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The Spectacle Blog
FREEZING Britain will be buried by the worst blizzards in 100 years today. Drifts of up to 6ft are expected as 60mph Arctic gales batter the country. Motorists and train commuters have been warned to expect chaos while thousands of schools will shut early.
Millions of Christmas cards and presents will not arrive. Forecasters have warned that the storms, which will drop a foot of snow in hours, will be even more serious than the notorious 1962-63 winter and the worst to hit Britain since 1927.
Giant drifts are set to close dozens of main roads. Scores of railway lines will be threatened with long delays and cancellations.
View all comments (20) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Doug Bandow
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/12/16/britain-could-use-a-little-glo
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Occam's Tool| 12.16.10 @ 6:50PM
Don't worry---a little cold won't stop the English Defense League, Jewish Chapter!
Liberal Reader| 12.16.10 @ 6:55PM
Bandow --
Unless you've somehow managed to read absolutely nothing of value on the topic of climate change, you're aware that rising sea temperatures could produce extreme temperature lows in some regions. Weather's kind of complicated, dude. You can't just look out the window and say, "Look, it's snowing! Global warming must not be real."
I know you'd like nothing better than to simplify this issue into a snarky joke -- it's so much easier that way -- but the facts, as difficult as they are to interpret (and they are difficult to interpret) -- won't just magically become easy to understand because you wish they were.
CalMark| 12.16.10 @ 7:59PM
Incoherence alert!
Global warming = record cold weather.
But only in some places. Sometimes. Under certain circumstances. The data is complicated.
Just trust us, stupid Deniers! Keep repeating after us: "Cold weather equals Global Warming. Cold Weather equals Global Warming."
Your strait-jacket awaits, sir!
ggoblue| 12.16.10 @ 8:08PM
how sad it must be to have your god [obama] and religion [global warming] come crashing down all in the same year....
oh well some people still pray to baal...
Ken Roberts | 12.16.10 @ 9:43PM
So weather is complicated; then why don't you teach us all about it show us the facts that would clear it all up and we could go home and dress the Christmas tree . We joke about it because the whole warming hoax has been put to bed by many scientist last I heard 700 and growing .
George S| 12.16.10 @ 10:49PM
Those ignorant straw men... saying that snowing disproves global warming. This issue can be condensed into a snarky joke: a couple of scientists fake data and write their own program and a divinity school dropout becomes a multi-millionaire by creating a doomsday scenario out of it, wins an academy award and then a noble prize.
Of course if the weather today were 20 degrees above normal, we would hear all about how it is inconsequential and that it's caused by uneven heating of the oceans. Nope, not a mention of CO2 or that greenhouse gases are causing a calamity, or that it is too complicated to simplify by correlating CO2 emissions and therefore no need to rush to cap and trade. Much too complicated for that.
Vito | 12.17.10 @ 3:53PM
In real science, we understand that there are conditions or results which we will accept that refute our hypothesis. If we cannot imagine any circumstances that could refute our hypothesis, it is by definition NOT science.
So, Liberal Reader, please tell me which conditions or results that you would envision that would disprove the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. For example, sub-average temperatures for twenty consecutive years? Perhaps increases in sea ice in both the north and south pole? What exactly would you accept as proof that AGW is disproved?
If the answer is nothing, you are convinced regardless of what happens, then you will have to accept that what you have postulated is not science. We have a name for it, though - we call it "religion".
best regards, and happy (cold!) holidays.
c. j. acworth| 12.16.10 @ 7:34PM
Hey, Lib. Reader. Your comment is a good example of the kind of argument that has more and more people convinced that Global Warming is nothing but a new secular religion. It used to be that whatever happened was attributed to the gods. Have a good harvest? The gods are pleased. Earthquake? The gods are angry. Now its Global Warming. Have a mild winter? Global warming. Buried under 10 feet of snow? Global warming. Whatever happens is due to global warming. The thing is , that if everything is explained by global warming, then nothing is. The explanation becomes unfalsifiable, and a matter of faith not science.
Pelligrino| 12.17.10 @ 1:05AM
Hey, I got another idea, isn't this all "El Nino's" fault?
I mean, just a few years ago, we kept getting told this or that were the result of El Nino, right?
Maybe he's at work again in the North Atltantic?
Curtis Rasmussen| 12.16.10 @ 7:34PM
Idiot, the world's ecosystem is so complex that no man to date can determine the weather a week from now, let alone figure out if long term man-made climate change is real.
Note that I didn't call it global warming. When grant seeking, professionally compromised scientists saw that the long term trends were not folllowing their predictions, they changed the name. Now any temperature variation can be called climate change, and they blame man for it as well. Its too hot? It's man's fault. It's too cold? It's man's fault. Next, it will be man's fault if the temperature stabilizes.
'I don't care what the long term temperature trend is, Keep that grant money flowing!'
Curtis Rasmussen| 12.16.10 @ 7:36PM
My post is in response to Gliberal Screeder. Someone didn't bury his stinking carcass deep enough.
Pelligrino| 12.17.10 @ 1:16AM
Righto! Please do keep that Grant Money flowing.
After all...we're gonna need a couple $60 or 70 million more alone at my university -- just in these next CRUCIAL 5 years of study -- to establish verifiable trends that support irrefutable norms within the data allowances, proving unquestionable results from already well researched theories, but now for the first time field-testable AND manageable within the scope of....
Actually, just as important: My mortgage on the $950k home, payments on the second car, three kids to put through pricey Ivy League schools, the boat, CC membership, and the cabin in the Appalachians....
So, remember, the science is spot on! We're on the cusp of a major breakthrough! Just keep that Grant Money a comin'! Scientific Academics LOVE cheerful givers.
Boomerbabe| 12.17.10 @ 4:22AM
So, will the liberals like us if we look out the window and say, "Look! Climate Change!" instead of, "Look! It's going to rain!"?
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 12.16.10 @ 8:05PM
I just headed out to the store tonight, because I was out of peanut buttercups (and we can't have that now, can we?, No we can't!!), and it felt really cold out there as I was walking to my car. But after I returned from the store, it felt like it was at least a few degrees warmer than it was before. Could this be a sign of Global Warming? Seriously, how else can you explain the temperature rising by a few degrees, after the sun's gone down, in December? You can't!!
It's proof positive, Global Warming is true!!
So it looks like I was wrong all along, and Fat Al was right!! So now all I can say to Mother Earth is, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry!! I didn't know!!
hookah | 12.16.10 @ 9:41PM
The climate problem, we need to change the status quo
Pete | 12.16.10 @ 11:42PM
"Snarky, dude!" I love it. "Snarky" is IN for 2011: "Inappropriate" is OUT (retired).
Jack Davis | 12.17.10 @ 12:55AM
Bandow's a smart guy, but this is really ridiculous. He has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. There were record highs all over the world this summer; I fail to recall conservatives conceding the truth of global warming/climate change then. Even in a warming world you'll get some record lows. You also get (and this is important) more record highs.
Every winter we're subjected to this "It's all a hoax because it's really cold in __." Weather is not climate. An anaology for you sports fans: if LeBron goes 2 for 13 a game or two, it doesn't mean he sucks.
Burns Matkin| 12.17.10 @ 3:23AM
Jack: No there were not a lot of record highs last summer. About average.
What is important right now is not the science, it is the politics and there is no doubt whatsoever that the loonies on the progressive left want to use "global whatever" as an excuse to distribute wealth. In reality, and you know this, the money doesn't get to the poor in Tuvalu it goes in the pockets of the bureaucrats and leeches that perpetuate 'global warming or whatever is the verb du jour ".
Even if warming is true and caused by man, the consequences are far from certain as we have seen much warmer periods before and the earth survived quite nicely thank you.
The real travesty is that the million/billions spent on this subject could have easily found a cure for cancer or fed the starving kids in Africa or provided drinking water to millions.
So, before you defend "global whatever" just remember that the money trail you are defending could have been used for real humanitarian projects.
Boomerbabe| 12.17.10 @ 4:28AM
Really? In Western Washington, we only had about 2 weeks of summer this year. No growing season to speak of, plenty of ruined gardens. We just got way too much rain and not enough sunshine. You global warmers are silly. Haven't you ever heard the saying, "Farmers are either praying for rain, or looking for sunshine"? Climate changes! It changes every year! And not only that, if you look, you'll see that some years there are extremes of heat, and other years there are extremes of cold. The planet is not stagnant. Stop it. Grow up. Even if you could get every person in the entire world to stop what they were doing and run real fast at the same time and in the same direction, it wouldn't effect the world one iota. You climate changers are boring, boring, boring!
Chick Enlittle| 12.17.10 @ 7:19PM
Me: "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"
You: "No, it isn't."
Me: "Oh. Can I have my grant money anyway?"