I must be on a doom and gloom kick lately, because all the stories that I find worth writing about these days definitely fall into the category of “glass less than half full” category. But this time, my pessimism isn’t based on my personal speculations as a “conspiracy theorist” about the coming election, and I’m not the one sounding the alarm bells. No, this time I’m merely the conduit for the prognostications of a few lunatic fringe junk scientists. And here’s their latest foray into the public sphere, once again trying to demonstrate that global warming isn’t going away and it looks to be the worst sort of house guest you can imagine:
(cont.)
WASHINGTON — The world — especially the Western United States, the Mediterranean region and Brazil — will likely suffer more extended droughts, heavy rainfalls and longer heat waves over the next century because of global warming, a new study forecasts.
In a preview of a major international multiyear report on climate change due out next year, a study out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research details what nine of the world’s top computer models predict for the lurching of climate at its most extreme.
“It’s going to be a wild ride, especially for specific regions,” said study lead author Claudia Tebaldi, a scientist at the federally funded academic research center.
The study, to be published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change, “gives us stronger and more compelling evidence that these changes in extremes are more likely.”
Good thing people smarter than these climatologists are on to their little game, eh?
[Senator James Inhofe] argues that natural variability, rather than human influence, is the “overwhelming factor influencing climate.” This contradicts both the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which have emphasized the central role of human activities in explaining recent global warming. Asked in writing whether Inhofe agrees that he’s at odds with the scientific mainstream, his committee staff retorted, “How do you define ‘mainstream’? Scientists who accept the so-called ‘consensus’ about global warming? Galileo was not mainstream.” […]
… “With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science,” Inhofe said, “could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it.”
And thank goodness, such people are in a position to squelch any attempt by these crazed climate change fruitcakes to stop us from exercising our God-given right to drive SUV’s:
The U.S. Senate rejected a plan Thursday [October 29, 2003] to curb carbon dioxide emissions from industrial smokestacks as a source of global warming. It was the chamber’s first vote in more than six years on the controversial issue of climate change.
All snark aside, we have very good reason to be concerned about the “Know Nothing, Do Nothing” Republicans in Congress. This is one more reason that I hope democrats win this year, and in 2008, because if they don’t we are definitely on the fast track to hell:
What Tebaldi called the scariest results had to do with heat waves and warm nights. Everything about heat waves — their intensity, length and occurrence — worsens.
“The changes are very significant there,” Tebaldi said. “It’s enough to say we’re in for a bad future.”
You can read the complete study HERE (Caution: pdf link).
