Scott's DiaTribes » climate change

An observation of mine on the weather/climate change

Scott Tribe — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 21:42:19 +0000

When a cold snap or a blizzard hits the US deep South, those people who are climate change skeptics are quick to denounce “global warming” or “climate change” as being fake, or hooey, or so on.

I’ve not heard that same claim however over the worst heat wave to grip North American in well over 2o years. There’s either a lot of silence out there, or they NOW embrace the idea that it’s a “random weather event”.

That’s called trying to have the climate change argument both ways.

Evidence of climate change

Scott Tribe — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:29:02 +0000

Apologies for the extended absence, but there was a death in the family which absorbed my time for the middle and end of last week.. family comes before blogging.

Anyhow, to start off the new (and short) work week, I caught an article from Dr Jeff Masters over at The Weather Underground. In this article, he comments that since 2010, things seems to have gotten very extreme, weather-wise:

Every year extraordinary weather events rock the Earth. Records that have stood centuries are broken. Great floods, droughts, and storms affect millions of people, and truly exceptional weather events unprecedented in human history may occur. But the wild roller-coaster ride of [...]

A lack of consistency in arguments

Scott Tribe — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:14:35 +0000

The Atlantic Coast gets hit by record snowfall, and immediately the climate change skeptics come out of the woodwork. “This proves climate change and global warming is a hoax!” they scream. Presently at the Olympics, Vancouver’s interior inland is expected to hit 16 Celsius today – temperatures they don’t normally get to June. Snow or lack thereof has been a problem at Cypress Mountain for a month and a half prior to the Games even starting. I’ve also read it’s the warmest February in the Vancouver/Lower mainland area in almost 100 years.

I’m not seeing those same sceptics turning around and saying, “hmm, maybe global warming IS real!”, because [...]

Well, Harper’s being consistent here anyhow

Scott Tribe — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:55:30 +0000

Harper decided not to bother speaking at the Copenhagen Environmental Summit; he decided to send Environment Minister Jim Prentice instead to make Canada’s speech:

Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and Jim Prentice? While other world leaders have taken to the podium this week to address delegates at the Copenhagen climate talks, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is sending his environment minister in his place.

Harper has other plans – he will join other leaders at a dinner hosted by the Queen of Denmark

Nice to see Harper is trying to groom Jim Prentice to the world stage.

One thing you can say though – Harper [...]

Canadian Olympics athletes urge Harper to support climate change agreement

Scott Tribe — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:06:52 +0000

This is called knowing when to effectively use your time in the spotlight to highlight important issues, such as climate change:

Canada’s Winter Olympic athletes are calling on the prime minister to support an agreement on cutting greenhouse gases at the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen. Former Olympic skier Thomas Grandi delivered a letter, signed by 20 athletes including Olympic gold medallists Jennifer Heil, Hayley Wickenheiser and Beckie Scott, to Stephen Harper’s constituency office in Calgary on Wednesday. The athletes want Harper to help in the reaching of an agreement on reducing emissions at the summit of international leaders.

Well played, but don’t be surprised if the [...]

Get Colby Cosh onto this right away..

Scott Tribe — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:57:27 +0000

This prelude to a climate change article in the NY Times by the Washington Monthly is an appropriate segue to my title, which I’ll explain in a bit:

Some of the lazier lawmakers and activists on the far-right not only reject all of the science on climate change, but in light of the CRU emails, have also decided that evidence itself is no longer worth considering. Reality, meanwhile, is indifferent to the demands of indolent ideologues.

And here’s the article that’s being referred to by the Monthly:

Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year, which fueled claims of global cooling, a sustained global warming trend shows no [...]

A short climate/weather observation

Scott Tribe — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:58:29 +0000

No measurable snow fell in Toronto today; this is the first time in 162 years, according to the Toronto meteorologists, that no measurable snowfall fell in the city of Toronto (during the entire month of November) . With isolated exceptions, that is pretty much also the case for the rest of Southern/Southwestern Ontario. If the opposite scenario had happened - where the province/city of Toronto had the most snow in November in 162 years - you can bet the skeptics of climate change would be all over the place having a field day in the media about how global warming/climate change wasn’t real; this was proof etc.

Now, I’m [...]

In other news, Colby Cosh is back.

Scott Tribe — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:58:02 +0000

More on the Afghanistan inquiry soon, but in case you missed it, Colby “I think global warming is overblown” Cosh, recently let go by the departed from the National Post, has found employment at Macleans. You can guess what he’s writing about – he’s picked up where he left off by spewing the same nonsense on climate change that he was spewing at the NP.

It’s no surprise he’d try to claim that all these hacked emails somehow discredit global warming and climate change, but as other more credible people on this file show, they clearly don’t do that. Colby is just blowing hot air here.

UPDATE – 12:03 [...]

Video: ‘Harper chooses donuts over planet’

Scott Tribe — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:03:07 +0000

This was being passed around late yesterday from an environmental group, and it’s humourous and appalling at the same time, showing Stephen Harper being a “no-show” at the UN (to quote Bob Fife).

Harper goes on his latest Arctic PR tour to show he’s really serious about arctic sovereignty.

Scott Tribe — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:21:13 +0000

Your latest attempt by Harper to show how “tough” he and the Conservatives are on the Arctic:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will arrive in Iqaluit on Monday as part of an Arctic trip that will include observing an anti-submarine warfare exercise. The prime minister will board the frigate HMCS Toronto on Wednesday to observe Operation Nanook, a military exercise intended to help demonstrate Canada’s sovereignty in the eastern Arctic near Baffin Island where Russian and American subs have long prowled.

Hopefully, the military folks will point out the distinct lack of ice and icebergs in the area caused by climate change (where Arctic ocean ice is melting toward another [...]