Saturday, October 19, 2013

If they keep coming out with this sort of Global Warming nonsense, then I shall keep mocking them

There's a new IPCC Assessment Report out, and so it's Global Warming silly season again.  This time, it's the Caribbean nations running out of fresh water:
Yet another anthropogenic global warming alarm, and just in time for IPCC AR5, whose newly released WG1 chapters 7 and 11 say there is high confidence that dry regions will get drier, wet regions will get wetter, and storms will get stormier. “But there is only low confidence in the magnitude.” These Caribbean experts are much more certain—Caribbean water resources will not be available.

Little in this MSM AP news is what it seems. Paragraph 2 starts out saying rising sea levels could contaminate Caribbean fresh water supplies. What a curious assertion. Less dense fresh water floats on top of salt water no matter the sea level. Excessive groundwater drawdown can cause saltwater intrusion from below. That is already a problem in urbanized Broward County, Florida despite proximity to the Everglades.  And on the Tuvalu atolls in the Pacific, where government owned tourist hotels have strained its very limited groundwater capacity. Tuvalu is another urban development problem, not AGW. It was caused by Tuvalu’s government itself, eager to develop ecotourism (diving) after their new Funafuti runway was built with World Bank financing.
Math, science, and engineering are hard.  Just gin up some ZOMG THERMAGEDDON!!!11!!! to get some sweet, sweet political support for big money UN projects.  Remember, boys and girls, if the Caribbean nations run out of fresh water, it's the fault of Global Warming - because Global Warming causes everything.


3 comments:

Ted said...

if they are running out of water I guess then they will just have to stop selling those little square bottles of FIGI WATER that they sell at Whole Foods and other fine establishments.

..... although it's still not clear to me how they keep the water fresh in those bottles when they have to ship them half way around the world. I guess they Air Freight them...... That must be the answer.

Unknown said...

I've always inclined generally towards the other side of the AGW (ACC, whatever) argument--i.e., that it's happening, and that human activity probably has something to do with it. Your more data-driven posts have got me seriously re-examining that whole position despite my non-identification with the political Right. Leftist politics skeeve me out too, albeit for different reasons, so this isn't a matter of tribal loyalty for me and I doubt that it is for you either.

That being said, here's my problem with the 'sweet, sweet grant money' socioeconomic argument against the majority position on AGW: Aren't there even more multigigabucks to be made in fossil fuels and associated industries? If so, then why should I, as a middle-class(!) layman, marginal techie, and occasional writer of run-on sentences, trust the motives of, say, the coal and oil companies' Boards of Directors any further than I'd trust the motives of the IPCC (which, for the record, is not quite as far as I can throw a cheesecake underwater)?

Goober said...

You shouldn't. You should trust the truth. It's out there. Just sort of difficult to find.