More proof of Global Warming

I put this sort of logic in the same category as "If people came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys" - a simplification that is legion in its misunderstanding. When you have people who don't understand science, but do have a pre-existing commitment to an ideology that science contradicts, you get oversimplification of ideas that relies on the ignorance of their audience coupled with its desire to persist in their committed beliefs.

Global warming does not lead to lack of cold spells, it leads to weather extremes that still average out to slightly warmer temperatures across the globe, with warming more pronounced in some places than others. And, of course, global warming can ul;timaely lead to global cooling by shutting down the NAO. I live in Nebraska and we are going to be -10 tonight. Of course, the week I moved here it was over 100 every day for a week and absurdly humid. I remember sitting on my porch one night this summer when the temperature was 99 at 7pm and the dewpoint was a Florida-like 77! When I was home for Christmas in Atlanta, it was in the upper 60's for several days. No one weather event has anything to do with the fact that the glob is warming (why else would all that ice be melting at the poles?)

The bottom line is that people who don't believe in global warming don't want to believe it because they have a pre-existing ideology (extreme free market capitalism and anti-regulation) that must be preserved at all costs. No evidence would be sufficient to convince them because they aren't really concerned about the issue, but merely the effects it might have on their ideological commitments.

Why do people always post this kind of tripe? Are you really a global warming advocate posing as an anti-global warming person just to make them look retarded?

Local temperatures aren't what is important, as there will always be fluctuations that cause abnormally high or low temperatures for short periods of time. That's why the term 'climate change' is used, because the problem lies more in larger and longer term changes with the climate as a whole, not the weather for the past 10 days in Minnesota.

There are legitimate points of debate on the issue, but citing local, short term weather conditions isn't one of them.

you're going to have a harder time selling people on the idea of a warming climate when they're freezing their tails off than when they're basking in a semi-tropical January somewhere in the north. This will be even more true if the "fluctuations" don't really seem like fluctuations.

Winters in the Upper Midwest have always been really cold so if this winter is again bitter a lot of people are going to think that nothing has changed.

A record cold winter day doesn't disprove global warming any more than a record warm summer day proves its existence.

/EOT

Excerpt of This Morning’s Exchange between Senator Inhofe and CNN newsman Miles O’Brien:

INHOFE: I heard your piece [CNN’s March 2006 Global Warming Special called ‘Melting Point’] on that, and you did a very excellent piece. You scared a lot of people when you did your special.

INHOFE: And I wonder also, Miles, it wasn't long ago -- you've got to keep everyone hysterical all the time. You were the one that said another ice age is coming just 12 years ago.

O'BRIEN: I said that? I didn't say that.

INHOFE: You didn't say that. Let me quote you...

O'BRIEN: No, no, no. I'd be willing to tell you there are stories like that. But there's not...

(CROSSTALK)

INHOFE: ... quote you so I'll be accurate. I don't want to be inaccurate.

O'BRIEN: All right, go ahead.

INHOFE: You said, in talking about a shift that was coming -- you said, "If the Gulf Stream were to shift again, the British Isles could be engulfed in polar ice and Europe's climate could become frigid. [From CNN Transcript titled Scientists Research the Rapidity of the Ice Age dated December 19, 1992.]" That's another scary story.

O'BRIEN: But that also is a potential outgrowth of global warming when you talk about the ocean currents being arrested. This is "The Day After Tomorrow" scenario that we're talking about.

How are the polar ice caps doing this winter? Are they shrinking more, are they shrinking less?

I want some easy polar ice cap updates.

Brian wrote:

The bottom line is that people who don't believe in global warming don't want to believe it because they have a pre-existing ideology (extreme free market capitalism and anti-regulation) that must be preserved at all costs. No evidence would be sufficient to convince them because they aren't really concerned about the issue, but merely the effects it might have on their ideological commitments.

No, the bottom line is that MOST people who "believe" in global warming have absolutely zero idea what they are talking about. You can find "scientific" evidence for both sides of the argument, and reputable scientists have argued against global warming, or against the fact that anything we do now can make anything better in the long term.

but go back to your CNN how-to-be-green special and learn about all the new green products you can buy. didn't mean to disturb you in all of your righteousness.

nameless wrote:

How are the polar ice caps doing this winter? Are they shrinking more, are they shrinking less?

I want some easy polar ice cap updates.

Well, I don't know about polar ice caps, but here's a story about sea ice entitled "Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979"

Distribution is important. Maybe you only have 2 beers a week when averaged out over the whole year. No big deal. But you didn't evenly space them throughout the year. Instead, you drank them all on 4th of July weekend, fell down, and broke your leg. Have a great season!

Two degrees Farenheit doesn't sound like a lot to the average lummox (like the OP). Except when it's the two degrees that separates 31 degF from 33 degF. That means earlier snow melts and precipitation falling as rain instead of snow. Water distribution and temperature is a lot more important than air temperature for both the global system and our human fraction of it.

Even if the mean global temperature didn't change, any flattening of the current distribution would create serious problems. All our infrastructure and biological systems are based on a 10% event happening 10% of the time, not 12% of the time.

Global warming denialists on the internet can be broken down into:

20% "free-thinkers" who "feel" like they know more than the authorities on any issue, like the horrors of vaccines.

30% cretins who truly believe anything Glenn Beck or Mike Savage tells them because the librul meedya hates freedom and human civilization (especially white men)

50% trolls

Trolls, I don't have a problem with...

Ditto- you're dumb.

Listen people, you need to stop calling it "Global Warming". Didn't any of you get the Al Gore memo that says, "We now have to call it Climate Change because of all this cold weather over the last few years." Come on folks, get with it. Its no longer global warming, its called climate change. FYI- Chicago expects record cold this weekend. Minnesota and Wisconsin will have the coldest winters in a long time. And the eastern part of Ohio expects its worse winter in years.

The bottom line is that the temperature of earth has changed over the last 100,000 years. Its called "WEATHER". Sometimes we have cold spells, and sometimes we have warm spells. Thanks to the universities and this lack of common sense society we live in today. We are taught to go against common sense and to believe these nut jobs like Al Gore. So, for the last time people,its called weather! Its called weather! Sometimes hot, sometimes cold. Wake up and use your noggin.

You're category 2, aren't you?

What watershed do you live in? Where does your drinking water come from?

Ditto, you forgot to assign a percentage to authorities who deny global warming.

Regarding the "horros of vaccines" analogy - how can you blame people for not trusting an FDA and medical community that is so heavily influenced by various lobbyists? It's not that the "free-thinkers" "feel" that they know more than the authorities, they simply mistrust them, and rightfully so!

Bunz Zero wrote:

Ditto, you forgot to assign a percentage to authorities who deny global warming.

Regarding the "horros of vaccines" analogy - how can you blame people for not trusting an FDA and medical community that is so heavily influenced by various lobbyists? It's not that the "free-thinkers" "feel" that they know more than the authorities, they simply mistrust them, and rightfully so!

Also, there is a lot of money in global warming. Green companies, electric vehicles, solar panels, wind farms would all love the world to believe that the polar ice caps will be completely gone in 100 years. Many grants to scientists who can "prove" it exists.

I don't believe anyone knows for certain either way, and particularly whether humans have any significant influence. Many scientists were calling for the next Ice Age 30 years ago. Weather experts have also called for abnormally high number of hurricanes to hit the US over the last 3 years, which turned out to be wrong.

Interestingly, I recall earlier this past year, many here scoffing at the prediction made by the Old Farmer's Almanac - which predicted a bitter cold winter for the midwest. Look what we have now, a bitter cold winter. Additionally, much of the prediction made by the Old Farmer's Almanac is based on sunspot number / solar maxima and minima - which according to climatologists is all just bunk. Meanwhile, we continue to see places like Seattle get hammered with snow, rare snow in London, and the deepest snow in years in Madrid. Last year there was snow in Saudi Arabia, debilitating snow in China and snow near 200% of the 30 year average in some parts of Colorado. At some point all of these local "anecdotes" add up to a global pattern.

How about people who believe in the scientific method?

Brian wrote:

The bottom line is that people who don't believe in global warming don't want to believe it because they have a pre-existing ideology (extreme free market capitalism and anti-regulation) that must be preserved at all costs.

I guess I can be considered a global warming denialist. I don't think it is some grand money-making conspiracy. I do think it plays into the averages person's fear of things they can't control, and green hysteria is humanity's response to their lack of control.

Looking at the climate data I have seen, I don't think we truly know what is happening. I've watched An Inconveniant Truth, a couple of similar shows on the other side of the dabate, and read SciAm on a regular basis if you're curious of my sources. I'm not a talk radio person, and I'm also not a dailykos nutjob either.

The temperature variations over the long term observable history matched up reasonably well with CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The temperature record matched up very well with observed solar activity (over a shorter term, obviously). Both sides have arguments that make sense when you take it in their context. They're looking at the same data and reaching the opposite conclusions.

Basically, this global warming thing is a massive exercise in human ego stroking. We're all so sure that we are so powerful that we can change the face of a planet we barely understand, but at the same time we're sure that we can fix it as well. I say both are false.

We should try to live a more sustainable existance, but we don't have to punish ourselves for our success. Penance only works when you know you have done wrong. Until you can prove that humans are guilty of poisoning the planet and not just string a slideshow together, don't compel me to pay to "fix" it just so that you feel better. At the same time, don't tell me that pollution and industrialization has no effect on the environment. Why not try to cut down on it if we can?

I am a "denier" ... funny how that term was picked up, such that people who have a different scientific view and opinion are thrown into the same lot as Holocaust "deniers" - this was no mistake.

That aside, I think that it is important that we not pollute the planet, and if you ask around, there are far worse things to worry about than C02 ... take mercury for example.

I would call these "anecdotes of local cooling".