‘Weather’ On List Of Things GOP Will Not Talk About
Stupid liberals, why must you always be so stupid, introducing LOGIC into discussions that are clearly driven by IDEOLOGY and also: MONEY. See, after the Colorado wildfires burnt up a large portion of Colorado Springs, Democrats thought that it might be a good time to hold a hearing exploring the links between climate change and extreme weather. They were hoping that heatwaves and wildfires and all kinds of other extreme weather would translate into some sort of motivation to DO something about it, but as usual, this rested on the assumption that the GOP would be interested in "doing something" or sensitive to “evidence." But as we all know, the government just infringes on our freedom to buy lightbulbs when they "do something" and “evidence” has no place in sober discussions held by the world’s most deliberative legislative body. So the GOP did what any sensible freedom loving political party would do, and refused to hold the hearing:
Via TPM:
House Republicans are blocking Democrats’ push for a hearing on the extreme weather that has ravaged the nation, from record heatwaves to severe storms. The move highlights the extent to which denial of the scientific consensus on man-made climate change has become Republican orthodoxy, even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.
In a letter ( PDF ) sent last Friday to their Republican counterparts, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking member of the Energy & Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), the ranking member of the E&C subcommittee on energy and power, made what they counted as their 15th effort to hold a hearing into the matter. [...]
A new report by the National Climatic Data Center determined that the odds of this year’s extreme weather being a fluke — as opposed to the consequence of manmade carbon dioxide emissions — are extremely low .
“Willful ignorance of the science is irresponsible and it is dangerous,” the Democrats wrote.
First of all, why should the GOP focus on climate change when they could be working on blocking poor women from getting access to abortion? This, as we know, is one of their top legislative priorities. And second: stupid, stupid Democrats, with their reliance on “science” and “facts” and “evidence” and “logic.” You can use facts to prove something that isn’t even mostly true and everyone knows that, ESPECIALLY the GOP. Better luck next year, losers.
This is excellent. It might be worth pointing out that the axes of the second graph are "temperature anomaly" -- that is, deviation from the mean -- on the X, and probability on the Y.
The most significant feature (you know this, I'm just emphasizing it), isn't the shift in the mean value, but the fact that in recent decades the distribution has become less and less Gaussian; it is now much wider than Gaussian.
So the chance of a given value (say,any Wonker&#039;s local temperature) being 3 standard deviations from the mean is now maybe 3%, whereas in 1980 it was only a tenth of a percent. That is, in 1980 (or before), you might expect one day every couple of years to be 3 sigma hotter or colder than the average; today, you&#039;d expect ten days per year each way. Of course, the mean itself has also increased, so the probability of extremely <i>cold</i> days (compared to 1980) is actually slightly reduced.
Anyway, fewer really cold snaps, moar and longer hot spells. Oh, and the 5 sigma days will be another 2 or 3 degrees F hotter than the 4 sigma days, I imagine.
Of course, this all comes from James Hansen, so algore is fat, lalalala I can&#039;t hear you.
I would like to stick a carefully selected shrubbery up each of their asses.