Cold truths about the Northeast's harsh winter
By Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post -- Friday, February 19, 2010:
We're the nation that put a man on the moon, so we can't be stupid. We're just pretending, right? We're not really taking seriously the "argument" that the big snowstorms that have hit the Northeast in recent weeks constitute evidence -- or even proof -- that climate change is some kind of hoax.
That would be unbelievably dumb. Yet there are elected officials in Washington who apparently believe such nonsense. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) had his family build an igloo near the Capitol and label it "Al Gore's New Home." Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) boasted on Twitter that the snows would continue "until Al Gore cries uncle." Talking heads are seriously debating whether the record snowstorms doom the prospects for comprehensive legislation to deal with energy policy and climate change, which is one of President Obama's top priorities.
It is true that Washington is slogging through its snowiest winter on record. Before I could bring in the newspaper on Thursday morning, I had to dress for a mountain-climbing expedition because my front yard resembles a small glacier. My commute to the office normally takes 20 minutes; it took more than an hour, as I fought my way through streets whose outside lanes have been encroached by huge snowbanks.
But that was nothing compared with Tuesday morning, when I awoke to find that a snowplow had blocked my car into the driveway with a two-foot berm of ice. I had an early appointment, so I had to shovel my way out -- before coffee. I'm afraid that the first thing my neighbors heard that morning was some unneighborly language.
Still, even this unpleasant experience didn't make me crazy enough to entertain the notion that a snowstorm or two -- in a city where it snows every year -- could somehow disprove all the scientific evidence for climate change.
Nor did it even cross my mind that our Snowmageddon, inconvenient though it might be, could meaningfully alter the political debate over climate legislation. That would be idiotic. As comedian Stephen Colbert pointed out, it would be like looking outside at night, seeing the darkness and concluding that "the sun has been destroyed."
As even Sens. Inhofe and DeMint surely are aware, the Earth is really, really big. (And it's not flat. It's shaped like a ball. Honest.) It's so big that it can be cold here and warm elsewhere -- and this is the key concept -- at the same time. Even if it were unusually cold throughout the continental United States, that still represents less than 2 percent of the Earth's surface.
Those who want to use our harsh winter to "disprove" the theory that the planet's atmosphere is warming should realize that anecdotal evidence always cuts both ways. Before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, crews were using earth-movers and aircraft to deposit snow on the ski runs -- the winter had been unusually warm. Preliminary data from climate scientists indicate that January, in terms of global temperatures, was actually hotter than usual. Revelers participating in Rio de Janeiro's annual carnival, which ended Tuesday, sweltered in atypical heat, with temperatures above 100 degrees. Fortunately, the custom during carnival is not to wear much in the way of clothing.
It has been a bad few months, to say the least, for those brave enough to still call themselves "climate scientists." First, some e-mails were unearthed that showed some leading researchers to be petty, vindictive and perhaps willing to ignore data that didn't fit their theories. Then it was learned that an official U.N. document on climate change overstated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are believed to be melting. As other examples of sloppiness or imprecision emerged, the winter turned harsh. Critics piled on, sensing that the moment had arrived to kill any serious global effort to address humanity's impact on the temperature of the biosphere.
But here's what those bad few months can't change: After decades of study, scientists around the world have reached the conclusion that the Earth is warming and that humankind is responsible. The past decade was the warmest on record. Among the anticipated effects of climate change are increased precipitation -- not just rain, but also snow -- and bigger storms. What we've seen this winter tends to prove, not disprove, the scientific consensus that warming is real.
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7 comments:
No one is saying that the snow storms alone have given proof of the hoax. It is the hacked in emails, the top govt scientist that has admitted to the BBC that there has been no warming since 1995:
"The director of the research unit, professor Phil Jones, was regarded as an archbishop in the Church of Global Warming. He was pressured to resign in the wake of the scandal. Now he has conceded to an interviewer from the BBC that based on the evidence in his findings, the globe might have been warmer in medieval times. If so, the notion that fluctuations in earthly temperatures are man-made is rendered just that, a man-made notion." Washington Times 2/16/10
It goes on to say:
"This was good enough in the early years of the scam, but not any longer. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and once a ranking member of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says the temperature records have been compromised and cannot be relied on. The findings of weather stations that collected temperature data were distorted by location. Several were located near air-conditioning units and on waste-treatment plants; one was next to a waste incinerator. Still another was built at Rome's international airport and catches the hot exhaust of taxiing jetliners."
THAT'S WHY THERE IS A PROBLEM. THAT IS WHY THE UK IS ANGRY. (UK= Europe. Therefor you MUST believe it)
I refuse to debate a hoax. The leading scientist who shouted from the rooftops about global warming has had to come clean.
His proof is a fraud.
Ex. He used 1 (ONE) students report that the glaciers are melting.
Many more useless data was used. Just google it.
He can't even produce data because he says he destroyed?!?!?!
WTF? Why would he do that unless the data was incredibly ridiculous.
He now says that there has been no change in the last 15 years.
Brown Nosers will say that we need to use this false data anyway and do Cap and Trade. (Cap and Tax)
Brown Nosers will also turn this around and somehow blame it on cons, religion, Palin, Bush, etc.
The only people they won't blame are the global warming scientists that have used false data.
Right HOTR. Sorry CJP but this one was too easy. The global warming thing is falling apart and Gore is nowhere to be found.
What??? You guys were unaware of this news? Better change your news sources---you are missing the important stuff.
More laughs!
Several large corporations have now pulled out of the Climate Change Group in light of the latest climate change information.
"Cash for Caulkers" is costing the tax payer an average of $30,000 per household. (another failure) Yet Obama is still pushing Cap & Trade (a failure in Spain and Portugal)and pushing "green jobs" (whatever that is---no one knows for sure)
THIS is why people are angry.
I am happy. I hate those stupid curly lightbulbs that you can't throw away because of the mercury content!
This is one time I agree with you CJP Climate Change is Real and we made it worse. But the carbon credit thing won't work to late in the game to small of a change. We need to learn to grow crops in subarctic and desert areas maybe large underground green houses lit with fiber optic systems. Weather is going to get rough and we need to be ready with science and good old fashion inventiveness. Lets just stop the poison factories and tell them they can't make their goods till they can do it safely. Vehicles can run on hydrogen, the only difference is the engine only goes up to 80mph and steam comes out the tailpipe. The conversion cost 13,000 and the vehicle will run on gas or hydrogen. Hydrogen can be made from solar or windmill power and water.
everything you said is right, so lets ignore the fact that the temperature hasnt risen one degree in the past 15 years, the snow this year is representitive of how it has always snowed in years past! the polar ice caps have gotten smaller in the past and then gotten larger! we have more trees now than 100 years ago, we have less pollution now than in the 70s when weather was normal, were seeing recognized scientific journals retracting global warming theories that were published over the past few years due to bad information and scientific study. so your right lets not ruin this for Al Gore, lets face it the man has nothing else going for him!
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