Despite the best efforts of progressives who want to use global warming to control human consumption and the media that supports these efforts, it seems Mother Nature is not following their script.
Some examples:
- In California, we are having the worst cold snap in decades.
- An analysis of temperatures in Alaksa show that the state seems to be returning to an Ice Age, with the average temperature declining 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 10 years.
- China is experiencing its coldest winter in thirty years, and its “climate change” has noticeably chilled its economy.
I have long been a skeptic of the science behind “climate change”, and have reported on the distortions and false assumptions that form key elements of the man-made global warming assertions.
Today, I am delighted to report that even non-scientists are beginning to question the premise that humans are impacting the climate. Holman W. Jenkins Jr. is a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal and writes editorials and the weekly Business World column. His latest Wall Street Journal article touches upon some of the climate science data inanity:
Our ‘Hottest Year’ and Al Gore’s Epic Failure
Said the New York Times climate blog, in an assertion that was echoed throughout the media: “The temperature differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree, but 2012 blew away the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit.”
Really? If that were true, then hair-on-fire news should have been the fact that 2012 was 2.13 degrees hotter than 2011. That’s a far more dramatic change, and in a single year.
Nor was it mentioned that 2008, in the contiguous U.S., was two degrees cooler than 2006. Or that 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 were all cooler than 1998 by a larger margin than 2012 was hotter than 1998.
Are you getting the picture? None of this was mentioned because it makes a mockery of using trends in the Lower 48 as a proxy for global warming, the misguided intent that permeated media coverage of the NOAA revelation.
He makes a most fascinating comparison to gun control advocacy as well:
But climate change and gun control have one thing in common. Their advocates are more interested in asserting their moral superiority and denouncing their “enemies” than in making progress, which explains why there has been no progress.
Then, Jenkins ties it together with the “Carbon Tax” concept promoted by Al Gore to reduce carbon dioxide emissions:
Their idea, known as the “double dividend,” proposed a carbon tax to change energy-use patterns while the proceeds would be used to reduce taxes on labor and capital and encourage economic growth… Yet advocates of a carbon tax are all but invisible in the debate. Mr. Gore and his allies wore out their welcome with their exaggerations, their self-righteousness, and their perfectly foolish insistence (like the gun controllers) that a plurality of voters could be morally bullied into giving up their self-interest if chastised long and loudly enough by Mr. Gore.
As more and more people are living the weather and looking at the numbers, fewer and fewer are buying into “climate change” panic that will freeze the economic engines driving our economy, prosperity and liberties.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Yeh…well, it has been shown that NASA cooked their own books.
Hardly remarkable, when you consider that the point man for NASA is a complete FREAKING witch-doctor who has likened Canadian oil to heroin.
Frankly, I bet LOTS of places in the world would KILL for some actual “warming”…
Right now I would for some warming where I am. Uninsulated brick building that sweats when it warms. No persistent heat except for a NZ bed warmer pad. No lasting heat except for a Midea rileng unit which blows cold air during the shut off process.
These guys are quacks,to a man. IMO, with Gore, it was all about screwing things up for Dubya and making money. It was always about the Communist Democrat agenda of power and control.
Actually, the scientists who are doing their job predict a mini ice age. Didn’t the global warmists predict that the UK would no longer get snow and then they were inundated with it? Where are they getting their information? Oh, that’s right, they’re making it up.
I think that climate change is undeniable.
But… The “human caused” angle is bogus at best. And the pro-warmists have been caught time after time manipulating the numbers to suit their agenda which consists of nothing more than a grab for money, power and control.
The next time that anyone preaches the merits of global warming, ask them why are adjacent planets like Jupitor, Mars, etc. also warming?
The alarmists point to their models and when you consider that models utilized by meteorologists every day for short term forecasting are often less than accurate, how can you expect any rational being to accept the alarmists’ long term model prognosis?
Besides, when one considers the role of the sun influencing climate trends, how could mere mortals alter *that* course? Try emptying out the Gulf of Mexico with a few buckets??
But, we can always blame Bush, right?
One of the very few truths about global climate that actual observation reveals is that it WILL change, because it HAS changed.
Long before man. Since man. And even since the Industrial Revolution.
As a guy who likes to think on a global level (i.e., not in the weeds), I have often asked why the immense release of CO2 from volcanic activity produces no clearly linked “change” in global temperatures?
Nobody seems to like that question…
Ragspierre: As a guy who likes to think on a global level (i.e., not in the weeds), I have often asked why the immense release of CO2 from volcanic activity produces no clearly linked “change” in global temperatures?
Volcanoes emit far less CO2 than humans. However, volcanoes also emit sulfate aerosols, which can have a significant cooling effect. Major eruptions can used to estimate climate sensitivity, by the way.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php
See also Wigley et al., Effect of climate sensitivity on the response to volcanic forcing, Journal of Geophysical Research 2005.
“While sulfur dioxide released in contemporary volcanic eruptions has occasionally caused detectable global cooling of the lower atmosphere, the carbon dioxide released in contemporary volcanic eruptions has never caused detectable global warming of the atmosphere. This is probably because the amounts of carbon dioxide released in contemporary volcanism have not been of sufficient magnitude to produce detectable global warming.”
Call me unimpressed…
Ragspierre: Call me unimpressed…
Not sure your personal incredulity represents much of an argument.
Gerlach, Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide, EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 2011: “Which emits more carbon dioxide (CO2): Earth’s volcanoes or human activities? Research findings indicate unequivocally that the answer to this frequently asked question is human activities.”
Our original citation to the United States Geological Survey should have had sufficient authority. However, we have provided you a journal review paper containing relevant citations to the scientific literature.
You seem to have a very definite bias here…you and your mouse.
Now you’re arguing against a proposition I never suggested (i.e., CO2 from volcanic activity exceeds that from human activity).
Nor have you offered any damn thing that speaks to my original question.
Save your time and typing. I find you typical of the AGW coreligionists.
Ragspierre: Nor have you offered any damn thing that speaks to my original question.
Sure we have. This is your original comment.
Ragspierre: As a guy who likes to think on a global level (i.e., not in the weeds), I have often asked why the immense release of CO2 from volcanic activity produces no clearly linked “change” in global temperatures?
Because present-day volcanic outgassings of CO2, being less than 1% of anthropogenic emissions, are negligible in terms of climate forcing.
I have begun to notice a creeping onset of bitterness and anger among the Twitter Second Amendment Infringers unlike their projected certainty of moral superiority in the days following the shooting in Newtown, CT.
That’s what happens to fact-less screamers when they start to realize they are outnumbered and “outfacted” day after day and as they watch Piers Morgan likewise lurch and flutter about like a great white goose caught in snare.
The arrogance of man to believe that a dynamic system like climate should become static, with a “normal” baseline based upon the coincidental snapshot in time he started to measure it.
I’m more afraid of what will happen by Y2.016K with the “One” in charge.
And, when they finally give up on climate what’s next to pop up in the progressive assault meme magazine? Man make tectonic plate movement?
Come on, VotingFemale !!! Where have you been !!??
If you stopped being a crazy teabagger for just one minute, and took the time to listen to your esteemed Democratic representative, you’d know that …
… we have a huge problem on our hands with capsizing islands !!!
Ocean acidification. Remember, it has to be carbon related. Building on the success of vilifying nuclear processes, carbon is the basis for a new phobia.
for fun we can all go Guam tipping.
sort of like cow tipping (look it up you citified folks) but done with Hank Johnson.
1. A few years ago I tried to educate myself about the controversy but suspended my efforts: there is a lot more to it than I’d anticipated. If I resume my efforts, hanging out at Judy Curry’s site will be a good way to start. My gut feeling is that we don’t understand enough to draw a confident conclusion either way, but it’s no more than a gut feeling.
2. Reality does not care about our political squabbles. Just because many climate alarmists are charlatans does not mean there is not a problem.
3. That said, I’ll put my priority on economic growth. If humanity is rational in this century (yeah right), growth will take billions of people out of poverty and fund the climate engineering to alleviate a problem if there is one.
4. It goes without saying that I favor expanded research. What to do about the doctrinaire axe-grinders in the field is an issue beyond my pay grade.
Read Bjorn Lomborg.
Your choice of words held my attention.
You might have said Bjorn Lomborg’s work explores these trade-offs or asked Have you read Bjorn Lomborg?, but no.
There are big reasons why conservatives lose winnable elections, and there are small reasons that accumulate. Just sayin’.
It is strange that gs criticizes the correctly constructed sentence, “Read Bjorn Lomborg” then weakly ends that criticism with the incomplete slang phrase, “Just sayin’.”
Complete communication is certainly important but “just sayin'” means nothing to me. What point is being made?
California’s loss is our gain. Here in Western Carolina, the overnight low temperature was 60F and it hit 70F this afternoon. Time to plant a garden!
Israel too is having the coldest winter in decades. The Sea of Galilee is filling up at an astonishing rate and the country had its first serious snowstorm in 20 years (which link the good Professor kindly retweeted, for which many thanks.:-) )
Why is it global warming/climate change seems to have only dire consequences, and never any changes that are beneficial?
It would seem to me that if the climate scientists are not just agenda driven; they would explore, and report on, the possible benefits of global warming/climate change. There’s gotta be some small change that’s good.
Stop asking sensible questions, doncherknow!
I’m just looking for sensible answers, doncherknow!
The man-made aspect of the climate change (which is real) is a fallacy fed more by politics than science as everyone claims. Always, and I mean always, be highly doubtful if not cynical of a cabal of scientists who shun eons old scientific practices. Science has forever been fed by skeptics. The fundamental mechanism to overcome that skepticism is debate and defense of results. When you see ‘scientists’ refuse, be certain you are witnessing the actions of politicians masquerading as scientists. And when they hunker down to defend themselves with purely immature name-calling tactics, they prove themselves to be at a point of sheer desperation.
Sadly, however, our tax dollars are still funding those politicians, treating them as scientists, as well as funding one of their political goals of redistribution. It may not be at the levels they want, but it is still non-trivial and in the billions.
Concerning the “Carbon Tax”:
Watch out for Obama’s desire for “Fundamental Tax Reform”!
A “Carbon Tax” would be a utopian totalitarian’s dream come true. The tax would be completely hidden from the ultimate taxpayer, levied on any given item by an unelected panel, and adjusted on the whim of the authorities, either as reward or punishment.
I started a new job a few months ago so I’m just getting to know my co-workers. My boss made a comment the other day that in passing that he believes in global warming. That in itself was not surprising, but what struck me was the non-qualified admission as though it were a badge of honor or a way of signaling that he is hip to the way things really are.
Its just frustrating to see this otherwise intelligent individual come to accept the pro-AGW position as true. Now, I know that I can hit him with the facts (got plenty of them), but I know that this will have to be done with care and patience as it will contradict everything he is exposed to in the media.
It’s just amazing to me to think how the pro-AGW folks have spun this falsehood and permeated as Rush would say, the low information voter mind. There are so many people, organizations, groups from news, to academics, to entertainment involved spinning the same line. Its almost as though there is some sort of orchestrated effort out there…
The true measure of a scientist is the admission that the more one studies a subject, the more he realizes how little he understands about the subject. Few Anthropogenic Global Warming scientists (believers) fall into this category.
“Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.”
– Michel De Montaigne-
“… the more one studies a subject, the more he realizes how little he understands about the subject.”
As a former engineer, not a scientist, that’s kind of the story of my entire life right there.
For top notch information on the global warming hoax, I highly recommend Anthony Watts’ website: Watts Up With That?.
I, for one, would welcome global warming, at least for the time when my kids are little and we are spending hours and hours outside.
There is strong scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change. One line of evidence is the warming surface and lower atmosphere, while the upper stratosphere cools, a signature of greenhouse warming.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/globalwarming/ar4-fig-3-17.gif
The differing methods used to guage weather have been tainted by attempts to create temperatures where there are no stations or recording equipment.
Every last “man made” (AGW) argument relies upon this and other ‘forcing’ methods to derive their fictions.
http://www.SurfaceStations.org is a good site showing not one, but three problems.
1) Improper Placement
An astonishing 92% are incorrectly placed and therefore report the temperature to be at least 1 degrees farenheit higher than it actually is.
2) Biased Coverage
Notice the gaps on the maps please.
3) Temperatures
If you check well placed sites exclusively and their temp. patterns you will see no significant changes.
This is due to normal variability. I say significant because a degree is not significant. But if you believe it is then so be it… Surface Stations shows beyond a reasonable doubt that we are .4 degrees BELOW the median temperatures since we have been accurately recording temperatures and that this has been so for about 12 years now.
In fact various scientists have proven AGW to be false including the famous CRU. While the suns direct heat has effects to play it is the magnetic sphere of the sun which affects us far more directly.
If you seem misguided still Zachriel I shall go into full detail for you.
CREinstein: http://www.SurfaceStations.org is a good site showing not one, but three problems.
You linked the entire website. To which paper are you referring? Watts et al., An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends? Has it been published? The prepublication paper had some problems.
[…] of CO2 , offered nothing to connect humans with climate, and offered no way to fix whatever is supposedly happening. Present levels of US CO2 weren’t cited in the report though it’s well known that […]