One has to admire the Global Warming crowd. They are so smart that every possible outcome is consistent with their theory.

Anecdotal evidence from 7 locations at one time! A crushing refutation of the idea that the average global temperature is rising! There can be no variance! For average global temperature to rise, all temperatures must rise, everywhere, at all times. That's what an average means, right?

You may be right. Global warming may not be happening. But this kind of simplistic reasoning makes me inclined to think that any position you are advocating is wrong.

Well, I'll stick with actual evidence over "modeled" evidence any day.

It astounds me that so many people are willing to take the word of a small group of scientists who are claiming they can predict the future. And then they are willing to believe hysterical politicians claiming that they know how to fix the supposed problem!

A little more skepticism would be healthy on this one I think.

S H,

True, Ms. Ridenour's blog entry could be interpreted as using anecdotes for proof, which would be bad. But if this permanently discredits all that is said here, then it at least as surely discredits global warming believers who jump on anecdotal evidence of warming nigh every chance they get.

fyodor,

Good point. One post that relies on anecdotal evidence does not discredit other posts found here. And, indeed, both sides of this debate are far to willing to use anecdotes to try to support their side. This can be useful for persuading people, as we are all biased toward anecdoatal rather than statistical reasoning. But it is not helpful for reaching well supported conclusions.

I'd like to see everybody, on either side of the issue, using large, reliable data sets to support their arguments. Of course, getting reliable data is another problem.....

AC,

Let's not be so contemptuous of scientist predicting the future. That's what scientists are supposed to do!

The scientific method is based on the idea that scientists should make hypotheses (predictions) and the test these hypotheses. The models that you deride are the predictions, actual evidence (real evidence, not the 7 anecdotes above) is the test of these models. And since the models predict climate change in the future, we won't know for a while if they are right. So hopefully you don't need to know the answer anytime soon!

This past July is the coldest in the last 12 years, according to satellite temperature data. http://climate.uah.edu/july2004.html.

This doesn't say anything one way or the other about global warming, but it does say quite a lot about the mainstream press's treatment of the issue.

You can bet that if the data showed that last July was the warmest in the last 12 years it would be reported in the New York Times. So fart his has gone totally unreported.

SH, I assure you that if I meant to draw a conclusion about the weather for the next hundred years based on the summer 2004 temperatures of a half-dozen localities, I would have stated as much outright. I'm not shy that way.

Fact is, I don't know what temperatures will be in 2104 -- and neither does any other human being.

Amy,

Sorry. I thought your post meant to imply that diehard global warming theory advocates ought to be detered by this particular data. But you wouldn't propose something so preposterous, so I should have thought again.

Now that I've thought again, I have no idea what the point of the post is, other than to make fun of Marty Kraft of Brookside.

The point was actually to give folks a chuckle, more than anything.

The (hoped for) humor, however, does to my mind illustrate the point Shannon Love (the first person to post a comment) noted: Those who advocate the global warming theory have a tendency to see all evidence as vindication of their theory, no matter how much they have to twist the evidence to make a fit.

Didn't mean to pick on Marty Kraft particularly. In fact, I had his name on the draft of the post but removed it before publishing because the post wasn't meant as a critique of any one person.

Poor Marty Kraft is but one of many. Ironically, he's probably an environmentalist, yet in the Kansas City Star article he reveals that he can't enjoy nature because he's too worried that every variation of temperature in any direction is evidence of looming global catastrophe.

Sometimes a nice cool day is just a nice cool day.