Columnist Amy Goodman criticized Sarah Palin for her Paul Revere statement, but then continued that recent bad weather was a sign we need to stop global warming. Since Goodman used Sarah Palin as an example of conservative ignorance, I did what I always do when confronted with liberal columnist climate change assertions: I looked at the science, and at what even “warmist” scientists were saying about the link between bad weather and climate change.
Not surprising to me, since I’d already read voluminous articles about it, scientist after scientist said that there is no demonstrated link between recent bad weather and man-caused warming. The New York Times: Thomas R. Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “(I)n the early part of the 20th century, there was also a tendency for more extreme events followed by a quiet couple of decades.”
In New Science: “Martin Hoerling at the US NOAA. ‘A lot of these extreme conditions are natural variations of the climate. Extremes happen, heat waves happen, heavy rains happen.’
“’Drought across the southern US - and heavy rains across the north of the country - are a result of La Niña,’ says Michael Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. An extended holding pattern in the jet stream, the same type of "blocking event" that caused last summer's heat wave in Russia, is responsible for this year's European droughts, says Michael Blackburn of the University of Reading, UK.”
“As for the apparent convergence of droughts worldwide, Mark Saunders of University College London says current conditions aren't that unusual. News media may simply be more tuned in to reporting extreme weather events.”
Sarah Palin erred on historical trivia, but Amy Goodman’s ignorance of science contributes to wasteful resource allocation. Goodman does harm.
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