Global Warmists’ Mouths Frozen Shut

By Ross Kaminsky
01/08/2010

After the climate hoaxers and extortionists quietly slunk home after their utter failure in Copenhagen, one might have expected a barrage of “the end is nigh” press releases by Al Gore and friends, explaining how the refusal of governments to kneecap their economies will lead to us all being slowly convection baked to death in a never-ending trend of man-made global warming.

But apparently the alarmists have gone into hibernation…perhaps because world-wide record breaking cold would expose errors so great that even the “mainstream” news would have to call them out as full of (much needed) hot air.

As often seems to happen around big “global warming events”, Copenhagen was hit with extremely cold weather during the “climate conference,” including a blizzard on December 17…in a country which hasn’t had a white Christmas since 1995. In a bit of “God must have a sense of humor” irony, the cold weather followed President Obama home, dumping record snowfalls in and around Washington, D.C. two days later.

But that was just a warm-up for the world’s continuing deep-freeze, which seems to have frozen the alarmists’ mouths shut:

Dallas had its first “White Christmas” in more than 80 years and Oklahoma City broke a 95-year old record by getting 14 inches of snow — the previous record was 2.5 inches for that day.

From the Irish National Meteorological Service, Met Éireann, December 2009 was “the coldest December for 28 years over most of the country and the coldest of any month since February 1986 at a few stations.”

And now it continues into January, shattering even more records:

From the Times of Malta (January 1, 2010), “Heavy snowfall and seemingly permanent freezing temperatures have made this December the coldest for 13 years, UK forecasters said yesterday.” The UK’s Times newspaper piles on: “forecasters have warned Britons to brace themselves for a freezing cold, bleak new year — this winter is set to be the coldest for more than 30 years.”

From the Chinese news service Xinhua (January 5, 2010), “A cold wave across much of China since Saturday has brought heavy snow to major cities in the north, causing a surge in fuel demand and traffic chaos on roads and at airports.” And from China Daily, “In the next 10 days, temperatures could fall to around -32 C in the far north and another cold wave will sweep the region around Friday, bringing gales and severe cold…”

The BBC reports (January 4, 2010) that “Dozens of people have died in a cold wave sweeping through northern India.” And from Agence France-Presse, “As temperatures plunged to minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 Fahrenheit) in Poland at the start of the year, the number of cold-related deaths rose to 122 so far this winter, police said.”

It’s not just Europe and Asia that are cold: From Columbia, Missouri (January 4, 2010), “If Columbia doesn’t warm up to more than 20 degrees by Wednesday, this winter will make the list of worst cold snaps in Columbia history. The National Weather Service predicts temperatures will stay below 20 degrees through Saturday, which would be the ninth day of temperatures that low. A streak that long hasn’t happened since 1983.”

From Palm Beach, Florida (January 4, 2010), “Nevermind what your goosebumps are telling you — this cold weather snap is not about how cold it’s getting, but about how long it’s going to stay that way.” Southwestern Florida expects a cold streak to tie or break a 37-year old record.

And in Colorado, the National Weather Service station nearest my house reports that “December was the coldest December (and the coldest month of any name) in 27 years of record.”

To be sure, there are parts of the planet that are not colder than average today, but they represent places where a tiny fraction of the world’s population lives. Let’s face it: The Tunisians are not big players in the “global warming” debate. Essentially the entire highly-populated latitudes of the northern hemisphere are in the deep freeze, with forecasts for more record-breaking cold — and more cold-related deaths — for the immediate future.

From a decade-long lack of warming to record-long cold snaps and snowfalls, from a recovery in the Arctic sea ice extent to a healthy polar bear population, from fewer hurricanes than average to stable sea levels, the data are not on the side of the alarmists. But of course, the real data never have been on the side of the alarmists, which is why they felt the need to “hide the decline” and to manipulate the peer-reviewed publication process.

Yet neither the short-term nor long-term trends keep the alarmists from fear-mongering with junk science intended to cause you to give up your money and your economic liberty.  Energy Secretary Steven Chu warned earlier this year of dramatic long-term sea-level rises due to global warming even though multiple studies have shown no trend of accelerating rises…and no rise at all around some of the island nations like Tuvalu and the Maldives which routinely try to extort money from the west with the excuse that we’re causing them to be flooded out of existence.  And the most (in)famous chart in the climate change debate, Michael Mann’s “hockey stick,” has been proven wrong both in its underlying math and in its wildly faulty predictions of ever-increasing temperatures.

The alarmists regularly get it wrong in the relatively short-term as well. In a stunningly erroneous prediction, the British Met Office said in September, 2008, that “the coming winter (is) likely to be milder than average.” The actual results? The winter of 2008/2009 was the UK’s coldest in 13 years. The same office guessed in September, 2009 that “that winter temperatures are likely to be near or above average over much of Europe including the UK. Winter 2009/10 is likely to be milder than last year for the UK, but there is still a 1 in 7 chance of a cold winter.”  Let’s just say Caesar’s Palace isn’t worried about odds-making competition from climate alarmists. In their November update, the Met Office said there was only a 20% chance of a colder winter this year.

Meanwhile, British senior citizens are burning books to keep warm. As one bookstore worker in Wales said, “Book burning seems terribly wrong but we have to get rid of unsold stock for pennies and some of the pensioners say the books make ideal slow-burning fuel for fires and stoves. A lot of them buy up large hardback volumes so they can stick them in the fire to last all night.” Apparently, it’s cheaper to burn an encyclopedia than coal.  Perhaps Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com will have an epiphany and begin to lobby, along with Al Gore and other enviro-radicals and profiteers, for higher taxes on coal; just think what that could do for sales of War and Peace.