Comments | eric_hinkle: Wait, so we should have been trying to heat the planet up, instead...?

eric_hinkle

Wait, so we should have been trying to heat the planet up, instead...?

Oct 12, 2009 09:15

Remember Global Warming? It's going to kill us all?

Well, according to some scientists (and one newspaper), it ended back in 1998Instead we are in a planetary cooling trend that will last for decades ( Read more... )

science, media, enviromentalism

Comments 18

xianjaguar October 12 2009, 16:42:53 UTC

As someone who lived in Utah for 2 years, and who will be going back there in November...YES. I can say we're definitely in a cooling trend. Or at least Utah is. That place is FREAKING COLD. :/

xianjaguar October 13 2009, 16:05:42 UTC

All GLOBAL WARMING (TM) and GLOBAL COOLING (TM) are is Left Behind for Those Who've Evolved Beyond All That (TM).

Left Behind for Brights.

And Concerned & Compassionate Activists, Politicians, and Celebrities can all role-play being Mother Gaia's Tribulation Force. Just like Buck Jenkins and Rayford Steele LaHaye.

Sorry about all those little people in the red shirts, but you can't Save The Planet without cracking a few eggs.

xianjaguar October 13 2009, 16:38:24 UTC

Forgot to take your meds today?

eric_hinkle October 13 2009, 16:41:44 UTC

I know who it is, and he's (mostly) kidding.

Though I've seen my share of atheists who will denounce all religion with one breath for making people "intolerant and ignorant"... and then promptly start proclaiming the necessity of the most draconian measures imaginable ("Neuter the Third World, there's too many of those poor nonwhite people") without missing a beat.

Thread 6

ihuitl October 12 2009, 18:15:30 UTC

RealClimate has already dealt with this subject at length:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/

brianblackberry October 12 2009, 19:55:14 UTC

It will be interesting to see if this term is part of a larger cooling trend or a temporary dip in the larger warming trend. What I do know is that here in the upper Midwest, we had one of the coolest summers in several years. This October we have seen lows in the twenties, which normally doesn't happen for another 3 weeks or more.

mount_oregano October 12 2009, 20:43:39 UTC

"Global warming" really only means there's more heat energy in the atmosphere. Some places will get warmer, some might get actually get colder because the increased energy means the climate will become more energetic -- in general, more extreme as the energy makes an already chaotic system even more chaotic.

Early snowstorms and weird cold spells are perfectly in line with that. Also extended droughts and heat waves. Even lengthy cold spells. But the overall quantity of energy seems to continue to be creeping up.

Where I live, by the way, it's been an unusually warm and dry year. As if the plural of anecdote was data.

eric_hinkle October 12 2009, 22:36:41 UTC

I hope it hasn't been too warm and dry for you... but I'd prefer that over cold and wet.

mount_oregano October 16 2009, 18:38:37 UTC

Yes, it's been too warm and too dry: drought and forest fires and failed harvests, and most likely things will only get worse in Spain as the climate heats up and weather patterns change.

As the link from kraygern said, the climate has not stopped warming up. You just had one scientist who either lied or doesn't know how to use statistics who said something stupid, and the cynics and naysayers took it and ran with it.

darrelx October 12 2009, 22:35:04 UTC

The term "Global warming" hasn't been in the Eco-freak lexicon for over two years now... the PC term du jour is "Climate Change".

This is why.

headnoises October 13 2009, 19:23:56 UTC

Darn, you stole my post....