I must thank certain OLOers for helping me to be at ease.

Last night on the news and again in the paper this morning, I heard and then read (and saw pictures of, and interviews about), the "fact" that the Arctic sea ice has already melted far more this year than at any time in recorded history.

Futhermore, we are not yet at the main point of the seasonal cycle so - according to the reports - it will get worse.

Once I would have taken this to be further evidence that AGW is real and happening.

But thanks to some OLOers explanations, I was able to tell my family not to give it a second thought, that the scientists who are making these claims about the ice, are corrupt liars, that the journalists reporting the event are simply stupid stooges, and that the photos are fakes.

Fortunately for me, these OLOers, I won't thank you individually as you all know who you are, have explained that there's a vast conspiracy going on that involves virtually all the world's climate scientists, all the world's universities, all the world's academies of science, most credible journalists and NASA.

Also, those scientists who recently set out to disprove AGW actually turned over and became part of the conspiracy, as they also now claim it's real.

The unmitigated CADS!!

So, thanks again for letting me have a peaceful night's sleep last night, when once I would have been concerned.

The odd thing is that when I explained all this to my family they... well, they just didn't seem to get it.

Can't think why not.

Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

It's a bad situation and getting worse. By the time we go through another summer the antarctic will be much depleted.
Greenland is gaining pace month by month, the melt has turned into rivers.
It's hard to fathom the ambitions of some commenters, what's in it for them to go against science on a world scale.

Dear Anthonyve,

There are both psychological reasons and economic
reasons for some people's apparent short-sightedness.
Issues which require radical solutions that are
likely to harm vested economic and political interests
will present challenges. New ideas, instead of being
welcomed for the opportunities they open up for the
improvement of the human lot will be threats to those
who are comfortable in their ideologies. The psychological
reasons have to do with understandable risk aversion,
for example, any one of us might not be around to benefit
from a good time in the future - so let's have it now
regardless of the long-term consequences.

Galileo was put under house arrest by the Vatican for
saying that the earth moved around the sun. In fact, in
1633, the church made him recant his theory of the
universe.

Little has changed in hundreds of years when ignorance and
vested interested are confronted by scientific facts.

Howdy Anthony (and Lexi)

Hot dang, brother, you and me must live in one of those damn parallel multiverses

Had similar happen to me just the other night.

We had this big family do. All the kinfolk were there , right down to my tenth cousin ole Jed. We were on the second course of grits when the man on the televiz crossed to that there NASA story 'bout: “ the Arctic sea ice has already melted far more this year than at any time in recorded history’

I said to my cousin Leroy –Leroy bein one of those skeptic types.
“There you go couz you be not needin no betta proof than that that global warming be afflictin us!
At that point my old grandpappy piped up – all 120 years of him. He said he ‘member a time when he sailed through an ice free North-West passage. He took out an old picture he carried in his gator hide wallet …was of one the clippers he used to sail in.

Then my nephew Billy-Ray piped up tellin me the teacher be tellin him the other day that there be a time, less than one million years ago, when there weren’t no ice at either pole. And it taint be mans doin since there weren’t no men to speak of at those times. He said it taint enough to show that world was warmin, there needed something called cor-rel-ation of the positive kind 'tween temperature and CO2 --such highfalutin talk from a ten year old! what the heck they be teachin the kids nowaday, ay? Next thing you know he'll be disputing that the tooth fairy gave him the gold coin last week.


Any way, I weren’t goin to argue anymore with those ornery types about it …besides, about that time grandma brought out the possum-pie
And that kinda cut the con-ver-sation short.

Just to let you know , cousin Anthony, you are not alone.

>>The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period (Medieval Climate Optimum). It may be conventionally defined as a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries, or about 1350 to about 1850 though climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of this period, which varied according to local conditions. NASA defines the term as a cold period between 1550 AD and 1850 AD and notes three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming<<

The climate changes, but our influence is negligable. Alternately would any global warming devotees care to explain the reason for historical climate changes before the industrial revolution.

SPQR,
Dang, so you come from one of those families too.

Sonofgloin,
A fair question, re the changes in earlier periods. I respond by pointing to the magnitude and speed of the current changes vis a vis earlier changes.
Plus, there's an Occams Razor argument to be made here.
One teeny weeny point. You say that "The climate changes, but our influence is negligable".
1. How do you know - not think, but know - it's negligible; and 2. What about the human activity induced hole in the ozone layer caused by the indiscriminte use of CFCs a couple of decades ago.
Isn't that a completely acknowledged example of humans influencing the climate.
Bearing in mind that when CFCs were banned the problem diminished and then virtually disappeared, but at the time it was wholly accepted that had the ban not been implemented, the weather patterns would most definitely have changed. Certainly, the composition of the upper atmosphere changed and within a few years of CFC use.
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au