Soob

Politics, Foreign Policy, Current Events and Occasional Outbursts Lacking Couth

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Suggested Wisdom XIII


Been touch and go for a while as I tour various locations along the Eastern Seaboard. Not all hotels offer a kiosk for getting online and my last stay saw a strange event in which, according to the front desk lady after I'd planted by ass in front of a laptop in the hotel's business center, "the internet isn't working right now." Imagine that.

Carl from Chicago of Chicago Boys: Electricity deficits aren't uniquely American. Carl explores the patently ridiculous side effects of "going green" against all aspects of reality as far as maintaining a rather important facet of national infrastructure, whether it be British or American (or otherwise.)

C4 channels Pajama Media and lights upon the rather un-American aspect of Obama's campaign regarding citizen ownership of firearms. First rate sarcasm abounds.

Elam Bend talks of American Empire. And I couldn't agree more. Reality suffers few fools like cheap and myopic ideology. For that sort there are plenty.

Future Jacked takes on the hyperactive five year old mentality of those that would paint a nuclear armed Iran as the harbinger if Armageddon. Dude, relax, indeed.

MK (whose header is simply brilliant) offers something of a conundrum for the Global Warming crowd. I.E. Global temperatures haven't climbed since 1998 and La Nina will continue a cooling effect into this summer.

Good stuff.

9 comments:

Jay@Soob said...

Oh, Adrian, the presumptions abound.
MK links to a verified news source that utilizes data from the WMO. His reflections are just that, reflections. Which is what blogging is about.

Adrian said...

If you want a verified news source:

BBC

Global temperatures for 2008 will be slightly cooler than last year as a result of the cold La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C.

While Nasa, the US space agency, cites 2005 as the warmest year, the UK's Hadley Centre lists it as second to 1998.

Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any particular year is larger than these small temperature differences. What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.

Jay@Soob said...

By the by, as they say, have you got anything constructive to add to this latest bit of climatic news?

Jay@Soob said...

Hah! We cross posted. Disregard the above comment.

Jay@Soob said...

But wait, there's more!

The discovery of warming and cooling cycles in the modern era adds a new factor in predicting future global climate change. And it throws new light on historical events, such as the Little Ice Age, a cold spell that gripped the world several hundred years ago. It may even have some bearing on the Neolithic hunter called the Ice Man, whose 5,200-year-old frozen remains were discovered recently in the Alps.

"If this is indeed a regular climate rhythm, it is still going on today," Bond said. "By understanding what causes these sudden climate change cycles, we could more reliably predict how the earth's climate system could shift in the near future. Because we now think that climate flips can occur on an earth relatively free of ice, the odds of a future climate jolt could be higher than we thought."

here.

Ah, so it's a bit more complex than man made greenhouse gasses (do some research into methane, by the way.)

"In the meantime, we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that our cherished ideas about global warming may be, if not dead wrong, only partially correct. Intriguing recent evidence gathered from ice-rafted debris looks remarkably similar to a much older pattern that preceded an ice age. We may have to entertain the possibility that Earth’s natural climate development may be on a return to another such period, or at least to colder conditions than we now experience. If so, and ironically, the very greenhouse warming we fear may either mitigate the cooling or cancel it altogether."

here

Yeah, the skeptics aren't just neocon, Limbaugh ditto heads, Adrian. There's actually a continuing debate and continuing science regarding the massive subject of global climatology.

Adrian said...

"Yeah, the skeptics aren't just neocon, Limbaugh ditto heads, Adrian. There's actually a continuing debate and continuing science regarding the massive subject of global climatology."

I agreed, I just thought it odd that you highlighted a dittohead's post on the subject who seems unable to interpret scientific evidence much less debate it, rather than highlight something like the two posts you just linked to.

MathewK said...

Thanks for the link back subadei, by the way if you want to see more hysterics from the Global Warming crowd, see here. You can't make this stuff up.

G said...

Actually it kinda surprises me that the religious right subset of conversativism aren't more vocal about pro-environment issues. Considering that some of the core belief systems states something similar to "God gave us the Earth and all its animals and we should take care of it". You'd think that that the religious right subset and environmentalists would get along.

Adrian said...

I was about to bust out the quote from James Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, about how when the last trees are cut down, the rapture happens, but Wikipedia tells me that he never actually said that. Drat!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt

However Wikipedia does attribute this quote to him:

"If the troubles from environmentalists cannot be solved in the jury box or at the ballot box, perhaps the cartridge box should be used."