Mother Nature calls the POTUS a denier.
With all the ad hominems flying among CAGW alarmists and skeptics is it any wonder that the truth is sacrificed on the altar of a political agenda(21). There is a lot at stake. Truth in science versus the government largesse gifted to green initiatives. Lots of green thrown at green plans could be lost if the opinion of Mother Nature is considered in the debate.
Hence CAGW skeptics are called deniers, flat earthers and anti-science in an attempt by alarmists to claim the moral and scientific high ground. Mis-characterize your opposition as stupid, backward, supporters of conspiracy theories and you condemn them with guilt by association. You disassociate yourself from them and present yourself as angelic. Verbal magic.
The POTUS goes on about the need to reduce ‘carbon’, meaning, carbon dioxide pollution. Alarmists no longer say carbon dioxide or CO2 when talking about pollution. They want to associate carbon with evil and realize that people may be too smart to accept CO2 as a pollutant because they know that CO2 is plant food. It is harder to sell plant food as a pollutant but if they talk about carbon the association to something good like plant food is disconnected in the human mind. It is a marketing tool designed to win adherents to a political cause rather than an accurate representation of the real world thus betraying their angelic status. Substituting carbon for carbon dioxide is seen as a winning strategy and politics is all about winning. The truth be damned. It is no coincidence that science is about truth. Alarmists are all about marketing.
The POTUS has no time for climate change deniers and flat earthers. Does this mean he has no time for Mother Nature?
Mother Nature is going to make the POTUS resemble an idiot. She will have the POTUS look like he believes that too much human induced CO2 both warms and cools the planet. CO2 is bipolar like that. It can flip from its warming function to its cooling function depending on whether the weather is warming or cooling. No matter what the weather is doing it is CO2’s fault. And since we emit CO2 that makes it our fault. Pogo politics. As long as the blame can be pinned on the witches, er, humans, alarmists have a clear path to wreck the economy and make their crony capitalist friends rich.
The POTUS does not care how stupid he appears. He will cite studies that support his viewpoint and ignore those that don’t. And yet, in science, all viewpoints are allowed on the table to be reconciled with contemporary theory. This is how science arrives at the truth about our world. It is the interaction between competing viewpoints from which the truth is distilled in science. In politics competing views are suppressed. Only the preferred one is allowed on the table.
The POTUS has subsidized green ‘solutions’ such as wind, solar and electric vehicles via grants, loans and subsidies to his campaign contributors. Many of them have simply taken the money and run folding their uneconomic businesses after a few months of qualifying operations. Others must continue to receive subsidies as they cannot compete in the marketplace without them. When the subsidies disappear so do the industries they spawned. Other governments in Europe have been finding out how expensive the subsidies can become and are now cutting back. Their gravy train is drying up while the POTUS continues on his merry way oblivious to the real world around him. The captain of the ship of state has lost his GPS.
The POTUS says the world is warming faster than expected while Mother Nature reports temperatures have flatlined for the last 17 years and have been decreasing for the last decade. Billions of dollars have been poured into Global Climate Models(GCMs) to simulate the workings of the climate. And the results have been less than stellar. The GCMs give a starring role to CO2 and overestimate its effect on the future climate. Mother Nature has her own idea as to what the average temperature of the Earth should be and she is tracking lower than the most optimistic GCM. It makes CO2 suspect as a main driver of climate change which in turn makes all the activities we have done to lower our CO2 emissions as totally unnecessary.
The POTUS says the weather is becoming more extreme as CO2 fills the air while Mother Nature shows him only three hurricanes in his first term - the lowest of any president. Is it surprising that this is not a talking point for the POTUS? Do you find it strange that the POTUS does not talk about the fact that Mother Nature has not sent a hurricane to Florida for over 7 years - the longest period of absence in the record? Do you find it strange that the POTUS does not talk about the fact that Mother Nature has not sent a major (cat3+) hurricane to the mainland of the US in over 7 years - an abnormally long time.
The POTUS tries to raise our fears by citing the forest fires raging in parts of the country without also putting them into context and reporting that Mother Nature’s pyrotechnics have been rather subdued as 2013 is one of the quietest seasons on record. Smokey the Bear is grateful.
The POTUS can rightfully lament, as do we all, the destruction in Moore, Oklahoma by a powerful tornado earlier this year but 2013 is also a quiet year for tornadoes. While all destructive storms are to be decried, from an historical context, Mother Nature has been extraordinarily kind to us by keeping her twisters to a minimum.
While extreme weather today may seem more costly it is because there are more of us and we have more stuff that can get in the path of a storm. But our improved technology, such as satellites and doppler radar, allow us more lead time to get out of the way so that the number of lives lost due to extreme weather is way down.
Mother Nature can be a powerful force for destruction. It is to be wished that some day we can give her something for her PMS( powerful monster storms) to calm her down. At this time we are at her mercy and can only adapt and rebuild after we take a hit.
