It's April 10, and splotches of ice and frost remain an eyesore, to me at least, on my property. They've been here continuously since February. Just when I think the snow and ice will disappear for good, along comes another snowfall. Supposedly, flakes will be falling again this week. The shady spots, even when the mercury climbs to sixty, harbor patches of squatting frost that not only are unwelcome on my property, but don't belong in Spring. Wrong place, wrong time. The depressing sight is enough to make one doubt global warming, or welcome its arrival.

MIT professor of meteorology Richard S. Lindzen doesn't reject the key tenets of the global-warming theory. He believes the Earth is getting warmer, and states that mankind probably has something to do with this trend. Nevertheless, Lindzen contends that some perspective is in order. His ideas are likely to offend his fellow believers in global warming. Deviations from orthodoxy within this religion for the irreligious are not treated with the tolerance and civility that one would expect from people who use the words "tolerance" and "civility" as spasmodically as Hank the Angry Dwarf used the words "f---" and "s---."

Climate change, Lindzen notes, is the norm. It's nothing to panic over. Far from catastrophic, Lindzen speculates that a warmer globe could be a better globe. "The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week," the professor observes. Indeed, it is a strange phenomenon in which people regularly and (sometimes) rightly doubt the local weatherman but blindly trust the divinations of activists regarding weather patterns for the next century. It's not just that environmentalists are often wrong, but that their certainty in their prognostications results in harmful consequences. On the quick-fixes for global warming, Lindzen holds, "The alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative problem."

I'm an agnostic on man-caused global warming. The more I'm told the debate is closed on this issue, the more I believe the question is open. Agnosticism makes one enlightened in the eyes of the "enlightened" when related to God. But skepticism over any tenet in the modern faith of environmentalism makes one a rube, a yahoo, a trodlodyte. Should I feel like a a rube, a yahoo, a trodlodyte for not exhibiting a millenialist's reaction to every storm, heat wave, and minor drought? Next time I'll pick and choose my agnosticism more carefully.

We live, increasingly, in a climate-controlled world. We eat, sleep, and work indoors, largely immune from the weather outside. The Earth has no air conditioner, no matter how much those accustomed to air conditioners wonder why it should not. There's a sun that emits solar flares, volcanoes that spew dust into the atmosphere, shifting plates that affect ocean currents, and other phenomena outside of man's control that affect the weather. Man likes to think he controls everything and can cure anything. He can't. The weather generally falls into the category of things man can't direct. Insurance companies still call hurricanes, earthquakes, and snow storms "acts of God," not "acts of man," right?

Some people just have to order, direct, and manage everything--even when they can't. These same people often wish to save the world. Environmentalism, at least in its aspirations to fight global warming, offers both of these salves--control and deliverance. That's a powerful combination. Mere evidence won't shake its grip.

To borrow an overused weather cliche, the silver lining in this cloud is that it is getting warmer. Every week for the next few months, the average temperature will rise a degree or so. Sometime in late August, the heat will seem unbearable. I'll long for the frost on my lawn. When that occurs, the thermometer will drop a degree or so every week for the succeeding few months. Then the pattern will repeat. The lesson? The weather changes. Get used to it.

This is possibly the most ignornt thing I've ever seen.

More later.

Great post Dan. Good job fleshing out the similarities between modern environmentalism and a false religion.

It's too bad there are so many "ignornts" in the world. If there were fewer of them all overheated in their rhetoric and irresponsible doomsday predictions - perhaps the world wouldn't be getting so hot.

Heathen, BLASPHEMER!!!

By the way...can the Prince buy a vowel?

That's saying something coming from you Hehe, I mean R.P, I mean HeHerman. Kind of ironic that you misspelled ignorant.

Dan, are you retaining RP to lend a hand in proving your point? He is worth every penny.

The climatologists who have not sold out to the media or the environmentalists could embellish your points very well. Politics beats science unrecognizable in order to make it its handmaiden.

Why do we need to come up with a solution when there is no real problem that can be proven beyond a scientific doubt? This debate isn’t about an alleged “Planetary Emergency”. It’s about a bunch of lefty elitists coming up with newer and more exciting ways of scaring the public into forking over money to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s also about a bunch of lefty elitists trying to convince us that, once again, America is the problem.

On its face, it’s amazing that many among us believe that we have such control over our environment and that we can actively change it. Talk about a superiority complex. There are so many things beyond our control and the planet has always taken care of itself. It has before and during our evolution and will when we’re extinct.

If there is an answer to a better environment, it's in knowledge and improved technologies that will help us to live better cleaner lives and in the process be kinder to our Planet. Not in thinking we can change weather patterns or that we have any sway over the power of the Sun.

Unless any among us can predict the future, activism might be our worst enemy. Years after the Exxon Valdez disaster areas where the feel good cleanup efforts took place came back, ecologically speaking, much slower (if at all) than the areas that were not touched.

First of all agnosticism means you don't know something, everyone here seems pretty sure they know that global warming is a myth.

Secondly, Dan, your statement: "We eat, sleep, and work indoors, largely immune from the weather outside. The Earth has no air conditioner, no matter how much those accustomed to air conditioners wonder why it should not.", reflects a certain ignorance over how most people in the world live.

True we privileged Americans live mostly indoors and have access to air conditioners, but there is a reason they call global warming global, it effects the whole planet, and yeah Bostonites are probably not the people that need to worry about global warming.

Just as it is a mistake to think that humans have control over the weather it is a mistake to think that most people work indoors and can't understand a world without a/c.

r.c.

A temperature anecdote from Dallas:

Good Friday was the Rangers' opening day (against the Red Sox; Texas took 2 of 3). It was the coldest opening day in team history (i.e., since the Senators moved to Arlington in 1972 and became the Rangers). When the opening pitch was thrown just after 1pm, the temperature was 55 degrees. That may not seem cold to you New Englanders, but for North Texas in April, that's frigid.

First off, it's all George Bush's fault for selling the team. He knew about and was complicit in the conspiracy that's caused the current Global Cooling problem.

And, the happenings in Texas over the weekend have convinced me that the season is over for the Red Sox.

First of all agnosticism means you don't know something, everyone here seems pretty sure they know that global warming is a myth.

Dan doesn't know that the temperature rise is caused by humans. Doesn't know. Doesn't believe. Ergo agnostic. Agnostic does not mean that you don't know anything. You can be agnostic with reference to whether humans cause temperature rises and still know that anthrocentric global warming is a myth. Just because it's a myth doesn't make it untrue.

Do you really think Dan believes most people in the world have air conditioning or are you just some nitpicker? Those really are the choices.

"And, the happenings in Texas over the weekend have convinced me that the season is over for the Red Sox." -asdf

Then you aren't watching Beckett run a train all over Seattle right now.

Am aware of that. Just a play on people over @nal yzing the beginning of the season. By some accounts, you would think they (da' Sox) are done.

Doesn't apply to what Ralph said. Was yoking.

The temperature on Good Friday in North Texas has no real application to GLOBAL warming. Hope you just used that as an excuse to begin a baseball dicsussion.

Ken,

I did say it was an anecdote. However, the entire country was uncommonly cold this weekend, and similar anecdotes are often cited as effects of global warming.

Dear Webster

Clearly the Webster moniker is not from Merriam-Webster

this is from Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: 1ag·nos·tic
Pronunciation: ag-'näs-tik, &g-
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek agnOstos unknown, unknowable, from a- + gnOstos known, from gignOskein to know -- more at KNOW
1 : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2 : a person unwilling to commit to an opinion about something

It means unknowable, or unwilling to commit to an opinion, not just disbelief, look it up.

And while I agree that Dan is probably aware that the bulk of the world doesn't live with a/c, when he speaks of global warming he makes no effort to speak on their behalf, rather he just talks about how cold he is in Boston in the winter.

I'm actually more interested in learning how the quick fixes for global warming have potential for catastrophe...So Dan if you can get over my nit-pickyness maybe you could enlighten me, or direct me to the proper link.

r.c.

Any attempt to stop or curb the effects of global warming through government intervention will reduce production. Reducing production hurts the poor primarily. If you care about the poor, you should consider that a catastrophe, unless we can know for a fact that not reducing production would hurt them more.

r.c.,

before you put that dictionary away you might take a gander at the definition for nitpicker. The complete definition of agnostic supports Dan's use of the word which was my point. Thanks.

I can only imagine Lindzen refers to economic hardships that would be brought on by following the directives of the Kyoto Accord, but googling "The alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative problem" should take you right to Lindzen and you won't have to wait for handholding from Dan.

Dan already linked to Lindzen in the second paragraph of the post. Check out Lindzen's last paragraph.

It depends on what the meaning of "is" is.

thanks buzz

The Planet has a fever, and the only cure is more cow bell.

Al Gore is the greatest source of hot air on our planet!

Btw, Why is Mars getting hotter? Do the Martians drive SUV's too?

It's ok that Al Gore, John Edwards and all of the other lib GW phonies drive SUVs, fly around frivolously in jumbo jets and live in mansions all of which consume more than their fair share of energy (i.e. fossil fuels), because they buy "carbon credit" offsets.

Today's NY Times has a piece on a new project/rebuttal to "An Inconvenient Truth":

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/us/14gore.html?_r=1&oref=slogin