Odd stuff from alarmist Joseph Romm

(See the 3/14/08 update at the bottom of this post)

Regarding Joseph Romm's Salon.com piece here:

1. I think it's humorous that he talks about it being "increasingly obvious" that the planet is warming, while carefully avoiding any mention of the recent significant drop in global temperature.

2. He also describes the evidence for "catastrophic" anthropogenic warming as "amazingly strong" without ever articulating just what that evidence might be.

3. He describes positive feedback this way:

Yes, historically, glacial periods appear to end with an initial warming started by changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun. This in turn leads to increases in carbon dioxide (and methane), which then accelerate the warming, which increases the emissions, which increases the warming. That amplifying feedback in the global carbon cycle is what drives the global temperature to change so fast.

But again, Romm never explains how the recent large drop in temperature fits with this bogus theory.

4. I particularly enjoyed this paragraph:

Last April, in an article titled "Conservative Climate," Scientific American noted that objections by Saudi Arabia and China led the IPCC to remove a sentence stating that the impact of human greenhouse gas emissions on the Earth's recent warming is five times greater than that of the sun. In fact, lead author Piers Forster of the University of Leeds in England said, "The difference is really a factor of 10."

5. In a related blog post here, Romm provides this paragraph that he says was cut because the Salon piece was too long:

I do believe in science. And I do believe in real-world observations. Perhaps the central question of our time is whether those who don't will stop those who do from saving the planet.

Update: Check out the comment by "Joe Romm" below.

Note that the second post in that comment is entitled "Where is the media on the incredible warming and extreme weather of February?".

I wonder what "incredible" February warming Joe could be talking about?



Source of the above graph