Climate Skeptics’ Slushy Thinking

A quick surf of the net shows that the climate contrarians and ranters are out in full force, shouting from the rooftops that snow storms are proof that global warming ain’t happenin’. Senator James Inhofe and his family even built an igloo during the recent winter storm in Washington D.C. which they dubbed “Al Gore’s house”, I guess to make the point that – hmm – what exactly?  Are they saying that Gore said global warming means it will never snow again? Instead, what Inhofe and friends’ stunts and rants  demonstrate is that it’s dangerous to listen to a nonexpert on an issue as important as this one (see my recent post, Would You Let a Climate Science Skeptic Perform Brain Surgery On You?).  As Grist recently reported, conservatives say stupid things about the snow and the media reports it.  Blogs say even stupider things about snow and climate. Here’s a few ripe ones hanging out on the blogosphere today:

I just wanted to post a quick reminder for the “climate change” crowd.  In the face of record-breaking snowfall, the Al Gore followers insist that man-made global warming is still occurring. They claim that these periods of cooling are just a part of the warming cycle.  That the “greenhouse gasses” needn’t always produce a greenhouse effect (Just like real greenhouses which occasionally serve as deep freezers.  Oh, wait that would be ridiculous).

( I guess by “periods of cooling” this blogger is referring to winter:)

Here’s another one that touts a frozen lake as proof that there is no climate change:

Global Warming Alert: Lake Erie Frozen Over First Time in 14 Years.

And how about this one:

It has long been my conviction that the Global Warming parade is a strong added factor for a minimalist world government, eventually to be controlled by Antichrist. It forces the governments of the world to cooperate on issues that has global reach, paving the way for a governmental system controlled by a few autocrats in a time preceding the return of Christ.

*heavy sigh* Makes me think of the quote from Albert Einstein (who, we now know, thanks to the climate skeptics, is not to be trusted because he was one of those money-grubbing scientists out to conquer the world):

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.“

As Jonathan Hiskes at  Grist.org recently wrote:

We can absolutely expect climate change to bring blizzards in places that don’t normally see a lot of blizzards, like Washington, D.C. We can also absolutely expect more snow shortages in places that normally receive a lot of snowfall, like Vancouver, British Columbia. Climatologists expect just this sort of “global weirding”: less predictable, more extreme, more damaging.

More on this topic at ‘Global Weirding’ Vs. Climate Skeptics’ ‘Slushy Thinking’ from Huffington Post.com.

Enough blogging for now – I’m off to curl up with a cup of tea and “No-Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process” by Colin Beavan.  It’s an interesting, funny and well-written account of a New Yorker and his young family who attempt to live for a year with as little impact on the planet as possible.  Click here to visit Beavan’s blog, and here for his post “What I’d Say If I was Wrong About Climate Change”.