White House science adviser John Holdren urged people to start using the phrase during a speech last week in Oslo, echoing a plea he made three years earlier. Holdren said global warming is a "dangerous misnomer" for a problem far more complicated than a rise in temperature.I guess the advantage of the new phrase is obvious. It includes both warming and cooling, which makes it irrefutable. Temperature rises: "Look at the global climate disruption going on." Temperature goes down: "Ah, see that global climate disruption taking place before our very eyes." This is much better than making actual predictions that can be falsified or confirmed by empirical evidence.
That is the risky way to do it; it can be very frustrating for the dedicated tax raiser to find that the global temperature rise that was predicted is not happening. How, exactly would we know if global climate disruption were not occurring? What would falsify the theory of global climate disruption? If the answer is that there is no way to falsify such a theory, then it is pretty clear that we have moved beyond science into the realm of opinion.
But it gets worse.
So I'm sitting around thinking about "global climate disruption" and I'm wondering what exactly is the difference between that and what we stupid conservatives affectionately refer to as "weather" - you know as in: "Nice weather we are having" or "That was some dose of weather we had yesterday, eh?" So I decided to consult the all-knowing Wikipedia. I quote:
Weather is the state of the atmosphere as measured on a scale of hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or storm, clear or cloudy. . . Weather occurs due to density (temperature and moisture) differences between one place and another. . . . Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. The atmosphere is a chaotic system, so small changes to one part of the system can grow to have large effects on the system as a whole.So let me see if I've got this straight. The state of our atmosphere is constantly changing due to temperatures going up and down in various places. The atmosphere is chaotic: meaning that it is constantly in flux - being disrupted, one might say. And the difference between "global climate disruption" and "weather" is . . . what? Oh yes, GCD (as opposed to weather) can be fixed if we just implement a bunch of new taxes and transfer billions of dollars to the UN. But what exactly is the difference between GCD and weather?
Well, darned if I know. All I know is that it is freezing in my office today and I'm hoping for some local, if not global, climate disruption before tomorrow.
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6 comments:
So the fact that 100% of articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals confirm Global Warming doesn't sway your view? Facts are kind of fluid for conservatives, huh?
Steve,
You guys wore out that "peer reviewed" scam last year. Studies show that many of the articles referenced in the IPCC Report were not peer-reviewed. The facts are not usually 100% in science and those who swallow that line are uninformed. Check out this blog: it has extensive factual analysis of the 2007 IPCC Report.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/04/ipcc-reliance-on-grey-literature-30.html
Conservatives are those who are standing up for the integrity of science against the misuse of science for political purposes by "Green" activists, aging hippie Gaia-worshipers and Marxists out to destroy Western industrial civilization.
Hey Stephen, you should watch the following video which confirms that natural disasters are actually caused by rock concerts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUZRjHK8rQs&feature=player_embedded
Oh, and here are the names of some top-level climatologists who don't agree with the theory of anthropogenic global warming: Richard Lindzen, Fred Singer, Roy Spencer, Timothy Ball and John Theon. See my blog, http://righteousinvestor.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/anthropogenic-global-warming-is-there-a-consensus/
There is no consensus only selective reporting and lying by the media. Facts are kind of fluid thing for liberals, huh?
Craig,
That sounds like a compelling argument for your side until you realize that excluding half of 100% is still 100%. Anyone who denies that Western industrial farming practices, mining practices and pollution (just to name a few) are not extremely detrimental to the environment is deluding themselves.
Stephen,
But why stop with that list? According to Global Warming Hysteria (the successor to the "We're running out of food" scare of the 70s, everything is "detrimental to the environment." Driving a car is, washing dishes is, using a computer is - even breathing is.
The problem is that you oversold a theory as a scare tactic and now you have lost credibility. Kyoto is dead. Copenhagen was a failure. There is not going to be a financial transfer tax levied by the UN on every developed nation to fund the Swiss bank accounts of Third World Dictators. Multi-billion fundraising machines like Greenpeace and WWF are scared and they ought to be because their scam is losing its punch. (And the Polar Bears aren't going to drown!)
It's time to come up with another scary myth to market to the public.
Stephen: Can you please define what you mean by "peer-reviewed". You seem to have no idea. The four names I mentioned ARE peers top people in their field of climatology who hold PhD in the field and are full professors, and there are many others who could be named and they DISAGREE with anthropogenic global warming. BTW, Al Gore, who got a D in a university science course at Yale, and David Suzuki, who has a PhD in zoology (which has nothing to do with climate), are NOT peers in the field of climatology.
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