Chutzpah!
When the history of our times is written, there will have to be a chapter on the great global-warming scam and the manner in which this generation’s best and brightest fell prey to con artists no less slick than Josef Stalin’s favorite – Trofim Denisovich Lysenko.
This chapter will have as its focus a variety of clowns. Al Gore, purveying his convenient and highly profitable lies, will of course loom large, as will Rajendra Pachauri and the aficionados of hype at the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who were rewarded for their dishonesty, alongside Gore, with a Nobel Peace Prize. Their assistants in Britain at the Hadley Centre for Climate Change and the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia, whose misrepresentation of the scientific evidence was exposed in and after November 2009, will also be prominent.
But this is by now old news – thoroughly explored in the mainstream press everywhere except, of course, in the United States, where “the worst scientific scandal of our generation” has been relegated to brief defensive articles hidden where they are unlikely to be widely read. What will, I think, be most evident in this chapter, however, will be the deep-seated reluctance of the great and good to back away from the extravagant and unfounded claims by which they have been conned.
Consider, for example, the directors of the MET office in Great Britain – that country’s weather service. Mindful of the anthropogenic global-warming orthodoxy, which that office helped generate, they have, for three years running, predicted exceptionally warm winters for Britain. And, of course, for three years running our cousins across the Atlantic have suffered through exceedingly cold winters. The current one is, in fact, the coldest on record, and in Britain the records go back to 1652. One wonders – and, in Britain, certain commentators do now openly wonder – just how long it will take the government of that country to admit that the whole thing is a fiasco.
We should not, however, confine our laughter to the British. If anything, our establishment is even more ridiculous. Consider, for example, the ever-reliable editors at “our newspaper of record” Pravda on the Hudson: I mean, of course, The New York Times.
Right now, as you no doubt know, it is bitterly cold – especially on the East Coast. Californians have been subjected to torrential rains. In Colorado, the snowfall has been mammoth. In Minneapolis, it was so heavy that it brought down the roof at the Metrodome. The cold in Miami and Key West has set records. Philadelphia is reeling today under 24 inches of snow. In Elizabeth, New Jersey, the snowfall is 32 inches. In Brooklyn and Newark, it exceeds 24 inches, and, in Boston, which has received 18.2 inches, the story has not yet fully been told. Nor is this a freak accident. Seven of the last nine winters in the eastern United States and Eurasia have been exceptionally cold.
And what do we learn from the Grey Lady? Listen to Judah Cohen – “director of seasonal forecasting at” a suspiciously nameless “atmospheric and environmental research firm,” which, as you might guess, depends on government funding to support its research – who writes in that estimable journal that “the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes.”
Got that? “We’re freezing not in spite of climate change but because of it.” As for “annual cycles like El Niño/Southern Oscillation, solar variability and global ocean currents,” forget them. They “cannot account for recent winter cooling."
Nope, the solar minimum and its aftermath – the prolonged absence of sunspots and solar storms – these have nothing to do with the temperature and the weather more generally. Nor does the appearance of La Niña. Our suffering is all a consequence of – you guessed it – anthropogenic global warming! It has to be. The alternative is unthinkable.
“As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades,” Mr. Cohen reports,
more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents. So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased.
The sun’s energy reflects off the bright white snow and escapes back out to space. As a result, the temperature cools. When snow cover is more abundant in Siberia, it creates an unusually large dome of cold air next to the mountains, and this amplifies the standing waves in the atmosphere, just as a bigger rock in a stream increases the size of the waves of water flowing by.
The increased wave energy in the air spreads both horizontally, around the Northern Hemisphere, and vertically, up into the stratosphere and down toward the earth’s surface. In response, the jet stream, instead of flowing predominantly west to east as usual, meanders more north and south. In winter, this change in flow sends warm air north from the subtropical oceans into Alaska and Greenland, but it also pushes cold air south from the Arctic on the east side of the Rockies. Meanwhile, across Eurasia, cold air from Siberia spills south into East Asia and even southwestward into Europe.
What we have here is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. If it is exceptionally warm, the cause is global warming. If it is breathtakingly cold, the cause is the same. Karl Popper must be rolling in his grave.
The end is near. When a scientific hypothesis is on its last legs, its proponents have to engage in special pleading on an ever-growing scale. When you read Mr. Cohen's argument, you should think of the cycles and epicycles added in a desperate attempt to make sense of the geocentric astronomy of Ptolemy. The field of climate science awaits its Copernicus, its Tycho Brahe, its Galileo, and its Newton. In the meantime, however, we can lean back and enjoy the chutzpah on display at The New York Times. There is sure to be more to come.
- Comment (29)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Chutzpah!
O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." When the same scientific conclusion follows from all data, one would think a real scientist would, as they are trained to do, question the "science" underlying the bizarre conclusions.
Oct '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Many an academic discipline suffers from such static introversion. Just consider how long it has taken the historical profession to rid itself of Hegelianism.
May '10
Re: Chutzpah!
The global-warming-climate-change authoritarian juggernaut barrels on regardless. It's just too good a vehicle for centralizing control of everything to give it up now. It doesn't matter in the slightest that the predictions don't come true, that the hypothesis is not falsifyable, that people's real-world experience betrays the claims. The propaganda machine still bangs the gong of climate catastrophe. I have seldom felt so powerless.
This is real tyranny.
Re: Chutzpah!
Paul, right outside my window, in northwest Connecticut, is about nine inches of snow. And beyond that, a frozen lake. When I read that quotation from the NYTimes, I laughed.
And isn't that another sign that the global warming crowd are in deep trouble? They're now a punch line. A joke. And that's hard to come back from.
Re: Chutzpah!
Rob Long: Paul, right outside my window, in northwest Connecticut, is about nine inches of snow. And beyond that, a frozen lake. When I read that quotation from the NYTimes, I laughed.
And isn't that another sign that the global warming crowd are in deep trouble? They're now a punch line. A joke. And that's hard to come back from. · Dec 27 at 6:03pm
It is, indeed. When people start rolling their eyes and laughing, the game is up.
May '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Lysenko's great sin was not his crackpottery but his enthusiastic use of the power of the state to silence and murder his critics. Similarly, we have heard many current environmental crackpots declare that "deniers" should be treated as criminals. Plus ca change....
Jul '10
Re: Chutzpah!
It took every single ounce of energy to read this post.
How can One be surprised? People still believe in the hot air of Keynesianism.
Jun '10
Re: Chutzpah!
I really want to dance in the streets over this, but their religion still adheres to reports like the one from the World Meteorological Organization. The report continues to say that average temperatures are rising worldwide. Until we can rebut this, Lysenko still reigns.
Meanwhile, I will laugh at the gall these people have. No, La Niña, the sun, etc. have nothing to do with climate. It's ONLY this invisible menace that is independent of all other forces that threatens us. And ONLY government can solve it. It's the perfect plot.
Aug '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Forgive me for rolling out an oldie but goodie-
Warmists are like watermelons, green on the outside but red on the inside.
Funny how these experts aren't telling us either the expensive measures to control carbon output or the reduced economic activity due to recession are actually working by reversing warming in most spectacular style!
Edited on Dec 27, 2010 at 7:14pmJun '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Judah Cohen goes on to say:
"The sun's energy reflects off the bright white snow and escapes back out to space. As a result, the temperature cools."
As James Taranto points out in today's Best of the Web, this tears down one of the pillars of global warmism:
"But wait. Greenhouse gases are supposed to prevent the sun's energy from escaping back into space, aren't they?"
Nice catch, Jim.
Jul '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Hay, Casey, Ya forgot the ozone hole.
Jun '10
Re: Chutzpah!
D'oh! I knew I was missing something.
Judah Cohen works for Atmospheric & Environmental Research, Inc., by the way. Their primary client is the U.S. gov't, for whatever that's worth.
Jul '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Hay... it all depends on what day it is.
Re: Chutzpah!
I've always found it convenient how the solutions to climate change - deindustrialization, small cars, compact cities, mass transit, reduced consumerism, less meat-eating - somehow parallel the things the left wants for their own sake. It's a remarkably happy coincidence. But I suppose if you Believe in all these things, the interrelationship just reinforces the correctness of each set of objectives.
May '10
Re: Chutzpah!
AGW combines Mother Earth animism with anti-capitalist regulation. It's a win-win situation for the left. It won't die easily.
---
It also appeals to low self-esteem narcissism. If you had to choose between your mediocre existence and saving the planet, which would you choose?
Edited on Dec 27, 2010 at 7:46pmNov '10
Re: Chutzpah!
You mean executed as criminals...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Mw5_EBk0g&feature=related
No pressure...
Jun '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Maybe I'm a bit behind, but I've never seen that video before. That's horribly disturbing.
Lady Kurobara
You mean executed as criminals...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Mw5_EBk0g&feature=related
No pressure... · Dec 27 at 7:46pm
Nov '10
Re: Chutzpah!
It is not only chutzpah, but hubris.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris
Look at it this way: The Earth is a titanic geothermal system. Climate is a global phenomenon. Weather is a regional phenomenon — local manifestations of climate. One of the smallest manifestations of weather is a tornado, which, for all its power, is (relative to weather and climate) a very tiny thing.
Can we control tornadoes? Can we switch them off? Of course not. We have nothing like that kind of power. And yet eco-fanatics propose to change the climate, which is almost infinitely bigger in scale than a tornado. It is beyond hubristic; it is howling insanity. What does that say about our President, who boasted that he would make the seas recede?
Nov '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Dave Molinari: Maybe I'm a bit behind, but I've never seen that video before. That's horribly disturbing.
Lady Kurobara
You mean executed as criminals...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Mw5_EBk0g&feature=related
No pressure...
It is, indeed, horribly disturbing. But it is also a vivid demonstration of the way eco-fanatics actually think. They are clinically insane and very, very dangerous, and they must never be given power over their fellow human beings.
We are, after all, talking about people who believe that the human race must be eradicated in order to "bequeath a healthier planet to future generations." Future generations of what?
Insane.
Jun '10
Re: Chutzpah!
Heresy! Blasphemy! Anathema! Oh, thou unbelievers, Nessie has not been photographed in fifty years, the Abominable Snowman has gone missing, and Sasquatch not sighted for a decade. You think this mere coincidence? What more proof do you need that global warming is a FACT? Just yesterday I received a calendar with a month of Sundays. There's a dog in the manger, and a cow has jumped over the moon. What more do you need? The Four Horsemen are loose upon the earth, looking strangely like Al Gore, George Soros, Michael Moore and Lady Gaga, but I digress. Truth is fiction, and fiction has become stranger than truth. What more proof do you need? Repent! Abase yourselves before the altar of Gaia before it's too late. Repent! You can now purchase indulgences at most major airports. We accept Master Card, Visa, and American Express.