Climate change, or just bad weather?

North Texas has gone from "Wow, it's snowing!" to "What, it's snowing again?"

It's currently snowing again, for the third time this year, in a part of the country that doesn't get much snow. We get a dusting every other year since I've lived here, and it has never stuck around more than 24 hours. (Update: The weather service has cancelled its Winter Weather Advisory and issued a Winter Storm Warning, with accumulations of 4 to 6 inches, with locally heavier accumulations possible. That's about 3 to 4 years worth of snow in one day).

(Update for Feb. 12: A record was set for DFW airport. About 12.5 inches of snow fell.)

So we're having a cooler than normal winter. It should be in the low 50s, but it's about 32 degrees right now. Is this global warming climate change?

Who knows? Really, who knows for sure (except algore)? While we're having a cooler than normal winter, it is by no means record-setting. The weather service predicted a cooler and wetter winter, and we're getting it. Supposedly it's based on El-Nino weather patterns. I just refuse to get to excited about it, but still can't wait for Spring.

The planet goes through climate change naturally. The Vikings grew grapes in Greenland in 950, but had to leave the next century because of cooling. By the mid-1600s, it was snowing in New England in July.

We have an obligation to keep the planet as clean as possible, just because it makes for a better place to live. But I'm not going to go beserk over it, nor treat the whole issue like a religion.

And driving electric cars is not the best answer either. It takes energy to create electricity, and the old batteries create a bigger environmental problem than they're suppose to prevent. When you make a change, you've got to consider the consequences.

When science is used to make money or control people, it is no longer science, but evil.

P.S. Al, I wouldn't recommend flying your private jet into Dallas today.

Junk science -- or at least reporting of it

Global Warming, which is now re-framed as climate change, is still a fuzzy area to me. I guess we don't really know which way it's going, so we can't call it global warming anymore. I'm not here to support either side, but to report bad reporting when I see it.

Part of the problem with the Internet is the ubiquity of bad writing and in-precise, sloppy thinking. Here's an example from a recent post on Red Orbit.

The headline alone is worthy of a prize: "Staggering Global Warming Statistics Emerge As UN Meeting Looms." The statistics are staggering, mind you. As in causing great astonishment, amazement, or dismay; overwhelming. I saw a statistic recently. In the last 120+ years, the earth's temperature has risen about 1 degree F. I'm staggering already.

Next we get this: "So far, the oceans have risen an inch and a half..." What does "so far" mean or describe? Since 1997? 1900? 3,000 BC? The age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago? Depending on your timeline, an inch-and-a-half could be staggering, but I really doubt it. Science reporting must be precise.

We then learn, despite the incorrect sentence structure, that in one paragraph, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is up 6.5 percent since 1997. Then, all of sudden, "world carbon dioxide has leapt up 31%."

Leaping lizards, batman. CO2 is up 6.5 percent, then "leapt" 31 percent? I really don't understand the blatant misuse of numbers here. besides the fact that "leapt" isn't the correct word to describe a 31 percent increase in anything.

And then I learned the amazing fact that "glaciers are disintegrating three times rapider than in the 1970s..." I felt like puking. "Rapider?" You mean faster? And then the statement, which is too general anyway, is not correct.

In the 10th Century, the Vikings grew grapes in Greenland. The climate was much warmer. So what is the disaster that is around the corner that will end life as we know it?

I'm sure I could find many more examples -- in fact I see them almost daily in my web travels.

It's hard enough getting the science straight, and even harder to communicate effectively. But if we continue to deal with how things change in our world in this manner, we'll be living in caves (except for Algore).

No Evidence that Drilling Will Help

In a recent oped piece for IBD, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne made the following statement: "Promises that more offshore drilling will magically bring down prices are not backed up by the evidence."

Twisted logic. First of all, there is no evidence available, because we can't drill for more offshore oil. Only if we were drilling for more oil would there be evidence one way or another. Second of all, the economic principles of supply and demand aren't "magic."

Next, he quotes Al "I invented the internet" Gore: "We have been drilling for more oil, and the prices have gone up," Gore said in the interview. "A lot more oil has been found, a lot more has been produced."

Typical of liberals, they forget the supply side of the equation. We could drill 10 times more oil, but if it didn't meet needs, the price would probably go up.

But more typical, Gore's statement is not true. Our domestic production of oil has fallen 12 percent over the last several years.

According to the American Petroleum Institute, between 2000 and 2007, drilling of exploratory wells increased 138% while domestic crude oil production fell 12.4% to its lowest level since 1947.

Besides just ignoring the facts, this liberal non-logic is the same as stating that drilling for more oil won't lower the price of gasoline, but syphoning off 70 million barrels or so of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve will. If you put 70 million barrels in the market all at once, this new supply would last no more than three days, based on our consumption of 20 million per day.

The liberal tactic here is to convince us they know best, though the proper use of correct logic would invalidate their premiss, and if that doesn't work, just make up some "facts" to validate their case.

What You Won't Read

Reviewing Victor Dale Hanson's blog earlier today, I came across a couple of items entitled, "What You Won't Read."

I like and admire Hanson's work. He has a Ph.D. in classics from Stanford and is a military historian. I've read a couple of his books, and many of his articles, and if you want a solid, well-grounded take on today's affairs, his website and blog should be on your must-read list.

What You Won't Read (from his June 28, 2008 blog on Pajamas Media):

Two of the Three in the Axis of Evil — Korea and Iraq – seem no longer to be acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Throw in Libya as well, and the end of Dr. Khan’s proliferation business, and things have gotten at least a little better.

I say that because I keep reading about nuclear proliferation and America’s asleep-at-the-wheel posture, when in fact we alone supplied the pressure to stop a lot of it.

Meanwhile, the Iranian theocracy will continue to issue existential threats to Israel, hint that it is nearing completion on enrichment, and rattle more sabers in hopes of creating continuing tension that helps spike oil prices and land it another $10 - $15 million a day in revenue.

And You Won't Read This Either:

That the World’s Saint, Mr. Gore, who lectures on carbon emissions and green behavior, built an ecological monstrosity of a castle that gulps energy at gargantuan rates; while the world’s villain, George Bush, built an eco-friendly, far more modest house that uses a fourth less power than the average home.

But then when one compares the Kerry homes, the Edwards playhouse, and all the other liberal mansions, it makes sense. Modern liberalism for our elites is really a psychological state, in which an individual crafts an all-encompassing world view in the abstract to offset a rather materialistic and self-centered desire in the concrete.

Here in California Sens. Boxer and Feinstein, and Rep Pelosi live like the privileged they are, while decrying the plight of the less fortunate. Someone who forbids drilling in ANWR rarely decides to down-size her home. A Senator Dodd who rails at the mortgage lenders’ greed has no problem taking a cut-rate loan from them–if it is a question of buying appropriate homes for his sixty-something efforts at establishing a young family.

Hypocrisy is a human, not a political sin per se, but something about the combination of neo-socialist politics and extremely elite personal tastes suggests that there is a direct rather than an accidental connection—in the mind at least the former making possible the latter.

There are well-educated people who still make sense, and have an honest view of reality. Hanson is one of them.