Appropriately, "[as] negotiators from nearly 200 countries met in Cancun to strategize ways to keep the planet from getting hotter, the temperature in the seaside Mexican city plunged to a 100-year record low of 54° F. ... ClimateGate was "bad enough," says Duncan Davidson inWall Street Pit, but Cancun's weather is particularly "inconvenient" for global-warming alarmists. It's a reminder that global temperatures have "flatlined" despite rising carbon dioxide levels, "which is decidedly chilling against the concept of hampering economic growth to limit Co2 emissions." Grow up, says Tony Juniper in The Independent. "Sure, it's cold outside," but "the trend data show that the world is warming, that the climate is changing, and that the release of greenhouse gases is the cause." The longer we use every cold snap as an excuse to put off reducing emissions, "the bigger the risk we run. Tick tock, tick tock."
This is a great followup to the Copenhagen debacle last year. I really have no opinion on the science of Global Warming, but I certainly camp out in the Vaclav Klaus school of government skepticism:
"I'm convinced that after years of studying the phenomenon, global warming is not the real issue of temperature," said Klaus, an economist by training. "That is the issue of a new ideology or a new religion. A religion of climate change or a religion of global warming." ....Klaus says that he is in favor of "green" technology, but cautions that he is not in favor of the government dictating the development of the technology. "I lived in a communist world where politicians told us what to do," Klaus said. "I don't think politicians or presidents should suggest to firms what to do. That has always been a mistake."
Also floating around the web today - "Zeitgeist 2010: Year in Review."
For me, the most revealing development to come out of the COP 16 conference was the successful mockery aimed at the participants and various hangers-on, from the funny folks over at CFACT, who managed to catch a number of people on video signing petitions (a) calling on the United Nations adopt tariffs and other trade restrictions to intentionally destabilize the American economy (by reducing GDP by 5% over 10 years) unless we sign the global warming treaty, and, (b) sign a petition calling for the banning of that dangerous chemical "dihydrogen monoxide" . . . H2O, or water.
ReplyDeleteYep. CFACT students got the morons to fall for the old Penn & Teller gag! Both Watts Up With That and Hot Air, among others, have posts up on the topic.
Kathleen, be careful . . . be very careful!
ReplyDeleteStating that you have no opinion on the science of global warming, and that you are a skeptic, may get you in a lot of trouble . . . at least if you have any thoughts of becoming, say, a Governor of a northeastern state!
When he made a similar skeptical statement recently, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie quickly came to the attention of at least one tri-state area enviro-blog, and was subjected to instant polemical attack from a few Rutgers & Princeton University professors, who offered to "keep him after school" and instruct him on the proper views.
They even quickly cobbled together a NJ Climate Change Conference and tried to brow-beat him into attendance so that he could be publicly lectured.
Christie didn't take the bait.
Damn that Karl Rove and his weather control machine!!!!
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