The Times couldn’t even wait until the storm was over:
The scale of Hurricane Irene, which could cause more extensive damage along the Eastern Seaboard than any storm in decades, is reviving an old question: are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change?
And the old answer is, as always…no.
But you can predict warm-monger propaganda like this every time the ocean spins up.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Of course, as Andy McCarthy notes, it might be easier to find a convincing answer to that question if the University of Virginia would stop trying to hide the ball. Speaking of which, no Phil, Climaquiddick was not “manufactured,” the case is not “closed,” and Michael Mann has not been exonerated. That whitewash will not end this.
Assume it’s true. So F–g what?
Ron Paul is correct that we should eliminate FEMA. People that choose to live somewhere should insure themselves at free market rates.
Soft hearts are fine, but soft heads are a mistake.
Cosmic Ray Deniers!
“Bad Astronomy”. Beautiful.
The most damning thing the investigators could muster was that there was “some concern” over the statistical methods used, but that’s not scandalous at all; there’s always some argument in science over methodology.
But the science is settled. See:
the famous “hockey stick” diagram, showing how Earth’s temperatures have been increasing rapidly in recent times. This graph is what really clinches the idea of man-made global warming
Oh. Sorry. “Clinched”, not “settled”.
/dry-heaves
You know, for an atheist, Plait has no problem embracing Animism. The difference between classical animism and AGW is that the AGW crowd just has a dearth of virgins to throw into volcanoes.
Er, speaking as a Florida native (who now lives in Virginia, though up in the mountains where we only got the edges of this storm) this time of year is the height of hurricane season.The anniversary of Hurricane Andrew hitting my home town (Miami) was four days ago. And then we come to 2004. When I lived in Orlando, Hurricane Charley hit there on August 13, 2004. Just a few weeks later (September 5th of that year) Hurricane Frances passed through town. And then around the 25th of that same month, Jeanne paid us a visit. Ivan had hit Florida between those last two, but hit the Panhandle and north Florida instead of Central Florida. We still got a lot of flooding from it though.
Yeah folks. Four hurricanes within two months. All around this time of year. There was nothing abnormal about Irene.
So may one assume that, pre-Industrial Revolution, there were no hurricanes?
@Ed,
Michael Crichton made a good argument that AGW is a direct offshoot of Christianity. Its focus is on mankind’s sin and it offers redemption through sacrifice and good works. Its adherents get irate with unbelievers, denouncing them as heretics and holding conferences on how to convert them to the true faith. It also now sells indulgences in the carbon offset market, so perhaps it has become a virtual copy of medieval Catholicism.
The scale of the storm wasn’t really significant in terms of increased size over other storms. The increased cost of damages is because the increased development in the area covered, and if anything due to Irene specifically, because it hugged the coast line more. Perhaps if AGW believers want to prove their point, that can provide evidence that suggests how Irene hugged the coast line because of AGW. Otherwise, what they are really saying is the normal, “we are against human development”. Cause that’s all that is different with Irene, more human development.
Actually, Rand, Mann was cleared by no less than three investigations.
The facts are not on your side.
@Chris. Facts? Don’t bring those into the conversation.
Bad Astronomy. How sad. I used to really like that site–nice astronomy stuff and pics and a fairly even-handed dissection of woo woo. Plait has now become in the last few years a partisan apologist not just for AGW but for most of the left in general (never a word about the extensive anti-science on the left). He seems completely blind to the fact that his partisanship has essentially destroyed his skepticism, let alone his neutrality.
@Chris Gerrib–
Do you really call those, er whatever they were, “investigations?” Seriously?
Yeah folks. Four hurricanes within two months. All around this time of year. There was nothing abnormal about Irene.
I was, mistakenly on reflection, holidaying in the Dominican Republic a few years ago during a particularly active hurricane season – Hurricane Ivan passed overhead… thing was… it was around the time of my birthday, which isn’t for another 2 weeks. So we’re already up to J, (Jose is safely in the Atlantic) with “12” already tracking, and it’s not even September which, if memory serves, the big month for the Atlantic Hurricane Season.
Of course, massive North Eastern flood, tornadoes in Springfield, worst summer since records began in the Pac NW, Texas in the worst drought in recorded history blah blah blah…
Nothing to see here, move along please…
You guys are as deliciously clueless on this stuff as you are on economics!
Dave, did you intend to say something sensible? If so, it was another fail.
Daveon, your post is what statistical illiteracy looks like. A few cases of extreme weather do not support your assertion because they would happen anyway. In the US, the media as on occasion been able to create “crime waves” out of thin air merely by reporting crimes more often.
So go ahead and call us “clueless” while simultaneously demonstrating your remarkable ignorance.
No, just maintaining his monogamous relationship with Gerrib. It makes him quite giddy and nonsensical… “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Also:
This is going to be good.
Again, the facts are not on Gerrib’s side:
Brutal!