Offset

I don't think global warming or climate change or whatever they're calling it lately is a big deal. But I do wonder if perhaps the seasons have shifted a bit in the last few years.

It's been cold and clammy around here lately, and we're well into May. Maybe it's me, but back when I was a teenager May sure seemed warmer. I feel as though the cold is hanging around several weeks longer than it once did.

Warm weather hangs around until well into November, if you count highs near 60. But that does feel warm for that month, and even recent Decembers appear to have had their share of relative balminess.

So, has the climate changed? Sure. It's just offset itself about a month.

Worst Ever? Nowhere Near

I'm not saying it wasn't bad. I know it was bad; lives were lost and tremendous damage done. But it was not apocalyptic, as we were being told beforehand. Hurricane Milton offers a prime example of why we should see the media and heed the climate prognosticators with watchful eyes and skeptical minds.

Milton was supposed to be off the charts, a generational storm of epic proportions, a spawn of human caused climate change, misery beyond conception, one up at the very limit of meteorological possibility. And then it wasn't, 48 hours later. Bad? Again, yes. An unmitigated disaster of unimaginable proportions? Um, no. Not anywhere near.

This is why I don't believe the media, the weather forecasters, the government, or any of the gloom and doomers. This is the attitude which brought us the draconian COVID lockdowns. These people thrive on our fear. We need to grow a spine and tell them where to get off. 

 

Another Weather Rant

You are all probably sick of my complaining about climate change and the weather. Well, click off this page or buckle your seat belt, because I'm about to do it again.

Being an old guy I'm also a weather wonk. That means that all this past week I kept tabs on the forecast, which assured me Detroit would have a little to no snow accumulation yesterday, Friday March 22. This prediction was still on about 12 hours before Friday dawned.

So imagine my surprise (not) when I found our cars covered in white in the early morning, and around a half inch of snow on the grass and sidewalks. This snow continued until just before Noon, and was heavy at times. I'm guessing we had a couple inches total, maybe three. This, again, after being told to expect no accumulation a half day earlier.

For the umpteenth time, this is why I do not and will not believe the climate change fanatics. You can't give me an accurate snowfall total the day before Friday but we're all doomed in 80 years. 

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Tell me one more time (because I didn't hear it the first two dozen times) that weather is only part of climate. Well, it's clearly the biggest part of it. If you can't get a forecast right in the near term I'm within reason to not trust your prognostications on the distant future. It's convenient too that your predictions are so far beyond your own expiration date that you ain't gonna be around to pay the piper.

But your kids and grandkids will. Rant over. For today.

Green February

This has been an abnormally warm Michigan winter so far, something which doesn't bother me at all. It's supposed to be 62 in Detroit today. Still, I understand the affect that might have on things like, oh, nature. How good or bad that is is surely a subject of debate.

I had a long day on the road yesterday, leaving at 1 AM and getting home a touch before 6 PM. In fact, I was in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, stopping by me Hessel haunt for a few minutes as I was too close not to. There's next to no snow; my driveway was as clear as in June. Even the inside of the house wasn't particularly cold. 

There were signs for a 'Snowfest' today through Sunday, but I can't see where there'll be must festing.

I'm certain the snowmobilers haven't had much to do. I could see ice fishermen out on the lake despite there being standing water along the shore. I assume they know what they're doing but it didn't seem safe to me. They were way out there: a half mile or better if I were to hazard a guess.

Driving home during the day, I saw many farmer's fields in the northern and central Lower Peninsula going green already. The sight was odd, especially as there were occasional snowbanks in the shade. I do wonder what effect that has on their planning. But I'm not enough of a farmer to know.

Ah well. It is what it is.

To Everything

I am not a believer in climate change in the sense where it's an impending catastastroke, to use one of me Grandpa Joe's coined terms. But I do believe the climate changes over time. Greenland had a growing season a thousand years ago; that's part of how and why the Norse were able to settle there, at least for a while. The glaciers covered Texas a few thousand years before that. The climate changes. I'm not sure we can do much about that or how much we even actually affect it. Nature, too, is resilient. She'll fight back and win her share of battles.

So in that light, I do wonder if the seasons are slowly shifting. My furnace kicked on this morning and I had to layer in order to be warm for my morning walk today. It's May 17th, if you hadn't noticed. We're nearly two months into Spring here in Michigan. It seems rather late for such necessities.

I don't recall May being so cold so late when I was in my teens, yet the last several have been chilly. The leaves have been slow to show up on the trees and the flowers aren't blooming. I only just mowed the lawn for the first time last Saturday; the grass just wasn't growing. Conversely, October and November seem to me to stay warmer later than way back then too. As such, I can't help wonder if the seasonal calendar is becoming off a bit. It's something I'm merely curious about, because even if it's true I see no need to worry. It's just how the climate has gone about its business for all of history.

Detroit Snowmaggedon 2022

I wasn't going to say anything. I weren't. I was jes' gonna let it drop. But sometimes, y'know, a feller cain't help hisself.

Last week on February 2 were were supposed to have a blizzard for the generations here in the D. Accuweather was calling for 1 to 2 feet of snow as late as the wee hours of that Wednesday morning. And what did we get?

Not two foot of snow, that's fer sure. Not even one foot so far as I could tell.

According to Click On Detroit from Detroit's Channel 4, no one anywhere near Detroit had anything like a foot of powder. Most of the City and suburbs were between 3 and 6 inches. You have to go to Flint, hardly in the Detroit area, to even sniff at a foot of accumulation. where there was an 11 inch snowfall. Yet all the way up until the morning of Wednesday, February 2, we were supposed to be absolutely slammed.

I say again, for the umpteenth time, and so much so that even I'm becoming sick of it, this is another reason why I don't automatically trust 'experts'. It is why I cannot trust science because it's science or government because it's government (for from where did most weather projections come from but The scientfic-governmental complex?). They can't tell me, within scant hours of the snow arriving, how much to expect. But that Miami will be underwater in 2100 due to bizarre weather or climate change or global warming or whatever the damn concept is labeled these days is to be taken as an absolute fact.

I don't believe you. Until you can be closer to the truth closer to home, I cannot believe you. You can't tell me what to expect in modern times, when the event is right around the corner. Don't tell me you are certain of things 78 years off. That's not being a scientist. But it might be a charlatan.

Talk About the Weather

I've decried this before. I certainly will again. But this morning offers yet another example of the primary reason I cannot give credence to the climate change fears which someone's bizarre science insists we accept.

Ten days ago we were not forecast to have significant snow overnight January 1 - 2. Then about three days ago the weather boys and girls said to expect 1 to 3 inches...which became 3 to 6 inches by Saturday morning (which was being revised down to 2-4 inches around Midnight). Any way you slice it, I will soon be shovelling the not that long ago unexpected snow, and then cleaning off the cars. Bear in mind too that I haven't even mentioned the temperature anomalies among the ever changing forecasts during this same time period.

They can't predict the weather a week and a half or two weeks ahead of time, but the Earth is ten years from irreparable doom.

I. Don't. Believe. It.

Postscript: where I am, we actually got about an inch. More fuel to the fire so far as my position.

Be Careful Jumping to Conclusions

Chuck Gaidica was a local weatherman in Detroit for years. I always liked him; he seemed sincere and honest about forecasting. One thing I recall him saying in an interview about ten years ago was that after 5 to 7 days, all bets were off about the weather. We simply couldn't know with any certainty what would happen after that. 

That sounds about right to me. Generally, the forecasters can't go very far into the future, and we've all known times where they were wrong about the next 24 hours, let alone next week. Even with science, we can't predict the future, especially the far future, with any reliability. And that's one of the main reasons I'm skeptical of the value, and the inherent fear involved, with issues of climate change.

We don't know how much snow we're going to get next Monday but we know Miami will be underwater in the year 2100. Bah and humbug. Yes, we might be able to take decent guesses about the coming days, weeks, or even months. But knowing for sure, with anywhere near complete accuracy? Color me skeptical. Especially considering that so many models, so much 'science' is based on mere human thought and action. It is after all human beings making up the various catastrophic scenarios for our future based on the data they feed into the algorithm they have chosen and developed. Human thought being human thought, that means guesswork will enter in the equation. Bias will too, even if unintentional. I can't help wonder how many scientists (many of whom are directly or indirectly paid by a government somewhere) are actually superimposing their belief on the endeavor. And I haven't even addressed the issue of presumption: they claim that simply because one thing has happened one way it will continue to act in exactly that way into eternity. That's an assertion fraught with peril, particularly when you're asking for trillions of dollars which will keep you, erstwhile scientist, in the driver's seat about my life, and the lives of millions of others, born and yet to be born.

I'm not saying that future climactic catastrophe isn't in the cards. But knowing that nature is resilient and men fallible, I simply don't believe the crisis all that foreboding.

Systemic Government

Simply to cut to the chase on this issue, I'm not half so worried about climate change as I am what ours and many other governments might do under its banner. I know that a bright red flag is being waived; we gotta do something now!

The hell we do, quite frankly, especially in light of the fact that virtually everything which comes out of the government and the media are crises. This has nearly always been the case: globalcoolingwarmingclimate panics have been around for decades now. And this is only one example. The entire COVID debacle is another: a crisis was created and then spectacularly mishandled. We're supposed to trust government after that?

Why should we believe for a New York minute that a government (and, I stress, a media) which causes so many problems will magically be the solution this time around? It's hubris, friends, a supreme and self inflating arrogance to think as much. I mean, if we are to believe (I do not, but for the sake of argument) in such a thing as systemic racism, from whence does it come? Government, plain and simple. So the supposed system which oppresses you currently (again, only for argument sake) will not oppress you further if given tyrannically greater power? 

The argument answers itself. But will it, can it in some quarters, be heard?

Miami Atlantis

We had six inches of snow yesterday here in Detroit, Michigan. If you can believe the weatherman. And I quite frankly have trouble believing him.

Last week at this time we weren't expecting any snow for November 11. Then it became about an inch, then one to three, then three to five, and four to six before finally, supposedly, getting six. This pattern seems to me to occur routinely. In the summer it involves rain and higher temperatures, but you get the point.

These are the things I think of when I hear all the fear and loathing about climate change. Miami is going to be under water in the year 2100, but you can't tell me Detroit will have a half foot of snow a week in advance. All of this with no consideration of whether we might be better off with Miami underwater, either.

Poor jokes aside, if you want me to believe what you say about climate change in the long run you'll need to improve on your ability to predict climate change in the short. Until then, call me skeptical - highly skeptical - that I can rely on your opinion that Miami will be the next Atlantis.

Joshua and Greta

Joshua Chamberlain was a somewhat unheralded Civil War hero. In command of the 20th Maine at Little Round Top, the hill at the southern end of the Union line on the second day of battle at Gettysburg, he was told that he must hold his ground at all costs.

Then he ran out of ammunition right as the Confederates were mounting an attack.

He ordered his men to fix bayonets: it was all he had. The thought of  a downhill bayonet charge was unheard of at that point in the hostilities, if not in all of military tactics. Yet it shocked and surprised the Rebels so completely that the assault failed. The Union line held, saving Gettysburg and arguably the entire War for the Federals.

We might look no farther than his upbringing to see why a man would do such a thing. At age 16 while working sunup til sundown on the family farm, an oxcart loaded with about 400 pounds of hay got stuck between trees. "Get it unstuck!" his father commanded him.

"How?" the incredulous teenager demanded.

"Do it, that's how!" his father barked back. The young man put his shoulder into first one wheel then the other, the spent oxen little help. Back and forth he went until, by the power of his own will, the cart was freed.

Contrast this with sixteen year old Greta. She's from Sweden. Raised without any real cares, especially the care of subsistence farming or actually saving a country let alone an entire world, egged on by adults with a political agenda rather than the personal one of raising a child, her every need attended to, brought across an ocean in relative luxury upon a boat, all to yell at adults that they'd ruined her life. Imagine; how many teenagers would have done that without prompting, let alone without guidance and encouragement. Many of us have dealt with it I'm sure. But Greta, well, she's going to save the world. She's been told so.

I don't know about you, but if had to put my hopes for the future in a young Joshua or young Greta, well, my faith is with Josh.

Bipolar weather

We had an odd weather day yesterday. My granddaughter described it as bipolar; it was an apt description.

Sunny and October comfortable one minute, high winds, thunder, lightning, and sleet the next. Rinse and repeat, all day long. But her best observation, my granddaughter's, that is, was that the temperature dropped so fast it must have seen a state trooper.

Good line.

Global Climate Nuclear what?

Last Friday, May 29, 2015, the Detroit metro area was told to expect torrential rains on the following Sunday, May 31.

On Saturday afternoon May 30, Detroiters were told to expect one to three inches of rain on Sunday.

Early on Sunday morning the weather forecast cast called for a lot of rain starting around Noon, to the tune of 'about an inch'.

By 10 AM, the dire warning had been downgraded to one half an inch. By Noon, we were told to expect a quarter inch of rainfall that day.

But hardly 24 hours before that, Detroit was said to look for several inches of rain. With all the bright new weather technology, how could the forecast change so dramatically in not quite two days? And this is not the first time that the weather casters have been so far off in so short of a time, as the many people who follow weather issues can surely attest. And then - you knew this was coming, we're equally sure - what does this say about the global warming question? How can we trust the predications of those claiming that the weather will change so profoundly over the next, oh, 50 to 100 years if we can't get reliable forecasts for the next two days?

We're not talking here about a subtle change. We're talking about a change of several inches of precipitation within a short time. Yet were's supposed to believe in catastrophic changes to play out over decades.

Call us simplistic, but it is precisely these mistakes, likely enough honestly made under changing conditions, which cause us to question the whole idea of widespread and horrific global warming, climate change, nuclear winter, or whatever it is the doomsayers of today insist will happen in the relatively far off future. Pshaw, we say, to their chicken little clucking.

Things Change, and It's Scary

We ask you, what is not to love about the global warming (we're so sorry, climate change) partisans and their most astute allies in the media? Nuclear winters, ozone depletion, and frets about, yes, global warming, simply zoom right onto the sweet spots of their bats. It's a hit every time!

Now those weather experts who swing at every pitch are saying - just sayin', ya know - that a recent lull in solar activity might mean we're heading into a Little Ice Age. Just ask the folks at Huffpost Science: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/solar-lull-little-ice-age-sun-scientists_n_4645248.html?utm_hp_ref=science#305888150icid=maing-grid7main5dl10sec1_lnk2pLid=434634

erhaps that article ought to be filed under, if you'll pardon a somewhat obscure reference to comedian (and accordionist, which shows Weird Al isn't alone) Judy Tenuta, "Shut up! It could happen." Because this stuff happens all the time: both the media and the scare mongers of climate warming or global change or whomever latch onto a naturally occurring phenomenon in nature and run head on into full Chicken Little mode.

This and things similar are designed to grab headlines and get people to look. Yes, we fully realize this means that it made us look too. But if your definition of success is to attract those who'll ridicule you and your point, well, wow. You're not aiming very high.

What do the liberals say so much, when they're trying to get us to alter our conservative ways and attitudes? Oh yes; things change. Yet it seems that things change in science too. Then they change back, in a somewhat natural and predictable rhythm as well.

No wonder science confuses the left. They're busy marching forward so blindly and so certainly that they don't have the time to see the clarity of scientific truth. It's a wonder they see anything at all.

Detroit Illustrates Global Warming fears Unjustified

Yesterday, Metro Detroit was hit by a series of showers and thundershowers. None were severe, and there was no damage other than a bit of localized and minor flooding. It was not a particularly newsworthy event. Detroit experienced little more than a normal late summer day, except for one thing.

There wasn't supposed to be thundershowers. It was supposed to be a pleasant, sunny day. At least, that was the forecast as of Sunday, a mere 48 hours earlier.

That still does not qualify as as news. Or does it? Seen against the bigger picture, it may well be of note. When the specter of global warming is considered, where we are expected to believe in things which will not be for 50 to 100 years, or well into the future (Orwell?), there is something to give one thought. Seeing as weather predictions are based on computer models and that global warming forecasts are based on such things too, how can we trust the cry of global warming? If our presumed experts can't get a 48 hour weather projection right, how can we trust them to be correct over things they assure us will happen over an entire century?

To be sure, we'll be told that anomalies will occur. Certainly an anomaly of some sort happened between this past Sunday and yesterday afternoon's inclement weather which changed things significantly. Things do happen; no one disputes that. Yet it really only adds to the trouble. If what surely were minor glitches happened which changed our predicted weather in just two days so considerably, how many glitches might happen over one hundred years which would alter the likelihood of global warming as currently predicted? Indeed, how can we trust that science can accurately predict what will happen over the whole world over many decades when it can't necessarily predict what will happen in one small part of that same world over two days?

To be fair, our weather forecasts are generally accurate. They call for a series of sunny and warm days now in Detroit, and we will almost surely get them. Still, it seems that the inaccuracy of yesterday's forecast ought to be a serving of humble pie, not merely for our local weathercasters, but for their friends higher up the scientific food chain as well. If we can't be right in the short term when being right ought to be relatively easy, we must then predict the far future with greater reserve, a and quiet calm.

Rogue Canadians?

We would have never expected a day on which Canada would been snarled at on the world scene. But as our northern neighbours have rejected the Kyoto Protocols on climate change, well, one would then suppose that the environmentalist left would not take it gracefully.

Canada has been regarded as an 'international climate scofflaw' and is now an 'insignificant' player over climate change. Thus speaketh one Alden Meyer of an allegedly scientific group, bemoaning Canada's rejection of Kyoto.

The first question which comes to mind is, if Canada is all that you say, Mr. Meyer, why is its reversal on Kyoto an issue? It would seem that criticism is not relevant if Canadian actions so unimportant. Still, Meyer further disparaged Canada's action by saying it is an aberration, implying that the international fight against global warming (for that's what it's really about anyway; climate change is merely a sanitized call as its advocates try to sound less shrill) is advancing just fine.

Perhaps that point will help us to understand the true issue at hand. In speaking as a demagogue, Meyer might be actually be demonstrating his fear over the question. He may fear, the whole radical environmentalist left indeed may secretly be panicking, that it is not an aberration. What Canada has done in pulling out of the Kyoto agreements may in truth signal that the world is slowing awakening to the idea that global warming and climate change, outside of natural rhythms in our weather, is a non-issue.

If that is the case, then we commend Canada for the move. It would then strike us as Canadian world leadership rather than any shirking of responsibility. To be sure, there may be political issues within that country which have powered Ottawa to alter its stance. We are not expert enough on Canadian politics to address that point. But as climate change questions are ultimately political anyways, we are not concerned over what exactly led to Canada's decision.

We must look with skepticism upon any call for any worldwide laws and ordinances on any issue. Especially when it comes to any given nation handing over some its powers to anyone else. Particularly when the evidence is scant (there is no radical climate change happening, folks) a calm ear needs to hear questions on the issue and a calm mind consider them. Anytime someone says that something must be done NOW, as the rabid environmentalists do, we cannot take their position seriously. If as such Canada has gone rogue, she deserves nothing but praise.

Earth Hour

The lights went out in Georgia, and in many other paces too yesterday. Lights were extinguished for the sake of Earth Hour, to emphacize the supposed threat of global climate change.

I can feel the difference already. No, really, I can. The arrogance level has risen dramatically among the intelligentsia who know so much more than we do.

I agree that we ought to turn out lights, and anything else which uses energy for that matter, when they are not in use. That's simply common sense in saving yourself money and your appliances wear and tear. But to make it a worldwide crusade, especially for such a suspect notion as climate change, is grandstanding and effrontery. It's an insult to our intelligence and should be treated that way.

Have you noticed by the way how the catchphrase has changed from 'global warming' to 'climate change'? From something specific to something general? Why would they do that?

I suggest it is to give the purveyors of such nonsense greater leeway. The less they have to define precisely the more loosey goosey they can be with the facts. They can more easily hide their agenda when they cannot be pinned down. To go from a specific problem to a widespread and pervasive trauma makes the scare tactics so much more effective. It's not merely temperatures but the entire climate at stake. Don't you realize what that means?

I sure do, It means I have to watch you more closely.