Tuesday, November 20, 2012

A Hurricane of Global Warming Lies


By Alan Caruba

At his recent press conference, President Obama, in response to a question, said “You know, as you know, Mark, we can’t attribute any particular weather event to climate change. What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even ten years ago.” That is a flat out lie. The temperature of the Earth has been cooling for at least sixteen years.

The devastation that Hurricane Sandy wrought defies the imagination, particularly for those on the East Coast where so much destruction was inflicted. It mirrored 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and it is only natural for people to believe there has been an increase in hurricanes striking the U.S. homeland, but there hasn’t.

Despite 2009’s “Climategate” that revealed that global warming is a hoax, many still believe it exists. In a letter to Fred Upton, the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on November 11th, meteorologists and climatologists joined to warn that “Global warming that has not actually occurred can scarcely have contributed much to vast destruction wrought by Sandy.”

Dr. Bill Gray, the nation’s expert on hurricanes, was joined by Dr. Willie Soon, Prof. Fred Singer, and Lord Christopher Monckton, a science advisor to Britain’s former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to say that “Hurricane Sandy was a freak storm, not the type of extreme weather event that climate scientists have said will become more frequent and more severe if we fail to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.”

“After almost 16 years without global warming, there are still a few who implausibly try to blame this non-existent global warming for causing various weather-related disasters in the past two or three years.” The letter advised against holding hearings on the recent hurricane. “With the election behind us, we will have an opportunity to begin again and give this matter the attention it deserves—none at all.”

Writing in Forbes magazine, James Taylor, the Heartland Institute’s editor of Environment and Climate News, spelled out the actual record of hurricane activity in the decades prior to the global warming hoax which began in the late 1980s and since.

“The National Hurricane Center (NHC) provides information on major U.S. hurricanes during the past 100-plus years. According to the NHC, 70 major hurricanes struck the United States in the 100 years between 1911 and 2010. That is an average of seven major hurricane strikes per decade.”

In all the decades back to 1961, the 100-year average remained intact with major hurricanes ranging from as few per decade as four and as many as seven. Not a single decade varied from this.

In the decades since the 1980s when alarmists began warning of a major increase in the overall temperature of the Earth, claiming it would trigger major weather events like hurricanes, nothing changed. In the decades in which carbon dioxide emissions were said to be the cause, the average remained the same.

Taylor examined the preceding 50 years before “the alleged human-induced global warming crisis.” He spelled out the data from 1951 to 1920 that reveals that the 100-year average was unchanged.

Despite the global warming claims “during the past four decades, the time period during which global warming alarmists claim human-induced global warming accelerated rapidly and became incontrovertible, the fewest number of major hurricanes struck during any 40-year period since at least the 1800s.”

In the first two years of this current decade “exactly zero major hurricanes struck the United States.”

Despite this, the calls for carbon taxes are being heard; taxes that would affect all industry and businesses nationwide. Such a tax, already in place in California, would drive large scale manufacturing out of the nation and take with them hundreds of thousands of jobs. It would impact the nation’s utilities and drive up the cost of electricity, the life blood of the nation.

If Americans do not wake up to this threat, do not realize that hurricane activity has not increased, and realize, too, that the Earth has been in a cooling cycle since 1998, they will fall victim to the vast matrix of environmental organizations, government agencies, and the mainstream media that continues to spread alarm in the name of global warming and climate change.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

15 comments:

AD said...

Caruba, in your last column you broke down and admitted that many of the orthodoxies you had previously accepted about the world might be mistaken. It was really great and healthy to see. I would suggest that perhaps you could also take a fresh look at the evidence for anthropogenic climate change. You frequently repeat that the planet is in a recent cooling cycle, here stating it has been going on for "sixteen years." But this is not true. The NOAA notes that 2012 is between the eighth or tenth hottest year on record (depending on which metric you are using). You can see for yourself here, and look at all their data and methods: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-monitoring/

And consider the source of the analysis: why would you trust the Heartland Institute (which you frequently cite), which has a vested interest in heavily promoting an ideological viewpoint, over such organizations as the NOAA, which only have a vested interest in being as accurate as possible?

At this time of reconsideration, please make sure that you're keeping yourself intellectually honest by reading through the data and arguments of the NOAA and IPCC - not just those organizations that agree with you, like Heartland.

Harry Dale Huffman said...

Anyone can study the atlantic tropical storm and hurricane record since 1851 for themselves. I linked to that data when I posted my short and simple analysis:

Hurricanes/Tropical Storms, 1851 to 2010

What the American people need to begin to really understand is that Obama and the Left (under whose banner the global warming alarmists promulgate their incompetent hysteria) are lying in virtually everything they are telling the public, in order to "transform" America in their perverse, and actually unworkable, image of Utopia. I was surprised, as a scientist, when I found the climate scientists are incompetent, every one of them, but the politicians are just as incompetent -- and worse, evil -- in their determination to abuse their power in service to that and other incompetent science fields. They are literally like a team of runaway horses, that cannot and will not bring themselves under control for an actual common good. And the American electorate, divided into fearful constituencies at odds with the very idea of a united country, failed to exercise good judgment once again, to replace Obama and his party with competent, honest leaders.

Alan Caruba said...

Alexander, I did not give up my conservative values. I question everything.

As for global warming, I have written about this topic since the 1990s.

And, as for you, your comments here are no longer welcome and will not be posted.

Goodbye, Alexander

Alan Caruba said...

Harry, let's face it, a lot of Americans are just flat out morons for whom facts mean nothing, political correctness is a way of life, and government hand-outs are expected.

I am glad I am old and don't have to watch the decline of America for too much longer.

Unknown said...

The earth's climate has been changing since climate began on the planet and will continue to change until the atmosphere burns away as the sun becomes a red giant. The only constant in the entire universe is change. Anyone who thinks Hurricane Sandy is a result of climate change should move in with Alexander Davis.

Unknown said...

Sometimes I wonder if this is how someone of intelligence felt during the latter half of the Roman empire.

I myself will most likely see what little freedom left in this country slip away as I am in my 20's.

The saddest part is how numbers are distorted changed and manipulated to prove a point that is wholly wrong and destructive.

Can someone with scientific credentials please explain how temperatures changing within the margin of error are proof of anything or how they explain the variability of land temperature readings.?

Alan Caruba said...

@Matthew. I do not envy you. I see freedom slipping away in this nation and your generation is likely to know little of any real privacy.

As for the Earth's temperature, it only takes a few degrees overall to move it one way or the other, i.e. how it can be warm at midday and cold at night.

Unknown said...

Regarding commenter Alexander Davis' remark "please make sure that you're keeping yourself intellectually honest by reading through the data and arguments of the NOAA and IPCC", we are left to wonder if Davis hasn't done the same when it comes to reading through the Heartland Institute's NIPCC Reports ( http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html ), as those reports compare & contrast what is seen in the NOAA / IPCC to material from skeptic climate scientists.

To insinuate Mr Caruba is unfamiliar with NOAA/IPCC assessments is patently ridiculous, and is potentially indicative of commenter Davis' unfamiliarity with one entire side of the issue. The irony of the suggestion that Mr Caruba should 'keep himself intellectually honest' is breathtaking. Asserting that Heartland is driven to its conclusions by ideology only undermines Davis' point further, in the sheer absence of any evidence that NIPCC Reports' conclusions are wrong or outright fabrications.

Lime Lite said...

Alan, Winston Churchill said it best:

"The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

I am forever astounded at the level of stupidity and gullibility of people who don't question. Even your blocked Mr Davis. This is what happens when you concede to the Left - they take and take and take, and soon enough people give up as it's easier to just cave. Why is it that conservatives don't believe in climate change but liberals do? Why is it that conservatives can see the fiscal problems with the USA but liberals can't? I wish I knew why there is this distinct break between the two groups. One day you'll have a split country. That's the only answer.

RStabb said...

Hello Mr. Caruba,thanks for another great article.
Over on LinkedIn there is a poll started by BP oil "What renewable energy do you think is most important to our energy future".
The comments have the flavor of Face book. The plagiarists,pretend Rhodes scholars,Al Gore lovers,tree huggers and greenies are all there.
I took the liberty of carrying links to a few of your articles over there and if you don't mind I'll share this one also.
If you get a chance take a look.
http://linkd.in/RpJV1O

MostlyHarmless said...

You illustrate how historical records are routinely ignored by alarmists, and Alexander Davis cites NOAA re. 2012, thus proving your point. The irony is that he, and people of his beliefs (and they are beliefs, pure and simple) routinely do this, and seem not to realise that they're doing it. Or perhaps they do realise it but say it anyway.

The whole meme is like an extract from "The Emperor's New Clothes" - ignore the real facts, follow the fashion.

Ronbo said...

@Alan:

Did Obama and the socialists reset the clock back to the Middle Ages?

This "Global Warming" nonsense reminds of the "Flat Earth" belief of the elites of Europe in about 1300.

Come to think of it - isn't feudalism- where life was short, nasty and brutal - the real end goal of our "New Left?"

At least the old time Commies - like Chinese Communists - support commerce and the Industrial Revolution.

Unknown said...

Alexander Davis needs a lesson in civility as he made his comments in a most disrespectful way and called you "Caruba". This is your site and we are really commenting here as your guests and when we disagree with you we do not need to be rude in doing so.

Alan Caruba said...

Thanks, Hugh. My sentiments completely.

RStabb said...

More bullshit out of Doha today and ABC News was quick to scare the masses.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/arctic-sea-ice-larger-us-melted-year-17825213

I guess these outragious stories keep viewers watching so they can catch the pharmacutical comercials that spend the first thirty seconds telling them how good they are for you and the next thirty telling them how bad they can be.
This is getting really old.