Liblogic

Again (AGAIN) the Midwest is trying to operate in spite of a major snowfall. Its’ a snowfall of extraordinary magnitude for the season according to many of those who know.  And, I have not heard or read any meteorologist arguing that, on the contrary, it’s a normal snowfall for the first week of Spring.

Snow is cold. This cold wave is yet another proof of the reality of a global warming trend that threatens civilization and, beyond it, Earth itself. Of course, this trend is the result of noxious human activities. It’s a done deal that there cannot be any other cause.

If you don’t see that the more industry and cars, the more cold, and the more cold, the more  warming, you are just uneducated or stubborn, or both.

By the same reasoning, the unseasonal cold makes fuels, including natural gas, less essential to human happiness. The president, served by the supine press, must see the current snow storm in the Midwest  as a signal to  redouble its efforts to prevent the rational utilization of America’s abundant fuel resources.

Got it?

There is a pleasant-looking guy in his forties  who often suns himself close to my coffee shop at the beach. He admires my grand-daughter. Of course, I took this to imply that he is a man of taste and discernment. We fell into casual conversation recently about a book I was holding. The conversation quickly turned casually political.

He is an Obama supporter. This being the People Socialist Green Republic of Santa Cruz, it would be surprising if he were not. So, I pried a little.

It took my beach acquaintance a few minutes to fold to the default option that President Obama at least looked presidential. He couldn’t name a single Obama achievement of which he was proud or satisfied. (I had unfairly deprived him of the opportunity to mention Obamacare by designating it  a Pelosi victory.) This is not the fist time I hear Obamites refer to the president’s looks. It’s not clear how you turn such people around. Update: I don’t mean that I hope to turn all, or many around, just a small percentage would do, pehraps 3%..

Suntan Joe was seething with hatred of President Bush. This is remarkable five years later. Curiously, it did not seem to be about the Iraq War. I sense that the antipathy runs deeper, that it’s akin to what some chimps feel about a designated other chimp with an unusual facial expression perhaps. That is also hard to beat.

Since the Republican defeat last November, I have been perplexed by the post-mortem analyses of people I usually trust. I feel that they are off the mark because they are too obvious perhaps, too logical. I am not doing better myself.

Extreme Cold Winter in Alaska, Global Warming

The Wall Street Journal has a long article on page A5  about how Anchorage Alaska has never had more snow in its recorded history than this ending winter.

What this tells us about the reality of alleged global warming is…absolutely nothing!

Rationalists and sober-minded people must resist the temptation to espouse the mental weakness of their religious global warmist opponents.

Isolated facts are isolated facts whichever side you are on: reason or unreason.

US President elected Emperor of World, Barack I, in Copenhagen!

The election, by acclamations, took place right after Copenhagen, a normally warm and rainy city, received more than four inches of snow.

But, seriously, once more, Obama managed to piss off everyone. Leftists think he did next to nothing in Denmark. Conservatives did not want him to promise anything because the whole concept of global warming is a cult belief. The Third World maffiosi were the most angry because they were promised peanuts to add to their fleet of gas-guzzling limousines. OK, let’s be fair; I don’t know for a fact that they will use the climate funds from the rich countries on cars. Could be on prostitutes or at the baccarat table in Monte-Carlo instead.

The President-Emperor and the Sec. of State, the ineffable Bill Clinton’s wife, promised 100 billion American dollars yearly by 2020. That’s $600 annually for my wife and me. Places at 2% interest over ten years, that would be: $7500. If I banked that amount, added nothing to it and compounded the same 2% interest for another ten years, that would come to over $9,000.

That’s only direct costs, in the form of additional taxes or of additional borrowing. The indirect costs in the form of strictures on production and transportation would be much greater.

Conservative friends: Relax a US President may not enter into an international agreement without ratification by the Senate. The Kyoto Agreement was rejected by something like 97 to 1.

The Russian Institute of Economic Analysis said Dec, 16th that British climate scientists have been cherry-picking Russian weather data, ignoring data from 75% of all Russian station and 40% of Russia’s surface area. The Russian landmass itself is about 12% o the total world land area.

That’s a new and independent accusation of fraud. It’s not related to the recent scandal (“climategate”) at the University of East Anglia.

Here is the reference to the UK Telegraph article covering this matter:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming

Two fact to remember , taken from a Bjorn Lomborg column in WSJ, Tuesday Dec, 15.

He is the author of a new book Cool it! And previously, of The Skeptical Environmentalist

Lomborg’s approache is interesting because he does not fight any of the warmists’ assumptions or models. He takes them as are and follows them to their logical conclusion.

Here is my summary of two points he makes, with this approach:

1 Fighting malaria: To attack this scourge by reducing carbon emissions (adopting all the assumptions of the warmists) would save one (1) life to 78,000 with more direct measures.

2 Saving the lives of small children. Oxfam ( an old, and, in my opinion, respected charitable organization ) thinks rich nations are going to pay for global warming reduction by diverting money from their foreign aid. If they diverted 50 billions (not that much) 4,5 more million children would die. In return, we would get a reduction of temperature of one thousands of one degree F. That’s 1/1000 of a degree. It’s so little, only sophisticated thermometers can detect it.

Snow, Freezing Temperatures on Monterey Bay; Polar Bears Eat Babies.

Coldest December 8th in 29 years on Monterey Bay according to the National Weather Service. What does it all mean in terms of global warming? Absolutely nothing. To have a trend, you need many points. That’s true irrespective of what you believe to be true. That’s true irrespective of your ideological preference. There is more. Let’s pretend there is a long series of points showing rising temperatures worldwide. (There isn’t.)

If you want to argue that the cause of a trend is some other phenomenon or phenomena, you need another set of points. That’s for a beginning. Global warming advocates tell us that the increased use of coal and petroleum, carbons, is the cause of a global warming trend. That’s what the Copenhagen conference is all about.

If there were such a trend, that second set of points would have to correspond with the first set, the global warming trend set of points. In this case, the first set would have to conform to the second with a lag that makes sense. The lag idea is that what happens tomorrow cannot cause what happens today. In his case, the upward trend in carbon burning must precede the alleged trend in rising world temperatures. This would work if, for example, increasing use of carbon, in the 19^th and 20^th century, was followed by rising temperatures. I am not picky; I would take almost any interpretation of “following” seriously.

In fact, we know for a fact that temperatures in Greenland were much higher in the 11^th and 12^th centuries than they are today, year after year, after year. They were higher than at any time in the past three hundred years. So, the trend in rising temperatures precedes the beginning of serious reliance on carbons, instead of following it. It does so by several centuries. How do I know about medieval temperatures in Greenland? The Scandinavian settlers there ate beef. This means that it was warm enough there to grow hay, which you could not do today. I get this info from Jared Diamond, a committed environmentalist. (Several other postings on this matter on this blog.)

I don’t need to explain why the two trends don’t coincide to show that any other statement of a positive relationship between carbon burning and rising temperatures is wrong, not true to fact. Let me recapitulate: There is no evidence of a recent trend in global warming. If there were, the idea that there is global warming due to man’s use of carbons would be wrong.

I can’t resist pointing out that if there were evidence of rising temperatures and if the two trends coincided better (see above) that would still not demonstrate that increased human reliance on carbon causes rising temperatures. The reason for this is simple: There is no scientist who would go on the record affirming that coincidence in time – even with a lag that makes sense – is good evidence that one thing causes the other. Such a coincidence is only enough to get one interested in the possibility of a causal relationship.

In the meantime, polar bears, both in the Arctic and in Antarctica, are running out of their normal food because of global warming. Adult male bears are reduced to eating their offspring. Just like the lions on the Serengeti plain eat lion cubs. Just like Democrats eat their young (and mine). So what if there were never any bears in Antarctica? My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts. Pleeeease!

There is a, easy-to-read and calm article on the intricacies of the “Climategate” conspiracy to commit fraud in the current issue of the Weekly Standard. ( “Scientists behaving badly,” by Steven F. Hayward, Weekly Standard, Dec. 14^th 2009.)

PS Pres. Obama is a disaster both to his remaining supporters and to his growing legions of opponents. He is going to crash. I just wonder how. Any idea?