PrintMarch 3, 2009
NRO Writer Predicted Yesterday's DC 'Gore Effect' last December (updated)
It's hard not to crack a smile watching wild-eyed protesters carrying placards decrying the evils of planet-cooking coal in hands fighting the onset of frostbite. Of course, a March blizzard lends no more evidence that the planet is cooling than a May cyclone implied the antithesis. Be that as it may, the so called "Gore-Effect" has become so commonplace that when the "largest mass civil disobedience for the climate in U.S. history" was announced last December, Greg Pollowitz at NRO's Planet Gore actually predicted:
"Anyone want to bet on a snowstorm hitting D.C. on March 2, 2009?"
Talk about a nice call.
Turnout for yesterday's childish gate blockades at the Capital Coal Plant was seriously stifled by the potent mid-winter storm that blanketed the Northeast with snow, effectively shutting down much of the nation's capital. Writing from my home on Long Island, I can assure you -- this storm was the hairiest in many years.
Surely, such coincidences are of virtually no statistical significance. But then again - global warming alarm-a-thons and extreme winter weather recently go together like - well, trailer parks and tornadoes. And that's making the hysterical projections of the likes of Gore and Hansen sound all the more hysterical. And speaking of the latter, perhaps, on top of recent overall cooling trends, both observed and measured, the snickering might somehow be contributing to a certain high-profile alarmist's increasingly erratic behavior of late.
The man has equated coal-fired plants to death camps and coal-carrying trains to the inmate-transporting box-cars leading to them, and called for Nuremburg-style war-crime trials for oil company executives. Now, James Hansen has certainly jeopardized his top NASA position by suggesting citizens actually join him in breaking the law [video] at yesterday's silly "climate justice" assault on Capitol Hill's power source.
Luckily, alarmists aren't wise enough to hedge their bets by scheduling these warm-mongering events exclusively in the heat of summer. That would deny us the spectacle of their leader in melt-down inciting his frenzied followers in multi-layered outerwear.
And while climate realists appreciate the preposterousness of alarmists' sophomoric closed-mindedness each and every day of the year, those during which others join in the laughter provide hope that perhaps not all are so easily duped.
Update -- Rosslyn Smith writes:
Update -- Rosslyn Smith writes:
While heavy snowstorms in early March are pretty common this one was also trailed by some record setting cold air the media seems to be doing its best to ignore. It was below zero on my front porch this morning. That's unusual here anytime in January much less on March 3.
Curious, I checked online. Zero is well below the record for this day as shown on the daily climate record for my community at weather.com. Nothing about potentially record cold had been mentioned yesterday on the Weather Channel while I was listening. More curious still, I searched today's local and regional news for stories of record cold and found none. But when I checked the daily severe weather reports at wundergound.com I found that record low temps for the month of March were set across many parts of south central Appalachia in the aftermath of this storm. In Lynchburg Virginia the daily record was broken by more than 5 degrees. There were also unusually late season freeze warnings in effect overnight for parts of southern Georgia and Northern Florida where the average low temperatures are now supposed to be in the 40s. The growing season is already underway in these areas, so last night's freeze could mean significant economic loss to farmers and higher food prices.
Curious, I checked online. Zero is well below the record for this day as shown on the daily climate record for my community at weather.com. Nothing about potentially record cold had been mentioned yesterday on the Weather Channel while I was listening. More curious still, I searched today's local and regional news for stories of record cold and found none. But when I checked the daily severe weather reports at wundergound.com I found that record low temps for the month of March were set across many parts of south central Appalachia in the aftermath of this storm. In Lynchburg Virginia the daily record was broken by more than 5 degrees. There were also unusually late season freeze warnings in effect overnight for parts of southern Georgia and Northern Florida where the average low temperatures are now supposed to be in the 40s. The growing season is already underway in these areas, so last night's freeze could mean significant economic loss to farmers and higher food prices.
Is this another case of facts getting in the way of the media narrative? TV meteorologists in particular seemed to have bought into global warming for what I suspect might be career reasons. It is a story that gets them more time on camera.
