As NewsBusters has been reporting, climate alarmists in the press have been getting very nervous about this sudden cooling trend that first became apparent in the Southern Hemisphere last year, and is showing up in the Northern Hemisphere with this extremely harsh winter.

One of the truly hysterical aspects of media's obvious discomforture are the press proclamations that seasonal temperatures are not an indicator of climate trends.

Comically, this is exactly what climate realists counter every time press representatives point to a heatwave or a hurricane as proof of anthropogenic global warming.

As was marvelously mentioned at the EPW Blog Tuesday, when it comes to climate, what's good for the goose definitely is not good for the gander:

Here at the Inhofe EPW Press Blog we have been reading – with great interest, and to be honest, a little amusement – the media’s coverage of our blog post from last week. The blog post was simply a round-up of several articles/blog posts reporting on the news that temperatures this past winter have been lower in temperature. Yet this blog, with that title, was enough for the New York Times and Las Vegas Sun to use for a lead in a story and the Las Vegas paper to write an editorial.

From the tone of their pieces, we think they will be a little surprised to learn that we applaud and congratulate them on getting the story right: seasonal temperatures are no indicator of climate trends.

Of course, we wish they would have better understood our position. One only needs to look at last year’s media coverage of a warmer winter versus this year’s coverage to understand our point. When newspapers were writing about a “warmer winter” in 2007, where was the New York Times and Las Vegas Sun slamming the use of warmer seasonal temperatures as proof of global warming?

The posting then offered readers some recent examples of press panic concerning their bogeyman that are sure to bring a smile to the faces of climate realists across the globe. My favorite is this October 2007 article from Science Daily deliciously entitled Warm Winter Predicted For United States (emphasis added):

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2007) — NOAA forecasters are calling for above-average temperatures over most of the country and a continuation of drier-than-average conditions across already drought-stricken parts of the Southwest and Southeast in its winter outlook for the United States, announced at the 2007-2008 Winter Fuels Outlook Conference in Washington, D.C October 9, 2007.

“La Niña is here, with a weak-to-moderate event likely to persist through the winter,” said Michael Halpert, head of forecast operations and acting deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “The big concern this winter may be the persistence of drought across large parts of the already parched South. And while December through February is likely to be another milder-than-average winter for much of the country, people should still expect some bouts of winter weather.”

Hmmm. These guys can't accurately predict climate conditions two months out, but we should radically alter our economy based on their forecasts decades into the future?

Now That's Entertainment!

—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.