Salon’s Lindsay Abrams puts together an interesting list that is supposed to Prove Climate Change or something, and we’re all supposed to deduce that it is the fault of Mankind (probably you, dear reader, for refusing to use LED lights for your Christmas displays and not using carbon neutral present wrapping) and that Doom is coming
“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,†President Obama announced back in January at his second-term inauguration. Thus began another year of steady climate change, continued pollution of the atmosphere and half-hearted attempts at changing the world’s dire trajectory.
By many measures, 2013 wasn’t particularly extreme: it it wasn’t the hottest we’ve ever seen; its storms, by and large, weren’t the most devastating. Much of what occurred can best be seen as a sign of things to come. Droughts, believed to be exacerbated by climate change, will become more widespread. Wildfires are expected to get bigger, longer and smokier by 2050. Twelve months, after all, is but a short moment in Earth’s history. Only in the future, looking back, will we be able to recognize the true significance of many of this year’s big numbers:
2013 saw a record low for tornadoes. Record low for wildfires. There were zero landfalling hurricanes. The US has not been hit by a major hurricane in almost 3,000 days (over 8 years). Only 1 hurricane has made landfall since 2008 (and it can be argued that Isaac was not a hurricane). Thousands of cold temperature records have been set. It’s been snowy and stormy all around the world. There’s been no statistically significant warming in 17 years. No child born this century has seen actual warming.
Anyway, here’s Lindsay’s top 4 on the list
- 7: Where 2013 ranks among the warmest years in history, according to the World Meteorological Association. Tied with 2003, the ranking is based on the year’s first nine months, during which average temperatures were 0.86°F above the 1960-1991 global average.
- 395.5: The average concentration levels of CO2, in parts per million (ppm), observed in the atmosphere through November.
- 400: The â€milestone,†in parts per million of atmospheric CO2, that was temporarily crossed in May. It was the first time carbon levels crossed that boundary in 55 years of record-keeping — and possibly in 3 million years of history on Earth.
- 95: Percent certainty with which IPCC scientists say climate change is caused by human activity, a confidence level up from 90 percent in 1997.
Interesting. The ranking doesn’t include the last 3 months, which are turning very cool around the world. Despite all the increased CO2, temps are essentially flatlined. And once someone starts discussing “consensus” in relationship to science, the debate is over, because science is about evidence, not feelings.
8:Â Age of girl in Harbin who contracted lung cancer.
So Lindsay is blaming lung cancer on “climate change”? There’s no doubt that air in China truly stinks, but that is not CO2, but smog. Actual air pollution. Which needs to be addressed. Putting it under the banner of “climate change” diminishes the reality of the problem. The story linked was written by…Lindsay, who made no mention of “climate change” in the story.
3.2: Current average sea level rise, in millimeters per year. Sea levels reached a record high in March.
3.2mm would be average for the Holocene, and well below what would be the average during a warm period.
121.3: The temperature reading, in degrees Fahrenheit, in the South Australian town of Moomba on January 12.
-135.3: The temperature in Antarctica in 2013. What researchers “soul-crushing†cold. It missed the previous record by 0.5 degrees, set in 2010.
7 billion: The number of “key individuals†responsible for climate change. The Onion, as always, is spot on.
So why doesn’t Lindsay take herself out of the pool? No, I don’t actually want her to kill herself. But, I would suggest that she make her own life “carbon neutral”. I bet she wouldn’t be able to do it for a single month. Nor would other Warmists.
The fact is that climate, and weather, which creates climate in the long term, will always do different things. Warming does not prove anthropogenic causation. Nor does a pause prove that we’re headed towards a cooling period. For Warmists, it’s all about hysteria, not science, intended to implement Progressive government, which means bigger and bigger government with more government control of people and the private sector.
Read: “Climate Change” In Numbers: Doom Is Right Around The Corner Or Something »
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