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I like how the author points out that attributing single weather events to climate change is "dodgy" science and then implies that Winter Storm Jonas is the result of climate change.
SNOW was the subject of a discussion on climate change in the US Senate last February; it was nothing serious. To help make his case that people cannot be influencing the climate, Jim Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, cited archaeology and scripture. Then he produced a snowball, and said, “I ask the chair, do you know what this is? It’s a snowball, just from outside here. It’s very, very cold out.” Glorying in his idiocy, Mr Inhofe, who was chairman of an important environmental committee at the time, then tossed the snowball at his Republican colleague.
With Washington currently under two feet of snow, this episode is worth remembering for two reasons. First, because the ignorance, wilful or otherwise, many Republicans display on global warming is not dissipating. The frontrunner for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump, claims global warming is a conspiracy cooked up by the Chinese to destroy American industry. His closest challenger, Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, also says it is a hoax , but reckons the “liberal left” is to blame. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and former front-runner, had this to say: “There is no overwhelming science that the things that are going on are man-caused and not naturally caused. Gimme a break.” This was one of many episodes during the campaign in which Mr Carson, despite his extraordinarily distinguished medical record, has suggested you do not really need to be a brain surgeon to be a brain surgeon.
A clutch of more plausible Republican candidates, including Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, and a trio of current and former governors, John Kasich, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush, take a slightly more serious view of the problem. All have acknowledged, when pressed, that they accept the science; none has anything terribly constructive to add to that.
Mr Rubio offers a circular argument for doing nothing much: there is no point America trying to cut its emissions unless other countries do the same, and even if they say they will, they won’t. He promises to withdraw America from the UN agreement on curbing emissions signed in Paris last month. Mr Rubio, Mr Bush and Mr Kasich also promise to scrap a suite of new regulations to cut emissions from coal-fired power stations, known as the Clean Power Plan—which is probably essential to America’s compliance with the Paris agreement.
The second reason why Mr Inhofe’s stunt is worth recalling is that, were it repeated today, it could, tentatively, be argued that the snowball was evidence of global warming. Ascribing single weather events to climatic changes is almost as dodgy science as Mr Inhofe’s. Nonetheless, taking a longer view of the weather record, some researchers say there is “moderate evidence” to suggest an increase in both the frequency and intensity of winter storms in the Northern Hemisphere since 1950.
Climate science supports that. Because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, roughly 7% more per 1ºC of temperature increase; and the world is already about 1ºC warmer than it was in pre-industrial times. So extreme precipitation events, such as Winter Storm Jonas, which has swept north-east America, from Southern Virginia to New York City, may well become more common.
The storm may also have been influenced by El Niño, a climatic event under way since the middle of 2015. Named after the Christ-child, it sees warm water, collected over several years in the western tropical Pacific, slosh back eastwards when winds that normally blow westwards weaken, or sometimes go into reverse, roughly every two to seven years. This affects weather systems around the world. In America, it causes more west-to-east flows of jet-stream winds than is normal across the country. This and other typical effects result in a stormy winter for California and the South, and generally less tempestuous conditions for the North. But each Niño “has its own flavour” according to Kevin Trenberth of America’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research.
In any event, Jonas has caused havoc. It has grounded thousands of flights, jammed freeways and killed at least 14 people. More than three feet of snow has fallen in four states. It could be among the most powerful recorded storms to hit America’s north-east. On the primary trail, its fallout has been lesser: mainly a dreary argument over whether Mr Christie should or would interrupt his campaigning in New Hampshire to see out the storm in his snow-struck state. With great reluctance, he ended up nipping home for it.
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ...6d37c30b6f1709
"It's snowing outside, therefore global warming is fake".
Wow. the Economist nailed it.
This is the kind of asshat that the GOP puts on ing science committees.
I like how the author points out that attributing single weather events to climate change is "dodgy" science and then implies that Winter Storm Jonas is the result of climate change.
If a Repug isn't an asshat, he or she will get primaried and defeated by Kock Bros, etc, leaving the Repugs as nothing but asshats.
Cool story, bro.
the hue lighting system bulbs do not get hot......thus it doesn't contribute to global warming.
Or he's pointing to what NOAA....NASA....NCDC...GCCA...NRDC....and a bunch of other useless acronyms are saying....
Wonder how many of those that ridicule the skeptics of global warming for not believing in science suddenly have no problem pushing science aside when it comes to gmo food?
Get your own thread....
There's your (current) second place candidate for the GOP nomination folks.....Beaumont, TX (CNN) – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, questions whether global warming is real, arguing that the "data are not supporting what the advocates are arguing."
"The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that – that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn't happened," said Cruz.
Obviously, The Cruz campaign didn't get the memo...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/us...inds.html?_r=0In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They were less likely to vote for candidates who questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming.
Of course, it's the liberal times so....yeah....
JEB! Kinda took a stand....weeney....
He said recently, "The climate is changing," but, he added, "I don't think the science is clear on what percentage is man-made and...what percentage is natural. It's convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on this is just really arrogant."
Ben Carson..
Ben Carson on Climate Change:No Joking...."Gravity, Where Did it Come From?
https://newrepublic.com/article/1229...re-did-it-come
The Donald....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-compe ive.
Republicans are just the slightly less re ed version of a democrat.
More recently...
Again, 2/3 of likely voters, including 1/2 of GOP primary voters are less likely to vote for a climate change denier...“You want to have clean air. You want to have clean water. That's very important to me, and I've won many environmental awards. I am not a believer in climate change.”
Mr. Trump warns against putting American jobs in danger. "Weather changes, and you have storms, and you have rain and you have beautiful days," he said. "But I do not believe that we should imperil the companies within our country."
OK....but polls show that voters are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports action on GCC and no GOP candidate, except Bush, in a real weenie way...will bite...
Obama on climate change....
....and people wonder how this guy keeps winning elections....As far as President Obama is concerned, the matter is settled: climate change is real, it's caused largely by humans, and anyone who says otherwise is living in a dangerous state of denial.
"On this issue - of all issues - there is such a thing as being too late," Mr. Obama said Monday during a speech at an Arctic climate summit in Alaska. "And that moment is almost upon us." Failure to act, he added, would "condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair."
Carly Fiorina...
A real visionary I tell ya...."[E]very one of the scientists that tell us that climate change is real and being caused by man-made activity also tells us that a single nation acting alone can make no difference at all," she told Yahoo News in an interview earlier this summer.
Think I've seen a few informal polls over the past five years where most people favor middle of the road politics whether they are R or D. It's not rocket science. Too bad people treat politics like a local sports teams. Boutons would probably campaign for El Chapo if he had DFL after his name.
Does my comment refer to you?
Some policy is better than no policy I suppose, but deniers are in another league of their own....
John Kasich..
middle of the road as GOP candidates go......"I happen to believe there is a problem with climate change. I don't want to overreact to it, I can't measure it all, but I respect the creation that the Lord has given us and I want to make sure we protect it."
He's also taken steps to this end, telling NBC's Meet the Press in August that in Ohio, "[W]e preciously take care of Lake Erie. We've reduced emissions by 30 percent over the last 10 years. We believe in alternative energy." But, he continued, "We don't want to destroy people's jobs based on some theory that's not proven." His campaign later modified that statement, reiterating that he believes that climate change is real and that something needs to be done.
Start a thread on GMOs....stand behind the science...so too say...
You mean read the cherry picked 1% of "science" links that are full of inaccuracies?
It's the same thing that the climate change deniers do.
Oh the irony.
This thread is about Republicans and GCC, not about GMOs..You mean read the cherry picked 1% of "science" links that are full of inaccuracies?
I know. Just explaining how moronic those that have no problems with using science as a sometimes tool.
Organic food is such a ing con. Here pay twice as much for your smaller apple sprayed with a different pesticide.
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