From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:
Yet, right smack in the middle of the article, Samenow finds it necessary to say this:
Although it may be tempting to question global warming when temperatures are so frigid, the abnormally cold weather over the eastern U.S. and parts of Canada is an anomaly compared to conditions over the rest of the world. Most locations are presently experiencing weather that is considerably warmer than normal.
It is also worth remembering the following: The three warmest years on record globally, since records began in the late 1800s, are 2014, 2015 and 2016.
2017 is expected to rank among the top five warmest years on record.
So far this year, warm weather records have outpaced cold by a factor of 3 in the United States.
Now, this may all be true. But why change the subject? Is the press so obsessed with the Left’s climate change agenda that they have to sneak it in even as 200 million Americans shiver in record cold?
It’s irrelevant and misleading. The facts cited are a statistical illusion, even if true. It sounds dramatic, right? The warmest years globally, measured as the average temperature, are all recent. More record highs than record lows. More areas globally experiencing above average temperatures. It sounds downright startling—or is at least intended to.
But think about it. The Earth, globally, has warmed by about one-two degrees Fahrenheit since about 1880. It stands to reason that the warmest years, on average, would have occurred toward the end of the 1880-2017 period. It stands to reason also that we’d get more record highs than record lows.
But keep in mind that the temperature differences are matters of fractions of a degree.
Oh, oh. We’ve been exposed!
Leave it to a Randroid to reveal “the Left’s climate change agenda”. I’m sure he meant the “Left’s climate change conspiracy”. How’d he find out about all those “liberal thermometers” anyway?
Is the press so obsessed with the Left’s climate change agenda that they have to sneak it in even as 200 million Americans shiver in record cold?
Yes, now is NOT the time to discuss climate change. Same with gun control. And Trump’s mental instability. Why do they always have to sneak that stuff in? That’s not what the Free Market wants.
Our Randroid scholar and science critic must surely know how “obsessed” the media are with climate change. Why, that damn liberal corporate media bring up climate change almost every two or three years! Hillary’s email was covered about a thousand times more often than climate change, but maybe that is merely a statistical illusion, even if true.
And of course, don’t be fooled, “The facts cited are a statistical illusion, even if true.”
I KNEW it! Facts cannot be trusted. All praise to our Objectivist Goddess!
Yeah, those vanishing glaciers, thawing permafrost, warming oceans, coral bleaching, rising sea levels, and northward migration of plants and animals are all statistical illusions, diabolically crafted by conspiring liberals lurking in universities, labs, the field, and other bastions of the dark world of statistical illusion.
Brrr. Gimme some more comforting alternative facts to warm my investment portfolio, and shatter the illusion of truth, please.