I don't have much to add to this one. The Chicago Tribune reports:
There aren't too many places where you can celebrate the 4th of July weekend by hitting the slopes, but Utah is one of them, thanks to a record amount of snowfall.FOLLOW-UP:
Typically, skiing and snowboarding ends by mid-to-late April. One area, the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, often stretches it to late May. But on Thursday, Snowbird announced it will be open weekends until Independence Day. That has happened only once before, in 1995.
...July will mark the ninth consecutive month of skiing at the resort, located about a half-hour south of Salt Lake City. A combination of early and consistent snowfall, a lack of powder in the Northwest and a residual tourism bounce from the 2002 Winter Olympics have combined to make this the longest and busiest season in Utah history. Attendance is up 12 percent over last season's record of 3.4 million, according to Nathan Rafferty, a spokesman for Ski Utah, a marketing association that promotes the state's skiing industry.
...The season got off to a rousing start on Nov. 5, when Snowbird had its earliest opening ever. The most recent dump — a half-foot — fell June 12. In between, storms regularly blanketed the Wasatch Range, and a chilly spring has insulated the snow that was already on the ground, maintaining the base. From start to finish, the mountain received 633 inches — a whopping 52 feet of snow.
Okay, maybe I do have something to add — about 1982 swords-and-sorcery B-movie epic The Beastmaster. It features one truly classic line, but to appreciate it, first we have to set the scene:
Maax, a sinister priest, is standing high atop his temple, preparing to drop a young boy into a pit of fire as a sacrifice to the evil god Aar. Below him stands a throng of fearful villagers, cowed into submission by his portentous pronouncements of Aar's wrath.
The Beastmaster sees what is about to happen and decides he must stop it. Using his power to communicate with animals, he sends a large hawk soaring up over the temple. It seizes the boy in its talons, pulling him free from Maax's clutches and carrying him away.
The villagers are shocked. Perhaps Maax's stories about Aar aren't true after all. Maybe they can afford to ignore this nasty old priest who regularly drops their children to firey deaths.
Sensing he's losing the crowd, Maax realizes he has to think fast, and utters his great line. "You see?" he cries. "Aar has spoken! He wants your children!"
I was reminded of Maax when I read blogger Mathew Honan's report of having to cancel his hiking vacation due to excessive snowfall. Mathew writes:
As the ranger in Yosemite told us yesterday, we haven't had this much snow in 50 years. In short, there's too much snow for us to safely make the trip, at least when we had planned. And rescheduling, well... Just scheduling a three-week trip is pretty tough. Rescheduling, that's just probably not possible.Honan goes on to cite a series of lengthy, and very well-written, articles (1, 2, 3) by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker about the evidence for global warming, such as warmer temperatures, melting glaciers, thinner snow cover, and thawing permafrost. So, warmer weather and less snow are evidence of global warming, but cooler weather and more snow are also evidence of global warming.
I blame global warming.
Now I'm not saying global warming is bunk. There certainly seems to be a lot of evidence for it. But at this point one might fairly ask what would count as evidence against it. If we were concerned about global cooling (as many experts were in the 70's), then presumably massive snowfalls would serve as evidence of that, too.
Like Maax the temple priest, global warming alarmists appear to be dangerously close to creating an unfalsifiable theory. Even when his sacrifice to Aar was humiliatingly foiled, Maax claimed it only showed that Aar demanded more sacrifices. And even when the snow piles up outside, it's just more proof that global warming is close at hand.
13 comments:
Has Al Gore been there recently? He has a way of making these "the end of the world of nigh!" pronouncements during periods of record cold temperatures.
Posted by Langtry
To test for global warming the true scientific way you'd need to have severals Earths--some without people as the controls and some with people for the variables. Then you just compare the temperatures after awhile.
Posted by Dave
Maybe we could set that experiment up here .
Posted by GaijinBiker
hmm - snow in Utah in June means that Global Warming isnt happening.
stuuuuupiiiiiiid
Posted by HayZeus
The point is not that heavy snows mean GW isn't happening, but that some people say it means it is happening.
Posted by GaijinBiker
global warming is one of those things which is taken by faith. GW's entire existence requires us to believe the scientists and the organizations that pay them to support the hypothesis. For how many of us really do know what the temperture is? what's actually normal? Do we really track the weather, or do we leave it to someone else and blindly believe what they say? I the age of 41, when as a child I was taught to fight global cooling, I think the first 'earth day' they cried about the fears of the cooling earth. Now these very same groups have gone '180' on us and now cry global warming. To keep it short I do actually think the earth warms and cools as a natural process. I also believe their are groups of 'men' whom set themselves up to profit from it. Treat these groups like a republican, hear what they say and follow the money. Always follow the money, "GW" is in the money and that's where they are.
Posted by john galt
Just to make clear, I don't think GW is all a big made-up plot. Speaking as a layperson, it seems to me that there's credible scientific evidence behind it that demands to be taken seriously.
However, I'm concerned that by whipping up hysteria around the issue (for instance, by blaming any instance of freakish weather on GW), we risk destroying the American economy without achieving any tangible results, while China and India cruise full speed ahead.
Perhaps the best thing we can do to reduce the future impact of GW, short of all going back to living in caves as hunter-gatherers, will be to invest in developing cleaner technology and alternative energy sources. And to do that, we need a healthy economy, not a crippled one.
Posted by GaijinBiker
Global warming? It's a plot directed against me! The Proof? I happen to have been at Snowbird (and adjacent Alta) for five days in early March, and IT NEVER SNOWED! Not once. No fresh powder at what's acknowledged by most as the finest lift-served powder skiing in the world, during a winter of record snowfall. Even with the expert guidance of a local friend who skis there more than 100 days a year and knows every inch of the terrain, there wasn't a single powder run to be found. And then, thursday night, as i flew off to Seattle to connect back to Tokyo, SNOW! tons of it! two feet of it overnight I heard in an e-mail from my pal when I got back. I'm onto you now, you global warming devils, and when I catch you there'll be hell to pay.
Posted by Mr. Pink
Mr. Pink, I feel your pain. Next year, try Niseko — it's never let me down.
Posted by GaijinBiker
ah GB, Niseko certainly rules in Japan (was that you nuzzling that cutie in the `yurt' back in February?)
But you can't beat the combination of altitude & desert for powder so light it's like skiing thru smoke.
Posted by Mr. Pink
GB: Yes, there are some serious free-rider aspects to dealing with issues that involve externalities, but responsible grown-ups work confront difficulties issues, instead of pretending they don't exist. That's the Bush administration's approach, which has made us both a laughingstock and much-resented. The Bush administration doesn't even want to talk about global warming, even as sane, conservative Republicans in Alasaka and New Mexico are convinced. Alaska and the Arctic are warming measurable and rapidly.
You are also underestimating both the importance of accurate price signals in a free-market economy and the resilence of a market economy in adjusting to changes in prices. Energy taxes in Japan and other advanced economies mean industries and consumers face much higher prices, but the result is that they are much more efficent on a GNP/BTU basis. There is alot that the US could do on its own, without buying into Kyoto, that would significantly reduce our methane/CO2 emissions, improve economic efficiency and reduce our energy dependence. This would be win/win.
If Kyoto needs further negotiating, then negotiate. Ignoring the problem is the height of irresponsibility.
Posted by Tokyo Tom
history tells me that Kyoto, was one of the origional selected cities where the U.S. was to drop the atomic bomb. Out of respect for Japan, me moved our target cities, to Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Now the U.S. is about to have the economic atomic bomb dropped on it from Kyoto. Unless true common sense breaks out fast the fate of the U.S. is reduced to a third rate nation. I feel that this is the goal of socialism, and Global Warming is their tool. It is my opinion that the forces of socialism no longer need weapons, if they can convince the free world that capitalism is the sole cause of a either a natural warming trend in the world process, or even worse just fraudulent science. Follow the money.
Posted by john galt
Global warming...yes, Al Gore HAS been to many sites around the world and can show you pictures. Do not underestimate the gravity of the situation. Don't be like a frog...if you put a frog into boiling water it will jump out. Put if you put a frog into normal water and SLOWLY turn up the heat, it will stay there (until rescued by an intelligent being). Climate change happens gradually at first: lots of tropical storms, and paradoxically drought too. Greenland is looking like Larsen B, and scientists were amazed and alarmed when Larsen B (an ice shelf in Antarctica, if I got that right) slid off into the ocean and totally melted..in days, not years.
Posted by I never do this
Post a Comment