Thursday, December 17, 2009

Stupidest, most ignorant headline of the day (global warming edition)


From Bloomberg:


This sort of misleading reporting, with an implication that global warming isn't real because of freakish weather, drives me crazy.

Let's get this straight: Climate is not the same thing as weather. A blizzard in Copenhagen, however strange or, here, ironic, doesn't say anything about the global climate, or about rising global temperatures.

Besides, as I have put it here before (e.g., here and here), global warming, which is indisputable (the facts are the facts), melts sea ice. When sea ice melts, the seas rise, and there are potentially dramatic changes to the earth's hydrologic cycle, including to the so-called Ocean Conveyor, which regulates the Gulf Stream, the flow of warm water up into the North Atlantic. If the Conveyor slows down significantly as a result of more and more fresh water coming down from the north (melted sea ice), temperatures would cool significantly in Europe and elsewhere in the region, and, more dramatically, much of the Northern Hemisphere could be plunged back into another ice age. (Researchers have already discovered remarkable changes in oceanic salinity levels.)

In other words, global warming could lead to cooling in places like Denmark.

That's not too hard to understand, is it? Well, it clearly is to the fucking morons who write headlines like this, not to mention to the global warming denialists who continue to live with their heads firmly up their asses and, with some of them, to lie about the most pressing crisis of our time.

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7 Comments:

  • That's an excellent explanation. It really is. But you're missing the elephant in the living room, which is that the dispute is NOT over the EXISTENCE of global warming or climate change or whatever we want to call it. The dispute is over the CAUSE, and you damned will know it. If the leftists convince people that it's predominantly due to man-made circumstances, than it justifies their massive taxation and resdistribution of welath proposals, which is absolutely unnecessary. As a good Nihilist, I say it's all just an infintessimal speck of time, so enjoy it while it lasts.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:59 AM  

  • So even if it isn't caused by man-made emissions, you don't want to stop it or try to control it? That's like saying just because all of lung cancer isn't caused by smoking, why try to cure it?

    By Blogger Mustang Bobby, at 1:07 PM  

  • You don't get it, do you? The basic proposals are to CEASE or REDUCE the man-made things that allegedly cause global warming. But if it's not man-made, then ceasing or reducing those things will be of absolutely no affect. Unless, of course, you have a solution for solar cycles, which I imagine you do not.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:18 PM  

  • Oh, okay. You know everything.

    By Blogger Mustang Bobby, at 5:20 PM  

  • No, I most certainly do not know everything, nor apparently does Algore.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:35 PM  

  • That fits: the fewer the facts, the firmer the opinions - and apparently the more snarky the ad hominems.

    Of course, I may have missed the part where you gave us your credentials in any pertinent scientific or mathematical field or any other reason that your opinion is worthy of consideration or your hauteur is justified.

    The "redistribution of wealth" of course is a giveaway of your real driving motivation, isn't it? Of course, by motivation, I mean delusion. Switching to cleaner energy sources is more likely to create wealth than diminish it and is no more likely to sink us than the huge investment in the building of the National Highway system in the 50's or the building of hydroelectric dams in the 30's or the space program in the 60's.

    By Blogger Capt. Fogg, at 10:53 AM  

  • The climate is a very complex system with many feedback mechanisms so I am not sure it is possible to determine the cause of any changes in the climate. It could be that there are factors that we are not aware of that are playing a role.

    Climate change seems to get a lot of attention in the media and distracts attention away from much more fundamental problems with the system we live in. For example the destruction of habitat, our isolation from nature, the quality of our food and our dependence on money. It is my view that keeping attention on the debateable such as climate change prevents people focussing on the real issues. A sandboxing effect.

    By Anonymous Weather and Climate, at 6:17 AM  

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