Every time I turn around somebody's crying about how Global Warming is causing drought here or there or yon.

But let me boast of the wonderful abundance of rain showered down on West Texas this past summer, and the "anecdotal card" gets played.

1.  It will force all those evil capitalists and consumers to choose a less "impact-full" way of life, and ideally "go tribal" again like the good-old-days (and maybe even commune with nature like Pocahontas).

2.  The economic hit of transitioning HALF the electric grid away from coal power will hurt the evil imperialist United States and put it in its place; hopefully under the control of the morally superior United Nations.

3.  Evil meat eaters will be forced to go vegan to take all the energy strain off the system caused by feeding grain to cows, hogs and chickens.

4.  Evil rednecks will be forced to give up their scary pick-up trucks and ride the metro bus system like all good human beings do.

5.  Good liberals always take the opposite side of issues from conservatives.

Drought - a sign of the Cherokee removal. Then mad chief drylandrunner said to the white man, who would eventually create Time Magazine, that if you make us leave our homeland, this great and horrid drought will return in 2007 - shortly after the great leader the iceman cometh forth warns of a great time of ice.

The actual historical record:

The Cherokee roundup began on May 23, 1838 -- a time when the Southeast suffered from its worst drought in recorded history (Trail of Tears Timeline), and Georgia was said to have suffered the worst drought in a century (The Cherokee "Trail of Tears"). Between June 6-19, the first group of emigrants traveled the river trail to Fort Coffee (Norman). Low water forced them to travel overland from Arkansas. A separate source states "...they began to move west...out of the pines and rocks and red clay of Georgia into a drought in Tennessee and Alabama where in hot, dried-out swamps the moss hung listlessly from high cypresses" (Jahoda 1975).

Here is what real global warming will look like in a few billion years.

Great find, Amy.

This also emphasizes the point that the global warming scare is in part a creation of the media.  I can't help thinking that with the media's affection for politicians with a "D" after their name, AGW wouldn't have gotten off the ground the way it did under Al Gore's "leadership" if it had been a former Republican Vice President or President "sounding the alarm". 

The PDO which shifted to warm in 1977, and seems to be shifting into the cold phase again.  We had a false start before. But, if this holds it'll be interesting to see how the media and warmers handle it. Here. Of course the associated problems will be caused by AGW. 

Effects of a cold PDO.

(1) More frequent La Ninas than El Ninos like we saw in the last cold phase from 1947 to 1977 and thus declining global temperatures

(2) More Atlantic hurricanes threatening the east coast from Florida north, especially as long as the Atlantic stays warm (Atlantic usually lags up to a decade or so after the Pacific in its multidecadal cycles.

(3) More tornado outbreaks in the fall through the spring months.

(4) Dry winters and early springs in Florida with spring brush fires

(5) More cold and snow across the northern tier from the Pacific Northwest and Northern plains to the Great Lakes and Northern New York and New England

(6) More winters with below normal snow Mid-Atlantic south

(7) Greater chances of drought in the southwest and parts of the Corn Belt

If I lived in Atlanta. I wouldn't throw away my umbrella.

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT