Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Back in 2008, after the election, it seemed that Barack Obama was actually going to make things different from how they were under George W. Bush. Remember that?

Here’s what President-Elect Obama had to say on climate legislation:

“My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process… Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

Here’s what President Obama has to say on climate legislation now:

Yesterday, congressional Democrats announced that they would stop trying to pass “comprehensive energy legislation”. That’s the new term they took on after they had removed real climate action from the bill, and added in big subsidies for oil and coal companies to encourage more fossil fuel use.

Now, the Democrats are saying they’re not even going to try to pass THAT shameful compromise. It was Barack Obama who led the way in abandoning the effort to deal with climate change. He just stood back and watched it fail.

Now, in the middle of the hottest year ever recorded, watch as climate change continues “to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

Vote for Barack Obama in 2012? This environmentalist says Hell no!

The environmental consequences of out of control energy consumption are ballooning, you could say. That’s literally true in this short video, produced for viewers in Victoria, Australia.

Care to keep a few of those black balloons from floating up on your account?

One of the consequences of global warming is rising sea levels. There is no rational debate about whether sea levels are rising – this change has been measured worldwide.

At the end of last week, the EPA issued a new report on the likely implications of sea level rise. The report goes into a good amount of detail, making it a useful resource if you’re truly interested in the subject, but not a thrilling read if you’re only casually tracking the issue.

The report confirms that “Rising water levels are already an important factor in submerging low-lying lands, eroding beaches, converting wetlands to open water, and exacerbating coastal flooding.” In comparing the social and environmental costs of trying to preserve current shorelines and managing a retreat to higher ground, the report concludes that attempting to preserve current shorelines will have a lower social and environmental cost in the short run, but will have a higher cost in the long term.

I’ve winced over the last week as I’ve watched colleagues announce, in professional situations, “Well, so much for global warming! Do you know how cold it’s going to be tomorrow?”

They’re reacting, of course, to the strong cold front that has been active in the upper Midwest and East Coast of the United States. These prophets of instaclimate don’t seem to be aware that, at the same time as there’s been a cold front in some parts of the country, the Pacific Coast has had a strong heat wave. What would they suggest, that global warming doesn’t count in the East, but it’s stronger than ever in the West?

It’s uncomfortable to watch people exhibit such sloppy thinking in professional settings, forgetting that global warming is a global, not local, phenomenon, and failing to understand the difference between a day’s weather and changes in climate. Would these people suddenly believe in the reality of global warming again, if only they encountered a hot summer day where they live?

I’d love to send these people to meteorology school, but failing that, I’ll give them the reminder that December was one of the warmest Decembers on record, and 2008 was one of the top ten hottest years ever recorded.

One chilly week of fluxuating weather doesn’t undo the kind of trend that climatologists have been tracking for decades.

I am so sick and tired of hearing people say that the sky is falling, and talk about global warming as if it is actually taking place. Why do they keep suppressing the truth? Why won’t they let the public hear about the real scientific measurements that are taking place?

There is an alternative hypothesis that the liberal media never talks about: The Solar Hypothesis. The Solar Hypothesis acknowledges that there was a period of warming, but observes that temperatures in many places on Earth are now actually cooling! It’s true! It’s happening right now, and if you don’t believe me, then I challenge you to start observing temperatures yourself instead of just accepting what Al Gore is telling you.

The Solar Hypothesis holds that there are cycles of warming and cooling of the Earth’s atmosphere, but that these cycles of warming and cooling happen because of differences in the intensity of energy from the Sun as it hits the Earth, not because of human pollution.

The truth that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know is that temperatures all across the United States have been getting cooler for a long time now – for months, since late August last year.

Will there be a warming trend after this cooling trend is done? Sure. That’s only natural. In fact, scientists who adhere to the Solar Hypothesis predict that there will be a short warming trend starting sometime soon and extending to the end of July, all across the Northern Hemisphere.

But, right now, there is a cooling trend, not global warming! This cooling trend is part of a cycle, which real scientists understand. It gets warmer, and colder, and warmer again. Nothing to worry about.

This morning, for example, there was a region-wide warming trend, and maybe that’s what the global warming econuts are all worried about. But, there is a current cooling trend. The Solar Hypothesis predicts this, noting that the effect of the sun is getting weaker right now, and is weakening all the time. At 6:05, as I write this, the temperature is about 45 degrees, but by the end of the night, it could well be below freezing!

Take that, Al Gore. How is that global warming? The temperature is getting colder, you envirofascist!

Never mind what the scientific establishment says about this study and that study. You know, you can get research to say anything you want to. You can trust me because I’m asking you to think logically, and I trust your intelligence, unlike those pointy headed university welfare cases.

Just look around you and think. While you slept last night, dreaming the Green dreams that the Earth Firsters put into your head, the USA was getting colder, not warmer! Well, how could it be getting cooler if there is global warming?

You know the answer. It can’t! Global warming is a hoax.

For the benefit of readers who don’t know me: Wink!

Daniel Gardner of Oberlin, Ohio is cool. George Luna of Atascadero, California is cool. John Bork of Grafton, Iowa is cool.

Is your mayor cool? You can check at Cool Mayors.

A mayor is counted as cool if he or she has committed the municipal government of his or her city or village to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign (CCP) or the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. In other words, these mayors are trying to get around the inaction of the Bush White House in confronting climate change, and working to make things better where they live.

Cool.