Wednesday 8 February 2012

Colding kills

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Several inches of global warming have now covered Europe for eleven days. Here’s the tragedy in a  headline:

Europe death toll now 400 from icy weather.

Can we now, please, begin to recognise the dangers to human beings of cold weather—which far, far outweigh the dangers of warming.

5 comments:

Jay@Soob said...

Couldn't agree more. Setting aside the contentious (and increasingly less one sided) issue of whether or not human forcing is occurring and to what degree, we are collectively much more able to adapt to a warming trend than the alternative. We've seen terraforming of deserts in Nigeria and Israel for years now, to say nothing of desalination and reclaimed land. As far as I know you can't terraform tundra or glaciers.

Mark said...

If you were sensible and looking at proper risk analysis, you'd start with 400,000 years history of 11,500 iceage cycles, and ask what would stop that happening very soon - as it's due.

A proper approach would be to see if we're prepared for that. Eg wind turbines don;t work in the cold, how does our Hydro perform? what then is the electricity gap and liekly deaths.

Then what happens to agriculture and provision of food.......

It's far more worrying than a bit of warming, with even the warmists own models showing little real change.

David S. said...

Among the first predictions made by scientists studying global warming were temperature drops in western Europe, especially Britain/Ireland, due to a slowing of the north Atlantic currents*.

It's impossible to pin any singular weather event on AGW, and I'm not even sure if this current crisis is at all connected, but problems of this nature in Europe are more likely as a result of man-made emissions.

Suffice to say, even with my lay-mans knowledge and uncertainty, your point here is a bit of a straw-man, as it always is when you start talking about AGW.

*and actually it was the basis for the movie "Day after tomorrow", a movie which was criticised by many climate scientists for exaggerating far beyond what was scientifically feasible.

twr said...

It's convenient that whatever happens to the climate and the weather, it can be used by the warmists as confirmation that they are right, and as an excuse to oppress people and steal their property.

Peter Cresswell said...

@David S.: YOur comment is utterly mendacious.

Scientists have "projected" (note, not "predicted") that global warming "may" (note, not "will") halt or reverse the flow of the Gulf Stream-the current of warm water that flows from Miami to Murmansk.

This madness however, while certainly fuel for horror movies such as the one you mention, has about as much basis in reality as 'The Amityville Horror,' and nothing at all to do with the present state of Europe.

There has been no credible suggestion made anywhere that Europe's present colding has been caused by a slowing of the North Atlantic currents or the reversing of the Gulf Stream.

None.

So your point is actually just a red herring.

People are dying because the weather is cold. Cold weather kills more people than warm weather.

That's the real point to digest here.