It’s been awhile since I posted this feature, Climategate got into the mix and there was so much going on I simply forgot to look for interesting quotes.
This week’s quote is prescient and entertaining at the same time. I predict it will be repeated on the blogosphere hundreds if not thousands of times.
Comment left on Lucia’s Blackboard by Kusigrosz:
“Climate doesn’t kill people. Weather kills people”.
Seen on Dr Clam’s accidental blog.
Shortened, it flows better:
“Climate doesn’t kill people. Weather does.”
You may have my climate when you pry it from my cold, frostbitten fingers.
Climate doesn’t kill people – err… well, actually it does. Weather too, and cars, and aircraft, and food, or the lack thereof, water (too much or too little), electricity, earthquakes, tsunami, war, alcohol, stupidity, old age, being born (100% fatalities)…
Sorry – what was his point again?
@ur momisugly geo (21:48:27) :
It *flows* better? Except you just killed the obvious hommage it is intended to be to “Guns don’t kill people –people kill people”
Couldn’t agree more. The long version is better.
or the NRA version.
“Guns don’t kill people –bullets kill people”
Maybe we should paraphrase Bill Hicks:
-Environmentalists die everyday.
Perry (05:46:35) :
Not to mention the non-existent money.
Disabled in council accommodation.
DaveE.
Here’s quote from the linked article:-
“Apart from the cost, there is a real threat to the health of elderly customers who are too scared to turn on their heating. It is feared the cold temperatures, which exacerbate many underlying health problems, could contribute to some 60,000 deaths.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243607/After-snow–One-giant-windfall-energy-firms-mammoth-heating-bill.html#ixzz0dBTiMz6y
And here’s an article which does NOT attribute the near-demise of an insect species (a butterfly!!) to anything to do with AGW. YAY!!
http://www.surreywildlifetrust.co.uk/Default.asp?mainmenu=News&SearchFormTitle=silver%20studded%20blue&EntityID={DBAD8213-0C3F-4100-9EA5-B3234027926F}
The missing ‘ingredient’ was sheep, lots of downs-land grazing sheep to keep the ground cover low and to suitably disturb the soil!
Per your prediction, it is now in my sidebar…with art.
whether weather weathers climate change or whether climate change weathers weather.
Anthony, may I suggest the following for the next quote of the week:
“I get the impression that whatever Rajendra is smoking is pretty robust.”
(by Mike D. (13:44:56) on the ‘IPCC admits error on Himalayan glacier melt fiasco’ thread).
From – Brookhaven National Laboratory: Why Hasn’t Earth Warmed as Much as Expected?
This is pure magic: –
“Daniel H (11:27:51) :
The real problem is that we are attempting to influence the height, frequency, and severity of chaotic ocean waves by shutting off the ship’s engines.”
Debate doesn’t kill science. Computer models do.
Chuck Norris sleeps with a pillow under his gun and has to use a stunt double for the crying scenes.
I’m done.
OT…has anyone noticed the DMI Polar Temp…it’s in a tailspin …well below240(K)
REPLY: That is not unusual, many years have been below 240K. What is unusual is the slope of change. We’ll keep an eye on it. Not news yet. – Anhony
Vis a vis the difference between climate and weather, long ago I once heard Linda Ellerbee on the Weekend show say, “Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.”
@Snertly: That quote originated with Robert A. Heinlein.
Climate doesn’t kill people – WMD does (Weather of Mass Destruction).
For those of you who do not have the advantages of living in the UK, I should explain that we are right in the middle of the fifth inquiry in Iraq-gate WMD Weather of Mass … no sorry … Weapons of Mass Destruction. This is notorious in the UK, because we went and backed the idiot George Bush based on assurances from Bliar (yes the spelling is intended) that Sadam had WMD, that there was a real and imminent threat from WMD and that the evidence of WMD was unequivocal … and the dodgy IPCC… there I go again… the dodgy intelligence dossier was not “sexed up” so that the expert/scientific opinion did not change “I think it likely that glaciers will melt by 2035” to “the peer reviewed scientific literature says it is HIGHLY LIKELY glaciers will melt by 2035”.
Well there’s more to that short statement than meets the eye. One may argue that death is a non linear limit case of a weather discomfort. So long as one stays alive, one can make it through a weather event. But when you hit the stops and death results, all bets are off.
Than non linear discontinuity that death epitomizes, is one reason that I reject the “definition of climate as being the long term average of weather”.
You see when you average the weather, those limit cases vanish; in other words death does not occur under average weather conditions, which arguably proves the conjecture.
I prefer to say that climate is the long term integral of weather; and in that model, the deaths still occur; they aren’t homogenized out as climatologists like to do with the data. All the non-linearities survive in my definition of climate; whereas they do not in the official definition.
@IsoTherm
At one point in time, Saddam had WMDs. He used them (Mustard gas in rockets) on his own people (the Kurds in northern Iraq) to kill between 50,000 and 250,000 depending on which UN estimate you listen to. The UN put sanctions on him and implored him to stop producing the Mustard gas as well as to prove to UN inspectors that all the WMDs were destroyed. He never proved this, and even kicked the UN inspectors out of his country, thus he either still had them or he had sold them. This wasn’t some master plan concocted by Bush, there were almost 16 years of sanctions, and Clinton said “we must enact a regime change in Iraq”, and bombed a few aspirin factories while the Lewinski scandal was going on. Please at least know your facts when you decide to bring up a topic that isn’t even connected to the conversation.
I like the original longer version of the quote better, It reminds me of the bumper sticker I have on my car:
“Guns don’t kill people, I kill people”
Right next to
“I’m the quiet guy with a bag of lime and a shovel in my trunk.”
Dodgy Geezer (01:31:32) :
“That’s one small error from a Mann, one giant error for mankind…”
I think this is the best so far. Dodgy Geezer gives me many good laughs, to be honest!
However, we could refine it further.
Like e.g.;
“One small Trick for Mann, one giant Travesty for Mankind..”