None Dare Call It Global Waming

A nice spread in the Seattle Times today gives a nice overview of what is happening this winter (spring?) with the much higher than average temperatures. There are pictures of folks sunning themselves on the beach, the phenomenon of daffodils blooming in January and of birds chirping and frogs croaking. Cliff Mass explains the details of "El Nino" (ENSO) which is a driver of these conditions. But nowhere does the article mention global warming, as if this was a subject best left hidden. There has been plenty of wacky weather here in early 2010, and the only average el nino doesn't seem like the only cause. Climate is weather over time, and my prediction is that we'll see more and more of these strange weather patterns in the future. When will the general public see this as global warming? It might take five, possibly ten years.

Why Should Anyone Shut Up?

I post the odd comment on some public blogs where dwell a sizable number of AGW deniers, and recently one asked me the question, paraphrased, you do all these heavy carbon footprint activities, why don't you shut up until your own house is in order? He thinks I am passing the blame for the climate problem onto him and I can see he won't accept that, he even denies there is a problem -- can't say that I blame him. I read somewhere how to rephrase this so that it sounds better and perhaps an agreement can be reached. And that is: None of us are to blame for AGW, after all, the industrial revolution with its CO2 emissions began about 200 years ago, which greased the skids for today's situation. However, we all are responsible to do our part to clean up the mess. Those of us who are not scientists, like myself, can at least sound the alarm and try to convince our many ambivalent acquaintances. No good solutions will be possible without a strong realization the problem exists.

Opening Post

I have followed Dr. Robert Brown and Joel Connelly in the Seattle P.I. recently as well as George Monbiot's offerings in the UK Guardian. What I have noticed is the large number of anti-scientific posters vehemently resisting the idea of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Scientists and others more learned than I have tirelessly and continually debunked the same presumed counter-arguments, however, I believe a person should do what he/she can against this outpouring of scientific rejection. So I'll post thoughts and articles that seem to be relevant in that regard.

Right now the poor Capitol Washingtonians are digging out of two major snowstorms which gave one of our number one enemies of the planet, Sen. James Inhof (R-OK), a chance to build an igloo and to declare forthwith that AGW be dead. His implied point, I guess, is that if the theory of AGW is true, no storms of more severity than normal should happen. And further, this winter everywhere has been the worst in some time, validating those (like himself) who say the planet is cooling.

Below I offer you a pictorial from Jeff Masters' Wunder Blog (Feb. 15th, 2010) which shows just how warm the northern part of North America has been lately.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

And now you know why they are importing snow from the mountains and using dry ice under some of the runs in Vancouver B.C. Both of these extremes are consistent with AGW and if they persist in future years, we, as all of us, are going to have to do something about it.