Devil's advocate: global warming
Birders typically consider themselves environmentalists, and the topic of global warming occasionally surfaces in conversation. Today, American Thinker offers some thoughts about global warming, hurricanes and Al Gore.
Now I seem to recall a movie Al Gore made – I forget what was it called – was it “An Incompetent Sooth!”? Anyway, it sure tried hard to say that Global Warming caused Katrina, and the other big storms last year, and that we were going to be having a lot more of them from now on.After reading the article, want to share your thoughts?
Most responsible scientists would say that just as this year’s hurricane activity doesn’t prove Global Warming is a fiction, last year’s didn’t prove that it is a fact. But none of those scientists got parts in that Al Gore movie, or got pubished on the front page of any big newspapers, or interviewed on TV networks news, either. That’s no doubt why most of you think that Katrina “proved” Global Warming was real – because you were meant to.
posted by Amy at 2:09 PM
5 Comments:
I think this writer is beating a strawman. I can't speak for Gore's movie because I have not seen it, but I have not seen anyone trying to make a serious argument that global warming directly caused Katrina or last year's heightened hurricane season. What I have seen are predictions that we can expect more like what we saw last year as the earth warms. His essay does not address that point.
I don't know how to do fancy clicky word links but I reckon this AP article covers the important points on AG's accuracy:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-06-27-gore-science-truth_x.htm
Meanwhile people in the american mainstream media are stooping to this:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200606080005
Speaking as a European we're all a little confused as to why so much of the american media is in denial about GW
Re: more hurricanes this year as a result of global warming -- more food for thought:
Yet, now at mid-August, we have had only three named tropical storms, compared to nine by this date last year. Normally, we would have had one hurricane by now, and we have not had any so far, so by that measure we are actually below normal.
Hurricanes require warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and last year the tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures were running well above normal. Global warming was the explanation given by most 'experts' the media interviewed. And since global warming will only get worse, those SSTs were expected to just keep on increasing.
But now those same regions that had anomalously warm SSTs last year are -- gasp! -- near normal. The accompanying graphic shows large areas in the tropical Atlantic even a little cooler than normal.
Tai Haku: I have to keep the HTML code for the fancy clicky word links on a Post-It at the top of my monitor. I'll gladly share it in an e-mail if you want it. (I tried to post it here but can't without the software trying to enact it.)
You can get syntax for clickable HTML links here.
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