It’s Cold Out – Global Warming Must be a Scam!

“Global warming my ass! It’s freezing! Al Gore sure is taking you people for a ride!” I’ve heard comments along these lines for months now, ever since normal late fall/early winter temperatures set in. Check the comments on any local news story about a snowstorm, and you’ll find at least a handful of people who believe that because it’s snowing during winter in the Northern Hemisphere, global warming can’t possibly be real.

Max Gladwell has explained the fallacy of this logic:

The infamous Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma recently declared victory over the global warming conspiracy based on the observation that “his opponents won’t say global warming any more” and instead prefer “climate change”. His argument for victory is basically grounded in semantics coupled with the drop in global warming headlines and the fact that he’s giving this interview during the winter, when it happens to be cold. (He also refers to dubious science.)

The reality is that climate change more accurately describes the various phenomena caused by global warming. The latter simply refers to the increase in global temperature as a result of CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases. We’re therefore seeing more droughts, floods, and a greater rate of anomalous weather events i.e. climate change. The effect of a warmer atmosphere might, in fact, cause more snow and colder temperatures in some areas with devastating, long-term effects. We don’t know precisely. This is uncharted territory for the planet (in terms of recorded CO2 concentrations) and mankind. Has the climate changed in the past? Yes. At this rapid pace without a reasonable explanation? No.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. No doubt, the “if the world is warming, why is it so cold out” meme will continue to proliferate – after all, these are the same kinds of people who continue to forward ‘Obama is a Muslim’ chain emails. If dying forests, the collapse of Antarctic ice shelves, ocean acidification, trillions of tons of ice loss in 5 years and other alarming signs of global warming won’t convince them, nothing will until the day they personally experience the catastrophic effects themselves.

Link [Max Gladwell]

EarthFirst Blog Week in Review March 17 – 21

Well we are just shooting up faster than Bio-tech corn here at EarthFirst! We’ve added a bunch of hot new writers (Professor Scott Herring and token Swede Anders Porter) and features (Mr. Cranky Green!) and are getting more hits than Tony Soprano during tax season. We’ve covered Green Fire Works, a terrifying robotic pack mule, and celebrated World Water Day like eco-rockstars! We also have two EarthFirst birthdays coming up under the Aries symbol; our wide-eyed editorial intern and writer Caroline turns 23 on the 28th and our fearless leader Jordan will rock out on the 27th when he turns…old. Yippee-Ki-Yay!

• Q&A With Mr. Cranky Green: Send Us Your Questions!!!!!
• Five Killer Bug Swarms to Avoid If You Can
• Uh…What’s That Green Shit… On Your…Head?
• No More Eco-Guilt on July 4th- Chemists Developing Green Fireworks
• Watch Five Hours of Cable News, Get One Minute of Environmental or Science Coverage
• This Day in Green History: March 18th, 1974- Arab Nations End Oil Embargo
• The March of Incompetence: Climate Change Denier James Inhofe Also Hates the Troops
• If We Can Build BigDog, We Can Engineer a Green Society
• Hulu Opens to the Public with Three Green Video Shows
• New See-Saw Technology Harnesses The Power of Children
• The Eco Drop Shower Invites Pain Into Your Daily Routine
• Weeds Season Three Coming Out in Green (Legal) DVD Packaging
• Hospitals Are Saving Millions and Reducing Their Landfill Load By Reusing Single Use Medical Devices
• Heidi Fleiss is Opening The Greenest Little Man-Whorehouse in Vegas
• Solar-Powered Boat Does Not Come With Sexy Mannequins
• Getting High: Climbing the Tallest Red Wood Tree in the World
• Green Extreme Sports: Paddling Across the Atlantic in a 23 Foot Coffin (Kayak)
• BBC Puts Reality TV Show Stars Out With the Trash- Literally
• The Green Bohemian Grove- Richard Branson Hosts Meeting of Green Gurus on His Private Tropical Island
• The Oracle of Omaha Loves Him Some Railroad Stocks
• Guy Kawasaki Wants to Invent 500 MPG Car But Fears Valleywag and TechCrunch Won’t Like It
• Inventor of Virtual Water Honored by Stockholm International Water Institute, Wins 150 Large

The March of Incompetence: Climate Change Denier James Inhofe Also Hates the Troops

Scott Herring is a new writer here at EarthFirst and a published author, blogger, and professor from the University of California, Davis.

The US Senate is an intellectual landfill. Really–I can’t say it too strongly. It seems like the higher you go in the federal government, the more rubbishy things get.

Take Oklahoma Republican Senator and well known Climate Change denier James Inhofe as an example. Inhofe is wildly hawkish, but as the Huffington Post reports,

“he has consistently voted against health care for the troops and their families, against pay protection for reservists, and against an increase in the death gratuity payments (now $12,000) for the families of military personnel killed in battle. And on top of all that Inhofe has also voted consistently against repealing the heinous ‘disabled veterans tax,’ which penalizes disabled veterans who receive both disability pay and retired pay.”

Armies fall apart when the soldiers aren’t treated well. Just a few years ago, the GOP dominated the political world, with majorities seemingly everywhere except the Berkeley city council, and it is now well on its way to being thrown out of power entirely. Republicans won their dominance because people thought they were good on national defense. Their sickly incompetence on this same issue has in turn done them in.

Link [Huffington Post]