It's cold out

It's a banner season for climate change denialists. With God deciding to take a look at the Mid-Atlantic and go "what if the Great Flood was frozen this time!", that unequivocally proves once and for all that because it is cold and snowing in one area, climate change is a sad, deluded, clinically disproven myth. Except, you know, when the science says the opposite. But who listens to science?

But we already knew that the science for global warming dries up the second someone, somewhere feels slightly colder than usual. But what happens when places where it's supposed to be cold are warmer than usual during periods when it's supposed to be cold? Like places where they're supposed to be holding wintry athletic competitions in the outdoors? And these places are theoretically are having to push back events, refund tickets, and helicopter in snow because of seasonal temperature highs, rain, and melting ruining said wintry athletic courses?

What ever could be the reason? Tim Gayda, the vice president of sport for the Vancouver organizing committee, do you have any idea?

Warm, wet El Niño winds from Hawaii that occasionally bring unseasonably warm weather around the region are known locally as the “pineapple express,” but the effects rarely last more than a few days.
...
“We really shattered the all-time record,” he said. “It’s El Niño, and there’s something else that nobody understands at this point. It’s El Niño Plus.”

Yes. What ever could it be? I'm assuming the proper winter Gods were not placated, or perhaps Apollo was over placated. Anyway, while Vancouver might not understand why it's events are melting or why the Olympic Committee is now openly talking about having to take climate, temperature, and other planetary heating trends into account for the future, former Olympic Games host Utah knows what it isn't.

Utah's House of Representatives apparently has at least. Officially the most Republican state in America, its political masters have adopted a resolution condemning "climate alarmists", and disputing any scientific basis for global warming.
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The original version of the bill dismissed climate science as a "well organised and ongoing effort to manipulate and incorporate "tricks" related to global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome". It accused those seeking action on climate change of riding a "gravy train" and their efforts would "ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty".
...
By the time the final version of the bill came to a vote, cooler heats apparently prevailed. The bill dropped the word "conspiracy", and described climate science as "questionable" rather than "flawed".

It's all magic, unknowable weather, angry deities, or just patterns that somehow seems to mystically link up with the deluded conspiracy theories of crooked scientists looking to bamboozle the public and thieve money out of the lucrative endless cash pile that is climate science. Funny how it always works out that way.

I'm just glad we learned two important climate facts. Cold and snowy here means global warming is a myth no matter what actual science says. Unseasonably warm weather in a wintry place means... LOOK OVER THERE!!! *runs away*

Picture of the day

From NASA comes a look at frozen ass Britain who, much like us, are in the throes of the ice God's terrible wrath.

Click to really, really, really embiggen.


You know what this means, right? That global warming is obviously a hoax because it's cold out right now. Glad we cleared that up.

Exploding satellites hamper climate change efforts

NASA rocket failure blow to Earth watching network

A new satellite to track the chief culprit in global warming crashed into the ocean near Antarctica after launch Tuesday, dealing a major setback to NASA's already weak network for monitoring Earth and its environment from above.

The $280 million mission was designed to answer one of the biggest question marks of global warming: What happens to the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide spewed by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas? How much of it is sucked up and stored by plants, soil and oceans and how much is left to trap heat on Earth, worsening global warming?

"It's definitely a setback. We were already well behind," said Neal Lane, science adviser during former President Bill Clinton's administration. "The program was weak and now it's really weak."

What's that? An expensive satellite sent to monitor global climate change exploded during launch, spewing even more carbon dioxide into the air, and denting our Mother Earth with craters full of flaming science debris?

Bjørn Lomborg 1 - Al Gore 0

The satellite plummeted to earth after it's protective covering didn't jettison, rendering it to heavy to break orbit. It appears rocket science is as difficult as it seems. The $280 million fire crater was meant to be the one positive step the US had made towards global monitoring efforts and one of the lone bright spots for earth monitoring period. Luckily the stimulus package provided NASA with an extra $400 million for Earth sciences, so now they have to decide if they want to spend some of that money rebuilding the satellite or proceed with a more costly and advanced follow up......which will also probably explode in the ionosphere.

Hopefully the President will not only pony up some scratch to NASA for better Earth monitoring, but finally get NASA to get us some goddamn moon bases and a Mars program. Talk about a stimulus, how expensive would it be to build shit on the moon and go to Mars?

Now all we're left with is the only true way to monitor global warming: conservative douches looking outside, seeing whether it's too cold for a particular season, then sneering about myths and Al Gore being fat. It's science!

Tis' the season....for climate change skepticism

It's that time of year again, where some of us partake in time honored rituals fit for the season. Christmas? Hanukkah? Spiritual Literacy Month? Clerc-Gallaudet Week? The Saturnalia? No, bitching that because it is cold out climate change is a hoax and Al Gore is a mind controlling charlatan. Don't you saps see? I'm cold! It's cold out! There's nothing warming about cold! HOAX! Leading the charge this year are Roger Simon

Brrr… it’s cold outside here in LA - currently 34 degrees f...Every year around this time we all look at each other and say, “I can’t remember it ever being this cold.”... Still the global warming dispute goes on...If there’s ever been an argument with (excuse the metaphor) more heat than light, this is it. But what we often seem to have here is the AWG skeptics ironically in the role of Galileo with the liberal intelligentsia playing an ultra-conservative clergy led by Al Gore...Nevertheless, as I have said what feels like a zillion times, just because Al thinks something is so, doesn’t mean it isn’t.

and Deroy Murdock

Winter officially arrived with Sunday's solstice. But for many Americans, autumn 2008's final days already feel like deepest, coldest January...What are the odds of that? Actually, the odds are rising that snow, ice and cold will grow increasingly common. As serious scientists repeatedly explain, global cooling is here. It is chilling temperatures and so-called "global-warming."..."Global warming is over, and Global warming theory has failed. There is no evidence that CO2 drives world temperatures or any consequent climate change,"...As global cooling becomes more widely recognized, Americans from Maine to Malibu should feel comfortable dreaming of a white Christmas.

You can feel the intellectual rigor wafting off these pieces. "There was snow in someplace there hasn't been snow in a while. Game over Gore, you fuck! Warmth is warm, snow is cold!" You don't ever see these people chirp up when it's balls melting hot in the summer. Nor for that matter when scientists mention all that ice that's melting up north and blah blah blah C02 readings and catastrophe blah blah blah. You only get these deep think pieces quoting the five climate change skeptics with doctorates (in archaeology, astrology, and advanced Frinkonomics) when they realize it's gotten cold enough for them to churn out another piece of COLD~! brilliance. Here, let me have the fat lying charlatan explain it to you with maths+science:

Despite the fact that we had record-breaking October heat, apparently 2008 looks like it might be the coldest year in the past decade.

Of course, global warming denialists are loving this. They point out that not only is 2008 a cold year, but that there hasn’t been any statistically significant warming in the past decade if you consider that the record hot year of 1998 was caused by El Niño, a climate change refuge from Latin America.

But what I can tell you is that the denialists have it all wrong: we’re not talking about global warming anymore, we’re talking about climate change. As temperatures rise, the climate will change very rapidly and very unpredictably in all directions.

There are lots of ways that rising temperatures can produce colder temperatures.

Goreacle then provides examples and links to people's work that explains that, then drops some knowledge about statistical measuring models and DNA research. He even engages them on the intellectual level of "I feel cold, so this is all bullshit" too. These very cold people have been running our climate change policy for the past eight years. Comforting, no?

So instead of hanging stockings or exchanging gifts this year, we all need to partake in our new holiday tradition: abandoning science because we're chilly. We're all fucked anyway. See you in the sweater lines!