Excerpts:
Ever more risibly desperate become the efforts of the believers in global warming to hold the line for their religion, after the battering it was given last winter by all those scandals surrounding the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
One familiar technique they use is to attribute to global warming almost any unusual weather event anywhere in the world. Last week, for instance, it was reported that Russia has recently been experiencing its hottest temperatures and longest drought for 130 years. The head of the Russian branch of WWF, the environmental pressure group, was inevitably quick to cite this as evidence of climate change, claiming that in future “such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent”. He didn’t explain what might have caused the similar hot weather 130 years ago.
The paragraphs above are from Christopher Booker in his Telegraph column. He also cites a recent WUWT post, among others.
h/t to Richard North of EU Referendum
The photo accompanying Mr. Booker’s article on the web site (full width), captioned “Herding cattle in Chile as South America suffers one of its coldest winters for years,” is really quite impressive—looks almost like a painting:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7908604/Desperate-days-for-the-warmists.html
/Mr Lynn
Desperate days indeed. Bishop Hill has a thread about a piece by journalist Scott Ott that disarms and discredits Mann with more courtesy and dexterity than I’ve seen anywhere. He pinpoints Mann’s Hockey Stick as the focus of the whole AGW crusade, and questions why on earth Mann would now wish to devalue its importance. Worthy of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a great read.
Booker dismisses an individual weather events as proof of ACC, which is fair enough, but then hypocritically sights an individual weather event 130 years ago as proof against ACC.
Ridiculous.
I think that Francis Bacon said it some centuries ago:
“the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding (is) more moved and excited by affirmatives than negatives whereas it ought duly and regularly to be impartial; nay, in establishing any true axiom, the negative instance is the more powerful” (Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Britannia,Chicago, 1952, quoted by Tom Frame: Evolution in the Antipodes, UNSW Press 2009)
In other words, you tend to find what you want to. Note to climatologists: Good science sets out to disprove a favoured theory and only when that is impossible is the science settled.
“He didn’t explain what might have caused the similar hot weather 130 years ago.” – Err…….Anthony could I help out here…….maybe for a short period 130 yrs ago there were no clouds stopping it from raining. This is just a guess of course.
Peru just declared a national emergency as below-zero temperatures have killed over 400 citizens…. yet nothing from the warmists about that….
I find it ironic that Booker opines about warmists who cite weather extremes as evidence for global warming when he has, in prior writings, repeatedly used the argument that cold extremes in weather should cause one to question AGW. Does this man believe that readers forget what he writes, one column to the next?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3563532/The-world-has-never-seen-such-freezing-heat.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6924898/The-Met-Office-gives-us-the-warmist-weather.html
Ok yeah I’m a warmist and I don’t like exaggeration, but Booker is clearly being misleading.
Just read the following:
“such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent” means exactly that, nothing more and nothing less.
Booker’s claim that “The head of the Russian branch of WWF, the environmental pressure group, was inevitably quick to cite this as evidence of climate change” is quite clearly false. That is not what the guy said at all, he said that events like this will become more common in the future… not that this event is evidence of warming.
You’d have thought that Booker could at least have found a quote that backed his argument!
Mr Lynn says:
July 25, 2010 at 6:27 pm
“The photo accompanying Mr. Booker’s article on the web site (full width), captioned “Herding cattle in Chile as South America suffers one of its coldest winters for years,” is really quite impressive—looks almost like a painting:”
I mistook it for a wild west painting first! (Associating “desperate” with “Desperado” probably)
Upon reading this post I came across this ad in the middle of the discussion: “Lesbian Dating -Free Pics
Online Dating at Match.com. Browse Profiles and Pics for Free!”
Makes one wonder the lengths AGW’s will go to hot up a discussion.
;?p
REPLY: That’s a Google adword engine choice, not a person. -Anthony
Well, I don’t believe there was a similar event 130 years ago. I believe the records have only been kept for 130 years and this is the hottest recorded so far.
That having been said, with only such a short record period, these temperatures don’t really mean a lot.
a motorcade of SUVs to combat CAGW!
25 July: PIC: US President Barack Obama departs in his motorcade after cutting short an afternoon golf game during heavy rains at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Top-Stories-Photos-US-President-Barack-Obama-departs-motorcade-after-cutting-short-afternoon/ss/705/im:/100725/ids_photos_ts/r1089923769.jpg/
more ‘GW’ funds going into general revenue…
20 July: NJ Star Ledger: N.J. activists protest against ‘cap-and-trade’ law aimed at fighting global warming
The activists argue the law does nothing to combat global warming — if, they say, global warming even exists — and is merely a new tax that will kill businesses and jobs. Supporters of cap-and-trade, however, disagree…
Since the law took effect several years ago, New Jersey has generated a “Global Warming Solutions Fund” of between $46 million to $65 million a year. However, in the fiscal year that began July 1, the $65 million fund was diverted directly into the state budget as a revenue.
As a result, cap-and-trade “is nothing more than a tax hike,” said Steve Lonegan, a former Republican candidate for governor who is director of the New Jersey chapter of Americans For Prosperity advocacy group that held today’s rally…
Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel, who also opposes diverting cap-and-trade funds into the state budget, said the program is a good one that has created 20,000 clean-energy jobs.
“The fossil fools were at it again,” Tittel said. “Not only do they deny global warming is real, but they deny New Jersey residents a chance for green energy and clean jobs. This group is full of hot air. Climate change is real.”…
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/nj_activists_hold_rally_in_mor.html
Andrew W says:
July 25, 2010 at 6:31 pm
“Booker dismisses an individual weather events as proof of ACC, which is fair enough, but then hypocritically sights an individual weather event 130 years ago as proof against ACC.”
Let me explain in very simple words:
He argues that a WWF spokesperson cites a weather event as evidence for AGW; and shows that the logic of the WWF spokesperson is faulty because the exact same weather event occured 130 years ago.
It cannot be evidence for AGW when it has occured in the same form before CO2 concentrations started to rise.
Can you follow me?
I can also explain the meaning of the word “hypocritically” to you in really simple terms if you don’t understand it.
Nice try Mattb, but:
“Mr. Kokorin believes that the only way to improve the situation is to weaken human impact on climate, boost economic energy efficiency and reduce environmentally unfriendly emissions”
If that isn’t attributing the problem to “climate change”, what is?
Anthony – I was about to flag this article to you, but was beaten to it, obviously.
You are too modest not quoting the accolade to WUWT, so I will do it for you:
“In America, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been trumpeting that, according to its much-quoted worldwide temperature data, the first six months of this year were the hottest ever recorded. But expert analysis on Watts Up With That, the US science blog, shows that NOAA’s claimed warming appears to be strangely concentrated in those parts of the world where it has fewest weather stations. In Greenland, for instance, two of the hottest spots, showing a startling five-degree rise in temperatures, have no weather stations at all.”
At least this shows one journalist is (probably) one of your regular readers.
Christchurch, New Zealand
The head of the Russian branch of WWF, the environmental pressure group, was inevitably quick to cite this as evidence of climate change, claiming that in future “such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent”.
If this head of WWF is worried about “abnormalities,” I think the first place for him to look is at the attentional mechanisms in an already alarmist press.
Next, he may look at the “abnormalities” of surfacestation temperature gathering quality.
One further “abnormality” is the flow of funds from huge unelected, unaccountable gov’t bureaus (DOE) to the climate scientists, resulting in profoundly detrimental and invasive policy decisions.
I am sure we can get rid of a few abnormalities in ’12.
So just when did the Russian temps begin for that area?
Gee, seems this report has stirred up a “warmist” swarm. Pity their logic is ruled by passion rather than science. Back to the mirror each morning and repeat the mantra, its hot, hotter, warmer, melting, catastrophic, the sky is falling (again) (send money?).
Normal or post normal?
crosspatch says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:26 pm
“Well, I don’t believe there was a similar event 130 years ago. I believe the records have only been kept for 130 years and this is the hottest recorded so far.”
You see, before the October Revolution there was already a civilisation in Russia.
Some people seem to have records that go back to 1780.
http://chiefio.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/russiaeu.png
from
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/ukraine-stability-and-reliability/
Any more silly misunderstandings and willlfull ignorance?
Actually warmist Post normal, thick as a plank!!
Hey DirkH, chill out. Having a go at a long term regular here, like crosspatch, will do you no favors, indeed, many of us like to argue both sides to get to the truth, but we can all do without your internet hardman act. Be civil, fella.
Here’s the deal.
When it is very warm, man-made climate change causes more extremely warm days.
When it is very cold, man-made climate change causes more extremely cold days.
When it is very dry, man-made climate change causes more drought days.
When it is very wet, man-made climate change causes more flood days.
At all other times, man-made climate change causes more AVERAGE days.
Got it?
Robert Morris says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:51 pm
“Hey DirkH, chill out. Having a go at a long term regular here, like crosspatch, will do you no favors, indeed, many of us like to argue both sides to get to the truth, but we can all do without your internet hardman act. Be civil, fella.”
Sorry. Sometimes i forget that 130 years seems like a long time for Americans.
“Some people seem to have records that go back to 1780”
So it’s the hottest in 230 years?
DirkH says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:59 pm
“Sorry. Sometimes i forget that 130 years seems like a long time for Americans.”
lol, hey! Just some Americans!
“Sometimes i forget that 130 years seems like a long time for Americans.”
The last year-and-a-half seems like a long time for this American.
DirkH says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Sorry. Sometimes i forget that 130 years seems like a long time for Americans.
================================
LOL. Right you are, Dirk on that point.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Congrats to everyone in regards to the opinion piece. The message is slowly,(sometimes excruciatingly slow) getting out. This is just one small measure of progress. After reading some of the comments there, I chuckled at something I don’t believe I’ve read or heard before. Watermelon—-green on the outside, red on the inside.
Compare the funding received by a handful of think-tanks to the hundreds of billions of dollars lavished on those who speak for the other side by governments, foundations, multinational corporations, even Big Oil, and the warmists are winning hands down. But only financially: they are not winning the argument.
Money can’t buy them love. 😉
Tom in Texas says:July 25, 2010 at 8:17 pm
“Sometimes i forget that 130 years seems like a long time for Americans.”
The last year-and-a-half seems like a long time for this American.
Amen.
Robert Morris says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:43 pm
So just when did the Russian temps begin for that area?
My guess is that this piece of Phil Jones CRU99 data will shed some light on Russian Temperature measurement capabilitites:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/Sitka.GIF
175 yrs minimum would be my guess.
Hmm… I could be wrong but it sounds like more Déjà vu. Weren’t they reporting similar claims that Russia had been experiencing its hottest temperatures and longest drought back about 2000? And desperately seeking swelter?
Because I remember wondering how that happened in Russia while we were getting so much rain in the states after Eyjafjallajökull.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1702-02=
An intrusion beneath the south flank from July-December 1999 was accompanied by increased seismic activity and was constrained by tilt measurements, GPS-geodesy and InSAR.
There was some of the same Katla-mongering back then, I remember searching and finding that the connection between Eyjafjallajökull and Katla is really not very solid.
I seem to recall a lot of people were thinking AGW was bs, only to switch back sides again after it got really hot and dry again following the solar cycle 23 max(s). Anybody else seem to recall that?
The recent bitter winter in the south has by and large been ignored by the media which as a rule loves natural disasters, their corporate bread’N’butter if you will.
I wonder why? Much of the MSM is fed by a few agencies such as AP and reuters and they have been the source of many ridiculous scare stories over the years, now there is very little interest in reporting the disasters to the wider public because it contradicts the AGW narrative.
What this shows is just how much news is withheld on political grounds, a censorship of reality to serve a political narrative and if it were not for the net and blogs we would be by and large in the dark about whats really going on in the wider world. The AGW establishment must hate the new media like poison because it is destroying their carefully constructed narrative.
The AGW establishment must hate the new media like poison because it is destroying their carefully constructed narrative.
===============
With a JournoList, Hope and Change is possible… Too bad it’s false hope… Too bad it’s regressive Change.
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=29858
The Journolist Conspirators
See any recognizable names?
Every night it’s clear you can feel the heat loss. Every night it’s cloudy you can feel the lack of heat loss. In day time when it’s cloudy you can feel the lack of heat gain at surface level, when it’s not cloudy you can feel the heat from the sun hitting you. The big difference in every situation is the clouds. They are all that matters and all that ever will. Go outside and prove it for yourself, it’s the only experiment that matters
Dave N (July 25, 2010 at 7:40 pm) says:
“Nice try Mattb, but:
“Mr. Kokorin believes that the only way to improve the situation is to weaken human impact on climate, boost economic energy efficiency and reduce environmentally unfriendly emissions”
If that isn’t attributing the problem to “climate change”, what is?”
Sorry Dave that attributes future increases in warmth to “climate change”, not the current weather event. He is using a current weather event to highlight what the future impacts of climate change will be… he is NOT saying the current weather event is caused by “climate change”.
Andrew W says: “Booker dismisses an individual weather events as proof of ACC, which is fair enough, but then hypocritically sights an individual weather event 130 years ago as proof against ACC.
Ridiculous.”
No, that is your assumption. Booker points out the faulty logic of the warmists:
(1) Almost any hot weather event is said to be “proof” of the AGW theory while extreme cold events are ignored in silence (that is not only lack of logic but hypocrisy).
(2) The “unprecedented” and “…can not be explained by natural causes” slogans of the warmists of course makes it fun to ask what caused the very same phenomenon before the industrial age/CO2 rise?
Booker’s point is the lack of logic and consistency in their weather related “arguing” in favour of the theory. Booker does not have a theory to prove – warmists do…
Mr Lynn says:
July 25, 2010 at 6:27 pm
The photo accompanying Mr. Booker’s article on the web site (full width), captioned “Herding cattle in Chile as South America suffers one of its coldest winters for years,” is really quite impressive—looks almost like a painting:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7908604/Desperate-days-for-the-warmists.html
I don’t know, it looks pretty real to me. Unlike certain really quite impressive warmist propagandist photos that look almost like they’ve been photoshopped.
and some are even yellow on the inside
Mattb says:
July 25, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Dave N (July 25, 2010 at 7:40 pm) says:
Sorry Dave that attributes future increases in warmth to “climate change”, not the current weather event. He is using a current weather event to highlight what the future impacts of climate change will be… he is NOT saying the current weather event is caused by “climate change”.
Matt, you’ve missed Kokorin’s little words “weaken human impact on climate” and added your own “highlight what the future impacts of climate change will be“.
All the evidence says that (a) human impact is at most tiny and even that is questionable, when you’ve really dealt with UHI and station problems, and realized that CO2’s GHG effect is already saturated and compensated by water vapour (b) we don’t know what the climate will be like in the future. Currently it’s cooling overall from the high point of 1998. But it’s been warmer before, in the Medieval Warm Period, even warmer in the Roman Warm Period, and even warmer in the Holocene before that. Oh, (c) humans benefit, overall, from warmer times. And that’s to say nothing of the factions who stand to benefit from scaring everyone. Click my name for fuller discussion of the basic science and what’s been skewed. But first, clear your mind of preconceptions that “all” the official science “must” be right, and prepare to look for yourself and lose your current friends. Tough. But possible. As many here can testify. It all depends on how much you care about truth.
Mattb says:
July 25, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Dave N (July 25, 2010 at 7:40 pm) says:
“Nice try Mattb, but:
“Mr. Kokorin believes that the only way to improve the situation is to weaken human impact on climate, boost economic energy efficiency and reduce environmentally unfriendly emissions”
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear Matt. You read like a warmist. You know only too well that being WWF he was relating this event to ‘climate change’. This is WWF for christ’s sake.
Hmm.. “weaken human impact”… those words don’t even occur in the Booker article now I look closer Lucy.
Don’t create a smokescreen with your links, just address the fact that nowhere in the Booker article does anyone from Russia’s WWF attribute the current heat to climate change. The quote is “in future “such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent””
Honestly, this isn’t that hard. I know such attribution comments have been made by some in the past, but not in this case. Surely it is not difficult to accept that Booker is telling porky-pies on this occasion, without taking that as an affront to your skeptical views on climate change. If you follow this thread and still think I’m wrong… then I must say it does not exactly give me great faith that you are a good judge of the far more complex field of climate change.
More likely, having now read your blog and life story, it appears likely that you’ve never really made a science based call in your life, and you used to blindly follow the warmists without really knowing what was going on, and now you follow skeptics without really knowing what is going on.
OT: Hey, the SST is now officially colder than in 2008:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
Booker is merely high-lighting the silly ratchet reporting styile. Worst storm in 20 years, worst floods for 50 years, etc etc. The warmists style is to simply claim that individual weather events cannot be attributed to AGW,(eg Met Office Uk) then proceed to point out that the weather exprieed is eactly what they would expect from AGW! I mean to say, pop on to the MO website & look at the forecasts, some areas will experience dryer climate, some area will experience wetter climate, some areas will experience hotter climate, some areas will experience cooler climate. With crystal ball gazing like that anyone could become a millionaire! Of course they never actually point out which areas will expeience what.
apologies for spelling mistakes!
““such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent” means exactly that, nothing more and nothing less.”
Absolutely. Except that it is a rhetorical trick. It is of the same type of rhetorical trick as “when did you last beat your wife?”. The implication being that an event must have happened in the past that is to be concerned about, but in the same sentence moving the focus on to the future. You are left with the feeling that the future event must be linked to the event in the past, but actually no proof that that was intended.
The warmist propaganda machine is well-trained. They know all the tricks of the trade. It is a movement that advances itself purely by propaganda with no evidence at all to support it.
There are many such rhetorical tricks, and they are known as “logical fallaices”. You need to be trained to use them well. Those that use them in their communication with the rest of us, rather than standing on the power of their own argument, betray their need to pollute our thinking and our belief systems with lies and half-truths. They are trained to brainwash us. You might ask by whom and for what purpose.
Here is a fantastic aid to knowing about logical fallacies. Watch out for them. When they are used deliberately, the person using them is trying to distract you from the truth, and the power of your own argument. Politicians and people playing with politics use them all the time:-
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html
a current comment of mine at
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.com
and previous musings on the subject
MattB, what is your problem? Are you a “denier” of sorts? 😉
Read this article:
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/07/18/12667465.html
It is 100% clear that head of WWF Russia attributes the present draught in Russia to AGW. In fact, I will qoute it here: “”I think that the heat we are suffering from now as well as very low temperatures we had this winter, are hydrometeorological tendencies that are equally harmful for us as they both were caused by human impact on weather and greenhouse effect which has grown stronger in the past 30-40 years. Besides, if 15 years ago we registered only 150-200 negative climate alterations, now we are facing 350-400, mainly storms, hurricanes, floods, heavy snowfalls, which are all very harmful. By the way, abnormally high temperature causes so-called heat storms,” said Alexey Kokorin.”
Got it?
Matt says “(in the future) such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent”.
How? I have seen the magic-statistics hockey sticks showing that climate abnormalities are increasing. The 30’s are smoothed out or given a little extra blip, but today’s abnormalities, heat and drought, are nothing like the 30’s. When I ask how, I want to know how “climate change” from CO2 changes the weather to make events like the 30’s more frequent. What I read about the theory of “climate change” from CO2, it will do the opposite by increasing heat at the poles and not much elsewhere.
It was quite something to be in CCCP Leningrad, formerly Stalingrad, just prior to ‘perestroika ‘ in ’89.
No way Ryan. Consider the following.
Today is hot, science says that there will be more days like this in the future due to climate change… in NO WAY attributes the current day to climate change.
Ahhh George Gr…. you mean I should take account of something not quoted by booker, or referenced by Booker, when discussing the content of his opinion piece? opf course why didn’t I realise!
Got this from David Holland:
Some people may have missed the important confession from the Met Office Chief Scientist in the only public session on Climategate held by the House of Commons Select Committee on 1 March 2010.
MP, Graham Stringer, asked in Q209:
“Is there a problem with scientific software? We have had emails from Professor Darrel Ince and from Professor Les Hatton saying that there are severe problems with scientific software. Do you think that is a general problem in UK or world science?”
Met Office Chief Scientist Julia Slingo replied [Emphasis added.]:
“Yes. Around the UEA issue, of course, we did put the code out at Christmas time, before Christmas, along with the data because I felt very strongly that we needed to have the code out there so that it could be checked. If you think about the sorts of codes that we use in climate modelling, we are literally talking of hundreds of thousands of lines of code–I know because I have written some of them–and of course, there will be errors in them. At least for the UK the codes that underpin our climate change projections are the same codes that we use to make our daily weather forecasts, so we test those codes twice a day for robustness.”
Graham Stringer then asked:
“You do not always get it right though, do you”
Professor Slingo replied [Emphasis added.]:
“No, but that is not an error in the code; that is to do with the nature of the chaotic system that we are trying to forecast. Let us not confuse those. We test the code twice a day every day. We also share our code with the academic sector, so the model that we use for our climate prediction work and our weather forecasts, the unified model, is given out to academic institutions around the UK, and increasingly we licence it to several international met services: Australia, South Africa, South Korea and India. So these codes are being tested day in, day out, by a wide variety of users and I consider that to be an extremely important job that we do because that is how we find errors in our codes, and actually it is how we advance the science that goes into our codes as well. So of course, a code that is hundreds of thousands of lines long undoubtedly has a coding error in it somewhere, and we hope that through this process we will discover it. Most of the major testing is very robust.”
See:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387b/38724.htm
There is no point in trying to reason with MattB, he is well known on other Forums as a hardened warmist who totally ignores any facts presented to him.
But we can try, Chris Booker was only using part of the WWF quote as Matt well knows here is some of the rest of it:
Quote:
“I think that the heat we are suffering from now as well as very low temperatures we had this winter, are hydro-meteorological tendencies that are equally harmful for us as they both were caused by human impact on weather and the greenhouse effect which has grown steadily for the past 30-40 years. Besides, if 15 years ago we registered only 150-200 negative climate alterations, now we are facing 350-400, mainly storms, hurricanes, floods, heavy snowfalls, which are all very harmful”, said Alexey Kokorin.
The British Telegraph newspaper is regularly read by ‘educated’ people, Mr Bookers column appeals to the higher end of the educated as they can understand what he writes, without relying on drawings and pictures, not being British nor well educated, I find myself sympathizing with Mr Booker it appears that even here on WUWT their are people with profound learning difficulties.
@Andrew W
Booker dismisses an individual weather events as proof of ACC, which is fair enough, but then hypocritically sights an individual weather event 130 years ago as proof against ACC.
Ridiculous.
I think you have completely missed the point. Booker was saying that if there was a similar event 130 years ago (which can’t have been due to AGW), why does the current event have to be due to it ? Every time you read a media statement that says “worst this or that in 100 years, and this is evidence of AGW”, can’t you see how ridiculous the statement is ?
The photo is beautifully composed, and is reminiscent of paintings of the American West, as DirkH noted above (July 25, 2010 at 7:12 pm). I meant nothing more.
/Mr Lynn
Mattb says:
July 26, 2010 at 1:40 am
“More likely, having now read your blog and life story, it appears likely that you’ve never really made a science based call in your life, and you used to blindly follow the warmists without really knowing what was going on, and now you follow skeptics without really knowing what is going on.”
How typical, just like the rest of the supporters of CAGW cargo cult climate science served up by the IPCC, Mattb has resorted to personal attacks once the debate has been lost!
From this point on I will no longer be bothering to read any of Mattb’s hysterical and biased drivel.
I’m guessing this is what Booker read.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100721/159893787.html
For the past four weeks temperatures across western Russia have topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), killing scores of people and creating what is thought to be the worst drought since 1972.
“Such long periods of summer drought have been registered before, for instance, in 1936, but over the past few years they have become more frequent,” Alexei Kokorin, the head of WWF Russia’s climate program, told RIA Novosti.
End
hehe
When was the last worst drought?1936,1972 or over the past few years?
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100720/159876475.html
funny article
The Russian traffic police chief ordered on Tuesday an examination into the effects of high temperatures on drivers and police officers as the abnormal heat continues to ravage Russia.
“Russia’s chief sanitary official [Gennady Onishchenko] and I have signed a directive for those regions of Russia where traffic is most intense and where the heat is the same as in Moscow,” Viktor Kiryanov said at a news conference.
“The temperature is about 5 degrees higher because of the asphalt. How does this affect drivers and inspectors?” he asked.
A post of mine seems to have disappeared sorry – I had explained that the booker opinion piece does not make any reference to the extended quotation by the Russian WWF guy, and as such my comments above were based on Booker’s opinion piece and the quotation he used and I stand by my comments.
The longer quote does show that this guy is a lot more certain about it than science would permit so unlike the assertion by AC Osborn I am in fact entirely reasonable and gladly agree that this sort of exaggerated comment is not useful.
Booker twice makes reference to the Grantham Institutes on Climate Change, and their benefactor, money manager Jeremy Grantham. Lord Stern of the Stern Review and Bob Ward reside there.
In his latest newsletter, Jeremy gives investment advice, and inserts two pages about climate alarmism, “All You Need to Know About Global Warming in 5 Minutes.” Anthony, one of your guest authors might have fun with those arguments.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/34545694/Jeremy-Grantham-GMO-Summer-Essays-071910
Just an aside, I find it interesting that Matt calls it ACC instead of AGW. Hell could freeze over and the IPCC would ask for more money to save us from a coming ice age.
As much as I hate giving MSM a pass, we all have to remember that W. R. Hurst taught the MSM how to sell papers. Follow me here, “If it bleeds, it leads.” With their embrace of CAGW, all they’re doing is more of the same.
Very few “News Media” types have any serious degrees in hard science, the sole wonderful exception being the Meteorologists, of whom, our Anthony Watts is a splendid example. It isn’t really coincidence that most of the CAGW believers aren’t really based in hard science. The difference between those who are, e.g. Pielke Sr., and the others is clear in the quality of the papers. I would differentiate between CAGW and AGW, as I agree, we are changing the climate through land use, but no it won’t be catastrophic. In this sense, I place Dr. Pielke in the latter catagory.
Here’s another Telegraph piece about recovered mail from a 60 year old plane crash on Mont Blanc, the 22 yeal old student, who found the mail bag while on the way to the bathroom, was in the Alps studying “Global Warming”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7910096/Letters-frozen-in-time-arrive-after-60-years.html
A cold front over Washington. It’s Global Warming!:
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/New_Jersey_Storm_Damage_07_26_10
Questions for Mr. Watts: If the temperture interpolations and extrapolations for worldwide temperature maps were removed, such that only the actual stations were considered, and then those were split into urban vs rural, oceanic vs land, what would the effect be on calculated global temperature changes? Does the math that creates the temperature maps change the calculated anomalies? If the changes are, indeed, global, should not a subset (the stations only) show the same trends, and show them regardless of where you look?
Doug Proctor says:
July 26, 2010 at 8:22 am
Take a look at the the Chefios analysis of all the various Country’s temperature histories.
You will need to go in to the Categories section of his site because it was done a while ago.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/category/dtdt/
Mattb
Ryan has it right. He’s talking about an illogical bind. The bind is that there are climate abnormalities. By accepting this you then have to decide if increasing in the future is reasonable. The problem is you have accepted the idea of climate abnormalities without rational thought or evidence. You have already committed without knowing about it.
Robert Cialdini wrote a great book called Influence about this kind of thing.
What you should ask is what are climate abnormalities exactly and show me where you got that?
Abnormalities is an odd choice of word. Extremes would be better. No matter what the climate there are extremely hot days and extremely cold days, but they are not abnormal, in fact there HAVE to be extremes.
Ed Murphy says: July 25, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I seem to recall a lot of people were thinking AGW was bs, only to switch back sides again after it got really hot and dry again following the solar cycle 23 max(s). Anybody else seem to recall that?
I have never seen evidence of a single person who was skeptical of the AGW hysterical theatrics being persuaded to alter his/her philosophy based on temporal weather. Please provide a reference.
Mattb says:
July 26, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Abnormalities is an odd choice of word. Extremes would be better. No matter what the climate there are extremely hot days and extremely cold days, but they are not abnormal, in fact there HAVE to be extremes.
Reply: What is odd is that you now appear to be talking about the weather as opposed to the climate. You are confusing yourself with your Jedi mind tricks!
rplying to Tim Clark (27 JLY 10):
try a look at this one:
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.com
Regards,
Mike the Pundit
Since they are saying that last winter’s weather was due to global warming, it almost sounds like the ‘doublespeak’ of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ has come around about 26 years behind schedule.
Ref – Crossopter says:
July 26, 2010 at 3:28 am
“It was quite something to be in CCCP Leningrad, formerly Stalingrad, just prior to ‘perestroika ‘ in ’89.”
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Ohhhhhhh For The Good Old Days! It was so easy then to blame everything on the Evil Empire. Imagine how this AGW stuff would have been handled then. In today’s situation, it’s so very hard to blame your banker and main investor for all your problems; we’re really in a pickle barrel. Schucks! Schucks! Schucks!