Snow in Baghdad, but global warming rages on

J Greg Strange

It's not often that it snows in Baghdad. In fact, no one can remember the last time it happened.

But just because it has now snowed in Baghdad for the first time in anyone's memory doesn't mean that global warming isn't raging on unabated, killjoy climate experts are rushing to tell us. Don't let this one little cold weather anomaly get you too excited because it doesn't mean a thing and mankind is still rushing headlong toward planetary catastrophe.

Nonetheless, that didn't stop locals from taking delight in the beautiful and unheard of sight and declaring it an omen of peace.

"It is the first time we've seen snow in Baghdad," said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. "A few minutes ago, I was covered with snowflakes. In my hair, on my shoulders. I invite all the people to enjoy peace, because the snow means peace," he said.

It's a lovely sentiment and if you believe many climatologists, peace in the Middle East is a much more likely scenario than a reversal of the runaway train of catastrophic global warming. Sure, the warmest year for the planet was back in 1998, a full ten years ago, but that is nothing more than a nattering detail.

"Global warming has not stopped," said Amir Delju, senior scientific coordinator of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) climate program. He went on to say that climate change, primarily caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases, would bring bigger swings in the weather alongside a continuing warming trend.

"The more frequent occurrence of extreme events all over the world — floods in Australia, heavy snowfall in the Middle East — can also be signs of warming," Delju said.

Oh, okay, now I get it. I'm kicking myself for not figuring this out sooner. All extreme weather events, even of the cold variety, are signs of global warming. Makes perfect sense, what was I thinking?

So, presumably that would include one of the coldest winters ever in South America last year which included record low temperatures, widespread frost and the first snow in Buenos Aires in 89 years. And Australia's coldest June on record. And New Zealand's record spring lows. And the first significant snowfall in a quarter-century in Johannesburg. And the record snowfall that fell in New Hampshire last month. And the snow in Malibu last year. And the . . .

Well, you get the idea. Every weather extreme of every sort is further proof of anthropogenic global warming. But doggone it, there are still "some people," according to Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Climate Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, "who would want to find every single excuse to say that this is all hogwash."

Yeah, well, excuse me for living–and excuse me for having a bit of trouble grappling with the concept that the ultimate result of human productivity will be the destruction of the planet. Can the climate Cassandras possibly get how counterintuitive that seems to us common folk who instead have the idea that productivity is a good thing?

Delju said that temperatures would have to be flat for several more years before a lack of new record warm years would become significant, or, that is, before we could "say that this is all hogwash." If it happens, though, don't expect the doomsters to go away quietly without a fight, and without a phantasmagorical web of explanations and rationalizations about why they got it all wrong.

Greg Strange provides conservative commentary with plenty of acerbic wit on the people, politics, events and absurdities of our time. See more at his website: http://www.greg-strange.com/.