occur, they can claim that it is because of the enhanced greenhouse gas state that we have inflicted upon the planet. The sad part is that scientists are aiding and abetting the new religion. I too have tried to maintain a blog based on the science, but the science is no longer the lead issue.
I think you need to believe in the collective wisdom of the population as Lincoln did when he said you cannot fool all of the people all of the time, particularly when their personal interests are at stake. The lecture was attended by only 25 people after all and, as a scientist, I can assure you when you try to explain that a cold snowy winter is caused by anthropogenic global warming, the BS antennae rise real fast. Its no coincidence that when cap and trade came to the floor of the senate, it never moved beyond procedural maneuvers because the senate majority leader knew he would not get a simple majority, let alone a filibuster proof super-majority. I think a lot of people are way out on a limb with respect to CO2 induced global warming but if climate turns out to be driven by solar/ocean cycles and the earth continues to cool for the next 5 years, you can call it climate change, you can call it anthroprogenic global cooling or whatever but it will all sound like bull to your audience.
jnicklin writes:
“I too have tried to maintain a blog based on the science, but the science is no longer the lead issue.”
I never went into blogging much at all at my forum.I just post a lot of skeptical articles with the occasional blog thrown in.
I figure by exposing as much of the AGW bull as I can in this way.Will make it’s mark over time with people who tire of the never ending doomsday prophecies.
In Sydney, Australia they have just had their coldest August for 60 years. This is a sure sign of Global Warming according to WWF.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24275400-5005941,00.html
If everything observed points to AGW, then what occurrences would point to an improvement in the currently perceived situation? What could be observed by those who steadfastly believe that we are in a “doomsday mode” to make them say something like, “Hooray! Now that we have observed ___________, it appears that our efforts to stop AGW have succeeded and we are now marching towards AGSTS (Anthropogenic Global Staying the Same-ing).
Gee, what a surprise. AGW is now claiming cooler than normal temps are the result of Man…When did Man start controlling the Weather??? Does anyone here know?? If Man could, wouldn’t that be a better Weapon than Nukes? Think about it..Mother Nature controls the Weather so enjoy the ride….
Tom,
For the greens, good news is a bummer. If things get better, they have less to whine about and their cash flow will decrease. They have to keep the catastrophe alive and well to maintain their own self-worth.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/even-doubling-or-tripling-the-amount-of-co2-will-have-little-impact-on-temps/#more-2769
Please read thoroughly.
I thought you might find this interesting. Remember the Hockey Stick graph by Michael Mann that was so famously discredited and even removed from subsequent IPCC reports? Well, like a zombie in a horror movie, it is back yet again.
Here are a couple of links. One to EUReferendum and one to the New York tines. Watch and behold the Resurrection!
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/09/hockey-stick-lives-not.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/science/22cnd-climate.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Personally, those alarmists are just opportunists who like to use such stories for their agenda (may it be they work for newspapers who need scare stories, or for a company that profits from it, or they just generally like publicity).
However, scientifically speaking, it would be cool to actually be capable to terra-form weather!!! That’s a scientific leap I would like to see in my days 😀 Though there would be a lot of conflict about such a technology (do we want more rain (farmers) or do we want more sunshine (tourism)?)
However, aside from that issue, my dear mother has been to Paris lately and visited the Palais de Decouvertes, which is a prestigeous musée in Paris. They also had a section about Climate Change, but after looking at the exposition, my mom concluded that perhaps Global Warming wasn’t such a big deal and oh-so-deadly. And this comes from my mom, who was rather a fierce defender of it =) That really surprised me, and if I ever come to Paris again, I too will visit the museum. And from the looks of it, I can only encourage it, especially if you have kids, because there are a lot of live experiments in all kind of sciences =)
ErikTheRed,
Burning witches was an archaic process which was way to cruel and definitive. Drowning witches had been a huge improvment for witches lifes and in some senses is similar to modern head-I-win-tail-you-lose-climatology:
a suspected witch (mostly anybody with unconsensual haircut) was attached with a solid rope to a heavy rock and thrown into the river or pond, or whatever can drown. If she can loosen the rope and resurface, she’s been saved by God and hence is not a witch. If she’s drowned, the witch hunters were right and can go after the next target.
It may seem farcical but it is (mostly) authentic.
Anyone see the report that the Heathrow airport crash back in January may have been caused by environmental rules? Greenies (nearly) kill!