HMM: Hurricane Expert Reassesses Link to Warming. “The new study, in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, is hardly definitive in its own right, essentially raising more questions than it resolves. But it definitely rolls back his sense of confidence about a recent role for global warming.” Of course, now that we know global temperatures are down from their 1998 peak, the relative paucity of hurricanes over the past couple of years makes sense . . . .
UPDATE: Brendan Loy has comments, and emphasizes this passage:
This should put to rest a lot of the nonsense about a global warming conspiracy among scientists. Emanuel, faced with new evidence, has moderated his viewpoint. That’s what responsible scientists do, and most are responsible. The amount of scientist-bashing when it comes to global warming is generally quite deplorable.
The journalists, as usual, are less responsible than the scientists — though in fact, some of the public spokescientists have gotten ahead of the science, and others at least have muted any criticism of, say, Al Gore’s stretching of the truth. When you allow your work to be politicized, politics follow.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Eric Soskind emails:
I think you said: I’ll treat it like a crisis when the people who keep telling me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.
The latest example, in Maryland:
Feb. 19, 2008:
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (expressing support for a bill requiring Maryland to reduce emissions by 90%):“The climate crisis is real, and we must act now to reduce global climate change…”
“Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) announced yesterday morning that he will bar commercial wind turbines from state-owned land.”
Yeah. It’s as if they only take the problem seriously when they want to raise taxes or something.