Ted Rall for December 19, 2009

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

A good Englishman never leaves home without a brolley.

There is a big difference between a meteorologist and a Climatologist.

But I see the humor in this toon.

Meteorologists and climatologists are both earth scientists. Both fields require at least a masters degree. Where’s the big difference?

Raincoat guy is a big hypocrite.

Yeah, Scott, you and your manly patriots will stand up heroically against the natural universe, which really won’t give it a second thought when it drowns all the coastal cities. Oh, right, that’s where all the liberals live. Now I get it.

I knew it wouldn’t take long before we heard from a scientific illiterate who masks his (hers? its?) ignorance about science by calling the intelligent people names. I studied physics and I have seen enough science regarding global warming to know that it is a very serious problem. “…all of humanity used to be prior to the American Revolution…” is an incredibly stupid statement. The elite controlled things then, just as they do now to a somewhat lesser degree. Tell you what dimbulb; send me half a testicle and I’ll send you a few brain molecules. Then, I’ll have 2 1/2 and you’ll have a few more molecules of grey matter than you currently possess.

scottfreitas, I see your willful ignorance and raise you this cartoon:

http://www.cartoons.nytimages.com/portal/wieckpreviewpage_208831

Naked power grab, indeed- because enviromentalists have been our opressors for too long! Al Gore stole his presidential election! (and then gave it away… or something…The loghic works out, just give me a second)

Let’s see how little work I need to do to make this fit what I need:

“Religion” is nothing but a raw political power grab.

I never stop being amazed at how most men born since 1980 are such utter wimps, willing to surrender all their wealth and freedom over to preachers every time they throw a hissy fit about some imaginary crisis conjured up to manipulate people.

Please, grow a pair, you girly-men, before we ALL wind up as slaves to preachers, just like all of humanity used to be prior to the American Revolution…

4 spots. Can anyone do it in less than that? Its almost like having a speech writer.

Meteorologists were surveyed and it seems they are among the biggest critics in the global warming hype. That is why all of a sudden meteorologists are very different from climatologists; They became competition.

SCOTT LIES

Actually, he robotically proclaims every right-wing cliché, as if he had been programmed to be a mindless mouthpiece for the regressive oligarchs. In his bizarro universe, every concept becomes its own opposite. Like all modern-day Neanderthal throwbacks, he is blindly unaware of the ultimate fate of that extinct subspecies.

Testosterone is clearly the only god such people are capable of believing in.

Better safe than sorry.

Scientists ? Really ?

Scott & anyone else with this obsession with “girly-men,” Read this: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/19/Moms-Exposure-to-Chemicals-May-Affect-Her-Sons-Masculinity.aspx

…and appreciate the irony…the Big Bad Macho Boys who want the Big Bad Government to “Leave Us Alone,” and who have successfully assured that our environment is chock full of unregulated toxins, are reducing the masculinity and reproductive capacity of all American males…

Europe banned phthalates and some other culprits years ago, but our chemical industries argued that losing the sales of toxic toys and baby bottles for children would harm their businesses, and Republicans (mostly) stepped up to the plate to block government from setting standards or demanding tested and toxic free chemicals in our environment.

Maybe now that their balls and other appendages are demonstrably losing their juice, they will step up and act like real men.

You’re welcome!

and the SOUTH pole ice increases by 1/3rd…. Opps, no truth allowed on this “faith-based ” issue…just where is ALL the FRESH water ‘going-away’ to? (as the artic melts…).

It’s THAT star….the sun’s fault-period.

I see that Scott’s comment, which spawned such reactions of (commendable) revulsion, has been removed – whether by himself or the administrator. However, Kylop’s comment, which restates it with only four word changes, allows us to reconstruct it. If my memory serves me right, the four substitutions (for the italicized words) are: “Climate change,” “Girl Government,” “politicians,” and, again, “politicians.” Hope that helps.

The first panel is a good example of many deniers who do not understand the difference between climate and weather. I used to teach that concept to seventh graders who got it. I regularly read comments on the local paper’s web forum along the lines of, “What global warming? It’s cold and it’s snowing.” D’oh! The comment by jaxaction regarding the South Pole is a good example of cherry picking the data you like combined with scientific illiteracy. I won’t bother to lay out the facts as they would make no difference. So many deniers know nothing about science except how to spell the word.

iamthelorax and gangster of lovin omQR and sperry, mattro, toasteroven

jaxaction, human , vahammon and sooky ahab and kylop and zaphod and froggy

especially ted rall all tied up with strings y’all are a few of my favorite things

love and happy holy days

churchillwasright should learn to use Google. If you search on something you’d like to see, e.g., “south pole increasing,” of course you will get links that favor something increasing at the south pole, such as ice.

Even so, two of the top four links you cited explain that the increase in ice cap is caused by global warming. That’s because, in most of Antarctica it has historically been too cold to snow much. Antarctica is effectively a desert. But because of warmer sea temperatures in the South Atlantic, more water evaporates, leading to more precipitation. At the South Pole, that means more snow.

The third link has nothing to do with ice at all–it’s a measure of neutron levels.

What about the fourth link? Comes from a right-wing think tank whose motto is “Advancing the culture of free enterprise in America,” not a from scientist.

Incidentally, my own search on your search terms yielded different results. The third link was one you didn’t mention–describing a 2006 study that suggested total ice at Antarctica is, in fact, decreasing.

happy holy days kanjizai

churchill, you’ve managed to dis thousands of scientists all at once – very impressive. But, again, you’re wrong. They’re not socialists, and it’s not a religion, and they’re not all hiding their data. (By the way, some of the noisier anti-AGW people are hiding their data, and have for some time.) The climate scientists at realclimate.org (for example) are making their data despite the political anti-AGWers cherry-picking it for their purposes. Furthermore, you can search that site for doggone near anything they’ve ever posted, most of which has links to sites both ways.

human, try dogpile.com search engine …. they donate to Humane Societyfor Prevention of Cruelty to Animals based upon number of searches.

No, churchill, you misunderstand what is going on. The AGW hypothesis is not based on any one thing, but on a host of things which are all converging on the same conclusion. A very partial list includes: ice core measurement of CO2 going back as far as 800,000 years; glacial meltation; tree rings; known temperatures matched with CO2 levels; satellite scanning; orbital patterns linked to climate (we’re violating that one); solar brightness and dimming (it’s in a dim period now, but we’re still warming); etc., etc., etc. Most of those 500 papers you are referring to are probably questioning or refining some specific element of the research, or the specific conclusion, e.g., the speed of melting, or exactly how much of warming is attributable to human influence. The biggest question now for global warming is how fast, and is there a tipping point? And the second biggest: if there is a tipping point, when/where is it (and have we crossed it)?

church sez: (I knew I wasn’t crazy). Proof positive how little one knows one’s self. ;-D (said with smile)

Best check your email then.

Science is as science can be tested, which is precisely why predicting weather differs from predicting climate. A meterologists models can be tested very quickly and kept or discarded as inaccurate. A climatologist’s models require years, and given that only the corrected data (but not the raw data) showed the crucial predicted tropospheric warming, I’m skeptical. Considering the large portion of various warming trends is greatly diminished in the actual data, but is instead found only in the numerous ‘corrections’ to the data, how the method by which those corrections have been made seems, in many crucial cases, to have been deliberately lost, and how some of the trends are based on things like tree ring data which have been proven unreliable in the modern day, I’ve grown very suspicious of the data produced by paleoclimatology. What’s being done should not be confused with science. Science is based on reproducable methods. This is not to say that there’s no warming trend. I wouldn’t be surprised if the earth was two degrees warmer by 2100. But the assertion of catastrophic climate change has no trustworthy model to support it. Meterological trends do (for a week or two out, anyways.)

Dr. Canuck -

“And any scientist will share any data with any other scientist. But we have no ethical requirements to share it with the entertainment media masquerading as news.”

Science is a method of testing hypotheses, not something done by an elite priesthood. The data, methods, and so forth are made public or the public has no reason to accept their veracity. I don’t know who tricked you into thinking this was not a requirement.