Tom Toles for November 01, 2012

Maybe Al Gores 20 room mansion caused Sandy. Btw it’s snowing here.

There really is no point in arguing this issue. Even if it were conclusively proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the cyclical climate change of the earth was being accelerated and warped by human activity, it would not make an atom’s difference. All you would see would be a lot of recrimination and finger-pointing, everybody blaming everyone but themselves, everyone claiming they just “can’t afford” to do anything about it. In this world, short-term and selfish interests will nearly always triumph over long-term collective interests. People will come together and work together to save themselves only when the threat is obvious and immediate, the course to take is crystal clear, and the collective effort doesn’t take too long. The world wars are an example. We may in a century or so look with curiosity at images of “the way the world used to be” and wonder if, in theory, the calamaties and losses of the last few decades could have been averted. We will only know how real climate change is when it has gone too far for us to really do anything about it, and then we will piously declare that there was nothing we could have about it anyway.

Wait – I think you are missing the point of Tole’s cartoon. Each “extreme” storm that becomes the norm is eating away at climate denial (note the label). No, it’s not a nuanced understanding of AGW, but the deniers don’t have one!

BASLIM … continue to bury your head in the sand. There obviously is no point in trying to convince someone who refuses to look at all the data that points to global climate change.

To borrow from the summations the climatologists are using to explain it to the rest of us: “When a 100-year storm starts happening every 2 or 3 years, something is wrong.” Also, if there weren’t a warming trend, you’d expect the number of record highs and record lows on any given day in any given town to balance out – except it’s running 2 or 3 to 1 breaking highs instead of lows these days. And that’s with thousands of data points every day across the US.

Yes we are causing some of it but it is giong to happen I has many a times before.ohio was under ice at one time and saudis had trees and animal (how else was the oil made.) THe good point is we pushed back the ice age 10,000 years

Nice ’toon Tom.

While major storms catch one’s attention, there are many other less obvious events that confirm climate change is occurring. Some, such as the habitable range for plants and animals are much less attention grabbing, but easily observable and occurring for many species. Others are less ‘in your face’ than a hurricane, but the reduced coverage of arctic ice is quite obvious.

the sawteeth are going the wrong way…kickback is coming…this from a carpenter

Umm, the hurricane’s rotating in the wrong direction.

It’s interesting, and somewhat reassuring, to note that climate change deniers, particularly among the educated, are becoming smaller in number — the reverse is not happening. I know of no scientists who formerly believed human industrial activity was contributing to climate change and who now dispute that. Various posters here accurately point out that a single storm does not indicate a worldwide trend (and remember that these phenomena ARE worldwide, not just in North America), the collective data absolutely point to accelerated climate change. Talk about “normal” climate shifts don’t take into account the accelerated rate at which our world climate is changing, and with 7 billion people on this planet (and more to feed in the future) this will have major global political and economic repercussions, none of which have been discussed in this presidential election.

We’re just removing the 47% that doesn’t contribute.

You beat me to it furnituremaker. My first experience was as a kid working on my father’s sawmill. I laughed when I saw a Discovery Channel story on Alaska homesteaders where a young man was repairing an old circular sawmill and put the blade on backward. Otherwise, it is a good "toon.

It’s immoral for the federal government to provide disaster aid to the states. So says Mitt Romney.

Yes, I know that — I’ve been posting here about AGW for how long? — I am saying what I think the cartoon meant.

As many of you will remember, I have been advising for over 30 years that the excess use of fossil fuels and stripping and burning of our rainforests causes irregular weather patterns much as, say a volcanic eruption can. The effects of that volcanic eruption will be negated in time, however the abuse that man causes, continues until something is done about it.

I presume, as the voice of Big Brother and Ingsoc, you are being facetious. But just in case you’re not: history of is full of natural disasters brought about by human activity. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s and other examples of desertification via overgrazing. The North Africa was not a desert in Roman times and there is evidence of human agency in many desert regions such a Iraq. Deforestation has certainly caused floods and other disasters. Climate changes gradually over time, and even if men have relatively little influence over it, that influence can be crucial in driving things to a “tipping point.” But never fear, this a purely academic debate. If we reduce our use of fossil fuels and increase our use of renewable energy, it will be for efficiency and energy self-sufficiency, not to counteract climate change.

You of course mean the magnetic north pole not the axis pole. We may be on the way to a pole reversal, not that you or I will be alive to see it since it will take about 10,000 years, but it would be cool.

Why don’t you just continue to be biased like the rest of the media. Hope you get him for 4 more—then there won’t be a paper to print your BS.

Yes, the combination of three “weather events” following changed patterns because the climate is changing because of long term terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric changes has CAUSED those changes, is the impact of global climate change. Deniers deserve to be that log.

When “hundred year storms” start hitting EVERY YEAR, duh! That is climate change!

Climate change is real, what is a load of bull is that this increase in hurricane activity is somehow connected to some man-made global warming. It doesn’t take much intellect to understand the cyclic effects of the climate and realize we went through a very similar rash of hurricanes as recently as the 1950’s.

Rotation and the teeth of saw blade are going the wrong way but the gist is valid. Storms have been as bad/worse in ’20 and more numerous.