In 2000 the British paper The Independent ran a story [2] with the wistful headline “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.”
Faithfully advancing the theory of anthropogenic global warming like a good leftist media foot soldier, the author nostalgically declared, “Snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture.”
The Independent cited Dr. David Viner of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia, who predicted that in a few years, snow will be “a very rare and exciting event… Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”
That would be the same climatic research unit involved in last year’s Climategate [3] scandal, in which a whistleblower released thousands of e-mails documenting researchers manipulating, covering up, and losing data used in the UN’s report on dangerous manmade global warming.
In The Independent’s story, one researcher at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research envisioned a world in which British children might have to settle for experiencing online “polar scenes” or feeling “virtual cold.”
Meanwhile, in the decade since, Brits, Americans, and the rest of the world have gotten to experience actual polar scenes and feel real cold in spades.
Eight [4] of the past 10 winters have seen above-average snowfall and below-normal temperatures across North America, Europe, and Asia, not counting the cold spell of December 2010.
The entire Eastern seaboard of the U.S., most of the Midwest, and much of the South were recently rocked with a series of paralyzing storms that stranded [5] Christmas travelers, crippled [6] airlines, stalled [7] vehicles, collapsed [8] sporting complexes, cleared [9] Times Square, shut down [10] New York City’s mass transit system, halted [9] Amtrak service, destroyed [11] marine life in the Carolinas, and cryogenically froze [12] a functioning lighthouse on Lake Michigan.
The British Transport Secretary recently sought [13] the advice of the UK’s top science advisor regarding whether, in light of the massive snowfall that shut down Heathrow and other major European airports last week, extra levels of preparation and spending should be budgeted in future years for harsher winters.
Just as it was becoming clear that snow was not on the verge of extinction, global warming fanatics began to air the theory that climate warming actually predicted increased snow, because warm air “holds” more precipitation. (The same could be said for liberals’ attempts to fool the public: the more hot air they spew, the more likely they are to wallop us with a snow job.)
Note that this cockamamie [14] notion that increased snow results from global warming was conveniently produced after the harsh, snow-drenched winters of the past few years, not before—and certainly not back in 2000.
Global warming alarmists laugh at skeptics who point out that temperatures have not increased over the past 10 years, but rather have decreased. Though there has been no measurable global warming since 1998, Al Gore worshippers insist that trends of a few years prove nothing, and that temporary ups and downs are to be expected when addressing a phenomenon that can be measured only over decades or centuries.
This is not, of course, what the alarmists were saying in the 1990s, when they cited every melted popsicle and bare midriff as incontrovertible proof that the globe was dissolving.
So we now know that global warming can eliminate snow (pace The Independent), but can also produce more snow and gargantuan, historic blizzards. Global warming can lead to slightly above-average temperatures (as in the 1990s), but can also result in a 12-year decline in global temperature, cold and miserable springs, and brutal winters. (See The New York Times’ recent op-ed “Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming,” in which the author explains [4] that “the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes.”)
Global warmists are quick to give birth to a litter of ad hoc explanations about why “warming” has led to cooling. But if the past 10 winters had been unusually warm and snow-free, the warmists inarguably would have cited that data as iron-clad proof of their prognostications.
Alarmists pull after-the-fact hypotheses out of thin air [15] to compensate for their failed forecasts, but their routine is getting old.
Manmade global warming is, given our current state of scientific knowledge, and the way the majority of the world’s climate centers and media outlets treat the evidence, an unfalsifiable theory.
In liberals’ view, the only outcome global warming can’t [16] lead to is mankind being let off the hook from the charge of destroying our natural habitat through the sin of industrial civilization.
