Al Gore: All this Snow Proof of Global Warming
By Roger Pilon
Today POLITICO Arena asks:
Ex-VP Al Gore says the snowstorms that paralyzed much of the U.S. this week are more evidence of manmade global warming. “The scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming.” Do you agree?
My response:
A scientific hypothesis that’s essentially unfalsifiable — cold corroborates “global warming,” heat corroborates it, nothing really falsifies it — is worse than useless. It’s a scientific poseur, properly classified as a belief system, like religion. And the implication that there’s an optimal earth temperature, or range of temperatures, or that global warming is destructive, not possibly beneficial, is just further evidence that there’s more going on here than pure science.
Throw in beliefs about the human contributions to “global warming” and the policy recommendations that follow – massive shifts toward wildly expensive command-and-control energy systems, the effect on the world’s poor notwithstanding – and the politics of the matter come into view. Let’s remember that Al Gore, who never missed an opportunity to expand government, was once an ethanol evangelist, a posture he’s recently admitted was connected mainly with presidential politics in Iowa — now that ethanol has been shown to have negative environmental consequences. Frankly, I’ll stick with Punxsutawney Phil.
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Do any of you know what the actual optimal temperature is for the earth? Should it be warmer, should it be cooler, should it be the same? The only consistent through all of history is...it constantly changes. Is there an ideal you think it should be?
There is no optimum temperature for the earth... however there are the temperatures that are optimum for our species and our civilization. The warmer things get the further we drift from that point.
We are seeing the effects of that now... with increased droughts, massive storms, and more extreme weather.
you know for sure that warmer is not better, and that we've been at the optimum until recently? Is that what you're suggesting?
Warmer isn't better for us because we are distributed based on what was best before the warming trend started.
In warmer climates what is prime farmland now becomes drought ridden or flooded land (like Russia and Australia respectively). Regions that were once hostile to pest speeches become favorable to pest species (like the mountain pine beetle making its way through the northwest).
Before the "mini-ice age" (16th to 19th centuries) much of Europe and even places like Greenland had more areas that were prime farmland - much of the world is considered to have been better off from that aspect in the "Medieval Warm Period", roughly dated 950 - 1250 AD. Who is to say what the optimal climate condition is? Certainly not Al Gore.
Well for starters the globs temperature has already surpassed the MAP, and the MAP was a local phenomena (not global).
Also, there has never been "prime farmland" in Greenland... even today the country is home to only the most rudimentary agriculture.
This highlights the flaw in thinking that as the temperature increases more farmland will be exposed. The soil further north is quite different from the soil that now constitutes prime farm land.
I don't have an answer for it, but I think it makes an excellent point.
Another question I like is: If governing power were given to those intellectuals seeking it to make sweeping global changes in the law worldwide, what would the result be?
Al Gore would still be flying around on his private jet, but you and I would have trouble buying the light bulbs of our choice...
Actually this is well in line with global warming .
For starters note that last year still ranks high among the warmest on record, even with the cold snap experienced by the US at the end of the year. Related to this is the flawed nature of their attempt to use local weather as an indicator of global conditions .
Further more extreme weather conditions are predicted by global warming theories... and the cold/snow we are experiencing is tied to the warmer conditions found in the Arctic.
Are you the Ray Comfort of climate science ? Seriously dude, if you still haven't grasped the concept that "*local* weather doesn't prove or disprove any theories on *global* climate change", then you obviously haven't been keeping up with this debate over the evidentiary science, and therefore aren't qualified to offer an informed criticism of science and definitely shouldn't disgrace a "think" tank by claiming to represent them while being so clearly operating without any intellectual rigor.
Global climate science shows how global warming will cause more extreme local weather events. Seriously, the global *average* temperature keeps going up, just like the science predicts and yet denialists, such as yourself, prove your bias/ignorance by totally ignoring that fact when you see a snow storm. If you actually read what the scientists say about this, you'd know that. Furthermore, if you had any idea how climate works you'd know that to get 70 degree winters you'd have to have summers that approach 200 degrees. Do you think there is some sort of limit to how hot it can get on Earth? Do you think that global warming would mean summer all year long?
An actual scientist might say something like: "Extreme snow storms are not because of, or in spite of, climate change science and anthropenically-influenced global warming theories, but they do fit the predictive models those theories imply."
On second thought, you seem to be too caught up in attaching the words of Al Gore to the legitimacy of what scientists are claiming, so you're probably just a partisan hack who could care less about being informed or promoting a balanced approach to your editorials. Otherwise you might have actually looked this shit up before you went and dismissed it out of hand.
Global warming is falsifiable, but as in all science, you have to know how it works before you can predict what would make it false. Predicted falsifiers are derivative of understanding, not imposed, especially from a position of ignorance.
If you want to know what would falsify AGW theory, call a fucking scientist! Or hell, just read one of their blogs and email one. Too bad so many of today's journalists do as much research as you do and then pretend to know what they're talking about.