The New Climate Change Horrors

The news is out, Thanks God. It’s official. It has the assent of thousands of American scientists, including those who have not read it. I refer to NOAA’s new “State of the Climate” report.

I have not read it either because I was too busy watching old episodes of a French soap opera I like. Instead, I read today’s (08/07/13) Wall Street Journal’s digest or summary. Here is one of the things I learned:

The more CO2 emissions (and emissions of other bad gases such asmethane and nitrous oxide), the bigger (BIGGER), the ice-sheet off Antarctica.

I did not make this up, I am not lying. It’s called cherry-picking: Publicize all facts that favor the position you favor (that you favor for whatever reason, including the political agenda it implies, more government control, for example, or less).

Here is another factoid from the NOAA report that is not cherry-picking, I think although it looks downright strange. (It’s not cherry-picking to use all the data available even if all the data available supply a baroque picture of reality):

“The global average sea level in 2012 was 1.4 inches above the 1993-2010 average.” (Satellite measurements – without which you cannot estimate fine differences in sea levels – began in1993.)

Read this again, and again.

Note that the 2012 sea level was possibly lower, possibly much lower, than the sea level in any number of years since 1993. I don’t know that it was but this sort of announcement logically allows this to be true.

Think it through: the sea level in 2012 may have been lower than the sea level was in each of 15 years since 1997. Again, I don’t know that it was. I am asking how you would react if you were told this instead of that. It could be just as correct as what was reported in that particular form.

In the meantime, with this thumb-tall upsurge in sea level, I am worried as hell. I hope I will find my walker in time to escape. I hope I wont be forced to swim for it.

And where are the damned Dutch when we need them?