The Hottest Ever: News on the Global Warming Front
Last October was the hottest October in recorded climate history, according to a recent report by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which is headed by Dr. James Hansen. The GISS has also gone on record with the suggestion that 1998 was the hottest year in recorded climatological history, though they predict it won't hold that distinction for much longer.
 | | James Hansen: seeking to control the world |
Hansen was the man who put the recent global warming awareness into full swing when he appeared before a congressional committee (chaired by the one and only Al Gore) back in 1988. He is the man who first publicly introduced the "hockey stick," a graph that dramatically displays a startling correlation between global surface temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions. Hansen is such an avid proponent of doing whatever it takes to slow down the release of carbon dioxide into the air, he testified in defense of six Greenpeace advocates who allegedly caused 30,000 pounds worth of damage to a power station in Kent in 2007, on the grounds that the damage caused to the Earth by the power plant would far exceed any damage done by the defendants (who were later acquitted) [1]. Just a few months ago, he told Congress that the CEOs of fossil fuel companies--whom he equates to the CEOs of cigarette companies and blames for spreading disinformation about climate change to the public--should "be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature" [2].
If everything Hansen contends is true, we should be doing all we possibly can to stop the emission of carbon dioxide, and we should prosecute those who deny the facts and continue to bring us closer to oblivion. We should probably ignore all forms of dissent and skepticism, because those evil corporate geniuses must be behind every single bit of it. They're probably laughing their fat, carbon-emitting asses off every time they convince some sucker that the global warming scare is nothing but overblown paranoia.
 | | Now that green is in, NBC Universal wants you to know they care |
No doubt they're happy that NBC Universal, in the middle of their "Green Week" (you may have noticed the green logos on some of your television channels), fired the entire staff of The Weather Channel's environmental program "Forcast Earth" and immediately halted production of any more episodes [3]. No doubt they're partying over the news that President-elect Obama's presidential automobile is reportedly a non-hybrid limousine that gets less than ten miles to the gallon [4]. No doubt they're thrilled when they read that scientists at Cornell found unexpectedly large quantities of black carbon in Australian soils, which flies in the face of global warming predictions [5]. No doubt they've paid off all those guys at MIT, who recently recorded an almost instantaneous rise in methane levels throughout the entire world, something that may reveal that an increase in greenhouse gas emissions may have more to do with mother nature than with General Motors [6].
But most of all, they're probably busy, right now, sending the finest strippers money can buy to the homes of all those bloggers who have successfully discreditted the good Dr. Hansen's claims. For example, Mr. Stephen McIntyre, author of Climate Audit, with the help of Canadian economist Mr. Ross McKitrick, is famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) for finding large discrepancies and inaccuracies in Hansen's "hockey stick" graph (Hansen didn't actually create the graph; he just uses it all the time), leading to the popular opinion that the data are irreperably faulty, though the graph still has its ardent defenders [7].
 | | For most of the world, it was actually a snowy October |
Another blogger, Anthony Watts, author of Watt's Up With That, helped McIntyre demonstrate that Hansen's recent assertion (that last October was the hottest one on record) is patently false. In fact, last October saw some of the most unseasonable cold in recent memory, with Tibet suffering terrible snowstorms, the NOAA recording 115 lowest-ever temperature readings, and more. Apparently, the scientists over at the GISS mistook September's data for October's, and NASA has subsequently put out a public apology for the faulty report (though the GISS is quick to put blame on poor funding and inadequate quality control, something that should be a little alarming to those who trust the GISS figures--like, say, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) [8].
Indeed, the notion that 1998 was the hottest year on record is also a spurious claim. Again it was a blog by McIntyre that got people looking into it, and--lo and behold--when the numbers are properly adjusted, it turns out 1934 was the hottest year in the last century [9]. And, moreover, there hasn't been any--at all--demonstrable average temperature changes in the last decade.
 | | The truth is so obvious! |
And yet, the global warming scare is in full force, with a record number of everyday people citing it as a major threat. World leaders, though, are getting more and more absurd in their allegations about it. With the U.N. telling us to eat less meat to combat the coming apocalypse [10] and the House Majority Whip telling us that global warming is doing more damage to black people than white people [11], you have to wonder, at what point is it okay to be skeptical about the data? According to Hansen, it'll never be okay.
In my opinion, this has become a politicized circus, and the science has gotten lost in the mix. I'm even willing to admit that I have probably let confirmation bias and political thought intrude into my investigation of anthropogenic global warming, but few people out there would be willing to make the same admission. It's those people who scare me--the ones who try to tell us that the debate is over, that no sane person could question the truth, that there is a "scientific consensus" (whatever that is), and that any skepticism is the result of a conspiracy on either side. The scientific investigation is far from over, but the advocates are doing all they can to enact laws that dictate how we all should live, on the false notion that the conclusions are undeniable. This, more than any graph, disturbs me.
If corporate CEOs are really behind it all, spewing misinformation at every turn, how can we be so sure that the government--any government--is trustworthy enough to protect us from them? Are you really ready to trust a politician who says, "Don't worry, I'm doing this for the good of the world"?
Now, to those CEOs, I have one question: when can I expect my stripper?
-e. magill, 11/24/2008
|
|
