Of course, the proponents of man-caused (anthropogenic) “global warming” or anthropogenic “climate change” (AGW or ACC for short) keep churning out their opinions, no matter what the weather may be. It was less than two years ago some ACC-ers were warning about “the end of snow.” Whenever anyone who is not a believer in ACC argues that the current conditions do not support the climate change theory, the believers in ACC sneer that “climate and weather are not the same thing.” We couldn’t agree more – but it does seem that every time there is an “extreme” weather event (not necessarily the same thing as a “climate” event), the believers in ACC tout it as proof of the theory. It is “settled science” (another phrase they employ frequently) we are told – as they cut off discussion and demean those who disagree with ACC.
Let’s make some points about the world’s temperatures. Accurate, reliable records for “the world” go way back to 1879. To put that into perspective, it means that we have reliable, accurate, global data for the past 137 years; which also means that for the previous 1,879 years we do not. Next, the ACC proponents are basing their theories on tenths of degrees. To quote one climatologist, Dr. John Christy, “The 1.2 or 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit rise over 100 years would be roughly equal to the warming seen most spring days between 10 am and noon.” In other words, not much; not dangerous; and not statistically significant, perhaps, considering that measuring tenths or hundredths of degrees was not possible in those previous 1,879 years, so we don’t really know what the exact numbers were. More important – events such as major volcanic eruptions, thanks to their plumes blocking the sun’s rays, have led to significant cooling of temperatures (such as occurred in 1991 with the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines); while El Niño has led to significant warming (such as in 1998 and again in 2015). These forces are independent of human activity, and also are of much greater effect than human activity. When one volcano produces more sulfur dioxide in seven months than the entire continent of Europe does in a full year, it’s not easy to blame “humanity” but that doesn’t stop the weather progressives from trying. Some years are wet, some dry; some hot, some cold; some snowy, some less so. It has been happening that way for centuries. Human activity is not responsible for those variations.
Also, the Gore- and Obama-theorizing notwithstanding, our planet has not experienced something else they predicted: more extreme and catastrophic storms as the planet has “warmed.” For the first few years after the major Katrina/Rita hurricanes of 2005, the ACC crowd, usually with Mr. Gore himself in the front line, warned each year of “more hurricanes and more powerful hurricanes.” It hasn’t happened yet. The ACC folks have stopped making that prediction (or at least stopped leading with it or emphasizing it), probably because it hasn’t come true yet. In fact, 2015, which the ACC people assert was “the warmest on record,” was one of the quietest in terms of hurricane activity and also had “the second-smallest weather-related loss of Global World Productivity” on record. Hmm. Should we call those, and 42-inch snowfalls, “Inconvenient truths”?