CTV.ca | Will Canada see its first white Christmas since ‘71?
Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips told CTV Newsnet that “it looks like a very good chance” it will be a white Christmas for all parts of Canada for the first time since 1971.
AccuWeather.com - Joe Bastardi European Weather Blog
SEVERE COLD WAVE TO HIT EUROPE
The development of a major blocking high pressure system over the north atlantic and its subsequent backing west is about to throw most of Europe into the coldest winter weather pattern in many a year.
Beijing’s coldest December day in 57 years
Winter truly arrived in Beijing yesterday with the highest temperature of the day down to minus 8.8 ℃. Media reports say it was “the coldest day in December in the last 57 years.”
My Way News - Bitter cold, high winds chill Midwest
CHICAGO (AP) - Heavily bundled Midwesterners were shuffling quickly from place to place in a bid to spend as little time as possible outside in bone-chilling, subzero cold that was expected to last through Monday morning.
Be careful out there. Try not to freeze to death in the ongoing global “inferno.”
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I can attest to the Midwest chill. It was -14 when I left for work this morning, and has so far climbed to -5. They’re saying it’s going to get up to 3, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Wow. For someone who’s written SciFi, I’m surprised you don’t understand science better. Do you not believe in evolution either?
Extreme weather (but that’s the librul NYT, which can’t be trusted).
How about Fox?
Name one REPUTABLE scientist who doesn’t believe in GW?
Well SFMike, I don’t. Or does that automatically make me disreputable?
Oh goody a chew toy!!
I don’t know who you are. But there are plenty of smart people that are wrong about all sorts of things. GW is one of them.
I’ve never understood why right wingers are so adamant that global is a liberal conspiracy–is it because you hate Al Gore so much?
That’s a pretty nice trick, being able to tell which smart people are right and which ones aren’t. Do you have some kind of oracle instructing you?
It’s science. You know, measurements and predictions and all that kind of crazy stuff. Seems to me that all the deniers are driven by ideology, not science.
Thanks for the instruction on what “science” is, SFMike. They never taught me that when I was getting my Ph.D. The problem is that nobody is making any falsifiable predictions. Instead, no matter what happens–heat, cold, snow, drought–they blame it on “global warming” after the fact. Moreover, if a theory has merit, you don’t have to do things like create bogus “hockey sticks”–in other words, you don’t have to lie about it. There’s been way too much of that done in this arena.
Charlie, don’t confuse SFMike with actual, you know, science and stuff. He probably is searching frantically to discover what the hell “hockey sticks” have to do with the issue of global warming.
He’s also apparently clueless about the sort of people who hang out here. His subscription to Popular Science isn’t likely to match up well to the wealth of actual scientific knowledge, education, experience, degrees, and careers to be found among this blog’s readership.
It’s because I do understand science quite well that I don’t bow before the altar of junk science that is global warming today.
Also, dumbass, one doesn’t “believe in” scientific theories, even well-established and supported theories like evolution (which also has a hole or two here and there).
A rational mind that understands how science actually works (maybe you can find somebody to explain this to you in really small words) knows that “belief” has nothing to do with science - only a rational calculation of the likelihood of accuracy, based on falsifiable evidence which has withstood test after test is the currency here. You “believe” in global warming. You know why? Because you have to believe. Any rational examination of the evidence leaves you nothing much more than faith - certainly not rationally considered evidence - to support your new religion.
Now go blow a goat.
Bill, Charles, dammit, you beat me to the chew toy. So all I will say is
You mean like the measurements and predictions of the rigorous, scientific discipline of astrology?
F^*kin’ A right, bubba.
This is one of my true pet peeves; assclowns like SFMike that couch science in terms of “belief.”
Listen up, SFMike. Here’s your lesson, however wasted, of the day:
Belief is an act of faith, based on nothing but what you feel at any given moment. When discussing science, using the term “belief” betrays you as a moron.
Ever hear of “empirical evidence?”
Didn’t think so.
Go play with your crystal collection and have a good little chant to Gaia, pal.
Reputable climate change skeptics? Where would I find any of those, when AGW cultists discredit, sue, and attempt to decertify anyone who disagrees with them?
Here’s a few. Even the ones who believe that AGW is real have been caught crosswise by the consensus-bots for pointing out specific, major errors.
You AGW cultists aren’t doing science, you’re doing political activism. You spread lies about hurricane frequency, lies about tropical diseases, lies about icepack size and coverage, lies about the risks, lies about the effectiveness of Kyoto, lies upon lies. Your central models are a mess - none of them handle water vapor and clouds properly. Your weather station datasets are suspect, full of errors, rife with dropped stations, and massaged with dubious and opaque “corrections”. Your temperature proxy datasets are based on dubious scientific claims, such as gas concentration invariance in ice cores. Some are just too clean to be real, like Bernie Madoff’s golf scores - and books.
Let’s not even get started on Mann’s ludicrous and demonstrably false and rigged “hockey stick” that’s Al Gore’s exhibit A in “An Inconvenient Truth”. Anything that doesn’t show the Medieval Warm period, the Little Ice Age, and the temperature peak in the 1930s is DOA.
So much of the “fact” that AGW cultists rely on to support the hypothesis is already falsified, but few will risk running your gauntlet of angry activists and powerful rent-seekers. Instead, you just keep moving the target, twisting the theory around after every setback until it’s as non-falsifiable as Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.
You’re the lunatics driven by ideology, dopey, and we’re not going to roll back the Industrial Revolution based on your damned farrago, no matter how many Hollywood airheads you manage to recruit.
You never did address your fundamental misunderstanding of climate change. Climate change does predict freak weather patterns, harsher winters, hotter summers, and shorter transitions. It does not say that it will be “hot” all the time.
Yet you have in the past and continue to claim that cold temperatures are evidence against global warming. I have no problem with you laying out a case against AGW as long as you are laying out a case based on fact and not on this kind of misleading, non-related, anecdotes.
To believe something is to accept it as true. Belief is not the same as faith, they are not only two different words but two different concepts. So yes, I do believe evolution.
Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true.
Notice the change from Global Warming to “Climate Change”. The decision by GW fanatics to include any change in weather as “proof” of their beliefs almost qualifies as intelligent.
Emphasis added. Looks like someone doesn’t know the meaning of synonym
SumGi, if you want to prove global warming, come up with a proposal that explains why Mars is also warming without the presence of humans (must be the Barsoomian air cars).
Better yet, produce a climate model that can reproduce the weather of the last 10 years when the data is fed in, and also predict global warming.
Oh, and then publish ALL the code, ALL the data, so that others can analyze it, review it and test it.
None of which you or your fellow Gaia devotees have been willing to do. Until that day comes, and I’m not holding my breath, FOAD.
From Ace, yet another reputable scientist fired for warming skepticism. You AGW lunatics have built a Juggernaut, and our only condolence will be that someday it will roll over you, as well.
Here’s yet another data fuckup for you - apparently Greenwood, MS was set on fire on Nov 7, 2008, because it was unusually hot there. Or, perhaps the weather station there just quit sending results and nobody noticed. The data is rife with this sort of thing, genius, ever heard of GIGO?
Speaking of GIGO, how about this? Mann’s hockeystick is based on corrupt temperature proxy data. Boils down to the high-altitude pine trees and the Tiljander Lake series, both of which have serious problems. Drop those proxies and the hockey stick goes away.
2008 is on track to be the coldest year of the new millenium, globally. Where is the heat going, SumGi? I hear a lot of jabber about La Nina and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillations - is the heat going into the ocean? Nah, the icepack is coming back, can’t be that…
This whole “Climate Change” weasel terminology is eerily reminiscent of phlogiston theory 300 years earlier. Phlogiston was supposed to be what was liberated when something burned. It explained why things got lighter after combustion. Then, inconveniently, somebody discovered that some substances, notably metals, got heavier when they burned. Undeterred, the philosophers introduced “negative phlogiston” to explain that. That was even a bit much for the most enthusiastic believers in phlogiston to swallow, and the theory died a well deserved death. Just like any incorrect theory, it started out explaining some things fairly well, but wound up collapsing when it got stretched to the point of being preposterous.
So let’s dispense with the term “Climate Change”. Why don’t we just call it “Global Warming” and “Negative Global Warming” and be done with it?
Here are the synonyms for believe. I don’t see faith anywhere in there. So before you decide to talk to me like we’re on the playground you might want to make sure you at least have the facts straight even if you are only going to use them in a childish attack.
VERB: 1. To have an opinion: consider, deem, hold, opine, think. Informal : figure, judge. Idioms: be of the opinion. See OPINION. 2. To have confidence in the truthfulness of: credit, trust. Idioms: take at one’s word. See OPINION. 3. To regard (something) as true or real: accept. Slang : buy, swallow. See OPINION. 4. To view in a certain way: feel, hold, sense, think. See OPINION. 5. To regard in an appraising way: repute, suppose, think. See BELIEF.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/04/29/is-global-warming-solar-induced/
Not so much. Of course this would also be expected if the warming was non-anthropogenic.
I find it hilarious that I have never once made an argument for global warming and never will. I don’t believe in (hold the proposition to be true) AWG. I only pointed out that if you are going to argue against it then you need to argue against what it actually states, which is not that it will always be hot but that there will be severe climate change. Yet instead of saying, “Of course we know that we are just making fun”. Or, “You’re right, let’s argue on the merits of the data”. I get called everything but an eco-terrorist and the other guy is told to go suck a goat.
I’m not the one acting like an ideologue.
SumGi, you walked into a thread where the Anti-Troll Defense Systems had already been triggered and remained on high alert. Make sure to duck and identify yourself next time - sprinting into free-fire zones with weapons in hand is not a safe way to roll.
Sorry about the new haircut, it’ll grow back. Baking soda and cold water do wonders for getting bloodstains out, too.
I do think you’re on thin ice regarding your epistemological hair-splitting about the definition of “belief”. While the word can be used in a casual way to mean “accept as true”, belief really has no place in scientific debate. Facts and proof are the currency of science, and using “belief” implies that a conclusion has been reached and no further investigation is necessary.
We get light-hearted fun mocking AGWers over things like “the Gore Effect”, snowstorms in normally snow-free places, and other anecotes. It’s true that the plural of anecdote is not evidence, but, while we do have scientists as readers and contributors, we never claimed to be a serious science blog.
The real arguments against AGW are more subtle, and are about climate, not weather. There are all sorts of problems with the AGW case, including (as I detailed above) suspect models, suspect data, temperature proxy problems, historical record problems, statistical method issues, and confirmation biases. The gigadollars and huge levels of state control involved in any of the proposed solutions (e.g. Kyoto) make the issue an irresistible target for would-be tyrants, con-men, and rent-seekers, and this only confuses the issues further.
We’re having fun here, and one of the ways we entertain ourselves tends to be shooting fast and shooting first. It’s a tradition.
SumGi - a more sophisticated chew toy is still a chew toy.
In your first entry here, you said:
Despite your palming the card of AGW to show ‘Climate Change’; your arguments are still leading towards GW, even if softening the A.
We here might argue whether the long term changes in the climate (if they are in fact occuring) are for a higher or lower temperatures. Climate, after all, does change (it is called ‘weather’. - You must have heard that old gag - “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get”)
Even within broad historical times, we know that ‘local’ climate changes. ie Greenland being fit for farming and herding, wineries in GB, and so on.
What we do argue against is the meme that “Manmade Global Warming is true and we know this because last year on xxxx it was warmer than ever on that date (since we started keeping records), or tree ring growth, ice cores, etc, show.”
Any datum, whether anecdotal (Christmas of 1972 it was almost 50.), or physical must be correlated and sources of error must be accounted for. If the error bars are larger than the data set variation, the data set should not be used at it is suspect as to its accuracy or validity.
The ‘Climate Change/AGW’ crowd not only cherry picks date to include or exclude (changes in insolation override everything except reflectivity - and no model can handle it because we cannot scale fine enough yet).
Further, they ignore such points that even if the world were warming overall, having Canada and Siberia open to farming, and a wetting Sahara, Mexico and Australia are good, are ignored.
What they want to do, is seize the means of production, most notably in the US and other Westernized countries and shut them down to save the less industrialized nations.
There is more, but the point is, whether you are really an AGW believer and being clever or just deluded, you are a chew toy.
Squeak, chew toy, squeak!
That is what it implies to you. You are taking the actual meaning of the word as well as the target meaning of the word within a philosophical context and equivocating it with the word faith. Belief has a clearly stated meaning and we are clearly speaking on epistemology so there is no reason to assume that belief means faith. In fact outside a religious context there is no reason to think it means faith. You are replacing the actual meaning with a colloquial meaning, which is fine in loose conversation but not when you start using equivocating to make a point.
So you have fun by trolling? I’m sorry I mistook this for a serious look at issues when apparently it’s a “Yo Mama” contest.
I’m not familiar with the slang chew toy in this context. Regardless in your response you actually do make arguments that avoid both meaningless anecdotes (it being colder in winter of ‘72 is disproof of global warming theory even if scientifically accurate) and orders to blow goats.
Though obviously you are still hostile and resort to name calling. I really don’t understand what’s wrong with you people. Are the holidays getting to you? Honestly I have never seen so many people behave this way who weren’t ban from whatever site they posted to soon after.
Try dkoss and DU. You’ll find graphic language used quite frequently by the contributers and commenters, along with death threats and worse. The only thing that gets you banned there is proving them wrong.
Go back to bartleby.com and read the definitions of believe and faith as well as those for science and philosophy.