. "by user Bookwormroom Elizabeth Kolbert is The New Yorker\u2019s most zealous proponent of man-made global warming. It\u2019s such an article of faith with her that she\u2019s gotten lazy. Take the opening paragraph of her \u201CTalk of the Town\u201D comment in the magazine\u2019s latest issue: Cross posted at Bookworm Room. Read and comment here. __NOEDITSECTION__ From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki."@en . "This is what passes for climate change proof?"@en . "by user Bookwormroom Elizabeth Kolbert is The New Yorker\u2019s most zealous proponent of man-made global warming. It\u2019s such an article of faith with her that she\u2019s gotten lazy. Take the opening paragraph of her \u201CTalk of the Town\u201D comment in the magazine\u2019s latest issue: Except in certain benighted precincts\u2014oil-industry-funded Web sites, the Bush White House, Michael Crichton\u2019s den\u2014no one wastes much energy these days trying to deny global warming. Credit Al Gore\u2019s documentary, \u201CAn Inconvenient Truth,\u201D or this winter\u2019s snowless ski season in the Alps, or the fact that it was seventy-two degrees in Central Park on January 6th. Still, the release last week of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents an important, perhaps even historic, event. In other words, \u201CNyah, nyah, nyah, you stupid oil companies who deny the truth before your eyes: it didn\u2019t snow much in the Alps and it was hot in Central Park. Of course there\u2019s climate warming \u2014 and it\u2019s all your fault.\u201D Rather than argue with her about whether there is human-made climate warming, a subject on which I\u2019m not qualified to talk, let me just approach her at an advocacy level, an area in which I have vast experience. There, I can comfortably say that she\u2019s made the stupidest, unfounded argument I\u2019ve ever seen. You can always tell a bad legal brief when it starts with insults. Insults are the legal equivalent of the adage that \u201Cwhen you have the facts, argue the facts; when you have the law, argue the law; when you have neither facts nor law, yell.\u201D Sticking out her tongue and wagging her fingers at interest groups she doesn\u2019t like is childish and proves nothing. Moving along from the insults, you get Kolbert\u2019s actual \u201Cproof\u201D of global warming: this year, we\u2019ve had a dry Alpine winter and a warm central park summer. I\u2019ll get to the former in a minute, but let me first deal with the latter. While January may have been toasty in New York, just the headlines for today tell us that Sweden\u2019s reindeer are starving to death because of thick ice, and that Michigan is experiencing the coldest \u201Cbeginning of February\u201D in 100 years. You can page through Drudge headlines for the last few weeks and find several similar headlines (Matt Drudge does like his weather) . Therefore, using Kolbert\u2019s algorithm, it\u2019s manifestly clear that, \u201Cexcept in certain benighted precincts,\u201D the globe is cooling. As for the Alpine peculiarity, keep in mind that the press keeps touting the fact that this is the warmest winter in the Alps in 500 years. There\u2019s really no doubt about the fact that it is a stinky Alpine winter that has, expensively, killed the ski season. But think about that last warm Alpine winter, 500 years ago \u2014 for the math challenged among us (which would include me), that would see a warm winter in about the year 1500. The year 1500 was part of the Little Ice Age. In other words, you can have warm winters during ice ages. Again, let me say that I reserve judgment on this whole man made global warming thing. The politics have gotten so strident that I no longer trust the conclusions being touted by either side. I will say, though, that the type of argument Kolbert advances is no argument at all. It\u2019s an article of faith, unsupported by the scientific method, that grabs at disparate facts to prove a point, and hides its weaknesses behind harsh, intemperate, insulting language. If this is the best they\u2019ve got, don\u2019t count me amongst the converted. Cross posted at Bookworm Room. Read and comment here. __NOEDITSECTION__ From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki."@en . . . . . . . .