[Rhodes22-list] Global Warming - Who should be believed? (political)

[Rob Lowe]

It's pretty easy to cherry pick your facts to support any conclusion you
wish.  That's not science.  That's politics.  One could just as easily pick
facts that support the opposite conclusion. That's not science either.  The
facts stated in Deming's story don't support any type of conclusion.  To say
that his cherry picked facts somehow support or dismiss any hypothesis is
false science.  - rob

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael D. Weisner" <mweisner at ebsmed.com>
To: "Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 1:13 PM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Global Warming - Who should be believed?
(political)


> The following was published in the Washington Times and sent to me by an
educated individual who has been saying that "There really is no such thing
as global warming."  I bring this to "da list" for discussion, since R22
owners seem to be the most diverse and educated group around.  Surely, we
can support or refute this article (with real facts, please.)
>
> Mike
> s/v Shanghai'd Summer ('81)
> Nissequogue River, NY
>
>
> Article published Dec 19, 2007
> Year of global cooling
> December 19, 2007
>
> By David Deming - Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It
is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are
being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from
global warming, but from cold weather hazards.
>
> Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by
0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well
within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in
the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased
significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither
the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season
was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made
landfall in the U.S.
>
> South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades.
In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of
homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold
and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed,
livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of
emergency.
>
> Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007.
Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years.
Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the
city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather
since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were
endangered.
>
> Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a
devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown
out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the
freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue
a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr.
Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming
Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen.
Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.
>
> In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach
crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C.,
a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest
ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver
recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records
extend back to 1872.
>
> Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the
Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of
minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were
also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
>
> Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea,
the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham,
Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the
previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this
winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.
>
> Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice
storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric
power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense:
Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is
beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric
generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly
concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil
fuels don't seem so awful when you're in the cold and dark.
>
> If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're
hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true
believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained "global
warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter." In other
words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make
this stuff up.
>
> Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the
realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.
>
> David Deming is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the National
Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at
the University of Oklahoma.
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