Mar 03 2008

Global Warming Snake Oil Ain’t Selling

Published by at 7:55 pm under All General Discussions,Global Warming

Some interesting poll results show the alarmists who claim global warming is a man-made phenomena are not convincing the American people. In fact, the more Americans learn about the issue the less likely they are to believe the clap trap:

If only the masses could understand the science of global warming, they’d be alarmed, right? Wrong, according to the surprising results of a survey of Americans published in the journal Risk Analysis by researchers at Texas A&M University.

After asking a national sample of more than 1,000 Americans how much they knew about global warming and how they felt about it, the researchers report that respondents who are better-informed about global warming “both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.” Another unexpected result: “Respondents who showed a great deal of confidence that scientists understand global warming and climate change showed significantly less concern for the risks of global warming than did those who have lower trust in scientists.”

The confusion comes from those who bought the snake oil lock, stock and barrel and they cannot fathom why well educated and informed people don’t buy their schtick. Well, from someone who has a science degree and years of working in the space community I can tell you why I don’t buy the BS – it has never been scientifically proven. And all the predictions made by the global warming fanatics have never once – not once – come to pass.

And then there is the real science, which shows a global cooling trend, which is also baffling those who pray at the altar of the Church of Gore-Scientology:

The world has seen some extraordinary winter conditions in both hemispheres over the past year: snow in Johannesburg last June and in Baghdad in January, Arctic sea ice returning with a vengeance after a record retreat last summer, paralyzing blizzards in China, and a sharp drop in the globe’s average temperature.

It is no wonder that some scientists, opinion writers, political operatives and other people who challenge warnings about dangerous human-caused global warming have jumped on this as a teachable moment.

This is laughable. Every time there is a storm, or not a storm, or just what the rest of us call ‘weather’ some place the Gore-atics run around claiming it is Global Warming and “The Sky Is Falling”! But note the admission in this piece which is all about denial:

So what is happening?

According to a host of climate experts, including some who question the extent and risks of global warming, it is mostly good old-fashioned weather, along with a cold kick from the tropical Pacific Ocean, which is in its La Niña phase for a few more months, a year after it was in the opposite warm El Niño pattern.

If anything else is afoot — like some cooling related to sunspot cycles or slow shifts in ocean and atmospheric patterns that can influence temperatures — an array of scientists who have staked out differing positions on the overall threat from global warming agree that there is no way to pinpoint whether such a new force is at work.

That is because these scientists are not reactionary idiots. They believe in analysis that produce solid, repeatable theories as the basis of determining the nuances that make up the forces of nature. What this recognizes is a few instances of ‘weather’ don’t a fact make – paying attention Dr. Gore? I know you did not need this kind of understanding when you invented the internet. Inventing scientific fact is much harder than inventing technology.

Michael E. Schlesinger, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said that any focus on the last few months or years as evidence undermining the established theory that accumulating greenhouse gases are making the world warmer was, at best, a waste of time and, at worst, a harmful distraction.

Emphasis mine. To the casual reader this sentence may not seem all that important. But to scientists and the like it is quite telling. Schlesinger is admitting that the data from the last few years (when the warming stopped and seemed to reverse ever so slightly) has gone in the opposite direction as the dire predictions of the man-made global warming crowd had anticipated. In fact, the warming must start accelerating damn fast if there is any chance even the mildest predictions cast by the Gore-atics have any chance of coming to fruition.

I noted last year that the pressure put on the Global Warming fanatics to finally produce some real results (which means make some predictions on climate tied to C02 levels) did one good thing – they made predictions which we could evaluate and hold the accountable to:

UP to 300,000 Australians on average may annually be exposed to the dengue virus by 2020, and between 600,000 and 1.4 million by 2050, according to climate change predictions finalised yesterday by global scientists.

… So next year Australia should see around 1221 deaths next year, and 1327 deaths the next year and 1433 the next. We will know in 3 years if ANY of these predictions are accurate.

Not given the winter we are having. We can do this on all their predictions – because not one of them since they started their Chicken Little Dance in the late 1980’s has ever once come true. In fact, let me bring back this little reminder from a year ago – the classic “never mind, there was no warming in Antarctica”

A new report on climate over the world’s southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.

Note this folks – the models were wrong over an entire 100 year span

It also follows a similar finding from last summer by the same research group that showed no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.

What is this? There has been NO change in precipitation in the last 50 years? But what about all the new C02 (which settles equally everywhere in the atmosphere)?

“The best we can say right now is that the climate models are somewhat inconsistent with the evidence that we have for the last 50 years from continental Antarctica .

The models have been inconsistent across the globe. And these people wonder why no one is buying their snake oil?

6 responses so far

6 Responses to “Global Warming Snake Oil Ain’t Selling”

  1. crosspatch says:

    Well it certainly has been chilly in Tibet:

    Severe snow disasters have left 1.65 million people snowblind and frostbitten, 500,000 livestock and wildlife dead and 3.1 million others on verge of starvation in Tibetan prefectures of northwestern Qinghai Province. Since October last year, consecutive low temperature had gripped the province. The temperature plunged to minus 36.3 degrees centigrade, the record lowest in January in the province, said the provincial meteorological bureau.

  2. RobinSolana says:

    Very cold in Afghanistan too, my friends say.
    A lot of livestock have been lost. This is mostly a
    country of farmers after all.
    Now would be a good time to get a little humanitarian aid
    heading that direction.
    Remember our friends there in the ANA and police are
    fighting and dying along side us in the battle with the Taliban
    and Al Qaeda.

  3. Neo says:

    I’d like to see the explanation as to just how the La Niña phase or the El Niño pattern cause colder than usual winters in Tibet and Afghanistan. These weak explanations might have some validity in regard to American (both North and South), but are a real stretch when applied to the southern Asian subcontinent. It must be one hell of a La Niña to get the first ever recorded snow in Baghdad.

  4. Terrye says:

    I know what you are saying AJ, but John Howard lost in Australia because of this. A lot of people absolutely believe it and those people are not just marginal nut jobs. It is in the schools, the political debate. I watched one of Obama’s video ads and environmental concerns like global warming are right up there with the war.

    Are people willing to make personal sacrifices because of it? Probably not, but they expect government to come up with a plan to cut carbon emissions.

  5. Terrye says:

    Neo:

    They would just tell you that the bizarre weather patterns are part of a planet’s climate out of kilter or that anecdotal evidence is not relevant.

  6. MerlinOS2 says:

    I would have to go back and find where I read it, but after the attention some of the degraded temperature monitoring stations got about 6 months ago, has resulted in a lot of those stations being brought back into spec by short moves to nearby suitable locations and putting the proper paint type on to reflect heat in the manner the standard put forth and such.

    If this happens in enough places some of the data charts will show a degree or more drops on the charts and another fudge factor will have to be adjusted to compensate the total calculations.