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Dark, Cold, Wet Copenhagen and Global Warming

November 23rd, 2009 · No Comments

There are people who are expert at framing. Put Ronald Reagan (or Barack Obama or any politician) before the flag with an impressive backdrop and the scene amplifies the message.

Global Warming … Global Climate Change …

The key December meeting is to be held where? Dark, cold, wet, dreary Copenhagen.

DARK Copenhagen: We’re talking about an average of 0.6 hours of sunlight per day in December.

COLD Copenhagen: Average of 3 degrees C (38 degrees F), average max temp of 4 degrees C, and 12 days with frost.

WET Copenhagen: 12 days of rain.

While I love Cophenhagen, dark, cold, and wet adds up to Dreary for me (and many others).

So, if it is dark, cold, wet, and dreary for the climate summit, expect some in the denialosphere to make great noise joking about how Global Warming summit attendees are all wearing parkas.

And, if there happens to be a big snowstorm or a serious freeze so that people are iceskating everywhere, expect to this amplified to no end.

Effective siting to reinforce the message might have been a summit meeting, in summer, in Glacier National Park which is en route ‘used to have Glaciers National Park‘ or perhaps at some lodge surrounded by forests devastated by pine bark beetles or perhaps in an Australia area still blackened from this past February’s devastating hellstorm.


Fire and Ice

For those who don’t get that weather isn’t climate, a snowy day in Copenhagen during the December summit can easily be (misleadingly) framed as a contradiction of science on Global Warming. “Science” knowledge isn’t exactly high in the United States and it is too easy to create confusion confused when mass efforts to highlight the seriousness of the climate crisis intersect with major weather events that seem (SEEM) to contradict the realities of the dangerous changes that humanity is recklessly driving. Some joke about “The Gore Effect”, suggesting that the best predictor of a DC snow storm is Al Gore being scheduled to testify before Congress. (They will, of course, forget when he is there in hotter weather if they can find a snow or ice event …) A Copenhagen snowstorm would reinforce that shallow observation.

Without a doubt, expect “journalists” to include shallow (and snide) comments about “snow storm” if snow falls during the Copenhagen summit. Expect Marc Morano and the global warming denier sound machine to spread messages and one-liners making these links.

They won’t, almost certainly, go back to this past spring when Australia was burning up and drowning at the same time. They won’t go mention this year’s flooding in Washington State or how much of the US has had serious droughts and how Texas farmers have suffered? Sigh … probably not.

Will they have the sense to discuss that this is Global, not your backyard, Warming and that is why some prefer “Climate Change” to be able to better explain how the weather pattern disruption can mean more snow or rain in place A while place B is baking in severe, extended drought conditions?

Will the reporters have the common sense to remind people of a simple fact? More snowfall in your backyard doesn’t mean global warming hasn’t stopped!

If it is cold in Copenhagen next month, with thousands gliding along gleefully on their ice skates in public parks, I wonder if any reporter will have the sense to highlight someone saying something like this:

“Yeah, ain’t it great!

Sometimes the climate crisis will bring us fun things like cold snaps for great skating in Copenhagen and sometimes it will bring us deathly heat waves across entire continents.

The one thing that we know we can count on if we don’t get a handle on it: it will definitely bring an unpredictability to our weather that will wreak havoc on our economy, our public health systems, and the way we live our daily lives.”

Tags: climate change · climate delayers · Global Warming