Snow in the Highlands overnight and continuing today... global warming...?

[Highlander]

Go figure...

I know Oklahoma took a pounding, but it is the "normal " season, yes...?

What's it doing round your way...? it has been a lot colder and wetter in the south of UK than normal so far this year...

[Psycho Bass Guy]

CO2 levels recently reached 200 parts per million, the level scientists have termed the 'point of no return' for greenhouse climate change. Based on what we've been able discern from geologic patterns, we're technically in a lull between ice ages right now anyway, and it appears humans are making it worse. While the overall rise in temperature might not seem that big of a deal, it translates to a far more energetic atmosphere and then you get what we have: more extreme weather. Folks don't appreciate the magnitude of the problem because we cannot properly contextualize it and it doesn't make for snappy soundbites. Television/video, our most common informative medium worldwide, has only existed since the onset of manmade climate change, and because of that, the weather disasters caused by climate change have become accepted as normal, when in the greater historical context, they're anything but. Like any other problem of humanity, climate change will NEVER be taken seriously until it impacts the people with most of the money, and for the forseeable future, they're able to afford to move away from flooding coasts or build higher or live in the shrinking areas of relatively calm weather.

The global recession has had the largest impact on greenhouse gas emission from firstworld countries, and China's unabated use of coal and oil will likewise fall off when their real estate bubble finally implodes. Unlike the US, the Chinese government has continued building, even when there's no demand, and they have huge cities built for millions with barely tens of thousands living in them. Construction accounts for 50% of their GDP. The US, at it's 2005 peak, was only 16%. Economically, this is an even worse global depression in the making, but ecologically, it may give the planet a chance to at least stabilize climatically.

[gweimer]

This is a few years old, but it's an interesting view of the Chinese Ghost Cities.

[Denis]

There's no such thing as global warming, at least in the view of my state's legislature, which recently passed a law saying that scientific studies showing its existence can be ignored by those building at the coast. 

[Dave W]

We're in a long-term era of warming (without getting into how much of it may be man-made). I don't think you can deduce anything from short term events like one or two unusually cold winters or frequency of hurricanes or tornadoes.

So far this is a really low tornado year. Major tornadoes have occurred in Oklahoma at much lower CO2 levels.

[Pilgrim]

It may be a stretch to connect dots from CO2 to the OK tornado, but I'm not willing to doubt it.  Atypical weather patterns seem to be appearing more frequently.

[4stringer77]

I know, crazy weather lately. Look what's happening around Mark in Seattle!

[Highlander]

As daft as it sounds the one thing they predicted a move in the gulfstream due to desalination causing all sorts of side effects...

One of our curiosities is the movement south of the "jet-stream" last year, which caused a significant change to our seasons... We get very mild weather compared to most of equivalent European latitudes so we'll get it first, I guess, but the pointlessness of all the effort (con-job) our government is doing can be deduced in the little detail that if we turned off everything and burnt nothing the grand total of 1% improvement would occur...

Against the up and coming (new) first world, and where we're heading - the (new) third world - I don't think the outcome looks that rosy - I tend to be closer to PBG's view of what's coming and I think nothing we do (Dave's viewpoint) will make any difference...

Nice post, Gary and thanks PBG for pointing it out...

Denis... we have far too many places built on flood-plains, including almost all of London...