Sam Outcalt: Climate change and the Tooth Fairy
Within Boulder County there is a strong and widespread belief that the current extreme weather events are produced by anthropogenic global warming. Without considering the scientific merits of this theory or religion a simple consideration of the implications of its validity might be instructive.
If true, the vast expenditure of global, national, state, county and municipal funds to attenuate its effects have failed.
If false, the current climate shift is the result of natural processes over which mankind has no control.
These options suggest that the current efforts to regulate the global climate are either ineffective or misdirected.
I doubt that this short note will diminish the strongly held belief within the county that these efforts are effective. Redirection of some funds spent in Boulder County on the study and regulation of the Earth’s climate might be better spent on an Annual Tooth Fairy Festival, as the Tooth Fairy is a much cheaper abstraction based on similar logic.
The remainder of the funding should be terminated to aid in balancing the city, county, state and federal budgets.
SAM OUTCALT
Longmont
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Amen. Excellent piece.
He’s sticking his neck out in Boulder!
Well look, it’s scary to think we are at the whim of a climate that will do what it will do without meaningful concern for what we are doing. It’s better to believe we’re breaking the weather because that necessarily means we have the ability to stop breaking it. Which means we’re in control. Which is better.
Actually this is a highly flawed piece. You see, when I was young and lost a tooth and put it under my pillow, I woke up and there was money there instead. So there is actually some minor circumstantial evidence for the tooth fairy’s existence. The same really can’t be said for the perpetually rebranded catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
Soon enough we will see this logic: “The climate is changing the weather”.
At an elevation of ~ 5344 ft msl (dependent on which rock you stand) , there might be a correlation between altitude and mindless thinking.
The all time highest recorded temperature in Boulder of 104 °F (40 °C) occurred on June 23 and July 11, 1954. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Boulder was −24 °F (−31 °C), which occurred in February 1989 and December 1990. Since the record highs precede the record low does that mean anthropogenic climate change is getting colder???
Maybe some funding for warm clothing.
No better conclusions can be made. I sign 100%. JS
Obviously, not being in or from the USA, I have no idea whether the implication that Boulder(ites?) folk are really that gullible to fall for the CAGW scam – but if so, I’d suggest some targeted ‘assistance’ by all those who know folk there. Just remember that it is those that have followed the duping so religiously, and drunk the kool-aid so wantonly, who will be the most angry and despairing when the truth is finally revealed. It would be easy to mock the afflicted sheeple – but really, they do need our help!! I don’t care about the likes of Hansen et al getting depressed and throwing themselves under a bus – but ordinary folk may need saving from themselves!
This has been going on since the start of sivilization, last 7.000 years. We should now be
Iiving in the age of enlightenment, but instead wake up every morning with belief based ideology based similar claims in the media.
It’s crazy and I wonder is the people of the Western World really that stupid?
No, it’s witches. We had the medieval warm period, then we started burning witches, and things cooled off. Just round up a few and add them to the coal and the strange weather, maladies, famine, plague, and other terrible judgments of Gaia will stop! We don’t have time to figure out the causal link, we must start now!
Yes, it’s scary not to be in control. It’s even scarier to believe you are in control when you are not. You cannot bend reality with your will and there are consequences to trying to avoid reality. Admitting we are not in control and adapting to the changes in weather is a much better choice.
The Tooth Fairy Fest is a waste of money. All of the “climate funding” should be returned to the taxpayers. The best way to “balance” Fed, State, and County budgets is to pare them down to necessary services only.
What is up with the full court press of all the ” Studies, preparing for sea level rise, blah blah blah.” that is littering the good science at sites like google science news. Is AR5 due out like real soon?
The Tooth Fairy traditionally has historically been supported solely by parents, and, has always taken a media backseat to Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Groundhog, and CAGW, so, this suggestion is a breath of fresh air and a real chance for some equality of recognition.
No, it’s witches. We had the medieval warm period, then we started burning witches, and things cooled off. Just round up a few and add them to the coal and the strange weather, maladies, famine, plague, and other terrible judgments of Gaia will stop! We don’t have time to figure out the causal link, we must start now!
Sorry, your hypothesis doesn’t pan out. The actual data indicates that it is pirates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirates_and_global_warming
Note well that Somalia has the highest number of pirates and the lowest carbon emissions of any country. Note also that since the late 90’s the number of global pirates has actually increased, and global temperatures over this interval have levelled. If indeed there is global warming evident in Colorado, I strongly suggest that they combat it in the only way that actually can be statistically proven to work — federally subsidized piracy. Urge your congressman to take no prisoners as they loot the treasury! Open the prisons and free the pirates! And don’t forget national pirates day, coming up on September 19. Arrr!
rgb (a.k.a. Whitebeard the Pirate, Grand Conchiglie of the Church of the F. S. M.)
Kev-in-UK,
Boulderites would mean brain dead hippies if I do not miss my guess. Anecdotal evidence would include the the TV series “Mork and Mindy” was set there.
Don’t forget about Sasquatch! How do you explain all those plaster footprint casts? He must be real! There’s even an old film of an actual Bigfoot in the wild:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Patterson+film&oq=Patterson+film&gs_l=youtube.3..0l7j0i5l3.315.790.0.1884.4.4.0.0.0.0.120.374.3j1.4.0…0.0…1ac.R5ZkoDGT6aI
Given the fact that much more evidence supports the existence of Bigfoot than the theory of AGW, I’m surprised academics aren’t clamoring for more research funding.
What a beautiful dilemma on which to spear a Warmist politico! If they’ve “failed”, We The People are 100% justified in getting rid of these failures. If they are wasting public money, We The People are 100% justified in getting rid of these wastrels. So, which is it, my little political friend? Think very carefully before you answer … 🙂
And I thoroughly approve of the redirection of the funds to the Tooth Fairy. (As every reader of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series – and every parent! – knows, the Tooth Fairy is a franchise, not an individual.)
The truly ironic thing here in Boulder County is that the county sits over the second oldest oil field west of the Mississippi. While the citizens of Boulder are protesting opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, their own county is seeing a huge boom in new wells being drilled every day. They don’t see that it doesn’t impact them in their daily lives, but somehow it’s supposed to cause the demise of hapless creatures that… wait for it… migrate!
For those not in the know about Boulder politics, it is notoriously left wing, often garnering the nickname “Peoples Republic of Boulder” – that might help put this letter to the editor in context for some.
This is what I would expect out of Boulder. Remember, the University of Colorado is in Boulder. Some years ago, Boulder passed an ordinance limiting growth of the city, causing housing prices to skyrocket. So I’m not surprised by this at all.
I like the tooth fairy theme.
I wonder if the letter writer knows of Hansen’s dispassionate comments last year over renewable energy. He wrote this in another of his ‘papers’;
“But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”
James Hansen, 8/2011
I thought Boulder still relied on a coal-fired power plant? The same question applies to the coal plant that supplied the U.S. Capitol and Mall.
Good article, though your supposition that not many of those die hard believers will listen will probably be validated. The political component many times keeps even the technically competent from seeing (or admitting) the unscientific flaws in the green story. Plus many younger folks have been seriously indoctrinated over the years as well as not being technically competent to evaluate what they are being sold.
They’ve always suffered from a bit of hypoxia up there in Boulder. As Robin Williams used to mumble when filming there… naano naano… and the tooth fairy will fit in there fine.