Scientists are like politicians. There are some very good reputable practitioners and others are more interested in financial or personal gain than the true science. NASA being largely composed of scientists and at the control of a bunch of politicians has been known to fudge a bit to keep itself in good financial shape from time to time.
Nevertheless the announcement by NOAA that 2010 was one of if not THE HOTTEST YEAR on EARTH since record keeping has been done makes one pause
from Reutersonline today:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today that 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year in the temperature record, adding to the body of scientific evidence that the federal agency has characterized as “clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world.”
Combined global land and ocean annual surface temperatures in 2010 reached 1.12 F (0.62 C) above the 20th century average, the same as surface temperatures in 2005.
An editorial from Mike Thomas Orlando Sentinel columnist on this situation:
Federal scientists reported Wednesday that 2010 tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record, unless of course you were in Florida last month, in which case it was one of the coldest Decembers on record.
It’s not easy scraping windshield ice with a plastic spatula.
The feds should wait until August to release these how-hot-was-it updates. They might have more impact if people weren’t reading them while socked in at O’Hare for 15 hours.
The “deniers,” as they are called, are having lots of fun with this, juxtaposing claims of record heat with pictures of record snowfalls.
This has put climate scientists and environmentalists on the defensive as they try to explain that there are nuances and variations in things as complex as global weather patterns. In fact, we are told, the heat can be causing the cold.
Some scientists believe that natural weather patterns could override the impact of greenhouse gasses and cool things off for a while.
And I don’t deny that could be true.
But for years the message from the climate-change community is that we are on an unrelenting march to hell. Some scientists have made very specific predictions of doom based on models that have nowhere near that kind of accuracy.
And now they are looking pretty silly.
James Hansen, a climatologist and activist at NASA, predicted in 1986 that 2001 would be the hottest year in 100,000 years.
Another leading climate scientist, Michael Oppenheimer, wrote in 1990 that America’s heartland would be ravaged in drought, leading to food riots.
English scientist David Viner said in 2000 that winter snow would be a “very rare and exciting event” and that, “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”
There have been several predictions about an ice-free North Pole.
The media loves this stuff. In 2000, the Chicago Tribune reported: “The four horsemen of this global Apocalypse are Thaw, Drought, Storms and Floods, carrying in their wake hunger, disease, devastation and death.”
Oh my!
Doomsday scenarios are the marketing plan of choice when it comes to environmental issues.
We saw it play out in a very condensed timeframe with the Gulf oil spill.
The oil would destroy the Gulf. And then it would destroy the Florida Keys, before heading north up the East Coast.
Scientists replaced peer-reviewed research with whatever speculation would get them attention.
And what happened? The underwater oil plumes, such as they were, quickly were gobbled up by bacteria. So was the methane, which we were told could create dead zones. There is no oil coating the Gulf bottom, as was reported. Sea life is booming because of the fishing moratorium.
Interestingly enough, the new story line from some environmentalists and scientists is that it’s too early to give the Gulf a clean bill of health. We need to monitor for subtle, long-term impacts.
Well, duh.
Crying wolf draws attention to an issue in the short term. But credibility wears thin over time.
Last March, Gallup did its annual poll on the public’s attitude toward the environment. It shows almost half of Americans now believe the danger of global warming has been exaggerated, up from 31 percent in 1997 when the question was first asked. People are becoming less convinced it is happening and are less worried about it.
They do not see the world going up in flames.
Of course, the climate-change community can’t accept the responsibility for this. So it blames the lies and distortions of the dreaded deniers. I disagree because this issue was theirs to lose. They overreacted to critics, they didn’t tolerate dissent and instead of trying to educate the public on the nuances of weather, they turned climate science into a modern-day Book of Revelation.
I don’t doubt that having billions of people burning fossil fuel impacts the climate. I question how that impact is being quantified into specific predictions and, more important, how it then is being marketed. It’s time for a change in strategy.
Leave a Reply