SEE UPDATE below the “Continue reading” line.
In my town we have a contingent of crazies, just like most towns. I didn’t realize just how crazy some are until I read this letter to the editor in the Chico Enterprise Record.
This is what we are up against. I kid you not, this guy says earthquakes are a “real and genuine menace” related to global warming.
Source here
We have a t-shirt you can buy here at the museum store that speaks to our local agricultural base of orchards that says; Chico, where the nuts come from.
I may have to move.
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UPDATE: My local newspaper editor writes to me to say that Mr. Campbell was invoking sarcasm, and cites a couple of other similar letters to the editor Mr. Campbell has written in the past. He also says “I agree that sarcasm is hard to detect in print. A common mistake.”
I thought about that possibility of it being sarcasm, so I read it several times before posting on this. I could not detect a hint of sarcasm. Maybe my sarcasm sniffer is busted from reading so many outlandish claims about AGW effects. One only has to peruse the master MSM referenced warmlist here to see what I’m talking about. Note that earthquakes, earthquakes redux are on that list. Apologies to Mr. Campbell, but also forgive me, because I’ve seen even more outlandish things (like bridge collapse due to AGW, debunked here) that I can count in my tenure as a blogger on AGW.
That’s the problem with sarcasm, it is not always obvious to the reader. Learning from experience I make sarcasm obvious now with either a blog post tag or the “sarc off” /sarc at the end of a sentence.
When we have dubious claims being posted daily about global warming effects and linkages in science journals and in the MSM, it’s hard to tell what is real and what is sarcasm anymore. Either way, this episode makes me laugh, and I hope readers get a chuckle out of it too. – Anthony
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Next thing you know, someone is going to claim that a minute input into a trace gas is going to violently change our weather over the entire planet cascading into a venus replica, ……………………… oh, right. Sharp as marbles some of our species can be.
Campbell simply has his cause and effect reversed…earthquakes cause global warming.
This argument reminds me of the wonderful logical trap that every single alarmist falls into. If you ever point out an apparent corollary between sun spot activity and global climate there is always one person ready to fire back that graph we all have seen that shows a connection between the rise in global temperature and pirates.
These types get angry really quick when you point out that the CO2/Global Climate graphs are really no different than their Pirate graph.
Many say that in “interesting times”(Maunder like minimums) as the “magnetic embrace” of the sun weakens, the earth has more free of movement and volcanoes too begin a higher activity (in the Maunder there were big volcaninc eruptions, as the VEI 6 Huaynaputina).
Anthony, are there AGW brand Kool-Aid stands on every corner in Chico?
Maybe it’s all the oil we are pumping out of the ground causing additional friction on the tectonic plates?
Bill Cosby has a comedy routine about the earth spinning on an axle with no oil causing the earth to become hell.
I think Mr. Campbell (although I suspect the correct honorific is “Dr.”) has had a good chuckle at all our expense. I would also suggest that letters like that fall nto the category of “dirty tricks” and may not be all that ethical. Real alarmists give us all the quotes we need for ridicule and satire. We don’t need to invent them. Stick to the high road, Mr. Campbell. Excelsior!
Dave Springer says:
July 9, 2010 at 4:54 am
Apart from your G.B. reference (I am not american but saw him like a nice guy, as we say a “light blooded guy”, knowledge is as material as anything else in this universe and it can not be divided infinitely, so the more you divide it the lesser the part for anyone in particular. It may seem, as many other things, unjust but its is so. The only way, as with money and richness, to increase everybody´s share, is to increase the total amount of richness (or production), so increase actual, real goods producing labour and you´ll increase, accordingly, the “energy” of the system. So socialistic dreams are just that:dreams, in order to attain them production, energy should be increase. You won´t run your car´s engine with onle one HP. See, comprende?
RE: Chuckles: (July 9, 2010 at 1:14 am) “… The global warming is causing the earth warm up and to soften and become unstable, which makes it much more prone to earthquakes, as the bits can’t stick together any more.
This same ‘flawless logic’ could also be used to blame the Gulf Oil Leak on Global Warming…
As for that religion vs. science thing, I share Mike in Sydney’s frustration with the anti-religious tone of some posters, but in this case I am sure he was too sensitive. For those who think that there is a real conflict between science and religion needs to revisit their history of science texts and take a look at the branch of philosophy called “epistemology”. For all the grevious faults in Muir Russell’s report, he was correct in pointing out that science is not certain knowledge, nor is it a universally valid way of knowing things; just as an example, for those of you with honies, sweeties, significant others or whatever, do you want your emotional life subjected to rational analysis, given reasons grounded in logic and empirical observation about why it is better to be a couple than not?
Maybe this guy is onto something — let’s see, more CO2 stimulates global heating and we all know that when something heats up, it usually expands, and when it expands, it sometimes cracks, like a ceramic pot that’s left sitting on a hot stove burner. That’s it — like a crackedpot.
I, for one, am pleased that someone has finally addressed MY major concern-plate tectonics.
Global warming has taken focus away from a problem that will ultimately tear our country apart- literally.
We need to look at ways of stopping the movement of tectonic plates and change the scenario that will make Los Angeles a city in Alaska. This is a crisis of biblical proportions that I hope will be mitigated by the government spending unlimited amounts of cash to prevent and restricting all freedoms that promote the movement of tectonic plates.
RE: Alex the skeptic says: (July 9, 2010 at 6:14 am) “In the search for truth and science, one thing that remains a mystery for me is the big-bang. Or to be more exact, the nothingness that existed prior to this big, immense, explosion of infinite energy. “
[Speculation:] Perhaps the bubble of space and time that we call our universe was created when two ultimately large black-holes brushed by each other in a hyper-universe that we cannot enter. It does not matter how rare such events might be for this to be possible. In a universe of infinite extent or duration in time, any finite event that can happen is happening somewhere or will happen sometime.
Global warming does indeed cause the vast majority of earthquakes. You see, the natural and fairly steady production of heat from radioactive decay in the earth’s interior sets up thermal convective cells that allow the plates to move around; most earthquakes are associated with spreading centers or subduction zones, or thermal hotspots such as Yellowstone or Hawaii. We can blame volcanoes on the same phenomena–if it weren’t for magma caused by subterranian heating, there would be precious little magma generation and no volcanism (or temblors) whatsoever–just like our own moon. Viva la global warming!
My Exxon handler, M.E. Thane, thought this was really funny.
They posted the editorial.
The saddest part of this, is that we know so little about climate and global warming, that someone could honestly blame earthquakes on global warming.
Not this guy of course, but the truth is, you can twist what little we know around to cover almost anything.
And the fact that “scientists” do it, is proof of how little we know.
It looks like crazy is the new normal. Check out Belgium’s latest proposal to limit CO2 emissions.
Belgium’s plan to wash its dead down the drain: Bodies would be dissolved in caustic solution… and flushed into the sewer
It could hardly be said to be the most dignified of send-offs.
Undertakers in Belgium plan to eschew traditional burials and cremations and start dissolving corpses instead.
The move is intended to tackle a lack of burial space and environmental concerns as 573lbs of carbon dioxide are released by each cremated corpse.
Under the process, known as resomation, bodies are treated in a steel chamber with potassium hydroxide at high pressure and a temperature of 180c (350f).
Daily Mail link
Drudge linked it.
Glad to know that Dr. Campbell is on our side, and apologies from me.
For those who care for satire, my latest talkingabouttheweather.com post, by “Cory Wolfe,” is in the same vein:
http://talkingabouttheweather.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/number-of-hours-spent-watching-hurricanes-skyrockets/
Spector says:
July 9, 2010 at 9:58 am
Wouldn’t it be nicer to explain that a male universe met a female universe, then both felt an electric plasma attraction between them, and, as a product of such an encounter our universe came into existence?
My suspicion about Campbell being a possible prankster was nearly ‘right’. I have to agree that in this day and age it is nigh on impossible to detect when someone is taking the pis* as I have read even more outlandish claims for AGW. Examples are more volcanoes, Co2 causing atmospheric cooling AND warming, Earth spinning faster AND slower, more snow AND less snow for example.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/09/climate-craziness-of-the-week-shake-and-bake/#comment-426446
Martin Brumby says:
July 9, 2010 at 5:25 am
“Germany targets switch to 100% renewables for its electricity by 2050″
Is actually much dafter than the CCotW quote that Anthony has shared with us.
I say old chap: Do not be surprised that the Germans would have switched to 100% renewables by 2050: They were 100% renewable 200 years ago, before coal came into being. They cooked on cow dung and dead wood, and travelled by horse. That, old chap, is 100% renewable. That is what Obama’s science CZAR, genius Holdren, wants us to be like. I cannot call this other than an Obamination.
Anthony….
I must also have a broken sarcasm detector.
That letter did cause a spike in blood pressure at my breakfast table this morning…
I thought that it was a clear case of “California Granola” (Fruits, Nuts & Flakes).
If that was sarcasm, then it was dry sarcasm…. dryer than the Mojave in August 😉
Anthony
There is no question that he (Mr Campbell) was using irony. Nobody could be that stupid.
REPLY: and yet, we have the warmlist -A
R: Enneagram: (July 9, 2010 at 12:51 pm) “Wouldn’t it be nicer to explain that a male universe met a female universe,…”
In the case of my speculation, the black-holes are bi-sexual. I note that almost all galaxies are now thought to contain central black-holes. These could be primordial fragments left over from a gigantic black-hole disruption event.
Martin Brumby says:
July 9, 2010 at 5:25 am
“Science & Religion?
Don’t worry – I’m not going there…
Actually, the OT comment from
@M White July 9, 2010 at 2:16 am
“Germany targets switch to 100% renewables for its electricity by 2050″
Is actually much dafter than the CCotW quote that Anthony has shared with us.
Not quite as good as Buff Huhne’s 100% reduction in total emissions but the Germans are trying their best to act stupid.”
It’s a message from the German Umweltbundesamt, environment office, analogon to the American EPA. They’re only doing their job, acting as green fruitcakes.
At the same time, Germany rebuilds an abandoned mine into the largest subterranean NatGas storage in Europe… we’re not that daft.
Anthony, just read your update. That Campbell guy is one smartass! Cudos!