Over at the Seattle Post Intelligencer, staff writer Joel Connelly writes that global warming deniers don't pop their heads out of their little holes to take a look at the world around them. "Global warming skeptics tend to be a sarcastic, sedentary lot," he writes. "They send out screeds, question the work of scientists, but rarely if ever venture out to look at visual evidence around them." In short, they're sure they're right, they can't be bothered with facts outside their little hate club, and they're real pricks about the whole thing. A bunch of smug -- yet ignorant -- assholes. to be blunt (and when am I anything other than blunt?)Yet, this isn't entirely true. They do pop their head out occassionally and take a gander around -- but only when it serves their argument. A new screed has been issued from the hole in the ground and this one is making the rounds of the wingnutosphere. Seems that, despite what scientists are saying, weather and climate are the same thing and, if there's an especially cold day, it proves conclusively that there's no such thing as global warming.
Who's the genius who came up with this? "Professional statistician" William M. Briggs. Once again, we have someone who's not a climate scientist bloviating about the topic of climate science. Briggs is, in fact, a corporate whore for the Heartland Institute -- one of the many PR firms masquerading as a think tank. Prior to working on climate change denial, Heartland was involved in the sound and solid science of proving that smoking is harmless. Why anyone listens to these frauds is beyond me.
Anyway, let me take a whack at this whole weather v. climate argument and demonstrate the absurdity of what these morons call "logic." All but the completely loony agree that, in 2008, Barack Obama won the presidential election. He won with an overwhelming number of total votes -- not in dispute. And it's the word "total" that we need to concentrate on here. What deniers are doing when they look at one area and see a drop in temperature is like looking at Alabama's vote total and saying that it's rock-solid proof that Obama didn't win at all.
"Haha, you libtard!" some wingnut troll might say. "McCain took 61% in Alabama, while Obama only got 39%! And you're saying Obama won the election? Get a brain, moran!"
Obviously, the vote count in Alabama doesn't prove that Obama lost the election, any more than a cold week in America proves that global temperatures aren't on the increase. The argument is idiotic on its face.
The fact of the matter is that the years 2000-2009 were the the hottest decade in the recorded history of mankind. In fact, the 20 warmest years on record have all been between 1983 and today. Pointing to a cold snap in one area of the world as proof that global warming isn't happening is just laughable in its absurdity. It's the total we need to concentrate on, not the one example.
Despite Alabama, Obama won. Despite that day you had to get your battery jumped, you just lived through the warmest decade in history. Global warming is happening and anyone who argues otherwise is just throwing logic out the window.
