For the laugh of the week, we visit Juan Cole (no relation):
For all those on the U.S. East Coast inconvenienced or endangered by the hurricane season, you should be aware that George W. Bush’s gutting of the Kyoto Protocol and his opposition to practical measures to stop global warming have the potential to cause mega-hurricanes in the future. Hurricanes are caused by warm ocean water. The warmer the water, and the less cool water in surrounding areas, the worse the hurricane. Global warming makes the Atlantic and the Carribean warmer, and far more dangerous in the late summer. Bush’s promotion of global warming may help provoke enormous, furious hurricanes that denude Carribean islands and endanger the lives and property of most Floridians in particular.
When you stop laughing, begin to worry. This was not an Onion piece. Does this mean the DNC should be actively rooting for hurricanes to strike the east coast next year, so they can unleash a ‘storm’ of negative commercials about Bush and the environment?
(via Jarvis)
Robin Roberts
What a loon.
dwight meredith
The language is way overheated but the underlying point that global warming will result in bigger, more destructive hurricanes is exactly right.
David Perron
“…have the potential…”
Heh. You know, a butterfly in Beijing has that potential, too. Still, this is one of those cases where a highly arguable premise is presented as a forgone conclusion. The boy ought to take a few courses in logic.
And he completely ignores the fact that the U.S. is a net CO2 sink. And that few others was in a hurry to slit their own throat by conforming to Kyoto. And that all we do with Kyoto is slow the warming trend down by a few years, not reduce it.
mark
Sad thing is – he is a professor at the University of Michigan…
John Cole
Dwight- Maybe it didn’t show up on your computer, but if you make the text a little larger, the words that sent me over the top are bolded.
Words like ‘promoting,’ etc.
Robin Roberts
The belief that global warming will result in more destructive storms is speculation without serious scientific support. Even the IPCC had to admit that.
Kimmitt
The ongoing problem with Global Warming is that by the time we are pretty sure it is happening, we’ll be dealing with insanely enormous consequences.
David Perron
Conversely, by the time we have some inkling it isn’t happening, we’ll all have hobbled our economies clear back to the stone age.
Curious that we’re at cross purposes regarding burden of proof, Kimmitt. It’s incumbent on the GW crowd to PROVE it’s got a significant manmade component, just as it’s incumbent on the supply-siders to prove it’s a valid theory. It appears the burden of proof is too much for both sides, though.
Kimmitt
I wasn’t saying either way, actually. It’s a real problem; either we have to spend a jillion dollars to massively alter our way of life, or we don’t, and both options seem essentially defensible at this time. We are fairly clear that CO2 levels are enormous, from a historical perspective. We are also fairly clear that we have enjoyed significant global warming from 1800 or on so. What we have no good conclusions about is if the two are causally related and if we can look forward to further warming.
Emperor Misha I
So who’s surprised?
Hurricane strikes the U.S., Loony Moonbats blame Bush.
No wonder they’re scared of that mysterious, all-powerful being in the White House. If I were crazy enough to believe the things they believe, I’d be scared too.
David Perron
Oh, I nearly forgot to point out that Kyoto was preemptively nixed by the Senate before Bush was even a glimmer in Florida’s eye. Gosh, it must suck to be wrong in so many linearly independent ways.