My brother sent me this mocking picture making the rounds on the Internet. I thought it was àpropos in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. The coverage in Washington of the hurricane-that-wasn’t has been absolutely bizarre. It is good to see that this city does not just panic with an inch of snow. We panic with any weather above a flurry or a misting. Folks in parts of North Carolina and other coastal areas have had legitimate concerns (including New York, Vermont and other areas) and Irene’s flooding and power outages were expected to take quite a toll in those hardest hit areas. However, the D.C. coverage was comically ridiculous. I watched one story of how Irene had began “its trail of misery and destruction” toward Washington. General Sherman’s March To the Sea had less dire reviews. I am only talking about Northern Virginia and Washington where the coverage continued in sharp contrast with the actual forecasted weather for our area.
I have been admittedly snarky of the coverage for days, particularly the last 24-hours when the hurricane was a Cat-1 hitting hundreds of miles away. Having lived through pretty big hurricanes in Louisiana, I have a respect for the storms but there was never any predictions of serious rain in my area. For days, I have been checking the various weather sites only to find predictions of two inches of rain and strong winds on Saturday night (with clearing on Sunday). I would then turn on the television or go on the Internet and find live, round-the-clock, breathless coverage of the “misery” and “destruction” coming to Washington. At no time did the forecast predict anything more than roughly a couple inches of rain and high winds. There was clearly a chance for power outages due to the soaked soil and winds, but the coverage in this area was positively apocalyptic.
In addition to ratings, the hysteria did produce record sales at stores as people prepared for the apocalypse with bodies stacked like firewood in the streets.
Everything closed despite the fact that only two inches of rain and some strong winds were predicted. This morning, the coverage continues with reporters showing the same pictures of a couple of trees down to fill time. The rest of the coverage is largely “things that did not happen” stories. My favorite this morning on Channel 4 (NBC) was how in Alexandria the harbor man thought that people who tied up their boats for high tide might have to come back and tie the boats for lower tide. The reporter then went to show how the water has not risen and how high water could have been a problem in causing flooding — if there was high water. As predicted in the actual forecasts for days before the hurricane (as opposed to the news coverage), we had some trees down, some power outages, and rain. Various forecasters (here and here) objected to the overblown claims in places like Washington before the storm hit.
I was not alone in feeling a significant loss of credibility for our local media in the hype leading to the storm — which seemed overtly disconnected to the actual predictions of rain and wind. Of course, at the coast, there were some curious moments such as the reporter who gave a live account while covered in what appears toxic foam.
We decided not to join the apocalyptic preparations and instead invited a couple of the friends of the kids over for a hurricane party and sleepover. Our power went off for exactly twenty seconds, but we had a grand time and watched “Cats v. Dogs” while devouring bags of popcorn. The overkill coverage will only make it more difficult for media and the government to get people to believe them next time when there is a serious threat, in my view.
Of course, most everything is still closed today as we clean up the carnage of blown leaves and soggy lawns in our area. In your view, was Irene overblown?
believe or not to believe, that is the question.
https://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-ray-action/
BDAman,
“Fair and balanced” is giving each side an equal chance to prove their theories. It’s not treating all theories as equally valid regardless of the quality\quantity of evidence to support them.
You were just posting an article that happens to agree with your pre-established point of view. I’d have much more respect for you if you stopped the deflection whenever you’re called on the poor quality of your propaganda.
Gyges
” Well, it looks like the author of that Opinion piece just sort of exaggerated it’s importance.”
Just trying to give you both sides of the argument.
Thats called bein fair and balanced 🙂
Part 1 of 6 the grandfather Henrik Svensmark presents The Cloud Mystery
Converts to English about a minute and a half into it.
That pretty much says the exact opposite thing as the original columnist claimed.
And you wonder why the information you’ve provided over the years was “dismissed.”
“Describing their findings in this week’s Nature, the team has also found that our current understanding of the chemistry of these aerosols is inadequate and that manmade pollution could have a larger role in their formation than previously thought.”
“As Kirkby explains, if the missing substance is manmade, then human pollution could be having a larger cooling effect than is currently believed (emissions of sulphur dioxide are already known to generate the sulphuric acid that is vital for aerosol production). Otherwise, says Kirkby, if the missing substance comes from a natural source, the finding could imply the existence of a new climate feedback mechanism (possibly, he adds, higher temperatures increasing organic emissions from trees).”
“Jeffrey Pierce, an atmospheric scientist at Dalhousie University in Canada, however, is more cautious. Modelling carried out by his group shows that a 10–20% variation in atmospheric-ion concentrations, roughly the variation associated with solar storms or across a solar cycle, produces less than a 1% change in the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei, with the diminishing returns resulting from more aerosols having to share a given quantity of molecular raw material and aerosols merging with one another. ”
“Kirkby shares Pierce’s caution. He argues that CLOUD’s results “say nothing about cosmic-ray effects on clouds” because the aerosols produced in the experiment are far too small to seed clouds”
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/46953
Excuse me, exaggerated the importance of the studies impact in disproving man-made climate change.
Hey, I know, since I’m expecting your response to be some attempt to deflect the question, why don’t I see what CERN says on the matter “However, it is premature to conclude that cosmic rays have a significant influence on climate until the additional nucleating vapours have been identified, their ion enhancement measured, and the ultimate effects on clouds have been confirmed.”
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/downloads/CLOUD_SI_press-briefing_29JUL11.pdf
Or I could go ahead and look at the abstract from the study.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10343.html
Hmm I don’t see anything about this disproving that humans aren’t impacting the climate.
Well, it looks like the author of that Opinion piece just sort of exaggerated it’s importance.
Gyges, did you notice this little jewel from the opinion piece that says the scientists created: “….a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.”
I had to laugh out loud at that. First of all, the Earth’s atmosphere does not exist in a pristine environment–it is messy and dirty with lumps and random bodies of water and population centers. Second, it is IMPOSSIBLE to precisely recreate anything as random as an atmosphere. Look at the problems forecasting the track of the late unlamented Hurricane Irene. And that is just one small example out of many. I do not want to think what part of his anatomy the writer pulled that one out of.
BDAman,
When I want good scientific reporting, I go to an opinion piece in the Financial Post that with no quotes from scientists about the actual research, just a quote about what the theory it was testing “might” show. I also add bonus points to credibility score if it reads like part of the script from “Conspiracy Theory.”
How about a link to the actual study?
Yep I do. It is very gratifying. The problem is that they dismissed all of the information I have provided over the years based on a spoon fed belief by people like Al Gore.
Bdaman:
Dont you love it when your hypothesis is proven correct when everyone else thinks you are wrong.
Off Topic from the threads latest topic
New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans
The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.
The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.
In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/08/26/lawrence-solomon-science-now-settled/
Where ever you are Buddha, I told you so.
Listen to me now and believe me later.
OS,
Where is this private not-for-profit insurance company, that pays without a hassle? Why don’t a group of Progesssive/Liberals start their own insurance company? They would easily beat out any competition. Doctors would love them. Patients would love them.
What I am seeing are two kinds of people: Those whom are greedy, and those who complain about those who are greedy. Those who complain about the greed have the same opportunity (for the most part) to go into the same business as those who are greedy, and could charge less for their services (because they are not greedy), but they don’t. Why is that? Why don’t the not-for-profits take over?
Lessee now….the orignal comment was, “…Then, the government should have a right to say how much they get paid for their services, while under contract with the government…”
**************
What was that about the GOVERNMENT telling us what we can charge? All private pay insurance companies do the exact same thing. Difference is, they give the provider a hard time over payment, whereas government does not.
The main reason I quit taking insurance from private payer insurance is the contracts. The last straw was when I got prior approval for two days of work for an extensive evaluation, did the work and then after submitting the HCFA 1500, was told after six weeks of delays and back and forth, that despite the fact I had gotten prior approval, on review they decided the evaluation was not necessary after all (it actually was), they were not going to pay me. Under the terms of my contract, I could not bill the patient and could not tell the patient I had not been paid. In fact, under the contract, providers are not allowed to say anything bad about the managed care insurance company–such as telling anyone the truth about their bad service or writing a letter to the newspaper about their bad service.
My colleague, who happens to be a lawyer as well as physician, opined that it was because my evaluation showed the guy had a serious problem requiring many thousands of dollars in treatment. Had I found nothing wrong with him, according to my colleague, I would have been paid. The refusal to pay was a veiled warning.
NoWay:
I thought so, thanks for the verification.
In old socialist country government would tell us how much we can charge. The government owns us.
If you didn’t go to medical school, then do three years of internal medicine, then another three prusuing a specialty; STFU.
I hate to be harsh, but what makes those who choose to pursue one career path think they should tell the others how much they can charge for their services? If we want to have government physicians, let the government enter into a contractual agreement with them. Let the government pay for their education. Then, the government should have a right to say how much they get paid for their services, while under contract with the government.