We all know how bitter Minnesota winters can be. Yesterday in Minneapolis, for example, the temperature only got up to… 46 degrees, actually. It was almost balmy yesterday. People were walking around without any coats on, soaking up the sun.
It’s been an abnormally warm winter this year, not just in Minnesota, but across almost all of the United States. Of course, that’s just one year’s weather. However, the long-term climate appears to have warmed as well. Climate data show that there hasn’t been an abnormally cold winter in a very long time.
What’s more, the scientific evidence that human beings are to blame for global warming has continued to grow in size and scope. A new study of the relationship of energy output from the sun to atmospheric absorption of energy shows that the sun cannot be to blame for global warming, as some pollution industry advocates suggest. Even a scientific review funded by the Republican Koch brothers, with the purpose of debunking the anthropogenic hypothesis of global warming, determined that the anthropogenic hypothesis is valid, and that there has not been any global scientific conspiracy to distort scientific data in order to create the false appearance of a global warming crisis.
Scientific research has delivered a thoroughly substantiated, double-triple-quadruple checked, explanation for the reality of global warming: Human activities are to blame for it. The facts behind this analysis apply in Minnesota as much as anywhere else on Earth.
Yet, the current political platform of the Minnesota Republican Party pretends that these facts simply don’t exist. The Minnesota GOP platform currently includes the following statement: “We oppose policies, legislation and mandates that are based on the theory that humans are responsible for global climate change including the Theory of Man-Made Global Warming.” Minnesota Republicans seem to be saying that they don’t care what scientific information is available. They just don’t want to deal with the issue.
Today, the Minnesota Republicans has the opportunity to correct this irresponsible position of willful ignorance and inaction. In local meetings across Minnesota, Republican voters can do much more than just vote for the Republican presidential candidate of their choice. Voters in local caucuses will also have the power to propose changes to the political platform of the Minnesota Republican Party.
In Rochester, in St. Paul, in Duluth, in Grand Forks… somewhere in Minnesota, one decent Republican voter can propose today that the GOP in Minnesota stop its opposition to solutions to the immense and growing problem of climate change. That voter’s caucus can then do the right thing, and approve that platform change for consideration by the statewide Republican Party.
Will that voter step forward today? Will the Minnesota Republican Party step forward and deal with reality?
“It’s been an abnormally warm winter this year, not just in Minnesota, but across almost all of the United States. Of course, that’s just one year’s weather. However, the long-term climate appears to have warmed as well. Climate data show that there hasn’t been an abnormally cold winter in a very long time.”
Uhm…read the news outside the US. Tell me what today’s headlines are.
Okay, Greg.
I’ll tell you this: Outside the U.S., in the Arctic, the ocean is at record low levels of ice for this time of year, more than two standard deviations below normal.
Also, GLOBALLY, there hasn’t been a year with below normal temperatures for over a generation.
And you want a headline today? Try this from the Mediterranean: The world’s oldest living organism is discovered, and is threatened by warming ocean waters.
Here’s from the Tehran Times today, if you want to get more international than just Europe: “A growing body of research is showing that humans are likely causing more than 100% of global warming: without our influences on the climate, the planet would actually be cooling slightly.”
From The Hindu today – that’s in India: “Climate critical to farm policy decisions”
Oh, and here’s from the Pacific island nations: “Small island nations, whose very existence is threatened by the rising sea levels brought about by global warming, are seeking to take the issue of climate change before the International Court of Justice.
Johnson Toribiong, president of Palau, said Friday his country and other island nations had formed an expert advisory committee to bring the issue before the U.N. General Assembly. That would allow the world court in the Hague to determine the legal ramifications of climate change under international law.
‘If 20 years of climate change negotiations have taught us anything, it’s that every state sees climate change differently. For some, it is mainly an economic issue … for others it’s about geopolitics and their past or future place in the global economy, but for us it’s about survival,’ Toribiong said.”
That global enough for you, Greg?
The sun is just getting larger as it prepares to explode. NASA is currently sending giant quantities of water to Russia – via the ocean – to launch into space. Destination – the sun. We’re going to attempt to cool it off a bit.
You should notice the effects by the year 2100. I promise.
Actually, North America is the only place that’s been warm this year. The rest of the planet is being crippled by the harshest, coldest, most brutal winter on record. Not even all of N. America has seen anomalous warmth, as coastal and central areas of Alaska have had record-setting cold and precipitation this winter.
This is the problem with politics and emotion mixing with science. They don’t mix. The Earth’s climate has changed for billions of years without our help. It is well known that for the last few million years, we’ve had ice ages fairly regularly every 10-12,000 years or so. Global warming is real. It may not actually be happening right now, but it has happened in the relatively recent past. We know that the Earth’s poles were ice-free year-round in the past, just as we know that the ice caps once covered the Earth clear down into the 40 degree lattitudes.
It’s the political, money grabbing idea that humans are causing climate change that is one of the biggest farces, one of the biggest lies ever perpetuated on mankind. It is just one more way to tax people who create jobs, to punish the sucessfull, while letting those who don’t care off the hook completely. China, India, Russia, you think they care about carbon credits? It’s a scam, and it’s sad that so many people have bought it.
You write: “The real problem with politics and emotion mixing with science. They don’t mix.”
That’s true, and it’s your problem. Irregular Times has noted the global temperature data for January 2012. They indicate that January 2012 globally was NOT the coldest January on record. It was the coldest January since… wait for it… 2008.
Oh, but I’m leaving out December. December 2011 was globally speaking the coldest December on record since… wait for it… December 2010.