Tag: global warming

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 5, 202211:41 pm

The Con is On

If you’re banging the drum of warning about impending climate doom or advocating essentially destroying Russia to save Ukraine, what will you say when the gasoline price soars past $6, $7, $8 a gallon or you’re hungry for lack of something—anything—to eat? Surely those, ah, causes will be meaningless then—and you lie to yourself if thinking otherwise.

Reason demands that people like you stop prattling emotions, wrapped in crisis, to sway public opinion and political policy. People like you share the critically common characteristics of grifters. Today, in the United States, following the change of administration in Washington, D.C., the con is on.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 3, 20229:02 pm

The Urban Jungle Gym

What qualifies as a park in one of San Diego’s supposedly trendier neighborhoods? Answer: North Park Mini Park—and, yes, that’s the name of the community seen in the Featured Image. When I think of a park, particularly in a coastal region with three Summer seasons (Early, Mid, and Late), lush space with grass, greenery, and trees comes to mind. Apparently, not in North Park, where cement rules.

Say, can some stereotypical, anti-carbon emissions, stop climate change citizen living there explain the environmental benefits of building another edifice that absorbs heat and in the process quite likely also contributes to global warming? Wouldn’t heat-reducing, carbon-dioxide absorbing, oxygen-producing plants, shrubs, and trees make more environmental sense and be more interesting a refuge for residents?

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 8, 202212:11 am

The Grillers

From the same Greenbelt, Md. church picnic as yesterday’s “Pooh Party“, we present another moment. I used Canon EOS 20D and EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens to capture the Featured Image on Sept. 18, 2005. Vitals: f/6.3, ISO 400, 1/400 sec, 70mm; 12:22 p.m. In Capture One 22 post-production I applied style “Oslo 1”, working from an original JPEG. The portrait is composed as shot.

If the prognosticators of climate doom get their way, grilling events like this will someday soon be but a memory. We will all consume protein-infused plant matter made to look like meat because—so they say—cows and chickens produce deadly global warming gases. Eh, and people don’t?

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 22, 202110:17 pm

Happy Earth Day 2021

Good luck finding the field of focus in the cluttered Featured Image, captured today using Leica Q2. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/2, ISO 100, 1/640 sec, 28mm; 3:01 p.m. PDT. Location is nearby the house where appeared Calm, who was profiled in my “Cats of University Heights” series in February 2019.

Think of the photo as my metaphorical commentary on so-called Climate Change theory, which truth isn’t so clear as political proponents of the science would have everyone believe. The hubris of humankind is to put ourselves at the center of everything—and that’s as much taking blame as claiming credit. Much is clear that the planet undergoes a warming trend. Focus on carbon emissions identifies sole cause and people to blame. But the picture is more complex, or so I say, like the one here presented for your viewing.

Society by Joe WilcoxDec 28, 200712:58 am

Environmental Question

I hear a whole lot of ruckus about global warming and carbon emissions spewed into the air. I have a question for the environmentalists—some of them extremists—pointing fingers of accusation: How much worse off is the planet because of you and your political maneuvering that ended US adoption of fission reactors in the 1970s?

Environmentalist FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about radioactive waste disposal was a major factor halting nuclear power plant construction in the United States. Meanwhile, many electrical facilities resorted to coal and, gasp, oil—fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide when burned.

Science by Joe WilcoxJun 16, 20075:43 pm

A Whirlwind Rebuttal

Last week’s Nature—that would be the June 7 issue—blows one hell of a hole in one of the proof points for global warming theory: Increasing number of hurricanes. If I rightly recall, former vice president Al Gore used increasing numbers of seasonal hurricanes in movie “An Inconvenient Truth“.

Good science isn’t about what you know but what you realize that you don’t know. Too many of the proof points for global warming are nothing more than seemingly related observations that probably aren’t as interconnected as they might first seem. Gore and others have attributed warming seas—presumed by-product of global warming—as reason for worsening seasonal hurricane cycles.

Living by Joe WilcoxMar 24, 20075:21 pm

Hybrid Cars are a Bad Idea

I philosophically oppose the concept of hybrid cars. The hybrid is a feel-good response to concerns about the environment that doesn’t go near as far as needed. For other folks, hybrid auto is a no-conscience purchase; it’s about saving money on gasoline. Mother Nature deserves better than these gas guzzlers and air polluters.

How about those natural gas vehicles, like the Metro buses moving around Washington, or ethanol-powered alternatives? They’re no better choices than hybrids. All these vehicles are bad for the environment and in their wickedness preserve an oil-based infrastructure and economy that long ago surpassed any meaningful usefulness.

Society by Joe WilcoxAug 6, 20067:30 pm

An Inconvenient Theory

Earlier today, my daughter and I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” at the AFI Silver Theatre, which likely is the best movie house in the Washington area. A harsh critic of the science behind global warming, I hoped that maybe the film would live up to its hype. No way. For people predisposed to the idea of global warming, the film probably would be moving. The movie did affect my thinking, nevertheless (I’ll explain how in a few paragraphs).

Here’s what I most liked: Former Vice President Al Gore relied more on historical data to make his point than use forward-looking forecasts. Oh, I hate computer modeling for proving climate change. The major reason I’m so critical of global warming theory is bad science. There are too many assumptions and too little reliable data to develop reliable forecast models. In best-case scenario, the computer models are only as good as the data put into them.

Science by Joe WilcoxJun 1, 20067:20 pm

Arctic’s Balmy Past

New York Times stepped back on the global warming soapbox today with “Studies Portray Tropical Arctic in Distant Past“. The Times reports on three papers published today in Nature, to which—damnit—I am not a subscriber.

The 2004 Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) recovered 430-meter sea floor sediment core that provides a 56-million year snapshot of the Earth’s weather. And whoa, get this, “55 million years ago the Arctic Ocean was much warmer than scientists imagined—a Floridian year-round average of 74 degrees” (23.3 degrees Celsius), according to the Times. Whoa, break out the lawn chairs. That’s July weather back home in Maine.

Reports of an ancient, hot Arctic—presumably because of greenhouse gases—are sure to foster theories about global warming. Public sentiment about global warming doesn’t make it fact. Global warming is a theory, and it’s one I skeptically view.

Science by Joe WilcoxMar 30, 20069:01 pm

Too Warm in a Cold Place

Uh-oh. National Geographic warns of unusual warming over Antarctica, that “cannot be explained by the climate models scientists use to predict the effects of global warming from increased greenhouse gases”. Yikes!

Some people might contend the unexpected “temperature spike, which is three times larger than the global average”, is sure sign of global warming. Not me. I think it’s another proof point the global warming models are meaningless. The spike occurs in an area 5 kilometers above the surface, and scientists “are now trying to understand why the atmosphere warming is disconnected from surface temperatures”.