Some surprising sanity from one of the most insane places on the web. This could be a Nike ad, all it needs is a swoosh to go with the slogan. Joe Romm and Bill McKibben, this message is for you from your kossack in arms.
From the “weatherdude” at Daily Kos:
Here’s a further excerpt:
I’ve said it a few times (much to the dismay of many), but the tornadoes this year do not indicate a growing trend. If we have numerous tornado oubreaks of this intensity in the decade, THEN it’s a worrying trend. Until then, stop with the talking point positioning. We know climate change is happening, but to say that the tornadoes were a direct result without the trend of tornado outbreaks with this intensity to back it up is a really big freakin’ leap.
If this shit happens again next year, and the year after that, I’ll go into full mea culpa mode. But until then, stop it. It weakens our argument to scream “CLIMATE CHANGE ZOMG!” every time something bad happens. It takes trends over years to make this argument. Trends equal climate, events equal weather.
Earlier today someone posted a diary saying that the heat burst in Wichita, KS this week was “the beginning” of some more nefarious climate stuff happening. No it’s not! As I said in the diary’s comments, heat bursts are a well documented natural phenomenon that’s happened ever since thunderstorms started. The tl;dr explanation is that dry air got into the thunderstorm as it collapsed (all the rain/hail upstairs falls down at once because the storm can’t support it anymore), and the rain evaporated and made the dry air cooler. As it got cooler, it got denser, and fell to the ground. As it fell, it compressed and heated up, hit the ground, made the temperatures rise in a hurry and created 50-60 MPH winds.
That’s it. That’s what happened. It didn’t happen because the oceans are warming or the ice caps are melting or because BP fucking sucks. It happened because the updraft could no longer support a column of precipitation, it fell, heated up and dispersed at ground level. It’s not climate change and it weakens our argument to call it climate change, so stop it. Just because you don’t understand why something is happening doesn’t mean you should run to the nearest public forum and shout the first thing that comes to your mind.
Brave man, his full essay is here. h/t to Keith Kloor
WUWT covered the Wichita heat burst here, and I agree with the analysis he printed above.
For basic science on the issues of the tornado outbreaks this year, may I suggest these two WUWT essays:
The folly of linking tornado outbreaks to “climate change”
NOAA CSI: no attribution of climate change to tornado outbreak
I nominate WUWT for “plea for sanity from Daily Kos” as next week’s Quote of the Week. . . .
I put a relatively benign post in the doppelganger site. Just wanted to see what happens.
Bill Marsh says: June 15, 2011 at 5:25 am
It could be that “Climate Pollution” is the new, improved “framing” of “global warming”. In case you missed it, it seems that “climate change” has morphed into a “process” that meets “deadlines”. This comes from no less an authority than the chief honcho (honchera?!) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres.
The UNFCCC – according to Pachauri – is the body that gives the IPCC its marching orders. But I digress … In a pre-UNFCCC meeting newsletter video, Figueres declared:
For more Figuerisms, pls see It’s not easy to be green … for UN agencies
Moderate Republican says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:32 pm
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What an extraordinary rationalization.
“Climate Change Process” is UN Speak. Think of the “Peace Process” in the Middle East (which has so far produced no peace, but has legitimized the Palestinian terrorists in the eyes of the world.) So the Climate Change Process is all the same: UN committees, ad hoc committees, standing committees, draft resolutions, declarations, international treaties, summits……. But you are asking for science with testable hypotheses and accurate measurements of the real world. Well, how silly of you.
KW
Jan Perlwitz says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:28 pm
“Instead, they resort a lot to non-scientific “arguments” by personally attacking the scientists, their characters and motives, accusations of fraud, or resorting to conspiracy theory.”
Like alleging that IPCC reports are written by Greenpeace Germany activists.
Will this coherent piece bring any sanity to Daily Kos or Progressives? Not a chance.
Did anybody here actually read the article? Daily Kos concludes:
“The ice caps are melting, the oceans are rising, and all sorts of other scary sh!t is happening, but not every single event is due to the climate’s change. If all of this stuff is happening due to climate change, we don’t yet have the trends to back it up. Wait until we do. Until then, warn about the dangers of climate change, don’t say everything happened because of it.”
And that is what all reasonable people do.
Take Al Gore as the extreme example. He used the Hockey Stick and many other dubious items in an attempt to create a fear among the citizenry
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Would you say then that “He played on our fears …”?
Gotta find a clip of that A.GOre speech.
Moderate Republican says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Keith Battye says @ur momisugly June 15, 2011 at 12:49 am “I asked where the “proof” for man made CO2 warming was only to be told that asking for proof was “unscientific”.
Asking for proof is in fact unscientific and it takes someone who either doesn’t understand the science or is intentionally being deceptive to ask for it.
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Asking someone to prove their claims is in and of itself unscientific. That has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen posted on this site.
I’m trying to remember the name of English Scientific Society (sorry guys, drawing a complete blank today.), the one Isaac Newton founded.
It’s motto in latin says “Take the word of no one”. I guess Isaac Newton wasn’t a scientist after all.
Mark,
You misunderstand the specific use of the word “proof”. In a strict sense, science only provides evidence to support claims, it does not “prove” things. e.g. nothing can “prove” general relativity, we just have evidence that relativity is our best-yet description of gravity. Lay people talk about sience “proving” things. In science, only mathematicians prove things. AGW cannot be “proven”, but it can be shown to be our best-yet description of climate change.
John