Global Warming Update

The wackos are still at it, so it's time for another update.  For starters, how about we ask our friends in North Dakota about global warming:

Snow has fallen in Dickinson in June, the first time in nearly 60 years the city has seen snow past May.

National Weather Service meteorologist Janine Vining in Bismarck says there were unofficial reports of a couple of inches of snow in Dickinson on Saturday.

Vining says snow in North Dakota in June is uncommon, though it's not unheard of. She says other parts of the state have seen June snow within the past 10 years.

Or, how about Green Bay:

If it seemed cold to you in Green Bay on Saturday, it was.

The high temperature for the day, reached at 9:50 a.m., was 52. That set a record for the lowest high temperature for June 6, according to the National Weather Service office in Ashwaubenon.

The old mark was 53, set in 1943.

Similar records were set across Wisconsin today. Manitowoc's high was 54, breaking the record of 56 set in 1935. In central Wisconsin, records were set in Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids, Marshfield and Merrill, all breaking marks set in 1935.

Better get used to it. There are showers and thunderstorms in the forecast for Green Bay through Monday night, with highs of 55 on Sunday and 59 on Monday.

Dire, indeed.  How about a quick look at Antarctica:

I know we're supposed to have great confidence in the effects of global warming as conveyed to us by our betters in the scientific community, but it appears that the consensus view of how much sea levels would rise were Antarctica's western ice sheet to melt has just been cut in half:

A new analysis halves longstanding projections of how much sea levels could rise if Antarctica's massive western ice sheets fully disintegrated as a result of global warming.

The flow of ice into the sea would probably raise sea levels about 10 feet rather than 20 feet, according to the analysis, published in the May 15 issue of the journal Science.

Maybe it's possible that the "scientific consensus" of how quickly surface temperatures will rise is also wrong? Or can science now accurately predict climate in 100 years even as meteorologists struggle to predict the weather in 100 hours?

These are just a couple of the more recent reports that continue to pound empirical nail after empirical nail into the coffin of the global warming hoax.  Here's another:

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was in a froth, and his audience loved it.

The California Republican was talking about global warming and could barely contain his disgust.

"Al Gore has been wrong all along!" Rohrabacher yelled into the microphone. "This is outrageous! All of this is wrong! The people who have stifled this debate have an agenda that is just frightening!"

Welcome to the third annual International Conference on Climate Change, a daylong session of speeches and scientific presentations that took place Tuesday just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Almost no media covered the event.

Organized by The Heartland Institute and other conservative think tanks and groups, the conference drew about 250 guests, most of them researchers and policy analysts, some from as far away as Japan and Australia.

An entire international conference for global warming skeptics, many of whom are very smart and accomplished scientific experts (unlike certain *cough cough* ex-politicians)?  So much for consensus.  Sure, the number may have been relatively small, but there are thousands more out there, as has been reported on this blog any number of times.  Bottom line: anyone still claiming that global warming is a crisis-inducing problem is either lying, has a personal agenda, or is simply ignorant.

Part of the problem for all this skepticism may be revelations like this:

Watts Up With That? has an ongoing series, "How Not To Measure Temperature." It illustrates obvious temperature measuring problems - like placing weather stations next to AC units that blow hot air all around them. Well, there's been a response:

Apparently, the NWS thought enough of the criticism of the siting next to a/c heat exchangers to do something about it. And, I've been hearing from time to time, that stations that volunteers have visited and we have showcased in "How Not To Measure Temperature, Part X" have been quietly cleaned up.

That's lovely - it's nice that something is at least being done. The essential dishonesty of the "quiet" cleanups is disturbing, though. Not least because it's going to facilitate the ongoing switch from global warming hype to global cooling hype.

An objective look at the actual evidence proves only that there are cycles of warming and cooling, as there have been for as long as we've been keeping track of temperatures.  And yet...Obama and the Democrats are rushing to slam through all kinds of legislation to combat global warming, as if the cycle is going to continue indefinitely only in this one direction, which is as intellectually vacant as an episode of The Simpsons.  It's a dishonest ploy that would be amusing if their proposed solutions didn't destroy the economy, or at minimum have serious unintended consequences.

Look at some of the newest solutions being proposed which will affect you:

Global Warming International Flight Tax

This new levy on international air travel, proposed by a coalition of the world's 50 least developed nations, intends to raise money from wealthy countries in order to finance anti-climate change campaigns in those too poor to develop and implement such plans of their own. From the Guardian:

Developing countries, backed by the UN, argue that they will need hundreds of billions of dollars a year to adapt themselves to climate-related disasters, loss of crops and water supplies, which they are already experiencing as temperatures around the world rise."

Apparently, with a little "ingenuity," the UN climate geniuses have discovered that it's quite easy to raise money via taxation. This brainstorming on revenue-raising has taken place in full ignorance of potential unintended consequences.

Think Twice About Using Green Transport

You worry a lot about the environment and do everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint -- the emissions of greenhouse gases that drive dangerous climate change.

So you always prefer to take the train or the bus rather than a plane, and avoid using a car whenever you can, faithful to the belief that this inflicts less harm to the planet.

Well, there could be a nasty surprise in store for you, for taking public transport may not be as green as you automatically think, says a new US study.

Its authors point out an array of factors that are often unknown to the public.

These are hidden or displaced emissions that ramp up the simple "tailpipe" tally, which is based on how much carbon is spewed out by the fossil fuels used to make a trip.

Environmental engineers Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath at the University of California at Davis say that when these costs are included, a more complex and challenging picture emerges.

In some circumstances, for instance, it could be more eco-friendly to drive into a city -- even in an SUV, the bete noire of green groups -- rather than take a suburban train.

I harp and chant about unintended consequences and stupid liberal solutions offered by crazy environmentalist wackos for a reason.  When their ridiculous notions begin damaging the economy -- which in turn causes real damage to real people and families -- I think it goes too far.  I'm all for protecting the environment, cleaning up our messes, and so on, but I look at these things in terms of prioritization, and with me the priority always lands on the side of benefitting human beings.  Environmentalist wackos, on the other hand, always seem to end up supporting what harms human beings the most, whether they mean to or not.  With them, it's not the results that count, but rather the good intentions driving the effort.  With me, intentions don't matter...end results do.

There's my two cents.