Come on, Andy... 'fess up.
Admit that you have been reading NewsBusters, particulary the story posted by your humble correspondent on Sunday about how the U.S. media has been ignoring observations of a noted climate scientist, Professor Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute, that we are entering a period in which the earth is likely to cool for a period of one to two decades.
The very day after the NewsBusters story was published, New York Times writer Andrew Revkin by strange "coincidence" decided to mention Professor Latif and his inconvenient observations about global cooling. Poor Andy sounds more than a bit peeved that Mother Nature is just not cooperating with the global warming dogma:
The world leaders who are meeting at the United Nations to discuss climate change on Tuesday, are faced with an intricate challenge: building momentum for an international climate treaty at a time when global temperatures have been stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years.
Oops! So maybe we don't have to spend hundred of billions of dollars to fight a problem that doesn't exist? Back to square one. However, Andy just can't let go:
The plateau in temperatures has been seized upon by skeptics as evidence that the threat of global warming is overblown. And some climate experts worry that it could hamper treaty negotiations and slow the progress of legislation to curb carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.
Scientists say the last decade of climate stability — which follows a precipitous rise in average global temperatures in the 1990s — is a result of cyclical variations in ocean conditions and has no bearing on the long-term warming effects of greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere.
Left unsaid is that maybe, just maybe, the rise in global temperatures in the 1990s were also the temporary result of cyclical variations in oceanic or other conditions.
Stand by now for the very first mention of Professor Latif in a major U.S. media outlet...thanks to a helpful nudge from Yours Truly?
Dr. Mojib Latif, a prize-winning climate and ocean scientist from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Kiel, wrote a paper last year positing that cyclical shifts in the oceans were aligning in a way that could keep the next decade or so relatively cool, even as the heat-trapping gases linked to global warming continue to increase.
And yet those "heat-trapping gases" seem to not be causing global warming. Paging Al Gore!
But Dr. Latif, who gives around 200 talks to the public, business leaders and officials each year, said he had been met with confusion and even anger when he tried to describe this normal variation in climate while at the same time conveying the long-term threat of global warming.
Anger generated by speaking inconvenient truths. But not to fear, liberals. Latif is still sticking to the long term global warming dogma...at least for now.
“People understand what I’m saying but then basically wind up saying, ‘We don’t believe anything,’ ” he said in a telephone interview.
Please, stop with the inconvenient observations that run counter to our global warming belief!
Other climate researchers dispute Dr. Latif’s forecast, saying that climate cannot be reliably predicted on such a short time scale, though even they agree that sooner or later, cool stretches are inevitable.
Huh? Climate researchers are saying that climate can't be reliably predicted on a short time scale yet somehow global warming can be presented as a guaranteed scientific fact many years into the future? Sorry, does not compute.
Whatever the next decade might hold, critics of global warming have lost no time in using the current temperature plateau to build their case.
"Temperature plateau" being a euphemism for "cooling." Go ahead and shout it out loud and proud, Andy. COOLING!
Oh, and am I being paranoid in thinking that Revkin is referring to you-know-who in the following passage?
The recent stability of global temperatures makes regular appearance in blog postings disputing the reality of global warming and is frequently invoked by pundits who oppose the climate bill that passed the House earlier this year and is now pending in the Senate.
Blog postings such as in NewsBusters? However, I never claimed that global temperatures are stable. Instead, as evidenced by the "inconvenient facts" such as that provided by Professor Latif, they are actually decreasing.
Finally Revkin makes a shocking admission...global warming dogma just might not be infallible:
Most climate scientists stand firm in their projections of centuries of rising seas and other disruptive effects of a warming planet if humans take no steps to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.
Still, those projections are based on models, interpretations of tree ring variations and other indirect assessments of past temperatures that, while persuasive to most climate scientists, are not infallible. A clearer view of whether the recent temperature plateau undermines arguments for dangerous climate change in the long run should come in a few years, as the predictions made by the British climate researchers are tested.
Thank you for allowing the possibility that global warming proponents might not be infallible. It might be nice if you pass that word along to the governments of the U.S.A. and the rest of the world before they toss hundreds of billions of dollars at a problem which might not even exist.
You have made good progress, Andy. We are all proud of you. However, please don't let Pinch catch you looking at NewsBusters on your monitor. It could get you in a heap of trouble.
—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.



















Editor at Large
Comments Policy
Its snowing in Colorado today
September 22, 2009 - 10:12 ET by R D HelmGlobal warming my a__.
-Dave
I agree with Rush. It's time for Obama to resign.
Haven't you heard the
September 22, 2009 - 10:45 ET by Cthulhu2012Haven't you heard the latest news? Global warming is going to cause us all to freeze to death. Just like in that documentary "The Day After Tomorrow."
Hey...you know...Hollywood could use all this controversy as a prequel to that movie. It could be called "The Day Before Yesterday" and the main villain would be Newsbusters as represented by a many-headed beast heralding the End of Days with a throng of conservative worshippers with miniature coal-burning furnaces on their backs!
Just remember, though, it was MY idea! *races off to the patent office*
Why choose the lesser of two evils?
What gets me
September 22, 2009 - 10:16 ET by richb313Waht gets ne is the Hubris and Arrogance of the Man Made Global Warming Crowd. They are convinced they KNOW. How can they KNOW anything when the problem isn't even understood?
Charlatans
September 22, 2009 - 10:17 ET by iveseenitallGore went from being worth $2,000,000 to being worth over $100,000,000. 'Nuff said.
NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"
This article is a little
September 22, 2009 - 10:17 ET by G. MayThis article is a little too smug and self-laudatory for the usual high quality postings at NB. Let us praise you and pat your back in the comments section.
Grovel
September 22, 2009 - 10:23 ET by P.J. GladnickI'm in a generous mood today so I will let you merely perform a half-grovel in my exalted presence.
Your graciousness and
September 22, 2009 - 11:43 ET by G. MayYour graciousness and generosity are without peer. I will do one better than a full-on grovel, I will fully prostrate myself in your presence! ;-)
Major Deity
September 22, 2009 - 16:06 ET by P.J. GladnickYou outdo yourself. My humility dictates that there is no need to treat me any better than any other major deity.
They obsess over less the
September 22, 2009 - 10:23 ET by danboThey obsess over less then 1/100th of the air. Yet can't see the oceans and that little insignificant bright ball in the sky.
Without the shift of the PDO to it's warm phase. There likely wouldn't be the warm years that Warmers keep pointing to. But when it shifts to it's cool phase. Don't believe your lying eyes.
HAHAHAHAHA. HEHEHE. I didn’t even know about it. Um. So, you’ve got me at a loss. I don’t know. (Charles Gibson of the dead media.)
On a serious note, want to
September 22, 2009 - 10:47 ET by Cthulhu2012On a serious note, want to know something REALLY scary? These global warming folks are some of the same people who floated the idea of trashing the atmosphere with CO2 to save us from global warming.
And they're the ones in charge now.
Why choose the lesser of two evils?
On a serious note, want to
September 22, 2009 - 11:32 ET by Cthulhu2012Double post strikes again!
Th
September 22, 2009 - 10:52 ET by jessieHThere is the climate change hoax and there is the U.N. hoax. Both are bogus. The United Nations- There is nothing united about them. They just want to rule the world.
The only problem with that
September 22, 2009 - 10:56 ET by Cthulhu2012The only problem with that is the UN's got about as much bite behind it as a newborn baby.
Just about as loud and obnoxious too.
Why choose the lesser of two evils?
For 50 years now, a main theme of lefty doctrination...
September 22, 2009 - 11:14 ET by wnaegele...in our educational system has been virtual reality, or, "reality is what you make it." In this goal it has succeeded admirably: the other-wordily goings-on in the mainstream media is a good example. But when virtual reality suddenly comes up against the actual thing, ouch! Again one can look at the wretched state of the media...
What Global Warming?
September 22, 2009 - 11:15 ET by AvitarThe Ocean levels rise three hundred feet over twenty thousand years or about eighteen inches per century.
The Oceans rise only five feet since the founding of Vinice in the sixth century.
This has not been a warm period and the Ocieans are not quickly rising. The Mini-ice age did end about eighteen fifty but we could be in the start of another ice age before Obama leaves office.
I wonder:
September 22, 2009 - 14:13 ET by JohnMIn the calculations that they're using to predict climate change, are they accounting for the variations in the Earth's orbit around the sun? It's an odd ellipse, not a circle. What we experience as periodic warmings are not constants, and are offset by similar coolings. How can any scientist make claims and predictions unless they're ignoring the variations and using over-simplified models.
Oh, by the way, "over-simplified" in the previous sentence means "inaccurate and deceptive".
Now we've got it.
September 22, 2009 - 15:23 ET by mac91350No, wait. Really this time we've got the science down. Seriously. No more changes.
What's that?
Um, Ok. Quick change. Back to what I was saying. Really this time we've go the science down.
Warming
September 22, 2009 - 20:38 ET by brain trustI don't believe it was ever about concern for the environment anyway. It is intended only as a method to take money from us.
Before we have a government that can supply us with everything we will have a government that can provide us with nothing.
I am sure
September 23, 2009 - 04:58 ET by GeronLI am sure that the NY Times will be very disappointed should the sheeple fugure out that this whole thing is a hoax. Maybe its time for some after-school specials on TV and maybe a big movie?
second opinion
September 23, 2009 - 04:58 ET by GeronLInterpreting tree rings? Tea leaves too?
IF IT GETS ANY WARMER -
September 23, 2009 - 07:31 ET by docjohn52I'm gonna freeze to death.
The physics of temperature, one more time.
When ice melts, the water level goes down.
(Have you EVER had a glass of iced tea overflow, because the ice melted?)