For those too young to remember (such as Jim Hansen’s coal protesters in Washington this past week), Clara Peller, pictured above, started a national catchphrase with “Where’s the beef?” that even made it into the 1984 presidential campaign. Today, the Boston Globe asks: where’s the global warming?
Watch the original commercial that started the catchphrase. It seems applicable today. – Anthony
JEFF JACOBY
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | March 8, 2009
SUPPOSE the climate landscape in recent weeks looked something like this:
Half the country was experiencing its mildest winter in years, with no sign of snow in many Northern states. Most of the Great Lakes were ice-free. Not a single Canadian province had had a white Christmas. There was a new study discussing a mysterious surge in global temperatures – a warming trend more intense than computer models had predicted. Other scientists admitted that, because of a bug in satellite sensors, they had been vastly overestimating the extent of Arctic sea ice.
If all that were happening on the climate-change front, do you think you’d be hearing about it on the news? Seeing it on Page 1 of your daily paper? Would politicians be exclaiming that global warming was even more of a crisis than they’d thought? Would environmentalists be skewering global-warming “deniers” for clinging to their skepticism despite the growing case against it?
No doubt.
But it isn’t such hints of a planetary warming trend that have been piling up in profusion lately. Just the opposite.
The United States has shivered through an unusually severe winter, with snow falling in such unlikely destinations as New Orleans, Las Vegas, Alabama, and Georgia. On Dec. 25, every Canadian province woke up to a white Christmas, something that hadn’t happened in 37 years. Earlier this year, Europe was gripped by such a killing cold wave that trains were shut down in the French Riviera and chimpanzees in the Rome Zoo had to be plied with hot tea. Last week, satellite data showed three of the Great Lakes – Erie, Superior, and Huron – almost completely frozen over. In Washington, D.C., what was supposed to be a massive rally against global warming was upstaged by the heaviest snowfall of the season, which paralyzed the capital.
Meanwhile, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has acknowledged that due to a satellite sensor malfunction, it had been underestimating the extent of Arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles – an area the size of Spain. In a new study, University of Wisconsin researchers Kyle Swanson and Anastasios Tsonis conclude that global warming could be going into a decades-long remission. The current global cooling “is nothing like anything we’ve seen since 1950,” Swanson told Discovery News. Yes, global cooling: 2008 was the coolest year of the past decade – global temperatures have not exceeded the record high measured in 1998, notwithstanding the carbon-dioxide that human beings continue to pump into the atmosphere.
None of this proves conclusively that a period of planetary cooling is irrevocably underway, or that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are not the main driver of global temperatures, or that concerns about a hotter world are overblown. Individual weather episodes, it always bears repeating, are not the same as broad climate trends.
But considering how much attention would have been lavished on a comparable run of hot weather or on a warming trend that was plainly accelerating, shouldn’t the recent cold phenomena and the absence of any global warming during the past 10 years be getting a little more notice? Isn’t it possible that the most apocalyptic voices of global-warming alarmism might not be the only ones worth listening to?
There is no shame in conceding that science still has a long way to go before it fully understands the immense complexity of the Earth’s ever-changing climate(s). It would be shameful not to concede it. The climate models on which so much global-warming alarmism rests “do not begin to describe the real world that we live in,” says Freeman Dyson, the eminent physicist and futurist. “The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand.”
But for many people, the science of climate change is not nearly as important as the religion of climate change. When Al Gore insisted yet again at a conference last Thursday that there can be no debate about global warming, he was speaking not with the authority of a man of science, but with the closed-minded dogmatism of a religious zealot. Dogma and zealotry have their virtues, no doubt. But if we want to understand where global warming has gone, those aren’t the tools we need.
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com.
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AlanG (01:38:44) wrote: “I’ve changed my name because there are one too many Alans here.”
Noted, AlanG. Necessary at times to avoid confusion abounding…
Charles Moore is writing about finance, but it has a broad message that crosses boundaries:
“Although some of Chancellor’s work is technical, it benefits from a historian’s understanding of what people have done in reality rather than a narrower economist’s obsession with ‘modelling’. It has strong elements of common sense. By that same common sense, though obviously with much less information, the man in the street also predicted the credit crunch.”
The Spectator, UK
(You may have to search for the full Charles Moore column; but this link has the quote.)
Rasmin: NS is known here in Cambridge as the “local stupid”, I peruse it regularly for a laugh. ScA lost me as a reader long ago when the tone turned patronising.
Sunspot 12 was actually very interesting if you look at the magnetogrammes. The Southern pair is accompanied by a mirrored but less pronounced Northern pair at the same distance from the equator, suggesting to me a causal connection. I wonder if that has been seen before and if so, or not, what the magnetohydrodynamics folk make of that.
Welcome to the Darkside Jeffy boy. And for me the question is “where’s the science?”.
I’m someone who sees global warming rhetoric as highly similar to that of the apocalyptic milieu of my fundamentalist Christian upbringing, but the anti-global warming celebration going on in the comments here is equally close minded. It’s always a bonus to understand what your adversaries actually are believing and saying (but that’s tough, because sometimes you actually have to change your mind when all is said and done).
The most common way of talking about such issues these days is not in terms of warming, but “climate change.” The models of what might happen actually predict that some parts of the world will grow colder and some will grow hotter over time. Of course, Canada and the Great Lakes region is one of the areas that most models show as growing warmer, while Europe will supposedly get much colder. However, most ‘climate change’ models also predict a great deal of instability in the interim. Now, of course, media should be reporting on all phenomenon related to these issues, especially big possible counter facts as reported here. But I was actually directed to this story by someone whose opening lines made me think (wrongly) that he was citing Lake Superior freezing over more frequently than usual as evidence of ‘climate change.’ The opening paragraph:
***
Lake Superior last froze over in 2003. It has now, again, frozen over. The frequency of freeze overs has historically been around once every 20 years. Now, in the last decade, we have seen two freeze overs.
***
In other words, hold the champagne on your “the party’s over” party. Much of the evidence you are celebrating fits well within the overall story line of climate change.
A quick second comment, because I forgot to check the box which will allow me to receive follow-up comments in my email box.
This is not a question of science. It is about gaining control, total control.
Manfred: “I think the BBC will end up to be the last follower of the AGW agenda.”
That’s not far off from the truth, I think. They have pretty much thrown in their lot with AGW, so they won’t change overnight. I think they may well start to downplay AGW at some point though, replace it mainly with stories about ocean acidification, deforestation, animal extinctions etc. That way they will start to create some distance from Global Warming, although they might not ever admit to doing so. We may start to see small unannounced changes on the BBC News website, like the gradual disappearance of AGW-related articles in their “Green Room” section.
No sign of this so far, though. I note from their Arctic Diary feature that Pen Hadow’s team “has a dramatic night on melting Arctic ice.” Melting already? In early March? Naughty BBC.
Prince Charles: 100 months to save the world,
Flash Gordon : 18 hours to save the world.
Sorry, couldn`t resist it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/4952918/Prince-Charles-we-have-100-months-to-save-the-world.html
Personally I’m not having any such party at the moment, but here is where I take issue with AGW: everything “fits well within the overall story line of climate change.” When will we ever know it is time to party, when the climate stops changing? I think that’s a few billion too many years for me to go without a bit of celebration. What I’m hoping for is that stagnating or even cooling temperatures will cause public pressure on the science to come up with something which can be either verified or falsified within a reasonable portion of a human lifespan so that we can just move on with our lives in whichever direction is supported by actual facts rather than vague speculation. Sadly, at the rate we’re going it will be too late by then and we’ll all be saddled with outrageous taxes which of course will never, ever be repealed no matter what discoveries are made.
@roger Carr,
Charles Moore’s excellent piece was printed in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. Another quote caught my attention:
“But it is surely a function of leadership to question a theory more strongly the greater the consensus about it. It is proverbial that when every taxi driver advises you to buy a certain stock, you know it is oversold. The same herd stupidity infects elites. It is when the powerful all agree that they are least likely to be thinking straight.”
This is spot on. The term “herd stupidity” is particularly appropriate. I wonder if it ever occurred to Charles Moore that his comments apply so perfectly to AGW?
Chris
March 7, 2009
Obama invites Ban Ki-moon to Whitehouse to discuss “new world climate change pact” http://www.newsmax.com/us/un_un_obama/2009/03/06/189374.html
“President Barack Obama has invited U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the White House next week, the first meeting between the two since Obama took office, Washington’s U.N. envoy said on Friday. …
Ban is particularly hoping for close cooperation in U.N.-led efforts to negotiate a new world climate change pact at talks in Copenhagen in December.
Obama, who took office in January, has signaled a new urgency in tackling climate change. Bush refused to ratify the existing Kyoto Protocol, saying it would put the United States at an economic disadvantage.” “Obama Invites U.N. Chief to White House”
Repeats the nonsense about Bush “refusing” to ratify Kyoto, when only the Senate can do so and it rejected Kyoto 95-0.
See http://green-agenda.com for the real agenda of the UN, Obama and George Soros (who helped the Democratic Party to win the elections).
Blasphemy!
Stone him!
The only viable force in opposition of the AGW doctrine and the Green Agenda (http://green-agenda.com) at a political level is President Vaclav Klaus.
He understands what is about to happen.
http://www.euportal.cz/Articles/4200-president-klaus-is-environmentalism-a-bigger-threat-to-humanity-than-global-warming-.aspx
March 7, 2009
Vaclav Klaus in Santa Barbara
“For me, one of the main symptoms of un-reason in our era and of our returning [to] before the Age of Enlightenment is the current global warming debate and the futile ambitions to control climate. In its arrogance and immodesty, it reminds me of many unrealistic and [to] all of us damaging and hurting plans and projects the communist propaganda kept supplying us with all the time. My answer to the question in the title of this session “Is environmentalism a bigger threat to humanity than global warming?” is clear and straightforward: Environmentalism is a much bigger threat and what is endangered is freedom and prosperity, not climate. Climate is OK. This is also expressed in the subtitle of my book devoted to this topic, published two years ago.
I have spent years studying this issue, which is only a new variant of the many times discredited and disproved Neomalthusian pessimistic and interventionistic environmentalist doctrine. This ideology, if not religion, should not be confused with scientific climatology in spite of the fact that it uses, or better to say, misuses some of its terms, concepts, hypotheses. Structurally, they belong to two, totally different fields. One is science, the other is politics.” “President Klaus: Is Environmentalism a Bigger Threat to Humanity than Global Warming?”
Much of the evidence you are celebrating fits well within the overall story line of climate change.
Climate change?
The climate has always ….. changed.
Story line is about right.
Way to go — use natural within bounds variability in the weather to make absurd claims about the climate — soooooo typical of you flat earthers.
I guess it’s time for a flip. As Russia and the Czech Republic drop Socialism and the warm fuzzy science of AGW, both of these ideologies have moved to the USA. Our one-party system has become the shining beacon of hope for Socialists and Communists of the entire world.
Too bad that we have forgotten our Constitution. Too bad our two-party system has become the one-party, Demo-Republican Socialist Coalition. Is it too late for the Constitution? Is it too late for America?
Dough. I am working on a theory of Global Cooling, actually a hypothesis, based on the magnetic activity of the Sun as driver of the climate. As this is a complex field the term Global Cooling doesn’t really catch all aspects of it, so using the term “climate change” may be more appropriate. And indeed, this theory predicts that some areas may not get colder after all and even warmer instead. But also in my hypothesis Europe will get colder winters than we have enjoyed for some time now.
There is, however, one problem I am struggling with a hypothesis that predicts both warming and cooling: how does that gel with the First law of Thermodynamics. Or have I won the Nobel Prize (for Physics, that is, not Peace) for demonstrating that the First Law does not apply to the climate?
And how do I distinguish your hypothesis from mine?
So let’s try and make a prediction: if the Earth is cooling indeed than I predict that within the next 5 years, Lake Superior will freeze again, whereas you suggest that we will have to wait at least 2 decades?
Tenney Naumer (05:23:44) :
“Way to go — use natural within bounds variability in the weather to make absurd claims about the climate — soooooo typical of you flat earthers.”
Hurricanes, floods, droughts, heatwaves, icestorms… all natural events, all within variability, all weather and all used to make absurd claims about the new scary climate of AGW. Give me a break.
At this rate I’ll have to keep going south to keep warm, just like we still have apes don’t we? Of course I haven’t been as far south as the jungles. I prefer to speak in English whenever possible.
If AGW is such an serious and urgent problem why not spend all of the money collected under cap and trade to reduce co2 emission and get it over with? Recent bill plans to spend over half on a new welfare program to offset cost of cap and trade (minus government bureaucracy “handling charge”).
Adjust cap and trade down, give all the money to the problem, and let existing welfare programs take care of people who can’t pay their energy bills.
Novoburgo made a sobering point with his indication that once the US firmly feels the energy and other crunches now being set into motion by your new administration, the legislation will already be firmly in place, and then it will effectively be too late to unring the bell. For a long time I envied you first world people. But Africa is starting to feel so much better. We travelled on a family holiday not long ago, and commented on how glorious it was to view our beautiful country, unmarred as it is by the presence of any intrusive and practically useless wind generators.
Geoff A
Another apologist for illegal activities in the name of AGW “prevention”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/08/activism-climate-change
What makes any of you think that in 2012 you are going to be able to throw the looters out of Washington when the electorate comes to their senses? The name of the game in Washington is to buy the votes of 51% of the electorate using your money. The only way to fight the looters is to withhold your sanction and your wealth from their control.
Over at NASA, Dr. Hathaway has again slipped Solar Maximum by another 3 months and no one but the readers of a few forums are going to care that we are now in Solar Cycle 24 prediction freefall as I indicated in this updated post at SC24.
Re: Dr. Hathaway Moves the SC24 Goalpost Again
http://solarcycle24com.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=350&page=6#13121
At this point the only thing which can stop the new state religion is a full Maunder Minimum, which is far from certain, and even then the true believers will ignore such an event. The old state religions were not stopped by facts and the new state religion will not be stopped by them either.
Mike
I’m with you Tenney – CET average 1719 to1778 9.21
CET average 1959 to 2007 9.56
Increase over 230 years .35C -Calamatous!
Please don’t mock the flat earth society. Increased levels of Co2 are forecast to “PEP” things up for us! The science for this is unassailable. Burp!