President Obama returned from the climate conference to Washington DC today to a rare, heavy snowfall

Cidu Bill on Dec 19th 2009

Cue the global warming gags.

Filed in Barack Obama, Bill Bickel, global warming | 22 responses so far

22 Responses to “President Obama returned from the climate conference to Washington DC today to a rare, heavy snowfall”

  1. yellojkt Dec 19th 2009 at 03:12 pm 1

    Because global warming means it will never snow anywhere ever again. At least that’s what Glenn Beck told me.

  2. Tim Dec 19th 2009 at 03:22 pm 2

    The last information I heard was that the global temperature was 0.5 degrees cooler than it was 20 years ago.

    At the first Earth Day (1970), it was announced that unless ALL industry stopped immediately, the earth would be uninhabitable within 20 years because of global cooling. The whole “Global Warming” debate reminds me of Galileo, who told the pope to look through a telescope to see for himself that the earth revolved around the sun; he said that he ought to be able to debate better than that.

  3. David N Dec 19th 2009 at 04:05 pm 3

    How can Washington DC freeze over like that if the Senate is still in session? :)

  4. Marshal Dec 19th 2009 at 04:25 pm 4

    Is snow really that rare in D.C?
    Don’t we usually have at least one winter storm blanket the majority of the east coast
    at least once a year?

  5. CIDU Bill Dec 19th 2009 at 04:39 pm 5

    Four-to-six inches is unusual for DC, though. Especially this early in the season.

  6. mateus Dec 19th 2009 at 05:19 pm 6

    “This weather proves there’s no such thing as global warming” is the new “cold enough for you?” Both are equally obnoxious, and both a re a benchmark for the true beginning of Winter.

    P.S.: I live in Oswego, NY, where 12 feet of snow once fell in 10 days.

  7. ReFlex76 Dec 19th 2009 at 08:15 pm 7

    “It’s snowing!”

    - Yes, it’s called winter.

    “It’s unusually strong snowing!”

    - Unusual weather actually *confirms* that the climate is changing.

    “They said the world would cool in 1970!”

    - They also said rock made good pets. Seriously, the scientists who hypothesized that gathered evidence, and found nothing more to confirm their theory. When scientists hypothesized a warming trend years later, they gathered evidence, and found more and *more* evidence to *support* the theory. Evidence gathered in the days immediately after 9/11, when all air traffic in the US was grounded showed the 1970 scientists had *some* reason in their theory (Google “global dimming”).

    “I heard it’s actually .5 degrees cooler today than it was 20 years ago!”

    - I heard a guy a guy took a woman to his hotel room, and woke up in the tub, surrounded by ice, his kidneys missing. “I heard” should be taken with a cup of salt, and a lot of re-checking to confirm.

    “Temperatures have gone down since 1998!”

    - 1998 was an especially hot year, topped by a very strong El Niño. The previous El Niño (an unusual warming of ocean water in the Pacific that messes with global weather patterns) of comparable strength happened in 1982, when such events should only happen every hundred years. 1999-2009 was still the hottest decade on record.

    Simply: if you can’t tell the difference between weather and climate, don’t bother.

  8. John B. Dec 19th 2009 at 09:18 pm 8

    Global Warming is just a political gimmick to get more money for pet projects. 30 years ago we were worried about Global Cooling. Now it’s warming.. now it’s cooling… bottom line - we’re not responsible for the weather and climate. The Earth with help from the sun helps. Notice how cool it’s been in the last year or so? And notice how few sunspots there are? Wonder if there’s a connection? :) I don’t think mankind can do anything about that!

  9. furrykef Dec 19th 2009 at 10:01 pm 9

    I have my doubts that most people who have an opinion on global climate change, one way or the other, actually know all that much about it.

    I do have faith in science, though, so in the absence of contrary information, I always side with the scientists by default.

    - Kef

  10. Brian Leahy Dec 19th 2009 at 10:51 pm 10

    Weather Climate. You will NEVER hear anything relevant to the question of global warming when reading a single day’s weather report.

    One good analogy: weather is like one football game, climate is like an entire season.

    Heat is the energy that drives all weather phenomena. Climate change will mean MORE snow, HIGHER winds, DRYER droughts, STRONGER hurricanes, etc. Every weather phenomenon will be intensified.

    The suggestion that climate change was “invented” as a way of making money is SO wrong headed that it is only with the greatest effort that I avoid lapsing into name calling. Questions of money and politics are mere static; relevant to the resolution of the problem, but not to the reality of the crisis. The scientific proof of global climate change is sound. It has been built steadily for decades and no SUV-driving armchair meteorologists are going to “debunk” it by pointing to a few decades-old, illegally obtained emails.

    Climate change isn’t democratic; it’s not a matter of opinion, we can’t put it to a vote. It’s happening, and we are the cause. Carbon sequestered deep underground over tens of millions of years is well on its way to being put back into the air in just a few hundred years. How anyone can DOUBT that there will be an effect on the biosphere is beyond me.

    This will all still be true when, a hundred years from now, most of Florida is underwater and the great grandchildren of today’s fossil-fuel devotees have inherited the economically and ecologically devastated world their ancestors wrongly thought they were “saving” by preventing restrictions on carbon emissions. When entire cities are swallowed by the sea, I’m sure they’ll be oh-so-glad that we skeptically kept right on burning coal and oil back in the 21st century.

    Yes, I believe the nay-sayers will “win” - and as a result, human civilization (to say nothing of the natural world) will lose. The status-quo worshippers are, absolutely, working **right this minute** to destroy the human world - whether they believe it or not — and I think they will succeed.

    You can understand why I have no use and no respect for them.

  11. turquoise cow Dec 20th 2009 at 12:32 am 11

    According to the people on the news, DC broke a 70 year old record for snowfall in the ENTIRE month of December with this one snowstorm. they do GET snow, just not usually more than a couple of inches.

  12. MrKenneth Dec 20th 2009 at 05:47 am 12

    Kef/Brian - who do you want to believe. scientists who get their money to operate from oil companies or scientists who get thier money to operate from running around with thier hair on fire? The latter clearly have also been manipulating the data. We DO need to take care of our planet, but the sky is NOT falling! Deep breath here folks, read Brian Lomborg and his notes regarding value of money spent chasing this “man-made” disaster vs the cost of mosquito nets for sub-saharan Africa. Read Krauthammer and his notions of green being the new red.

  13. Keera Dec 20th 2009 at 06:10 am 13

    “Everybody” is having oddball snow this year. Bergen, Norway, hardly ever has snow, but we woke up to 5 inches of the stuff Saturday morning and it’s been snowing since. And yes, when that much white comes at once, it is a problem and will get talked about.

    I chalk this all up to El Niño. Notice how that well-known phenomenon has disappeared from the conversation after “global warming” became the reason for all things meteorologically weird?

    Oh, and when you encounter those who think we won’t have winters in the future, ask them how they intend to straighten the Earth’s tilt. I’d love to know.

  14. Powers Dec 20th 2009 at 08:13 am 14

    Who says we won’t have winters in the future?

  15. Carl Dec 20th 2009 at 10:02 am 15

    Tim, when you say “information” you mean “someone liked to you.” That is simply no t the case.

  16. Keera Dec 20th 2009 at 11:37 am 16

    Powers, you lucky dog, you obviously haven’t been talking to the wingnuts who think global warming means bikini weather all year round.

  17. Todd Dec 20th 2009 at 03:33 pm 17

    “Climate change isn’t democratic; it’s not a matter of opinion, we can’t put it to a vote.”

    You sound just like a bunch of Christians I know.

  18. Tim Dec 21st 2009 at 09:48 am 18

    I didn’t say “somebody told me something…” Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn’t mean that they are ignorant.

    The temperatures from this year and last year are facts. The causality between these trends and human activity is an interpretation of the facts, and what is actually being debated. The amount of carbon dioxide put out by all human activity for all of recorded history is less than what is produced by a single volcano.

    If these beanbags in Copenhagen really believed what they were saying, they would have done that by teleconference, instead of coming in dozens of private jets and driving in escorted limousines. At least carpool, people! ;)

  19. MrKenneth Dec 21st 2009 at 10:04 am 19

    Amen, Tim. Kind of reminds you of all the presidential candidates flying to somewhere (S Carolina?) for a debate in their jets…hypocrisy will not be leaving us anytime soon.

  20. DPWally Dec 21st 2009 at 07:08 pm 20

    John B. - No one was especially worried about global cooling 30 years ago*. I was exactly the right age to find that discussion, take it as gospel, and run around like a headless chicken. If there had been any such discussion, which there wasn’t. Someone recently decided to resurrect it from obscurity and pretend it was equivalent to current climate change theory.

    * unless you count “nuclear winter”, but that was a different thing

    Tim - After your first post #2 I was going to suggest you check your facts. But after reading #18 I think you need to look up “fact”. You’ve already figured out it doesn’t mean “something someone told me”, but it also doesn’t mean “something someone told me and said it was true” or “something that’s true because I want it to be”.

  21. DPWally Dec 21st 2009 at 07:11 pm 21

    Though I’m with you, Tim, on the Copenhagen limos. As re-reported on the Daily Show the conference required more limos than exist in Denmark, they had to import some from Germany. I guess world-leader egos will always be bigger than the issues they discuss.

  22. Banshee Librarian Dec 23rd 2009 at 02:53 am 22

    Ugh. When truly desperate, the ostriches will fall back on the Gore Paradox: if Al Gore uses a jet, he’s somehow a hypocrite for fighting to reduce the planet’s carbon blanket yet still using, you know, stuff–but if he uses any means of transportation that doesn’t use fuel, he’s craaaaaaazy. This is how neoconservative troglodytes want to frame the issue: the other side has to choose between being hypocrites or being crazy ol’ Theodore Kaczynski.

    People like to pick apart the history of science; let’s look at the history of the right wing pundits on climate issues. Rush Limbaugh didn’t believe in ozone depletion, either, but skin cancer cases still skyrocketed, unaware of his awesome authority on the subject. The only real issue was reducing the use of fluorocarbons–which was accomplished–but the Right fought kicking and screaming the whole way. To what end? A belief that the hippies and fuzzy-thinking nerds in science must always be wrong…nothing more.

    Now look at how their position on climate change has changed over the years. (One can wade through archives of “Mallard Fillmore” to see this evolution for themselves.) At first, global warming was a “liberal fantasy;” now it is acknowledged as reality, but the cause is being argued. It can’t possibly be man-made! they cry; it must be sunspot activity! Or cow flatulence! Or axis wobble! Or a changing orbit! Or some cyclical event based on data we won’t show you because no one can understand it! Maybe it’s God’s wrath, unbeliever! It’s YOUR fault!

    And again, to what end? Pat Buchanan is currently fantasizing that it’s all been an elaborate plot, of which all of Europe and Barack Obama have been conspirators, to enslave America!!!1

    Because neoconservatives and their close relatives survive through fearmongering. Consequences be damned.

    And you know the neocons have been right about everything else!

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