Curtis Dahlgren
Groundhog Day, plus 4 months, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Based solely on a far-Left agenda that includes a plan to control worldwide energy production, the climate change hysteria movement has jumped the shark."
— Townhall magazine (January 2009)
I VISITED THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE SUPERIOR THE OTHER DAY. I was wearing a turtleneck, a coat, and mittens. Back down here in the banana belt of the U.P., we had frost on the windshields this week. This morning the temperature was in the HIGH 30s!
May second is the official U.P. Groundhog Day, but June second is the "second" Groundhog Day, in case our groundhog doesn't even "show" on May second. But this morning he saw his shadow, meaning six more weeks of the stuff anyway.
It's been such a cold spring that the Liberals would rather talk about religion or how to run a car company — ANYTHING BUT THE WEATHER!
Speaking of car companies, did you know that the guy appointed by President Obama as the car czar isn't even old enough to shave yet? I don't think he even has a driver's license. His mommy takes him to work in a minivan (a "hybrid" minivan).
In "Dreams Of My Father," Barack Obama said that he felt like an enemy spy behind enemy lines, but now he not only has an honorary degree from Notre Dame, but he's the Honorary CEO of General Motors (and he flies in his private jet to New York City for a "date"). And my congressman is proposing moving the enemy terrorists from Gitmo to the U.P. of Michigan. That would really teach them, wouldn't it?
Speaking of COLD, did you hear about the Supreme Court nominee? She not only came from one of those off-shore islands, but she claims that that's what makes her superior to the Dead White Anglo-Saxon Males who wrote the Constitution. DUH. James Madison and Tlhomas Jefferson were SO UNCOOL. And they would be meanies to the greenies.
Speaking of that, I would like to nominate for the John Stuart Mill article-of-the-year "Global Warming Doom and Gloom Cools Off" by Dr. Roy Spencer (Townhall magazine, January 2009). Here are a few highlights:
"Yet even as our country careens toward government-mandated reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, the scientific basis for doing so is gradually eroding away. Our new understanding of how the climate system operates will eventually lead to the realization that what Al Gore likes to call the 'climate crisis' has been based upon the greatest scientific faux pas in history.
"There are two new scientific findings that will have a huge impact on the global warming debate — if they are allowed to see the light of day. The first is compelling new evidence that suggests that global warming has been mostly natural, the result of an internally generated climate fluctuation called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The second is the increasing amount of observational evidence that the climate system is largely insensitive to our greenhouse gas emissions . . .
"Despite its central role as an elixir of life, there is surprisingly little CO2 around us: only 39 molecules out of every 100,000 molecules of air. So how did such a natural — indeed, essential — component of life get such a bad rap? . . .
"The fear of global warming has resonated with a number of politicians and entertainers who needed something to worry about, something to fight for and to give their lives meaning — and to make lots of money on, too. . .
"The belief that everything that mankind does is bad for the environment is arbitrary and religious. . .
"Given the importance of carbon dioxide to life on Earth, I would never have imagined that we would see the day when the United States Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is a 'pollutant,' but here we are anyway . . .
"The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] knows full well that there are natural modes of climate variability; such as El Nino, La Nina, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. But they have assumed that these forms of natural climate variability only rearrange the geographic distribution of weather patterns and clouds, not cause changes in global averages. . .
"But now we have eight years of high-quality NASA Terra satellite data that have revealed that the PDO does indeed cause a change in global cloud cover . . [and] it can explain most of the global average temperature behavior over the last century . . . It is particularly good at explaining why the period from 1940 to the late 1970s actually showed slight cooling, rather than warming, an event that has always been a thorn in the side of climate ['computer modelers']."
Dr. Spencer goes on to say how his data from observed satellite info has been suppressed (while "hypothetical computer models" trump the actual facts in the international community). Spencer says that the IPCC confuses "cause and effect"; fewer clouds cause warming (the warming doesn't cause fewer clouds).
IN FACT, as I myself have speculated for years, warming causes an increase in ocean evaporation which in time produces more clouds and this is all part of the Earth's self-regulation — which used to be called "the Gaia Effect."
But in the New Age of New Age Psuedo-science, even Public Broadcasting TV has stopped talking about the "Gaia Effect." The better to gobble up inconvenient science and introduce bio-fuels, etc. The better to starve the poor people of the Earth, as Roy Innis warns about in his book, "Energy Keepers, Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle."
Roy Spencer's book is "CLIMATE CONFUSION; How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies That Hurt the Poor." It was a New York Times best-seller, and he is a scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville.
P.S. I have to cut this column short and go out and cut more firewood for my stove (my only defense against global cooling, hypothermia, and pneumonia).
I hope my chain saw doesn't wake up our groundhog.
© Curtis Dahlgren
June 2, 2009
"Based solely on a far-Left agenda that includes a plan to control worldwide energy production, the climate change hysteria movement has jumped the shark."
— Townhall magazine (January 2009)
I VISITED THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE SUPERIOR THE OTHER DAY. I was wearing a turtleneck, a coat, and mittens. Back down here in the banana belt of the U.P., we had frost on the windshields this week. This morning the temperature was in the HIGH 30s!
May second is the official U.P. Groundhog Day, but June second is the "second" Groundhog Day, in case our groundhog doesn't even "show" on May second. But this morning he saw his shadow, meaning six more weeks of the stuff anyway.
It's been such a cold spring that the Liberals would rather talk about religion or how to run a car company — ANYTHING BUT THE WEATHER!
Speaking of car companies, did you know that the guy appointed by President Obama as the car czar isn't even old enough to shave yet? I don't think he even has a driver's license. His mommy takes him to work in a minivan (a "hybrid" minivan).
In "Dreams Of My Father," Barack Obama said that he felt like an enemy spy behind enemy lines, but now he not only has an honorary degree from Notre Dame, but he's the Honorary CEO of General Motors (and he flies in his private jet to New York City for a "date"). And my congressman is proposing moving the enemy terrorists from Gitmo to the U.P. of Michigan. That would really teach them, wouldn't it?
Speaking of COLD, did you hear about the Supreme Court nominee? She not only came from one of those off-shore islands, but she claims that that's what makes her superior to the Dead White Anglo-Saxon Males who wrote the Constitution. DUH. James Madison and Tlhomas Jefferson were SO UNCOOL. And they would be meanies to the greenies.
Speaking of that, I would like to nominate for the John Stuart Mill article-of-the-year "Global Warming Doom and Gloom Cools Off" by Dr. Roy Spencer (Townhall magazine, January 2009). Here are a few highlights:
"Yet even as our country careens toward government-mandated reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, the scientific basis for doing so is gradually eroding away. Our new understanding of how the climate system operates will eventually lead to the realization that what Al Gore likes to call the 'climate crisis' has been based upon the greatest scientific faux pas in history.
"There are two new scientific findings that will have a huge impact on the global warming debate — if they are allowed to see the light of day. The first is compelling new evidence that suggests that global warming has been mostly natural, the result of an internally generated climate fluctuation called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The second is the increasing amount of observational evidence that the climate system is largely insensitive to our greenhouse gas emissions . . .
"Despite its central role as an elixir of life, there is surprisingly little CO2 around us: only 39 molecules out of every 100,000 molecules of air. So how did such a natural — indeed, essential — component of life get such a bad rap? . . .
"The fear of global warming has resonated with a number of politicians and entertainers who needed something to worry about, something to fight for and to give their lives meaning — and to make lots of money on, too. . .
"The belief that everything that mankind does is bad for the environment is arbitrary and religious. . .
"Given the importance of carbon dioxide to life on Earth, I would never have imagined that we would see the day when the United States Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is a 'pollutant,' but here we are anyway . . .
"The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] knows full well that there are natural modes of climate variability; such as El Nino, La Nina, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. But they have assumed that these forms of natural climate variability only rearrange the geographic distribution of weather patterns and clouds, not cause changes in global averages. . .
"But now we have eight years of high-quality NASA Terra satellite data that have revealed that the PDO does indeed cause a change in global cloud cover . . [and] it can explain most of the global average temperature behavior over the last century . . . It is particularly good at explaining why the period from 1940 to the late 1970s actually showed slight cooling, rather than warming, an event that has always been a thorn in the side of climate ['computer modelers']."
Dr. Spencer goes on to say how his data from observed satellite info has been suppressed (while "hypothetical computer models" trump the actual facts in the international community). Spencer says that the IPCC confuses "cause and effect"; fewer clouds cause warming (the warming doesn't cause fewer clouds).
IN FACT, as I myself have speculated for years, warming causes an increase in ocean evaporation which in time produces more clouds and this is all part of the Earth's self-regulation — which used to be called "the Gaia Effect."
But in the New Age of New Age Psuedo-science, even Public Broadcasting TV has stopped talking about the "Gaia Effect." The better to gobble up inconvenient science and introduce bio-fuels, etc. The better to starve the poor people of the Earth, as Roy Innis warns about in his book, "Energy Keepers, Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle."
Roy Spencer's book is "CLIMATE CONFUSION; How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies That Hurt the Poor." It was a New York Times best-seller, and he is a scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville.
P.S. I have to cut this column short and go out and cut more firewood for my stove (my only defense against global cooling, hypothermia, and pneumonia).
I hope my chain saw doesn't wake up our groundhog.
© Curtis Dahlgren
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
