Harry Kari

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.  ~ H.L. Mencken

So Harry Reid wants to keep us alarmed about the early cherry blossoms (Sakura in Japan) in Washington this spring. Harry speaks without scrutiny but not without criticism.

It is always fun to witness a pompous politician publicly skewer himself with a display of ignorance and logic befit for a buffoon. Senator Harry Reid graciously, although unintentionally, provided such comic relief with his pronouncement that Nature has shot down those who doubt man-made global warming by insinuating that early blooming cherry blossoms herald the arrival of CAGW in Washington in the spring of 2012. By that logic then the late blooming SAKURA in Japan in spring 2012 must announce anthropogenic global cooling in that country.

In Washington D.C they have bloomed early in March 2012. The Huffington Post has blamed this on global warming.

In Japan, due to a particularly cold winter their famed cherry blossoms will be late bloomers this spring(2012). Is this the climate change canary for global cooling? HuffPo logic would seem to lead to this conclusion.

So, let me get this straight. In different parts of the world in the same year in the same month cherry blossoming is a canary in the coal mine for both global warming and global cooling. And both conditions are supposed be caused by too much human induced CO2 in the atmosphere and nothing else? CO2 is truly a magical gas.

Can we conclude that there was an overabundance of CO2 in Washington and a dearth in Japan? Who arranged for that? Has anyone got the numbers?

CO2 can do to the climate anything, anywhere, anytime.  The perfect explanatory variable: CO2 did it!

Or maybe this is a better explanation.

Real-Science.com has found that the cherry trees in Washington bloomed in October back in 1941.  Here is the 2011 bloom watch. They were early in 1946 and 1945 as well. (You will have to block the pop-up on Stephen Goddard's co-opted site to see these last 3 links.) Paul Homewood points out the ebb and flow of flora in response to climate change of the recent past. Early or late cherry blossoming is nothing new. Its alarming nature is a figment in the imagination of Harry Reid.

In 2012 they were in full bloom by Mar 20. In 1990 and 2000 Sakura occurred earlier than that.

It seems Washingtonians are used to weird cherry blossom behavior.

Harry's staff have failed to prevent their boss from committing verbal harikari on the CAGW issue.Would Harry like to recant?