From Tom Neslon who writes:
Barking madness in the New York Times: Global warming blamed for coldest winter in China in 30 years and many other extreme cold events; story illustrated with a photo of snow on the palm trees of Jerusalem
Extreme Weather Grows in Frequency and Intensity Around World – NYTimes.com
All this recent shift to pushing “extreme weather” in the clueless MSM made me wonder how the public is responding to it. Obviously, the use of the term has been dramatically on the rise, in fact it is a veritable hockey stick:
Source: Google ngram viewer (note: data only available to 2008)
But, I was really surprised at the public response. It seems that the public just might be smarter than the MSM and the AGW doomers think, or maybe they are just fed up with hype. Search trends on Google are flat:
Source: Google Trends
It seems that “extreme weather” is not catching on. I’m sure the doomers would say it is a “communications problem“. Compare “extreme weather” to the peak from Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in 2007. All terms seem to be in an interest slump now.
Further, it seems to be mainly an English speaking aberration, the rest of the world apparently has even less interest.
Not to worry though, there’s still room on the leader-board for a new meme once the MSM and the doomers realize that “extreme weather” has fizzled out as a propaganda communications tool:
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A logging ban in federal “old growth” forests wasn’t about the spotted owl, it was about decimating the evil logging industry. CAGW isn’t as much about saving the earth as it is about defeating the evil oil and coal industries. I am not claiming that there is some sort of organized conspiracy but more of a ideological shift toward environmental advocacy independent of any real threat.
I often consider trying to talk to people on blogs and news papers about climate change, I’m only a recent convert to the dark side (the data not following the predictions is what seeded the doubt “the 16 years”.) It seems for many people that the 16 years of no warming, the not really understanding why that happened and all that stuff isn’t the least bit worrying. Because they have their narrative, it was taught to them in school, or by the media.
I mean how can you argue with people who say “What data shows no warming for 16 years? The entire 21stC has been warmer than the 20th!” and then post a graph showing no warming since 1998. What happened in the 90’s is actually not that important why you consider the implications of the models getting it so spectacularly wrong for the early 21st. It means the science is NOT SETTLED, CO2 is a driver, but perhaps not the main driver. Especially considering that it was easily swamped by “natural variation”. What happened to those temperature increases being guaranteed? Locked into the system?
These are all concerns of mine, and why I want to hear a less one sided debate about climate change. I hope, really hope, that we are starting to see that now. It doesn’t really matter what the public or the media think, they will think what they are told to think. What matters is whether the honest scientists are having the same doubt I am and make further investigation into all possible causes.
The author of the article is:
Sarah Ly-all
Recent and archived news articles by Sarah Lyall of The New York Times.
I would pronounce that Lie-all.
Assessment: All-Lie.
@ur momisugly Hal44 and pokerguy
“Hal44 says:
January 11, 2013 at 9:21 am
Pokerguy hits on something. Why does the Left buy all of this extreme weather/climate stuff?
Why is this a political thing at all? Apparently a majority of the American (and World) Leftists are anti-business, anti-profit, anti-fossil fuel, anti-internal combustion, anti-success, etc. They latch on to this extreme climate crap to further an agenda of economic destruction, because they feel that “One man’s success is another man’s failure.” And it just isn’t fair!”
I think more than a few liberals (me included) read WUWT and are starving for some propaganda-free science. Generalizations like that just drive us away and serve to polarize us more.
Get with the program, folks, it’s CLIMATE CHAOS!
S.Meyer: Completely agree, it’s because of the many anti-liberal comments on here I actually chose my name. I wanted to make it clear, this isn’t isn’t just a liberal vs conservative conversation.
Where I come from it’s not even a political debate really, that seems to be an american phenomena. Which is perhaps why, in America the debate has split along party lines for many (but not all I’m sure).
…Further, it seems to be mainly an English speaking aberration, the rest of the world apparently has even less interest….
I have a feeling that the whole AGW issue was mainly an ‘english-speaking’ phenomenon. It helped that English is the ‘lingua franca’ for intergovernmental bureaucratic communication, and the doling out of largesse – I get the feeling that most non-english-speaking countries attitude has been “Yes, we’ll keep making the noises so long as you keep giving us the money’…
as long it is not “extrem climate”….weather is not climate
Give ’em enough rope and crooks will hang themselves.
Malice or stupidity, it does not matter, this weather is caused by acts of evil mann,meme is as old as spoken language.
Its great to see the faithful latch onto this meme, it allows everyone to openly laugh at them.
Ridicule is good for fools.Even the, trust in authority, folk can taste the idiocy of;
” Look what you made the weather do.”
Storm = extreme weather event? Well duh.
@ur momisugly Penny Robinson thanks you’re right, I was just flipping thro my copy of Chaos, Making a new science; By James Gleik.
Climate chaos is the average of 30? years of chaotic weather?
Thanks Anthony . . . for demonstrating you can make anything look like a hocky stick . . . I think you should do the same thing . . . for “over the cliff”. You know, push the exaggeration envelope both ways. Just warn us . . . because if you are not prepared, you can still break a leg in a six foot fall.
Oh really! Here’s that thing of the past striking all over the place.
Hal44: 9:21: “Pokerguy hits on something. Why does the Left buy all of this extreme weather/climate stuff?”
If you dig deep enough you will usually find fear of war coupled with a “noble savage/blank slate” view of man that says all the ills of the world are the result of civilization (mostly capitalist Western Civilization) and that we can and should change our society to avoid apocalyptic destruction.
Personally, I agree that a very destructive, population reducing, war is coming, but the “noble savage/blank slate” view of man is a load of bollocks. The war that is coming is a natural phenomenon and will not be avoided.
13 years ago I might have nodded at some of the comments on such articles.
7 years ago I would have been slavering at the hip to point out the obvious to the clinically deranged, nut-job wackos creating and commenting on such articles.
2013 – when I can be bothered I just shake my head at the absurdity of ignoramuses with the capacity to reply to the ‘confirmation’ email that allows them to comment on such articles.
This time period describes the arc of my attempts to rise above the mire of what becomes more obvious with every year – it’s a politically empowered device to extract treasure from all of us.
I fall often.
“Further, it seems to be mainly an English speaking aberration, the rest of the world apparently has even less interest.”
It’s not very surprising that the large majority of Google searches for English terms are done in the English speaking world, is it?
I just found out that “globale Erwärmung” is mainly a …German speaking aberration!
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22globale%20erw%C3%A4rmung%22
🙂
When someone uses subjective as opposed to objective reasoning, then an article appears like the one above. We have not had floods of “biblical proportions” at all, just a c**p summer. Here in Newcastle we had one afternonn of rain that we do not normally have here, with thunder and lightning, I have seen exactly the same thing in Florida in July 2011. The difference between Florida and here is that the infra-structure is built to deal with it, ours isn’t because storms like this are not that common, so why should we spend billions on storm drains and flood protection when the cost is disproportionate to the risk?
Before anyone tells me that this is what the article meant, we have had other “extreme” weather events long before AGW was invented (Summer 1976, Winter 1963 being just two I can bring to mind). History is full of extreme weather events and I am certain that CO2 is not responsible for any of them.I am equally certain that blaming AGW on “hot” and “cold” events is not logical and that weather and climate are two entirely different things!
Partially in response to Dodgy Geezer says:
I am a long-time resident of Costa Rica and have spent some time in Colombia. The media in both countries usually do not have independent reporters in the US, UK etc, but rather depend upon wire services and translation bureaus for news outside of Latin America, and especially environmental news. The reading public here is subject solely, and this is no exageration, to the AGW point of view.
In the New York Times article I see this:
Then at the end of the article I see the reporters involved.
Could it be that the focus on reporting extreme weather is “growing more frequent and intense”?
When will these irresponsible nuts stop their barrage of garbage?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/extreme-weather-page/
That’s easy. It wasn’t and isn’t. The scam is alive and well here, unfortunately.
Jimbo says:
January 11, 2013 at 10:12 am
——————————–
But Jimbo, that’s back then when it was supposed to snow like that.
With all the warming now, it’s not supposed to snow anymore.
That’s why now it’s unusual and extreme.
Forget the idea that it’s actually normal weather.
It proves the global warming weird weather… see?
sarc.
John West says:
January 11, 2013 at 8:24 am
I like “Climate Optimum”, but somehow I don’t think the alarmists will endorse its use.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is because the Holocene Optimum was warmer than the present day and the y do not want the plebs to google Holocene Climate Optimum WIKI and find that out. /sarc> (No doubt the wiki will now get changed)
Another reason people are getting turned off is the ostentatious use of money: In our local town there are two new renewable energy shops (everyone else in the high street is struggling), they modestly call themselves “The Good Life Inc” and outside their premises they park their brand new four wheel drive land rovers.
Across the unspoiled countryside there are brand new wind turbines, each one subsidised from our heating bills and each one making fat profits of millions of pounds for the owners which are given to them tax free. I think people are waking up to the fact that the scare stories are being used to raise taxes and make money.
The frecast is for a lot of snow in the UK next week.
I didn’t think snow was allowed anymore under Met Office rules.
Anyway, some idiots can be guaranteed to bleat that global warming, climate change or whatever is the cause.
Yes, that meets my prior documented definition of crazy–it is the claim that cold can be explained with global warming. It’s now time to set up the time capsules to leave stories for our poor progeny on the turning points in our pathetic history and their future predicament or perhaps humorous lession learned.
I can’t help but hope that even the most scientifically naive reader can process:
o coldest winter in China in 30 years
o -50F in Russia
o worst snowstorm in Jerusalem in 20 years
….and NOT think to themselves that something doesn’t add up.
For the less scientifically challenged, it seems to me that if there were more extreme weather events (not saying there are, I doubt it, but if it were true) this would be a sign of a cooling earth. In a warming earth, the colder parts warm the fastest and warmer parts the slowest, reducing the temperature differential between them. Night versus day, winter versus summer, high latitudes versus low latitudes, high altitudes versus low altidudes… Less temperature differential = less energy differential = less severe weather.
But in a cooling world, the opposite is true. The cold parts cool the fastest and the warm parts the slowest, increasing the temperature differential between them. night/day, winter/summer, etc etc. So a cooling world implies greater temperature differentials = more extreme weather.