From Planet Gore: Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Energy Leader [Henry Payne]
from http://stabenow.senate.gov/
Detroit, Mich. — Michigan just experienced its coldest July on record; global temperatures haven’t risen in more than a decade; Great Lakes water levels have resumed their 30-year cyclical rise (contrary to a decade of media scare stories that they were drying up due to global warming), and polls show that climate change doesn’t even make a list of Michigan voters’ top-ten concerns.
Yet in an interview with the Detroit News Monday (a private meeting with the DN editorial board), Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) — recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee — made clear that fighting the climate crisis is her top priority.
“Climate change is very real,” she confessed as she embraced cap and trade’s massive tax increase on Michigan industry — at the same time claiming, against all the evidence, that it would not lead to an increase in manufacturing costs or energy prices. “Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes.”
And there are sea monsters in Lake Michigan. I can feel them when I’m boating.
Since Stabenow says Global warming causes more hurricanes and tornadoes, lets have a look at the data.
Graph from NWS/NOAA. Smaller (F1) tornadoes seem to be on the increase, but not larger ones.
Even though tornado reports seem to be on the rise, the larger damaging tornados, F2-F5 don’t seem to be. There are some good reasons for this, and it might be a good primer for readers to revisit this report I made about the issue of tornado reporting:
Increasing tornadoes or better information gathering?
On the issue of Hurricanes, even USA Today is beginning to have doubts:
excerpt:
The official start of the hurricane season is June 1. And not since 1992 — the year of Hurricane Andrew — has the Atlantic Ocean been silent past Aug. 4. Meteorologists have yet to name even a single tropical storm in the Atlantic in 2009.
So is global warming really doing anything?
“While it is commonly thought that global warming would increase hurricane activity, that is far from a settled issue,” said Rob Eisenson, a meteorologist at Western Connecticut State University. “There are some research studies that suggest global warming would not have that effect.”
NOAA has lowered their hurricane season forecast.
And Accumulated Cyclone Energy is quite low so far this year and lower than usual last year:
Ryan Maue of Florida State University writes in comments in a previous WUWT story:
Global (Northern Hemisphere) tropical cyclone ACE for the months May – June – July is the lowest in at least the past 30-years or more.
I, for one, am not surprised. Continued inactivity should persist for the next few weeks until the atmosphere catches up with the radiative warming of the tropical oceans due to the season called summer.
2007 was a dud. 2008 was saved from being a record year by 2007. 2009 is behind the pace of both years. Amazing how natural variability affects tropical cyclone formation, tracks, and intensity. Who would have thought?
Ryan’s Tropical web page at Florida State University has this graph that shows accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) :
click for larger imageSorted monthly data: Text File
Note where 2009 is in the scheme of things.
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Can you imagine the Town Hall meetings if they were to hold them with Cap N Trade as the question du jour?
Stupidity creates volatility. I feel it every time I hear a politician speak.
JimB
p.s. Carlton…love the nick.
Most citizens are not stupid and if they bother to listen to stuff pollies say they do so with a healthy amount of skepticism. I would be more concerned for the US’s immediate future if she came out with the statement “AGW is actually a gigantic scam – I ask people to stop believing in it now”.
It doesn’t take much intelligence to be a politician. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much intelligence to be a climate scientist either. Birds of a feather flock together.
Reason for the volatility:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/ClimateRegimeChangePoints.PNG
REPLY: Paul do you have a paper or essay to go with that plot? – Anthony
Maybe she is just dedicated to having Michigan be a leader in reducing emissions…by having every dirty manufacturing job that is left in the state leave. How ironic that she is framed above by people holding up signs saying “JOBS!” in the state that leads the nation in unemployment. I guess she sees an extra $2bn in cash-for-clunkers as enough of a diversion to keep her constituents from noticing the cap-and-trade knife that she is holding behind her back and will use to cut their collective throats. A fitting sacrifice to be laid on the Green Altar of Lord Obama.
This is just as nutty as politicians who pray that “God” will “show me a way, show me a way”. There are nuts on both sides of the color line. One side believes in a nice boogyman, the other believes in a not nice boogyman. I would love to design a new litmus test for politicians and appointed persons. I won’t say what it is here because it is sure to offend. But I think one day it will be necessary to finally divorce ourselves from religiosity of all kinds in order to defend our individual freedoms from an oppressive government.
Congress folk apparently spend a great deal of time and whatever brain-power they have raising money for the next election cycle. They have to taylor everything they say to match the wishes of those they seek contributions from. Large amounts of money are needed because campaigns are not cheap. The rewards include influence, power, and the potential to make great sums of money. Compare the wealth of Bill Clinton when he first ran for office and now. Or Al Gore – a little different because of being a senator’s son –back when, and now that he is an oracle and businessman.
Here is a relatively recent article on the subject:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/06/recently-reelected-senators-ge.html
If you think these folks are reading science, economics, and health care material – think again! Ask one about fund raising – this they know about.
” There are millions of more qualified potential Congresspersons in Michigan than Debbie “Rough Rider” Stabenow”
Jeeze you could pick a drunk off the street and do better.
Government is run by criminals. The TARP bill should be ample proof of that. The politicians took $700 billion from the taxpayers and gave it to the crooked bankers who caused our current financial mess. I was calling TARP the biggest theft in history but now I have to call it the second biggest theft in history. It seems the Federal Reserve has handed out over $1 trillion of our money to finacial institutions and won’t even tell us who they gave it to. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
And yet the crooks in government are fighting the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act S-604 (HR-1207) which would require an audit of the Fed by the GAO. Who are they serving; us or the big bankers?
Well we don’t feel that sort of thing down here in Dixie. I reckon it’s cause we’re clinging to our guns and assume it’s recoil. 🙂
MikeD,
This congress now has the “disillusioned” problem solved. There are no disillusioned; all the voters for this woman are getting fed monies now, The USA has been reduced to a corporatist state. Only the government supporters get government money; the rest have money taken away.
Sorry for the politics on this great web site. You are welcome to delete moderator.
[REPLY – I think you overstate things considerably, but I’ll allow it as it is short, and this is a somewhat political thread (and you’re far from the worst transgressor). But, people of all political persuasions, please do not go overboard. ~ Evan]
[snip – OTT]
With the sort of volatility she feels during flying, perhaps Ms. Stabenow just needs an upgrade on her broom. She might do better with the Nimbus 2001, or even the Firebolt. “Climate change is very real”. Duh. Who said it wasn’t?
Where do the political parties find morons like this and why do people vote for them?
Woody (17:01:46) : – butt-o-meter
great comment buddy!
Politicians, what we we do without them….
We may or may not get the government we deserve. We certainly get the government we’ve earned.
“Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying.”
If only the house hadn’t cancelled the new luxury jets — I understand they’re more comfortable during global warming volatility.
D’ya think flying gives her gas and she’s mistaking it for global warming? I mean, it’s possible…stranger things have happened.
From the article: “Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes.”
If ever she’s called out for making such a goofy statement, no doubt she’ll say she was misquoted as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to ruin her credibility.
“Yeah. That’s the ticket. I’m not really that brainless. It’s a vast right-wing conspiracy. That’s the ticket, yeah.”
Another person who should be immediately entered into the Witless Protection Program. Sigh…
Based on published IQ scores, most members of the house and senate are only moderately more intelligent than normal (definitely not brilliant). And, few are educated in science and engineering. Nothing to be ashamed of, but nothing special.
Most are intellectually unable to do more than parrot the “party line” when it comes to the serious problems of the day. And, most probably do not have the self confidence to accept a contrarian or “skeptical” fact on its own merits.
Based on recent events, even financial bookkeeping is a “stretch”. Long term, its the “financial cost” of AGW mitigation that will kill the AGW movement’s efforts to enact legislation — not the “science”.
Nonetheless, sites like this one provide some of the scientific information that supports the few true “intellectuals” in the House and Senate that “deny” AGW. By their efforts, the most onerous AGW legislation will be delayed until the “true costs” be come well enough known to kill the legislation. In my opinion, of course.
Off topic — I just read over at the Huffington Post, that a group called the Color of Change, is going after advertisers on the Glenn Beck program for calling Obama a racist. I feel it is about much more than that. It is about suppression of free speech. He has been fearless in calling out climate alarmists.
So far three advertisers have caved, Progressive, Geico and Proctor and Gamble.
crosspatch, it’s really simple… “these people” are completely unemployable in the private sector, thus they HAVE to get elected to government positions or they’d be serving fries somewhere (and screwing that up too).
There are no words to accurately convey how I feel about this woman (and others like her, and those who swallow this whole steaming pile of…)… well, actually there ARE words, but I know they’d be snipped.
For now, I will be satisfied to observe that this woman is stupid. Nothing more, nothing less. Just stupid. But in that, she is not alone.
[snip – best not go there! ~ Evan]
“Climate change is very real” Of course the climate is changing, some years it goes up, some years it goes down. As for tornadoes, i suspect only a fraction were reported in 1950.
“Yeah, and those polar bears sure do look sick. Neveryoumind that I have no veterinary training whatsoever to make such a qualification.”
Polar bears went on the endangered species list, not because their population was in danger, but because their population seemed to be in danger. From what I understand (and I could be wrong), some eco-idiot thought a polar bear looked hungry, ergo it was hungry. Thus it was spread as fact what someone thought, just like the stupid Senator Debbie Stabenow. Since facts are a climate change advocate’s worst nightmare, you have nothing left but what you think.
Another question. How many hurricanes strike Michigan? When was the last time someone said, “Michigan is ground zero for hurricanes”? It is like saying the Caribbean is getting more snow storms. I’ve seen schizophrenics make more sense. Like the sometimes funny comedian Bill Engval says, here is your sign.
I am so sad about the condition of my great state, with any luck at all ..we can ride our self’s of people like Debbie.
low brow person, surrounded by deceptive convincing people, giving misinformation to the people
with any luck at all we should be able to break this cycle