Welcome Blowback Against False Breitbart Climate Change Story (But Will That Matter?)

This chart from Climate Central shows the reality. (Cick on it to make it
bigger and easier to read. El Nino years (orange bars) are
hotter. The period just after El Nino is cooler (blue bars)
but the overall global temperature trend is up, up, up.  

Over the past week, everybody who has even a smidge of interest in climate change has been piling on the odious Brietbart website, Britain's Daily Mirror and the the U.S. House Commitee on Science, Space and Technology.

The reason: A false story claiming global warming is "over" and that global temperatures are plunging.

The Daily Mirror published it, Breitbart republished and repurposed it, and the so-called House science committee re-tweeted it.

Who cares if none of what they published is true? Breitbart doesn't, but lots of other people do.

Lots of people were quick to draw bullshit on the article. Because, obviously, the article is total bullshit. But that never stopped anyone in this post-fact world.

The Breitbart article is titled "Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists."

The silence from the so-called climate alarmists is probably from banging their heads against their desks too much from dumb "articles" like this.

As always with the climate deniers, the Mirror and Breitbart bullcrap writers cherry picked dubious data to come up with their climate change is over myth.

There are three main sources of satellite data that estimate temperatures in the Earth's lower atmosphere. All three showed a bit of a decline in temperature from early this year to about now.

That mini trend was widely expected by virtually all climate scientists. A strong El Nino came on top of global warming, which sent worldwide temperatures rising to record levels.  El Ninos tend to increase Earths' temperatures, with or without global warming.

El Nino is gone, and so are its effects. With El Nino's influence gone, temperatures have temporarily gone down slightly.

As many, including Bob Henson and Jeff Masters at Weather Underground note, The Mirror and Brietbart are masters at cherry picking data to come up with wildly incorrect conclusions that nonetheless fit their false narrative.

The Mirror and Breitbart used one source of satellite data, RSS, to claim global temperatures plunged by 1 degree Celius this year. RSS had a bigger decline in temperatures than other sources, and there have been problems with RSS data lately. They're working on a fix.

Actually the RSS data showed a bit of a reversal in temperatures as we got into November and showed readings across the globe rose a bit then. But Breitbart ignored that. Not part of the narrative.

Republicans on the now badly named U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology committee, who are into the climate change denial racket, approving retweeted the Breitbart article.

As always, Bernie Sanders had just the right response. He tweeted back to the committee: "Where'd you get your PhD? Trump University?"

Yeah, something like that, apparently.

You should watch The Weather Channel's Kait Parker's glorious takedown of the Breitbart/House Committee bullcrap at the bottom of this post.

Parker's money quote: "Here's the thing: Science doesn't care about your opinion...Cherry picking and changing the facts will not change the future, not the act - note: fact, not opinion- that the earth is warming."

Of course, pointing out how extremely off the mark Breitbart, et al are is nice, but cynical me wonders if it would have any effect.

Trump and many Congressional Republicans aren't going to deal with global warming, especially with all the oil company donations that pour into their campaigns.

Plus, they don't want to upset their all important "base" who have taken the climate denial Kool-Aid.

You'd think the debate on whether climate change would be over and we'd be far into the debate on what to do about it.

But we're in that bizarro fact free world now, so the Powers That Be will just keep going on with their self invented narrative. It's comfortable for them, I guess, but pretty scary for the rest of us.

Here's that Weather Channel takedown that I enjoyed:

Florida Congressman Makes Silliest Climate Change Argument Yet

Congratulations this morning go out to Congressman Jeff Miller, R-Fla. who made the silliest argument to "prove" man made climate change doesn't exist.    

Florida Congressman Jeff Miller.  

In widely published comments, Miller noted the dinosaurs went extinct before we were all driving around in cars and otherwise burning fossil fuel, so therefore manmade climate change doesn't exist.

His point, I'm guessing, is there have been changes in the Earth's climate over the millenia (which is absolutely true).

So somehow, if there are natural changes in the climate, then there can't possibly be any changes caused by, or influenced by mankind.

Here's Miller's exact quote: "Then why did the dinosaurs go extinct? Were there men that were causing - were there cars running around at that point that were causing global warming? No." ......The climate has changed since Earth was created." 

Yeah, I don't get it either. The logic is kind of like, people didn't die in car accidents 500 years ago, so they can't die in car accidents today.

People have been yukking it up, saying how stupid Miller is for saying stuff like this but I dunno.

I honestly don't believe even he believes what he's saying. But Miller is probably under the thrall of the interests, like the Koch brothers, who don't want any restrictions on fossil fuels to offset climate change.

So he says ridiculous things like this, because there are at least a few dumb, or anti-intellectual voters out there who would fall for this sort of thing.

Congress to Defense Department: If Climate Change Causes Wars, Ignore It Because We Have To Deny Climate Change

In one of the most boneheaded moves I've seen, the U.S. House of Representatives have told the Pentagon to not spend any money on figuring out how climate change might cause instability, wars and that type of ugly thing.

The U.S. House wants the Pentagon to ignore
the question of whether climate change will
cause military conflicts we should worry about. 

According to the Huffington Post, the House has mandated this no climate change reviews despite the fact Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and leading military leaders say they need to know if climate change will cause the kind of problems that lead to wars.

We need to be ready to deal with this kind of instability, says Hagel

The bill reads: "None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation's Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866."

All that gobbledegook essentially means the Pentagon can't use any major research on how climate change could cause political instability.

The logic is rich. Said Republcan West. Virginia Rep. David McKinley  "Why should Congress divert funds from the mission of our military and national security to support a political ideology?"

Right. Does McKinley not recognize he is diverting funds from the mission of our military and national security to support a political ideology?   He has a lot of chutzpah, that's for sure.

So let's keep the U.S military unready for conflicts that might or might not be exacerbated by climate change, because, God forbid we admit that climate change is happening.

Maybe we should also prevent the military from dealing with Islamic terrorists, too, since we don't subscribe to their ideology.

Jeez!

NWS Rapid City: Not Paid But Dedicated, Unlike Certain Congress People

During that big blizzard in South Dakota's Black Hills last week, National Weather Service meteorologists worked way, way overtime despite the government shutdown and the fact they are not getting paid.

The National Weather Service office in
Rapid City, South Dakota during last week's blizzard. 

At least somebody is dedicated to the job. More than I can say for certain members of Congress

Rapid City was a mess, given the four feet of snow that fell in some areas near the city, and those ten foot high drifts, the fallen trees, the lack of electrical power. Travel was impossible.

One meteorologist hiked through all that snow to and from work to put out the crucial weather warnings associated with the storm. 

This message went out from the Rapid City National Weather Service office to a central headquarter in Missouri on Sunday:

"Access to the office is still blocked. Two employees were able to hike in arround some obstructions, but it is not possible to drive out of the parking lot due to snow drifts and downed trees in the neighborhood. The (one that hiked in) is attempting to take two stranded employees home this morning. One forecaster hiked in for his mid shift last night, and I sent him home so he can come back tonight. Of the three who are on duty at this time, two have been here since 7 a.m. Friday and I have been here since 3 p.m. Friday. 

All this and these guys weren't getting paid because of the government shutdown.

While the National Weather Service has kept functioing during the shutdown, there are quite a few shortcomings cropping up in forecasting and meteorological research, as it turns out.

So let's hope sane people get the upper hand soon. 

S

So let's hope sane people