Sunday, January 10, 2010

Cognitive Disconnect: Cold Equals Warming


By Alan Caruba

Over the course of Obama’s first year in office I have become convinced that he and his cronies think you are STUPID.

That’s why Nancy Pelosi could say the process by which Obamacare was put together and passed in the House and Senate was “open” and still think that doing it behind closed doors in both chambers while bribing every Democrat vote with public funds went unnoticed by the voters.

She thinks you’re STUPID.

It’s why Harry Reid may still hold onto his job as Majority Leader in the Senate after saying things about his favorite “Negro” that got Trent Lott removed from the same job in just under a month. We tend to forget that, from FDR to JFK, the Democrats thwarted civil rights legislation until they no longer could.

He thinks you’re STUPID.

The latest example of the complete disdain the White House has for the public is a response by press secretary Robert Gibbs who dismissed the worldwide cold snap as just another example of “climate change”, the new term for “global warming.”

On January 6, the Drudge Report headline links were as follows:

Winter Could Be Worst in 25 Years for USA...
CHILL MAP...
Britain's big snow shuts cities...
GAS SUPPLIES RUNNING OUT IN UK...
Elderly burn books for warmth?
Army drafted to rescue 1,000 snow stranded motorists...
Vermont sets 'all-time record for one snowstorm'...
Iowa temps 'a solid 30 degrees below normal'...
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years...
3 die in fire at Detroit home; power was cut...
Midwest Sees Near-Record Lows, Snow By The Foot...
Miami shivers from coldest weather in decade; Florida Gov Signs Emergency Order ...
Cold snap spurs power rationing in China...

It’s “cognitive disconnect”, a fancy way of saying that the White House and Congress is under the impression that Americans actually believe that “warming” means “colder” and colder “proves” that warming is happening.

As the Drudge headlines then and since reflect, cold weather has historic implications. Indeed, if the Earth had not begun to warm at the end of the last ice age, some 11,500 years ago, the world would be a very different place than it is today. It only took one or two degrees Fahrenheit to bring about the advent of civilization, i.e. the spread of agriculture, the early cities, the movement of people to warmer climes.

The first warming era began around 4,300 BC when the Sahara bloomed with plants and forests spread over Northern Europe and Canada. Then, for a thousand years, cold returned until another short warming occurred around 1,450 BC. Then the cold returned and it wasn’t until the Roman Warm Era began in 250 BC that populations began to grow. When it got cold in Scandinavia, the Vikings climbed into their longboats and began to pillage and then colonize warmer southern lands.

There was a Medieval Warm Period that began around 800 AD which was a time of great achievement and prosperity. There was farming in Scotland and Norway. Greenland was colonized. Vineyards bloomed in England, in Prussia and in Norway.

Trouble returned with the Little Ice Age that began around 1,300 AD and brought with it famine and food riots. The Spanish Armada was destroyed by the horrid weather that afflicted Europe. During the frigid years of the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1820 AD), Napoleon lost most of his army when he attempted to conquer Russia. In America, the Continental Army or what was left of it over-wintered in Valley Forge.

So weather and, in particular, long cold spells can have a dramatic affect on history. It was so cold in the 1970s that the environmentalists were all predicting a new ice age. Warm weather means farming and that ensures enough food. If you look around the world, people tend to congregate where it is warm.

Telling people that it is warming when it is demonstrably getting colder is STUPID. Assuming that people are stupid enough to believe you is a good way to get thrown out of office.

The collapse of the recent Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in the midst of a huge blizzard that hit that city and much of the northern hemisphere should mark the end of the huge fraud of “global warming.”

Now the U.S. and Europe has to walk itself back from all the idiotic laws passed that were based on the global warming hoax, not the least of which is Cap-and-Trade that is still waiting a vote in the Senate.

Has it occurred to anyone why President Obama took his winter vacation in Hawaii instead of Wyoming or the Dakotas? It wasn’t just because he was allegedly born there.

12 comments:

Sir Shrek said...

The misinformation Obama, and his gang put out is intended for the boneheaded, teary eyed faithful that swallow every scrap of crap they espouse. Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Gibbs, and all the other employees of the New World Order consider us conservatives; intelligent, free thinking Americans as pests.

Carolyn said...

All I know is this stupid girl is freezing! We have no heat, and Florida is cold this year! God, I feel badly for the older folks who are being run over with this global warming crud!
Sorry Mr. Caruba- my fingers type a little harshly when they are shivering. God Bless~

Louise W said...

Good commentary, Alan, or as my grandaughter would say, it's "cool."

All this cold weather proves that God has a sense of humor, and He calls the shots, not Obama.

Alan Caruba said...

@ Carolyn: Florida? Cold? I thought they had laws against that sort of thing? Actually, I graduated the University of Miami after four glorious years of sunshine and pretty girls. Something is definetely amiss if Floridians are being hit with that much cold weather...or maybe it suggests we are on the cusp of a new ice age or at least a mini-one.

@Louise. I, too, subscribe to the notion that God has a sense of humor. Who else would have waited years before dumping a blizzard on Copenhagen in the midst of a global warming conference?

Gen-IL Homesteader said...

What a great post, Alan. Unfortunately, the fact that we're NOT stupid doesn't seem to change the fact that they can still pass idiotic laws like they do. I totally agree with what Louise said. God does have a sense of humor!

Anonymous said...

From "Baghdad" Bob Gibbs, to Pullet Surprise** "journalist" (cough, cough) Cynthia Tucker

**(p.s., am I seeing things, or is "puma" a dead ringer for Pachauri, or what?!)

Anonymous said...

SOMETIMES SANITY HAPPENS

..as with this sweet refrain from the other side of the bottom of the world.

It begins by asserting that little big Al has finally met his Gore-terdamerung, "Al Gore's moment has come and gone." Oh, if only! From the author's pen to G-d's eyes, as it were.

It ends on a note of hope that Australia will lead the world rebellion against the charlatans, as it seems it may be, judging by the encouraging shift in the political wind there.

Hey, I don't care who does it, as long as it happens.

Mr Doasyouwouldbedoneby said...

It is a great pity that you ruin an otherwise vigorous and acceptable attack on questionable and/or objectionable elements of your President's policies and actions by including the absurd comparison of Harry Reid with Trent Lott. The former spoke honestly and openly, albeit in "politically incorrect" language, about what it took in practice for the American people to elect a mixed race president. The latter praised the disgraceful bigotry and openly discriminatory policies of the lamentable Mr. Thurmond.

Gillespie Robertson
London, England

Michael O'Hara said...

Alan,
I hope you won't take it as an insult, but you are being "stupid". The instrumental record is clear and indisputable - the average temperature of the earth has increased to a level and at a rate that hasn't been seen since civilization began. I could post a link showing where such records can be found, but you wouldn't read it.
If you or anyone else wants to actually understand this issue, I urge you to read the scientific sources. A good place to start your search is "realclimate.org", which has links to all the data.

In the mean time, just repeat this phrase: "weather does not equal climate".

Alan Caruba said...

Having been writing on this topic since the 1980s, yes, I know weather is not the same as climate and I have written as much a thousand times...

But you are WRONG. On Feb 15, Prof Phil Jones of the CRU admitted there hasn't been any statistical proof of warming for the last 15 years.

Stop visiting Realclimate.org and visit Climatedepot.com for some REAL information (truth!) on the topic of global warming.

Michael O'Hara said...

Phil Jones admitted no such thing. He does admit to having spoken about the subject in a way that would be appropriate for another scientist (rather than a mass-market journalist) but he also makes it very clear that he did not mean to imply what the "Daily Mail" headline says. If you were interested, the realclimate.org has the entire story.

Alan Caruba said...

Goodbye, Michael. I do not carry on conversations with people who so completely deluded that cannot and will not accept the truth when the data supports it.