Friday, June 3, 2011

Weather Or Not

(click image to enlarge)

Best I can tell, even climate scientists aren't willing to claim unequivocally that the current wave of horrific weather in the US is due to global climate change. But since volatility is part and parcel of the predictions of the effect of global warming, it's gotta make you wonder.

I'm well aware that a given snowstorm or flood or the wiping out of Joplin are just points on a graph; but I find it noteworthy that the areas of the greatest and generally unprecedented weather-related recent destruction in the US are in the hotbeds of climate skepticism: the middle and southern parts.

Which makes me wonder: how much of this sort of thing will it take for them (and by "them" I mean virtually the entire Republican party, the strength of which lies in those currently devastated areas) at least to consider the possibility that human activity has something to do with it; and at least to discuss rationally the wisdom of taking whatever measures that might mitigate it in our favor? One might think, for example, that a climate-denier politician might have a harder time holding a rally in what's left of Joplin than he would have had a year ago.

It's one thing, after all, to deny facts that are sort of abstract, in the sense that ignoring them doesn't affect a person's day -- like the age of the earth, or evolution, or Reagnomics (which affected decades, but which, being more than twenty-four hours old, is ancient history). When it blows your house down, you'd think it gets a little real.

So it's a dilemma in both directions: here I am acknowledging that single events can't be construed as proof, while suggesting that maybe the recent weather, happening as it is in the most recalcitrant parts of our country, might serve to wake their citizens to the possibility that the conventional unwisdom of their leaders ought to be questioned?

What irony it would be! Acts of god suggesting to the party of god that in ignoring the actions of man they're missing the party.

7 comments:

  1. Pssst Sid,
    might wanta check your Geography, last time I checked, Massachussetts wasn't in the South OR West...
    Thats right, Kennedy-Land had a Tornado the other day...
    OK, it was WESTERN Massachussetts, and they DO have a Repubicklan senator..
    Get it? "Re-pubic-klan"? surprised none of y'all have thought of that one...
    oh, BTW Decreased-Cognitive-Function Breath, its JUNE, its supposed to be hot...

    Frank

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Frank.....I read this blog everyday and have missed hearing from you....Do your own blog again..unless your doing it under another nam and I haven't found you yet.....and Sid you need to go to Washington and set the "good old boys" straight. love reading this everyday. Alice

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, I was wondering about your point recently; so I asked my Christopublican relatives if they had had any feelings about the spate of disastrous weather we have been seeing.

    Their take is still on the (angry - father God - not Jesus the all-forgiving) because of gay socialist, half black presidents side of the ledger.

    "its JUNE, its supposed to be hot..."

    Even granted that Tex-ass is the earthly annex of hell, can we really say that it has been June in Hell for several months now?

    Talk about your "Decreased-Cognitive-Function."

    "Re-pubic-klan"? I like it - got to give Satan his due!

    EugeneInSanDiego

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, as far as I am concerned, all this stuff has been happening since Earth began, about 2000 years ago, I think. Floods (Noah), Fire (Sodom-Gomorrah), Tsunamis (Fung Chu Dynasty 200BC), Tornadoes (Wizard of Oz), so it's not NEW stuff like Global Anything. It could be God smacking down the infidels to get them to lighten up a bit, although hitting poor farmers and trailer parks does not seem fair...Brentwood and DC would make more sense. But it is interesting to watch, and since our house is on top of a mountain, about all we fear is lightning and mountain lions...not G Warming. With great respect for Dr. Schwab's intelligence, I remain the great disbeliever. (Someone other than Frankie and I please COMMENT!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. As I've said before, JB, if you reject the overwhelming scientific data in this matter, then you must reject all of science. Can't pick and choose. The point isn't that there haven't been floods and hot weather. It's the rate of change that's unprecedented; the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans...

    but okay; I'll give you your denial, as long as you also deny that penicillin works, that vaccinces prevent disease, that they managed to land rovers on the moon, that they can calculate decay rates of uranium, and that they can make a 747 lift off and stay airborne.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sid, Sid, Sid, Sid,
    "Penicillin Works"????
    have you been in an OR since they took down those "No Flamable Anesthetics" signs??
    Todays Bacteria laugh in Penicillin's face.
    OK, I know Penicillin doesn't have a face, but if it did, the Bacteria would laugh in it.
    Seriously, one time this old-as-a-mummy-fart Surgeon asked me if I was using any "Flamable Anesthetics" and just to be an A-hole, I mentioned that while Nitrous Oxide wasn't technically flamable, it does Support combustion, which is almost as bad...
    and he wasn't listening cause he was too busy putting out the fire in the jejunum....

    Frank

    ReplyDelete
  7. Okay, Frankie, fair enough, although PCN still works for your basic strep... But, yeah, I should have said "antibiotics."

    ReplyDelete

Comments back, moderated. Preference given for those who stay on topic.

Popular posts