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"It's all about the Benjamins...". |
Posted on 01/21/2007 9:43:50 PM PST by BenLurkin
James Spann is used to covering storms.
Not being in the middle of one.
But the ABC 33/40 meteorologist finds himself at the center of the global-warming controversy after the Internet site The Drudge Report posted a link to comments Spann made on his weather blog Thursday night.
"Everything kind of exploded," Spann said Friday. "Writing stuff like that is something I always do, but when Drudge links to it, it just brings the world to you all of a sudden."
All that controversy is over a cyber-disagreement Spann has with a climate scientist from The Weather Channel.
In essence, Spann does not believe that human activity is contributing to global warming and contends that "billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon." Spann received so much traffic on his site that it was temporarily shut down Thursday night, he said.
"We have never been shut down with traffic before," he said. "During tornado outbreaks and hurricanes, we've been close, but we've never had a total shutdown or crash like this. It's kind of unprecedented."
Then the FOX News Network called and asked him to appear on "Hannity & Colmes." And CNN Headline News, which wanted to book him for "Glenn Beck." Spann said he is scheduled to appear on both of those shows Monday night.
What pressed all of those hot buttons was Spann's response to comments made by the Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen on a blog she posted Dec. 21.
On that post, titled "Junk Controversy, Not Junk Science," Cullen supported the theory that increases in levels of gases, particularly carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere have led to global warming, and she challenged meteorologists who say it is the result of cyclical weather patterns.
"If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the (American Meteorological Society) shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval," Cullen wrote.
Spann fired off his response in a blog he posted before his 6 p.m. weather forecast Thursday on ABC 33/40. It was picked up by The Drudge Report three hours later.
"Well, well," Spann wrote on his blog. "Some `climate expert' on `The Weather Channel' wants to take away AMS certification from those of us who believe the recent `global warming' is a natural process. So much for `tolerance,' huh?
"I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. ... I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global-warming hype. I know there are a few out there, but I can't find them."
Cullen, who was not available for comment Friday afternoon, has since posted a follow-up blog item in which she wrote that she did not want to stifle the debate over global warming.
"I've read all your comments saying I want to silence meteorologists who are skeptical of the science of global warming," she wrote. "That is not true. ...
"Many of you have accused me and The Weather Channel of taking a political position on global warming. That is not our intention."
300 and counting:
As of late Friday afternoon, Spann reported more than 300 responses to his comments on his blog, which can be found at www.jamesspann.com.
About 80 percent of those supported what he wrote, Spann said. Of the opposing 20 percent, some were "as nasty as when I have to cut off `General Hospital' for a tornado warning."
Among those posts:
"Stand your ground, James. That's why your `whole team,' however many of us there are, love you. How ridiculous to want to revoke something that you have EARNED."
"Way to go, James! I always thought you were a man of character, and this proves it once again."
"Taking away AMS certification may be a little severe, but on the other hand, clearly anyone who refuses to believe that humans have any affect on the weather is no one anyone should listen to about anything."
"James, the only reason to watch TWC (The Weather Channel) is to see if Jim Cantore will finally get taken out by a sheet of wind-borne corrugated metal. Count me as a scientist who believes that global warming is caused by hot air in Congress and overheated printing presses at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing."
Spann said he just wants "an open marketplace of ideas" about global warming and would like to engage in a debate on the subject with Cullen.
"She suggested that anybody that didn't agree with her, that our AMS certification should be taken away," Spann said. "That was my biggest problem with it.
"I welcome opposing viewpoints," he added. "The only way I can learn is by reading what other people think and believe, but I just don't think pride and arrogance has a place in science."
Third-party view:
NBC 13 meteorologist Jerry Tracey was unaware Friday afternoon of the battle of the blogs between Cullen and Spann. But he said there was not enough evidence yet to support or dismiss the claim that humanity is to blame for global warming.
"Yes, it's an important topic, and yes, we need to learn more about it," Tracey said. "But no, we do not yet know enough to say definitely that there is a significant impact toward global warming occurring because of man-made activities.
"Last weekend was so warm here and people tried to explain that based on global warning," he said. "There's just nothing to that. It was warm because of the weather pattern."
BUMP!
It sounds like the liberal little weasel Cullen is backtracking.
The meteorologist is right. Even using the hysterical predictions of those that wish to make stopping warming the top priority the numbers show that mankind only contributes a negligible amount to global warming. Maybe 3-6% which means that even if we produced zero emissions warming would continue as if we had did nearly nothing at all. The dire predictions are crazy. Even with a worst case scenario like occurred during the Eocene Epoch, which was the warmest period in the last 100 million years, the Earth was more a garden of Eden than with tropical forests all the way to the arctic circle.
What the global warming hysteria represents is liberal fatalism mixed with the lack of historical perspective. Also it as a shrewd way to force people to believe the only alternative to absolute catastrophe is to hand over trillions of dollars and one's personal freedoms in the attempt to fix a climate which is not broken. It is frustrating how modern stupidity and simpleton logic has so corrupted the culture.
My study of paleontology is what made me immune to the Global Warming hysteria and other environmentalist nonsense.
Sure it's been warming. So what? I'm sure those who lived in the cities under the North Sea and in the Mediterranean basin thought it a horrible thing when they became uninhabitable when the last Ice Age ended.
The one truth is that this planet's climate changes and we had better learn to live and change with it rather than believe static Earth fantasies based more on political rather than scientific considerations. Species die, new species arise, the oceans die off and replenish. This planet has experienced conditions and recovered impacts that would've wiped us as a species from existence. The only thing that does not seem to change is the need of man to believe apocalyptic horror.
Is Cullen correct in suggesting that yanking it would not seriously affect job prospects?
The mind simply boggles at how the poor bimbo explains the massive climate changes seen on Earth prior to the existence of Man...
...nonetheless...her level of intolerance for free speech is frighteningly reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge in post-Vietnam-War Cambodia as they murdered more than 4 million people for not having the "correct" ideological thoughts 24/7/365.
"Taking away AMS certification may be a little severe, but on the other hand, clearly anyone who refuses to believe that humans have any affect on the weather is no one anyone should listen to about anything."
What an idiot. I wonder how the earth went through all those drastic cooling and warming periods before the industrial revolution???
Talk about "a whiff of fascism"
Good comment and explanation. Thanks.
It's nice to hear from people with common sense.
The projected increase in the year 2060 is an increase of 1oC, from an increase in CO2 from ~330ppmv to ~550ppmv. The avg temp is ~18o now, so the increase would be about 5.5% in oC, but 3.1% in oF. Both of those numbers are misleading. The important measure would be in Kelvins and it's the same as the energy increase that could result as a bounding value in 2060. The energy, or temp increase is ~0.34%. That's the additional energy available to drive storms, melt ice and make folks warmer. It's insignificant.
The reported increase so far is also small and buried in other effects. It's ~0.5oC.Some FReeper may have good data in a plot. They tend to vary and it gets complicated, so... Anyway, that's a small temp diff to attempt a measure and the warmists exaggerate in whatever way they can. What can be said is that the weather in the last 100 years, has not changed from the effect of gasses, since the total energy change has been ~0.1%.
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"It's all about the Benjamins...". |
Until seawater is sloshing around the Smithsonian at 25 ft above present sea level (see topo map of Capital area ) or into Wall Street at 20 feet above present sea level (see topo map of lower Manhattan ). The melting of either the West Antarctic Ice Sheet OR the Greenland Ice Sheet or half of each would be enough to raise sea level 20 ft. See USGS paper on sea level rise.
Spann's a good guy, and our local weatherman.
Global Warming, I say bring it on.
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