Political Climatology
It’s probably not good for my intellectual well-being, but I subscribe to a couple of right-wing mailing lists just to keep track. Sometimes it’s difficult, like this weekend’s “Worldview Weekend” news. If you’re not familiar with them they’re conservative, “fundamentalist” Christian organization run by a guy who is a strict Biblical literalist, especially the parts about how awesome capitalism is.
Saturday’s issue contained a piece by noted climatologist Phyllis Schlafly1, Global Warming Is Frozen Over.
Whether or not the groundhog sees his shadow on February 2, there’s no denying that January put into a deep freeze the claims of crisis by global warming alarmists.
Indeed, everyone has been talking about what an unusually cold January we’ve been having here in the New York metropolitan area2. But we pagans here in the northeast have this silly penchant for data, as opposed to received wisdom no matter how anecdotal3.
In fact, according to AccuWeather4, this January is 1.5 degrees above average. From the graph above, you can see that we actually hit a record high one day, though we never came close to a record low.
Nevertheless, it was indeed cold in Nashville, 4 degrees below normal on average. I also decided to check in on my friends in Cleveland, who have also commented on how cold it’s been. One degree above normal.
Maybe in another part of the country, like the Pacific Northwest? Tacoma, Washington was 5 degrees above normal. They butted right up against the record high on two days, and on only three days was the low temperature below the normal low for the day. On the whole all but six days were above normal.
Maybe in another hemisphere? After all, it’s global warming so perhaps in faraway Sydney her thesis will be proven once and for all. But alas, comparing January actuals whttp://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_066062.shtml, Sydney’s weather last month was 1.5 to 2 degrees warmer than normal5.
Did you know she’s a historian, too?
Maybe that’s because Obama is on record as promising that U.S. emissions in 2050 will be reduced to our 1910 level of emissions, when we had a population of 92 million…Such a massive reduction in our energy use would mean lowering our standard of living to 19th century levels.6
Later on she approvingly quotes the President of the Czech Republic, “I’m convinced that after years of studying the phenomenon,” he said, “global warming is not a matter of temperature. Global warming is a new religion, a religion of climate change. . . .” Alas, he’s right, though not for the reason he goes on to give. It seems global warming denial might be the new religion.
Among her other skills, that of film critic:
Another movie called “The Story of Stuff” is also shown in classrooms to teach students the evils of human consumption7.
The movie projects a very negative view of capitalism8 and paints human use of natural resources as “exploitation,” which is supposed to be synonymous with trashing the planet. The movie accuses us of chopping down the trees9, blowing up mountains to get the metals inside10, using up all the water11, and wiping out the animals12.
And economist, “The main cause of unemployment and poverty is the lack of enough energy. Rather than expanding government to limit energy, we should be increasing the use of energy to eradicate hardship.”
Paul Krugman was not available for comment.
1I bet you didn’t know this.
2Which i understand is just above the gateway of Hades.
3“snow fell on Al Gore’s palatial home in normally warmer Tennessee.”
4Heathens.
5And those are Celsius degrees, 9/5 bigger than our puny Fahrenheit degrees.
61910 was in the 20th century. But I quibble.
7Jesus told us to buy more stuff.
8which is bad because it’s right there in the Bible.
9which we did
10which we do
11which we’re in the process of doing.
12other than cod, other fishes (they’re slimy), bison (smelly), certain birds (some of which were funny looking to begin with so who cares) that is.