Monday, March 12, 2007

Frostbite Ends Arctic Trek to Protest Global Warming

The AP reports the end of the expedition to draw attention to the dangers of Global Warming:

Then there was the cold — quite a bit colder, Atwood said, then Bancroft and Arnesen had expected. One night they measured the temperature inside their tent at 58 degrees below zero, and outside temperatures were exceeding 100 below zero at times, Atwood said. "My first reaction when they called to say there were calling it off was that they just sounded really, really cold," Atwood said. She said Bancroft and Arnesen were applying hot water bottles to Arnesen's foot every night, but had to wake up periodically because the bottles froze.

19 Comments:

Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Yes, but it's the other Gore Effect. The mansion effect. Prince Charles' Green Credentials took a hit when it was revealed that a pair of shoes which Camilla left behind were flown from the UK to Kuwait so that it would match her dress. And when they arrived, she decided not to wear them at all.

He has made much of efforts to reduce his carbon footprint.

But when it comes to his wife's wardrobe demands, it seems Prince Charles will go to any lengths to stay on the right footing with Camilla.

The Duchess of Cornwall had a favourite pair of shoes flown 3,000 miles to Kuwait for a lavish dinner with senior members of the Kuwaiti royal family, it emerged last night.

After discovering to her horror that a pair of her killer heels had been forgotten by careless aides, a member of staff is said to have been ordered to find them at the couple's Highgrove home and get them to her within 48 hours because they matched an outfit she had chosen for a gala event.

But astonishingly after the pair were flown over in the nick of time, Camilla decided not to wear them after all.


Now I have nothing against people with 10,000 square foot mansions and who fly a pair of high heels across oceans just to look them over. But it is somewhat irksome to be lectured by the same individuals on the need to cut back on one's already comparatively miserable existence for the sake of the Planet. Can't they go back to being just plain millionaires and royalty and we go back to being just plain Joes?

3/12/2007 05:46:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

But honestly, I agree with the environmentalist's excuse for this fiasco that some variability in the weather is to be expected. The cold spell doesn't prove anything, but neither of course do the occasional hot episodes they cite as "proof" of Global Warming.

The fact is that nobody can predict the weather accurately over more than a few days. That these environmentalists were caught out suggests they know no more than anyone else about how the climate will behave. Therefore, while they are entitled to keep studying the weather and refining their research, they should refrain from behaving as if they knew the "truth" about the "facts" of their model and dictating to the world about how it should behave, because their model just got up and bit them.

3/12/2007 05:56:00 PM  
Blogger Ed in Kanata said...

The BBC4 program "The Great Global Warming Swindle" is available on Google Video - it takes 75 minutes and well worth the effort. Who knew that it was all started inadvertently by Margaret Thatcher!

3/12/2007 07:08:00 PM  
Blogger Tony said...

Uh oh, Al Gore has lost control. Somehow this has leaked out in the New York Times, probably another insidious, omnipresent effect of global warming, it's done something to the ink, err, the pixels.

In October, Dr. Easterbrook made similar points at the geological society meeting in Philadelphia. He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change.

Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”

Getting personal, he mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”



The Media “Balance” Forbidden by Al Gore

3/12/2007 07:13:00 PM  
Blogger jj mollo said...

Now come on Wretchard. You know that climate and weather are two separate things. True, it is extremely difficult to predict weather past two weeks, but predicting overall temperature/precipitation trends is a different task.

As far as variability goes, we should expect variability to increase since more energy has to be dissipated.

3/12/2007 08:15:00 PM  
Blogger Meme chose said...

The new documentary by the UK's Channel 4 (which is not any flavor of the BBC), available online here, is excellent. There's not much left of Al Gore or the CO2 hysteria by the end.

3/12/2007 10:02:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

jjmollo,

If we are talking about the climate as a statistical object, then in what meaningful sense would this arctic trek purport to show anything? The protesters were probably acting on the expectation of a warmed arctic to serve as a backdrop to make their point about global warming. Had they found gaps in the ice, and made their journey in relative warmth, then the balmy weather they experienced would have been adduced as evidence of climate change.

Unfortunately their expectations of the climate, as embodied in the weather they believed they would encounter were the contrary of the actual. And they got frostbitten.

But although the climate of the future can be statistically described in reality it is caused by physical mechanisms we probably don't fully understand but which the environmentalists purport to know. And they trade on this assertion to warn that man is causing (and they know how he is causing it) a discontintinuity in the climate. All the "unusual" changes they wish to point out -- the more violent hurricanes, the more "extreme" weather, etc are so many proofs that the climate is not following some past statistical trend but wandering off into some unusual realm under the impulse of man.

Those artic protesters set out to prove a point about the climate. Now, given their experience, what exactly did they prove?

3/12/2007 10:16:00 PM  
Blogger Chip said...

Yeah, we can't predict weather when the variables are in many cases visible on radar, but trust them on global weather hundreds of years from now. Brilliant reasoning that.

What about volcanic cooling and variance in solar radiation? How do they model those exactly? I think I know the answer: carefully in order to get more funding.

One look at global CO2 and global temperatures on a graph which affords some long-term perspective makes this entire scam perfectly clear. First thing you notice is global CO2 is lower than at any time since the ironically-named Carboniferous Period.

If CO2 were getting much lower we'd have legitimate worries about plants dying out.

3/12/2007 10:56:00 PM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Well wretchard they almost got some pictures of those cute seal puppies, and a shot of them helping one of those cuddly homeless Polar Bears would have been worth it.

If nothing else, the entertainment of their rapidly escalating evasive exertions could gain an audience.

3/12/2007 11:05:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

3/13/2007 07:34:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As a GW skeptic, I still don't like pollution nor the idea of relying upon Arab, Russian or Chavez oil, and so my next house will be renovated with green in mind.

Am thinking seafoam green clapboard with Charleston green trim and malachite accents inside.

3/13/2007 07:58:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

Climatologists read lots and lots of data.
Economists read lots and lots of data.

We have data coming out of our ass.
Some decades the oracles of data reading read it one way ...ah we're headed for a new ice age, circa 1970's.
Others search the chicken bones and goat entrails...ah...global warming circa ..now.

If we could divine with 100% certitude that the earth was going one way or the other if you think you ca get 6 billion people to follow the same Rx for salvation....well, here have some coll aid, Jim Jones special blend.

3/13/2007 08:43:00 AM  
Blogger dla said...

Remember folks, Global warming is faith-based. Al Gore is the prophet. You can't have a rational discussion with it's adherents.

3/13/2007 09:15:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

I suppose these same geniuses will next make their point by hiking across Death Valley in August.

When they die as a result of that trek then that will prove Global Warming exists, since no one ever died doing that before, or at least not very often. Ergo, the death rate in Death Valley has increased by 1000% so the planet must be warming.

Clearly, it could not be due to stupidity....

By the way, interesting data on the Ozone Holes. Since the effect of the holes would be to increase UV under them, advocates of the concept sought out data on that aspect. Turned out that a researcher had placed an array of UV detectors across Anarctica. They got the data and pointed out that it showed higher UV. Then the researcher himself pointed out that their conclusions were absurd, since his data showed just as much LOWER UV as it did higher. The PC types knew how to respond to that challenge. They arranged to cut his funding.

3/13/2007 10:09:00 AM  
Blogger Yashmak said...

"and a shot of them helping one of those cuddly homeless Polar Bears would have been worth it.

Yesterday I saw an article about the polar bear population explosion. I believe the comment was "This is sure to spark manic depression amongst the global warming advocates."

Apparently, warmer temperatures in the Arctic have caused polar bear populations in a certain area to explode from 850 to 2100.

Does that mean we can tell the global warming crowd that their preaching endangers the polar bears?

Yeah, I know, it's stupid. But then again, that's kind of my opinion of the whole global warming thing in the first place. . .I'm just old enough to remember the Time magazine articles about the coming ice age, afterall.

3/13/2007 10:18:00 AM  
Blogger Fat Man said...

"As far as variability goes, we should expect variability to increase since more energy has to be dissipated."

Why? Don't take my word for it. IANS, but Roger Pielke is:

The IPCC SPM writes,

“Mid-latitude westerly winds have strengthened in both hemispheres since the 1960s.”

This is perhaps the most astonishing claim made in the report. First, peer reviewed papers that have investigated this subject,

Pielke, R.A. Sr., T.N. Chase, T.G.F. Kittel, J. Knaff, and J. Eastman, 2001: Analysis of 200 mbar zonal wind for the period 1958-1997. J. Geophys. Res., 106, D21, 27287-27290.

did find a

“….tendency for the 200 mbar winds to become somewhat stronger at higher latitudes since 1958.”

However, what this means from basic meteorology, is that if the mid-latitude westerlies increase, this indicates a greater north-south tropospheric temperature gradient! This is why the westerlies are stronger in the winter; the troposphere becomes very cold at the higher latitudes, but the tropospheric temperatures change little in the tropics. Thus a statement that the westerlies have become stronger, in the absence of significant warming in the tropical latitudes, indicates a colder troposphere at higher latitude on average.

There is, therefore, an inconsistency in the IPCC SPM. It cannot both be the case that the troposphere in the arctic is warming high while the westerlies in the midlatitudes are increasing in speed. There is a fundamental inconsistency in these trends, which goes unaddressed by the IPCC.

Link

3/13/2007 12:21:00 PM  
Blogger jj mollo said...

Wretchard, I don't disagree that these people are naive and misguided. It may be worth losing a few toes to gain a brain. I do, however, believe that the Global Warming hypothesis is scientifically respectable and that climate can be studied as a statistical/historical object with the possibility of prediction. My own political position is that we should come down on the side of alarm. Whether or not Gore makes the argument too enthusiastically, the planetary climate should be a matter of compelling interest to us.

3/13/2007 10:40:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mr. Blair’s Progressive horns are showing. The UK is headed for totalitarian Green as the first country in the world on track to institute legally binding emission targets:

“Homeowners who refuse to make their properties energy efficient will face financial penalties under drastic government plans to transform Britain into the world's first 'green' economy.

“Ministers yesterday promised deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions that they warned would mean everyone in the country having to 'live, work and travel differently'...

“The Government said that every new home should be 'carbon neutral' within ten years - and existing properties subject to a 'home energy audit' to assess how green they are...

“Critics said the plans raised the prospect of 'eco-snoopers' inspecting homes… ‘For them also to intrude into our homes in order to have the ability to penalise us even further is simply unacceptable'...

“A draft Climate Change Bill published yesterday dismissed sceptics, insisting there was 'no longer any real debate' that climate change was happening and man-made emissions were the main cause...

Mr Blair compared the fight against climate change to the battle against fascism..."

Thought at first that last line was classic Brit tongue-in-cheek, but apparently they’ve swallowed it.

3/14/2007 09:52:00 AM  
Blogger Steve1776 said...

eggplant said...

>Soon expressing global warming scepticism will be proof positive that you're an evil Nazi.

You have it backwards! Acc/to an essay in _Rational Readings in Environmentalism_, many early 20th century Germans were environmentalists who were vegan and hatred cigarettes After all, the rejection of objectivity and reason by Nazi subjectivists/modernists/nihilists led to their _basic_ hatred of personal achievement, individual rights/capitalism, science, technology and industry (regardless of contradictions in non-basic contexts).

Further, Albert Speer, the Nazi Armaments Minister, in _Inside the Third Reich_, noted that Germans, when they returned from hiking, found cities very confusing.

Heil Al "Hot Air" Gore!

3/15/2007 12:32:00 PM  

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