Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:01 pm
An April 9th Associated Press story by Seth Borenstein recently caught my eye.
It was about some dramatic global warming figures just released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As the title, global warming suggests, we’re warming, especially in the U.S and relatively quickly. Temperatures were a highly concerning 8.6 degrees above normal for the month of March, 2012. Combined, the first three months of the year recorded temperatures 6 degrees higher than average.
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Meteorologists and Climate Scientists who are highly trained in this sort of thing are very concerned according to the article. Jerry Meehl, an extreme weather specialist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado said “Everybody has this uneasy feeling. This is weird. This is not good.”
Apparently several weather patterns, including La Nina, were the proximal cause of the premature temperature spikes. There was a rather odd statement by Climate Scientist, Jake Crouch from the NOAA’s National Climate Data Center. It’s difficult to determine if the first part of his sentence was his or an editorial insertion by Borenstein. Here’s how it read. While individual events can’t be blamed on global warming, Couch said this is like the extremes that are supposed to get more frequent because of man made climate change from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Like the extremes? They are the extremes. Maybe I’m the only one confused here because the vast majority of the world’s scientist are absolutely convinced of man’s contribution to the world’s global warming threat. I have no doubt man contributed to these extremes.
Here’s a somewhat typical survey from the University of Illinois in 2009. Some 3,146 scientists were asked two key questions. Have mean global temperatures risen compared to the pre-1800’s and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures? Over 90% of respondents said yes to question 1 and 82% answered in the affirmative to question 2. Most interesting, 94% of climatologists, who are arguably most expert in the field agreed that humans played a ‘significant’ role.
The only non-believers were petroleum geologist, only 47% of whom believed that man played a role in rising global temperatures. And their employers are???
A later survey by the National Academy of Sciences asked 1,372 of their number this rather cumbersome question, “are anthropogenic greenhouse gases responsible for most of the unequivocal warming of the Earth’s average global temperature in the second half of the 20th century? An overwhelming 97% of those questioned answered YES
These ‘smarter than us’ scientific types have no agenda. Those with a clear agenda like the petroleum “gotta hang on to my job because my mortgage payments are so damn high” geologists mentioned earlier, take a much different tack. Online Forbes magazine for instance reports that while 89% of meteorologist surveyed recently believe there is, indeed, global warming, only 59% believe man is the primary cause and a mere 30% have a worry in the world about it’s consequences.
Forbes also writes of The Heartland Institute, perhaps the single most anti-environment organization on the planet. Heartland insists that of those scientists attending it’s Annual International Conference on Climate Change, only a minority of those attendees believe human’s are causing global warming.
There are participants in some polls and surveys that seem to be without an agenda and give truly odd global warming answers. I’m talking about your fellow citizens who seem blissfully unaware of the upcoming global weather holocaust or are so politically brainwashed they can’t reach an objective conclusion no matter how obvious. A March Gallup poll revealed that since 2009, two-thirds of republicans say that global warming news is exaggerated; a miniscule 36% think global warming is caused mainly by human activities.
It’s amazing how emotional and hateful climate deniers can get when discussing global warming. They especially hate Al Gore. I mean they hate Al Gore. Going viral on the Internet is the supposed statement by Al Gore that there would be no more snow. This is a gross distortion of the actual statement by Gore in his acclaimed 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. At one point in the film he said, “Within a decade there will be no more Snows of Kilimanjaro.” It was largely meant to be symbolic of the fact that there was a pattern of fewer snowfalls in many parts of the world. In fact, at the time, Mount Kilimanjaro, itself had experienced declining snow for a couple of decades. It could have come from other Gore comments, but I think it’s probably the An Inconvenient Truth observation. Right-wingers went off on Gore. They sounded much like the hovering hyenas from Hemingway’s gripping short story named after the mountain. They want to feast on the remains of Gore’s reputation.
But facts never bother those who hate liberals. Here’s are three samplings from the anti-Al crowd: “Al Gore is truly delusional.” “Scary that this kook came to within a few hundred votes of being POTUS.” “This is a scam, one that’s paid off very handsomely for Al Bore. He’s trying to keep the scam alive.” And these are just the quotable ones. My favorite comment wasn’t even about Gore. It came from the Website of a Michelle Malkin groupie. It was quoting an anti-Gore Malkin column. It it’s comment section was the statement – “90% of scientists are stupid.”
In terms of global warming allow me to borrow that percentage and apply it to congressional climate deniers. In the midst of a heavy DC snowstorm, Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell asked, “Where’s Al Gore now?” He should seek the counsel of one of those ‘stupid’ scientist who would tell him that both lack of snow and very heavy snowstorms are a direct consequence of global warming. House Majority leader, John Boehner on the subject of pollution once observed that “the idea that Carbon Dioxide is a carcinogen that it is harmful to the environment is almost comical.”
It’s truly sad when an individual who creates the laws that regulate greenhouse gas emissions understands nothing about carbon dioxide which constitutes the overwhelming majority of these emissions leading to global warming and the potential destruction of earth.
Truly sad!
Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.
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