What is happening in the World of Climate Change? 🏒🌎🌤️⛅️🌥️🌦️☁️🌧️⛈️🌩️❄️🌨️🌬️🌪️🌀🌊🌡️

The computer models aren't always that pretty or useful but climate change science marches on

 (Caution: This is just a satirical climate simulation, above--DO NOT try this at home)

Mark Steyn On Line: Michael E. Mann Case and Dr. Tim Ball Wins

I don't dispute that climate change is happening (the climate is always changing). I just am highly skeptical of governments throwing trillions of dollars at an issue like this, when there are far more important things that money could be spent on. I agree with Bjørn Lomborg that truth seems like the first casualty of global warming.  

Instapundit: Goose eggs on dire predictions and Half of Britons and most Europeans are climate skeptics

Mark Steyn: Michael E Mann, Loser, Liar, and Scoff Law

Fox News: Decades of Dire Predictions Don't Deliver

Powerline: The Climate Circus Comes To Town

AoSHQ: Morning Report 09.19.19.

Personally I do not know whether the earth is warming or cooling over a given time span. Climate has changed and will keep changing and science should keep studying it. The issue is whether governments have a model accurate enough to attempt to control it.

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) September 19, 2019

Do not believe ANYTHING @MichaelEMann says. He is a proven liar. #ClimateChangeHoax https://t.co/mmKKrBs04p pic.twitter.com/ehuGHIBZOs

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) September 19, 2019

Tilikum the Orca RIP

Hot Air: Jazz Shaw is mostly right about this...

I only disagree with Jazz Shaw on any large animals being kept in zoos or maintained game park facilities.  Some like rhinoceros, tiger subspecies, and other highly en-dangered mega fauna will go extinct without man's assistance. It is a case by case thing, with preserving habitat and using zoo animals to raise awareness. I concur they should be kept in enclosures that are large and varied enough so they don't become psychotic. Good conservation is also compatible with pro economic growth.  

And while many hate circuses, there is a also case to be made that animals that are kept in captivity need to be given something to do. I am not talking about places like SeaWorld or this particular zoo, but keeping animals engaged helps maintain their mental health.   

I especially hate all the money wasted on climate change/global warming. The emphasis should be on habitat preservation and stopping illegal hunting.  Unlike terrestrial species, Orcas have plenty of habitat (like 70% of the planet, although they tend to be in cooler waters) but they need to be protected from over fishing (leaving them no food to eat), boat traffic, and pollution. I am also opposed to whaling, other than tribal peoples doing it traditionally. Because of the nature of the oceans, some regulations and treaties are probably justified (that is not a call for big government, just recognizing the need for some government).  

Keeping orcas in small enclosures is inhumane. Which is why Tilikum turned into a psychotic killer. Best to let this zoological experiment die out.

EBL: Remember when this ORCA died?

Punching Back Twice As Hard: Mark Steyn against Michael Mann on Climate Change and Mann's "hockey stick"

Mark Steyn fights back using facts and peer review criticism of Michael Mann!

Go buy his book, he will even sign it for you

Mark Steyn: What a Piece of Work on Mann and A Disgrace To The Profession and Buy Steyn's book to stick it to Steyn (confused, perhaps, but why argue with Mann supporters' logic)

Mann, that will leave a mark!

Instapundit: Punching Back Twice As Hard

EBL: How did the EPA managed to dump millions of gallons of toxic waste into a Colorado river This is Barack Obama's "you've been dong a heck of a job" moment to his EPA head Gina McCarthy. It's not a climate change story, but it is a good example of how the government often makes problems worse (and is rarely held accountable for it).

Since we are talking global warming and climate change, Ace also had this on Carly Fiorina response to Katy Couric on climate change and coal. I agree with Chicks on the Right, I like Fiorina's answer (a lot). Merely going to the media with "your wrong" is like using that approach with your spouse that (only worse). Primacy has locked people's thinking in on global warming and climate change. You will not sway them with that approach. Taking their arguments apart point by point is more persuasive (I really like her pivoting on jobs, regulation, China and turbines chopping up eagles).

I also do not think it is capitulation to acknowledge mankind's actions may have some impact on the environment.  Those wind turbines Carly Florina mentions, for example, have an impact on raptors and bats flying by. Barack Obama's EPA is having a heck of a negative impact on a Colorado river. Heck, even humble cow flatulence can allegedly play a roll with the climate (I swear it wasn't me)!

@AceofSpadesHQ Michael Crichton (RIP) and Bjørn Lomborg both acknowledged man made CO2 impact and both pointed out impacts were minimal.

— Evi L. Bloggerlady (@MsEBL) August 13, 2015

The left went after Michael Crichton and Bjørn Lomborg too. For all the ranting and ravings by scientist about the Catholic Church 500 years ago, the scientific orthodoxy on climate change today is arguably even more rigid (of course that it has become a #1.5 trillion dollar industry with 15% growth rate is part of the problem).  A lot of people have a lot to lose if the apple cart gets over turned.

Mark Steyn: An absolutely devastating summary and the big Finnish and when 'science journalists' attack

Is ocean acidification threatening oysters?

A Totten Inlet Virginica

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”  Ernest Hemmingway, A Movable Feast

I am a skeptic about man made Global Climate change (especially the Al Gore panic on the issue). I share the views of Bjorn Lomborg: I believe it is real (in that temperatures are going up) and I believe there is a man made component to CO2 increase in the atmosphere.  But I also know it is affected by a variety of other factors which are at a minimum just as important as the man made factor and some even more important (such as sun fluctuation).  To spend literally trillions of dollars to address this (which is what some are proposing) is not prudent or wise.

The ocean acidification issue, however, is a problem.  I do not know enough if the issue Taylor Shellfish is facing is truly man made climate change caused acidification or some other factor contributing to what is being experienced in Totten Inlet, but I know ocean acidification is a real issue:

Ocean acidification. The really, really short version is that as carbon dioxide levels increase in the atmosphere, a lot of this CO2 gets absorbed by the oceans, basically turning them into seltzer. CO2 makes water more acidic (just like your seltzer is slightly tarter than tapwater), and this acid eats away at the alkaline shells of shellfish. Not a big deal (yet) if you’re already full sized, but if you are a baby oyster, just growing your first microscopic shell, acidic water can make it impossible for you to do that. This is beginning to happen all over the world’s oceans, and it’s a huge, huge problem, possibly bigger than the problem of extra CO2 in the air. Here’s a good source for the long version. Anyway, the problem seems to be just beginning to hit the shellfish industry, and for whatever reason, the Totten Inlet Virginicas were the canaries in the coal mine. 

After suffering massive seed mortality for a couple of years, Taylor has gotten better at buffering the problem; two years in a row, their TIVs have made it all three years to market size, meaning (cue the trumpets) TIVs are back on the market! They can primarily be found around Seattle, Toronto, and New York; elsewhere, it’s spotty. Grab them–savor them–when you find them. You will have about two years; then, another gap, because the ocean acidification problem reared its head again with this year’s babies... 

I have had TIV and they are as good as people say they are.  

Bjørn Lomborg: Hurricane protections for NYC? Bloomberg needs to do some math...

Bjørn Lomborg takes on Mayor Bloomberg over his plan to save New York from future hurricanes. 

 

But we might as well face the reality that the so called climate change proponents are not serious.  Did Barack Obama raise climate change in the debates?  Are the Democrats seriously pushing it?  Of course not, Obama is hurt enough in fighting coal and fracking.  So if that is a bridge too far for Democrats, when will they ever seriously take on climate change.  They will not.  Because beyond creating some crony capital programs to benefit their supporters, they do not believe it.  

Even if you believe in man made climate change, it is hardly the most pressing environmental issue we are facing and spending multi trillions on it will actually hurt people and the environment (through the diversion of resources).  The biggest environmental issues are over fishing and habitat preservation (especially in the developing world), not climate change.  We could solve both those problems with a tiny fraction of the money climate change nannies want to spend.  

Hurricane Sandy was not due to climate change. Sea levels from the 1840s to the present have risen about 1 mm to 1.5 mm a year (depending where the measurements are taken).  Now that can add up over time, but we are talking less than a foot (about 255 mm) over 170 years.  Hurricane Sandy was due to back luck.  Hurricane Sandy (a large but relatively low level category 1 tropical cyclone) was made deadly by hitting at a higher than normal tide cycle and due to a combination of meteorological factors. 

But back to Hurricanes and New York City:  Lomborg takes on Bloomberg.