The Weather Is Not Weird

For the last several years, climate change alarmists have focused on the argument that a warmer planet will see more extreme weather events. This claim serves two purposes:

1. Any abnormal weather event (including blizzards and cold spells) can be blamed on global warming.
2. Such anecdotal events of extreme weather (a blizzard here, a hurricane there) can be accumulated and pointed to as a body of evidence demonstrating the collective impact of climate change.

There's one problem, though. It's not too difficult to count the number of extreme weather events, and, a research project has done just that:

As it happens, the project's initial findings, published last month, show no evidence of an intensifying weather trend. "In the climate models, the extremes get more extreme as we move into a doubled CO2 world in 100 years," atmospheric scientist Gilbert Compo, one of the researchers on the project, tells me from his office at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "So we were surprised that none of the three major indices of climate variability that we used show a trend of increased circulation going back to 1871."

In other words, researchers have yet to find evidence of more-extreme weather patterns over the period, contrary to what the models predict. "There's no data-driven answer yet to the question of how human activity has affected extreme weather," adds Roger Pielke Jr., another University of Colorado climate researcher. 

There is nothing weird about the weather, only the alarmists' reaction to it.

The Debate Canard

Bradford Plumer of The New Republic is upset with the state of the climate change debate:

Is this what the climate-change debate has come to? Just two years ago, after Barack Obama’s victory, environmental groups were ecstatic at the prospect that the United States might finally do something serious about climate change. But now, after the cap-and-trade bill failed in the Senate and Republicans won big at the midterms, it’s the skeptics who are riding high in Congress—so high, in fact, that they barely feel the need to argue their case.

Since the alarmists' plans would cost hundreds of billions of dollars a year, isn't the burden on them to make their case? Have they?

Plumer laments the Republican plan to block EPA regulation of carbon emissions:

If you don’t believe climate change is a problem (or real), then of course most of these new carbon rules are pointlessly pricey. And, within the Republican Party, the belief that global warming is a made-up non-problem has become thoroughly ingrained—so much so that it’s no longer even worth justifying or debating.

I love a good debate. If you go on You Tube, you can find people debating all sorts of issues: from abortion to zoology. Christopher Hitchens, alone, has had dozens of debates about the existence of God.

However, the number of climate change debates is miniscule. There is a simple reason for this: alarmists get creamed.

Intelligence Squared US hosted a global warming debate in 2007. For 100 minutes, two panels argued over the following motion: Global Warming Is Not a Crisis. The audience was polled before and after the event. The pre-debate numbers were: 30% for the motion, 57% against, and 13% undecided. After the debate, the numbers were 46% for the motion, 42% against, and 12% undecided. In less than two hours, the alarmists had lost more than a quarter of their supporters!

The same organization hosted a second debate in 2009. This time the motion was: Major Reductions In Carbon Emissions Are Not Worth the Money. Pre-debate, the audience voted 16% for the motion, 50% against, and 35% undecided. After the debate, the undecideds had moved toward the skeptics. It was now 42% for the motion, 48% against, and 10% undecided.

In a focused debate, global warming alarmism withers under the scrutiny. It's easy to make a 90 minute film presenting the alarmist argument. But, it's much more difficult to answer questions from the opposition. That's why Al Gore will not debate the issue. But, I'm not just picking on the former vice president. Few alarmists of any background will debate global warming. Last August, filmmaker James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar) backed out of a global warming debate the day before it was to occur. Why the sudden cold feet? If the case for alarm is undeniable, what was he worried about?

Again, the two debates I've linked to are rarities. Alarmists loathe getting on the stage with skeptics, which shows that they are conscious of the weaknesses in their arguments. They need to spend less time demonizing the Republicans and more time improving their case. The fact that they don't is reason to suspect their motives.

An Exercise in Hyperbole

I don't know much about the latest videos concerning Planned Parenthood, so I went to Little Green Footballs to see what Charles Johnson had to say:

Gail Collins has a good piece in the New York Times about the latest smears perpetrated by Lila Rose (and hyped by fraudster Andrew Breitbart) against Planned Parenthood. ...

The truth is that Lila Rose could not care less about real child slavery. Using actors playing pimps and prostitutes is a cynical trick, as Collins points out, to smear an organization that helps millions of low-income women every day. But Rose’s fanatical religious views tell her it’s fine to lie, distort, and fabricate evidence if it furthers the cause of destroying women’s rights.

I'm not a pro-life absolutist, but is it cynical to equate abortion rights with women's rights? Has it been that clearly established that women's rights hinge on access to abortion? If abortion is restricted would that somehow end women's suffrage or otherwise destroy women's rights? Is the claim that the pro-life movement wants to destroy women's rights a "fanatical" view?

I don't know Lile Rose from a hole in the wall, but I was eager to see evidence of "the truth" about her complete disinterest in child slavery. However, there was nothing forthcoming in the rest of the blog post. I'm not sure if we should call that assertion by Johnson a smear. Since he's the expert, someone should ask him.

Johnson ends with this:

Gail Collins says it well:

There are tens of millions Americans who oppose abortion because of deeply held moral principles. But they’re attached to a political movement that sometimes seems to have come unmoored from any concern for life after birth.

Is that a smear?

I have two questions: If someone is a secular humanist that believes the fetus is a human life - what can they do or say to note their objection to abortion without being accused of wanting to destroy women's rights or otherwise being smeared as "attached to a political movement that sometimes seems to have come unmoored from any concern for life after birth"? Under what parameters may the pro-life movement operate that wouldn't offend Collins or Johnson? I want to be part of the new civility.

P.S. I have to confess - Johnson is right about one thing. I don't care one iota about child slavery. No one who leans pro-life does.

My SUV Brought Down a Tyrant!

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has blamed the recent civil unrest in Egypt on rising food prices caused by global warming:

While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate — which means that the current food price surge may be just the beginning. ...

The usual suspects will, of course, go wild over suggestions that global warming has something to do with the food crisis ...

But the evidence does, in fact, suggest that what we’re getting now is a first taste of the disruption, economic and political, that we’ll face in a warming world. And given our failure to act on greenhouse gases, there will be much more, and much worse, to come.

If, instead of the one degree of warming we've had over the last century, there had been one degree of cooling, would that have improved agricultural production? The answer is almost certainly no. This creates a conundrum: Krugman claims the extreme weather of a warming world is harmful to agriculture; yet, a cooling world would also decrease crop yields. The implication is that the world of 1850-1900 was a climate optimum for agricultural production - but how could anyone claim to know such a thing? Due to better technology, agricultural yields have sky-rocketed over the last 100 years. How could anyone weed through that data of changing variables and proclaim that even though yields were inferior - the late 1800s were the climate optimum for global agricultural production?

The late 19th Century had better agriculture than the Little Ice Age which preceded it (again, cooler temperatures are bad for agriculture), but it was even hotter in the Medieval Warm Period than it is today - a time when agriculture flourished. (It should be noted that all of the periods had political unrest).

There's no doubt that recent events in Egypt have been fueled by higher food prices. However, this chart shows the rise to be a blip in the post-WWII trend of declining food prices.

Do short-term weather events effect food prices? Yes. Can the recent weather events be attributed to long-term climate changes? No. Linking a warmer world to more extreme weather events is still very tendentious (and it's the key to Krugman's argument).

Will long-term climate change (yes, the climate is changing) lead to lower global agricultural yields? Unknown. Probably not. At least, there's little reason to think it will.

Is the unrest in Egypt due to climate change? Such an assertion is dubious.

Do I Take Xanax For This?

Anyone else bristle when their political views are smeared as a mental illness? Criticize political Islam - that makes you an Islamophobe. Oppose same-sex marriage? You are a homophobe.

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, ever on the edge of forensic psychology, has identified a new disorder:

If this was a dispute about policy, of course, Republicans would be willing to pursue alterations. ...

But the Affordable Care Act has become to the right a symbolic totem that has little to do with actual policies. Its very existence is an enduring emotional wound. ...

The GOP is operating not on the basis of some analysis of public policy but from a sheer pathology.

Does everyone understand that? A willingness to merely alter Obamacare is a sign that you are concerned about policy. But, if you support the full repeal of Obamacare, you are pathological - i.e., mentally disturbed due to an emotional wound.

Honor Demands No Less

I thought the depravity of honor killings knew no bounds, but there was a case earlier this week in Bangladesh that tests that theorem:

The reports said Hena was raped by her 40-year-old relative Mahbub on Sunday. Next day, a fatwa was announced at a village arbitration that she must be given 100 lashes. She fell unconscious after nearly 80 lashes.

Fatally injured Hena was rushed to Naria health complex where she succumbed to her injuries.

This was not the act of a handful of enraged family members. The whole village was complicit in her torture and death.

However, I'm sure the honor of all involved was preserved. 

21st Century Blasphemy

While the Islamic world ponders how it may adapt itself with modernity while maintaining its religion, I would strongly advise they consider discontinuing this practice:

Muhammad Samiullah, 17, is under arrest in the southern city of Karachi.

He is accused of blaspheming against the Prophet Muhammad in an examination paper.

The article doesn't reveal what was written in the boy's paper, but a culture confident in itself doesn't need blasphemy laws. For example, America reveres her flag, but allows it to be burned. Pakistan should show some confidence in their beliefs, and let the boy go home.