Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Global Warming in the News

Photo credit: Webshots

Global Warming has been in the news lately. It almost never stops being in the news. If weather is happening, you can count on seeing either the words, "global warming," or, "climate change," somewhere in the article.

The Scotsman (UK) reported January 7, 2007, on events in ancient Egypt.

GLOBAL warming is one of the greatest threats to present day civilisation but work by a team of Scots scientists suggests the ancient Egyptians may have been earlier victims of climate change.

The pharaohs ruled their empire for hundreds of years, spreading culture, architecture and the arts before it collapsed into economic ruin. Why that happened is one of the great mysteries of history.

Samples taken over the past two years from sediments beneath [Lake] Tana, which supplies the water which makes the lower Nile valley so fertile, reveal the lake may have almost dried up during the critical period around 4,200 years ago due to climate change.

I'm sure it was George Bush's fault for not signing the Kyoto treaty.

A little closer to now, Aftenposten (Norway) reported January 9, 2007, that climate change contributed to the collapse of a building.

Wetter weather and frequent temperature swings put more wear and tear on the bricks and mortar in old buildings, experts say. They suggest that climate change may have contributed to Sunday's collapse of an Oslo apartment house built in the late 1880s.

Have they considered that 120 years of winters and summers, freezing and thawing the bricks, might have taken its toll?

Just look at what happens to pavement over the course of a winter. It's the reason that pothole-filling is the favorite municipality sport in the spring. Add another 120 winters, and what have you got? Not "climate change." You've got structural problems.

It shouldn't, but it gets me the way people take what's local and see it as global and the way they cherry-pick examples to "prove" global warming while ignoring the ones that might disprove it.

This winter was the mildest on the East Coast in decades, causing many to cry, "It's global warming!" As if there's something wrong with lower than normal heating bills. But that was before the ice storms hit Oklahoma and moved east, killing 41 people so far. The CNN report on the ice storms today managed to keep its mouth shut tight and covered with both hands on the subject of global warming and climate change. Blasts of arctic air don't help the propaganda very well.

Likewise, yesterday's AP report on the destruction of most of California's citrus crop doesn't make a peep about global warming.

Three nights of freezing temperatures have destroyed up to three-quarters of California's $1 billion citrus crop, according to an estimate issued Monday as forecasters warned the weather could continue.

Other crops, including avocados and strawberries, also have suffered damage in the cold snap, agricultural officials said.

I sure could have used some genuine global warming, because what's happened to the avocados and strawberries is really going to hit me where it hurts. The end of January is when the strawberry stands open up around here. If they even open, I'm going to have to pay some big bucks.

Alan Caruba's column in Sunday's Intellectual Conservative has this to say about the media's obsession with climate change:

It’s official. America is now totally insane over the weather.

Even the Weather Channel that used to simply provide reasonably accurate, short-term information about the weather is now telling everyone we’re doomed because global warming is going to destroy the Earth. Why not just rename it the AlGore Channel?

To make matters worse, people are being told and actually believing that what they do or not can affect the weather in ways to keep the seas and temperatures from rising. It is no longer the domain of the sun, the oceans, volcanoes and clouds. These puny things are nothing compared to what kind of car you drive or what you use to heat your home.

Are we supposed to return to the days when virgins were thrown into volcanoes or hearts were cut from living bodies in order to appease the gods that “control” the weather? Or are we all going to fall victim to those in Congress and elsewhere who insist we ruin our lives in order to achieve “control” over the weather?

It’s the weather! Get over it!

Read the whole thing. Caruba's is a voice of reason in a sea of insanity.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's amazing to me how important we humans perceive ourselves to be. I think it is only in a godless arrogance that we can believe that we have any influence of even minute significane over something as huge as global climate and weather.

Then again, we're pretty good at being humans and selfish and self-important. We've had lots of practice over the years and lots of encouragement from satan from the very beginning that we could be like God.

SkyePuppy said...

Christina,

You're so right on both counts.

Anonymous said...

Great post and comments. Now that the Dems have control of Congress, the liberals should either "put up or shut up."