To everything there is a season

The Full Pink Moon sets early morning over the McCardle Bridge to East Boston. According to the Farmer's Almanac, the name comes "from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring." Our own ground phlox just started blossoming this week, about two weeks earlier than last year but not as lushly floriferous.

No two years are the same when it comes to leafing and flowering out, we noted in the comments at TigerHawk the other day in a post where he photodocumented the difference between bloom times of Bradford Callery Pears along Witherspoon Street in Princeton, in full blossom two weeks earlier this year than last. That's what integrated pest management is all about. As we commented:

You get an A in Natural History for your excellent field observations. I used to keep an illustrated journal while studying plant communities and such in the Radcliffe Seminars Landscape program [now translocated to the Arnold Arboretum] years ago and documented a longer span of earlier and later harbingers of spring. From a March 26 post last year [2005]:

"Early spring bloomers were flowering much earlier in the season back in 1991. As we noted then, "The winter has been notably mild, so we might expect things to be a little ahead of schedule."

"The earliest blooming maple, Acer saccharinum (Silver Maple), only now starting to flower in our side yard, was already in full bloom on March 6, 1991. Get those global-warming folks on the phone!"

After this year's [2006] mild winter, the Silver Maple was back to its early blooming tricks.

Re those global-warming folks, you may or may not have caught the politically incorrect story in the Telegraph this week about how the warming stopped in 1998.

"A skeptic says a herd instinct is at work in science," went the blurb in this June, 1996 article we clipped from the NYT -- back when we still read the "paper of record" -- on the work of Dr. Richard S. Lindzen of MIT, who "has shown no hesitancy to draw the fire of most of his colleagues in atmospheric science." (Rick Friedman photo)

Then there was MIT Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science Richard Lindzen's Wall Street Journal op ed this Wednesday, "Climate of Fear: Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence." It's a great read. 'Course we have a yellowing NYT clipping in our snail files dated June 18, 1996 (above) by the same Professor Lindzen that says very much the same thing. That was 10 years ago. Two days before, on June 12, 1996, the WSJ had carried an op ed by Frederick Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, who noted that the latest report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had been tampered with following peer review "to remove hints of the skepticism with which many scientists regard claims that human activities are having a major impact on climate in general and on global warming in particular."

By the temperature of global-warming hysteria under the leadership of Al "An Inconvenient Truth" Gore, it appears no one was listening then, and no one is listening now. Scientists are only human, after all, and for many -- if not most -- getting the grants and the accolades and running with the herd trump the search for truth. Yet another example of a Fear Society Lite, with media elites reflexively promulgating the party line. As NBC's Andrea Mitchell admitted way back in 1990 (from an Insight magazine clipping in our snail files), "clearly the networks have made the decision now, where you'd have to call it advocacy."

"Politicized science can undo all the benefits humanity has reaped since the Renaissance," writes Thomas Lifson. Fortunately, there will still be fresh catnip, if not the dried, processed Nepeta cataria we served Baby Cakes this morning. Above, he sits in a drug-induced stupor after partaking of the weed.

"Global warming theory has the potential to cripple our standard of living and the process of improvement in the human condition," wrote our blogfriend Thomas Lifson of The American Thinker the other day:

We have published our own questions about the supposed “evidence” and its serious faults, but Professor Lindzen goes much further, pointing to a pattern of corruption of the scientific process itself, and bullying by the likes of Al Gore.

As questions are raised about its shaky foundations, its advocates resort to increasingly hysterical denunciations of deviation from the gospel, making clear that it is a theology more than a scientific theory.

The larger corruption of science is, if anything, even more serious. Politicized science can undo all the benefits humanity has reaped since the Renaissance, and plunge us into a new dark age, worse than the previous one.

Exactly right. In that sense, adherence to global warming is akin to devotion to "intelligent design." Belief and solidarity with fellow believers -- the importance of  being noticed -- are more important than any scientific search for truth. One of Dr. Sanity's "many faces of denial."

Having had his fill, the Babe leaves the plate behind and heads for the back door. Note bits of dried catnip stuck to the backs of his legs. Lie down with catnip, get up with catnip on your fur.

It's a beautiful day out there. Not too hot and not too cold -- 64.4° -- with a gentle breeze under clear skies. Great for squirrel and birdwatching.

Update: The Friday Ark at Modulator is the place to go for watching animals of every ilk.

Comments

[Gayle Miller]

Our office closes at noon (20 minutes from now) and I'm heading home to throw open the windows and permit my two indoor boys to vicariously experience the great outdoors! Meanwhile, I will be cleaning and doing laundry since they are singularly disinclined to help with those chores. Ah well - I love them anyway!

[Tara]

I can't remember where I read this but Time magazine and several other publications,newspapers and TV networks actually give millions to these organizations that promote global warming and in turn . . . these organizations place millions of dollars worth of advertising with said companies.

It achieves a convergence,so to speak,of various media speaking the same language so that everywhere we turn,the global warning issue screams at us from every corner. It's the new groupthink for the enlightened.

Didn't the big thing in the 70's used to be that the earth was cooling and a new ice age would be upon us ?

It's in the 70's here in Pensacola, Florida.Very, very nice day ahead of me.

[Jane]

There's a lot of herd instinct at work in the world at the moment.

[goomp]

Mankind tends to seek approbation of others. In many it becomes an overwhelming need that trumps the search for truth. The more canine the person the greater the need. The more feline the person the less need and the greater the ability to follow the path for the truth even when it tends to isolate one from the pack.

[Teresa]

Early scientists would be right at home with this environment. Aristole's findings were denounced by the Church. Galileo was found guilty of heresy.

Today's scientist heretics have the "scientific community" and the press after them, not to mention rabid environmentalists.

I'm trying to think of which set might have been in more danger for the views they held or hold. The only change since the days of the Inquisition is that it's "Scientists" instead of Cardinals who are pronouncing sentence.

[HNAV]

Unethical Scientists?

Promoting hysteria without basis?

Shocking...

[Laura Lee Donoho]

This is really off topic but the serene photo at the top of the page is comforting. I have a bad cold so was trying to just live through it today and even without cold medicine I was so jumpy.

Then an airplane flew by our house so low that I thought it was going to crash.

Within an hour another shocking thing happened. A ninety-five year old woman fainted behind the wheel of her car and careened into our brick mailbox in front of our house.

She is in the hospital for observation overnight. The doctors think the pain she felt in her chest was due to the airbag deployment. The lady is really sweet and we are praying for her.

Even though I busied myself taking photos of the car and mailbox (it was just so weird looking) I think I was in a state of shock.

Tonight both my husband and I feel very anxious about her. This in no way was anywhere near the impact of 911 but still a very quiet day was shattered and we were just in the house.

I think it probably upset our neighbors as well and of course the sweet widow. Amazing how one moment can bring such shock and stress.

[CITIZEN JOURNALIST]

I'm trying to think of which set might have been in more danger for the views they held or hold. The only change since the days of the Inquisition is that it's "Scientists" instead of Cardinals who are pronouncing sentence.

You said it, Teresa! Modern scientists, attempting to use empirical observation and computer modeling to prove a point, are just like the Inquisition. Just last week, I was reading about a guy who spoke up against global warming and was promptly placed on The Stretcher, after which a hot iron was shoved up his ass as he spent the night sleeping in the Iron Maiden. You hit the nail on the head with that one, so to speak... just be careful of the eco-Inquisition, they might be after YOU now.

[goomp]

Willful blindness -- not to mention crude language -- can occur at any time, CJ. Persuasive argumentation, on the other hand, can be more elusive.

[Teresa]

Um... CJ - go read up on Galileo. Not all the Inquisition penalties were the physical torture you so describe. If you had taken the time to go look you would find that Galileo was put under house arrest, his work was denounced publicly, and he had to sneak out his last manuscript in order to get it printed before he died. For that matter he was supposed to be in prison, but they allowed him to stay with a local Bishop or Cardinal because of his health (yeah real mean of them wasn't it - sheer torture - makes me think Gitmo). And the reason for the penalty was based on the decision of the tribunal of Cardinals to declare Aristotle's work to be heresy.

What happens today is much the same - the scientists are ostracized by the majority - their views are suppressed because they don't conform to the current ideology - they lose their funding and their ability to publish their work in journals considered to be "respected" by the profession they are in.

Now tell me again about hot pokers and Iron Maidens and just how that fits into what I was trying to say.

[amba]

I don't know, Sissy. Look to the animals. What about all those polar bears drowning?

I think there's as much of a herd instinct operating among conservatives who feel compelled to pooh-pooh global warming as among scientists who feel compelled to "promote" it. In both cases, it's the way to be noticed and honored by one's peers.

[Sissy Willis]

A clever and well written reposte, amba, but not all behavior is honor-related, even among polar bears. Sometimes a cooling trend is just a cooling trend.

[amba]

It's not a cooling trend that's drowning the bears, though (support your right to drown bears?).

[Sissy Willis]

Four drowned bears have been found. The rest is extrapolation, with a helpful assist from a breathless media. As an environmental skeptic, I would like to know more before taking advocates at their word. While the Arctic shelf may be receding, the Antarctic may be advancing. But the point I was making is that placing the "blame" for global warming on our species is more a matter of faith than one of rigorous scientific inquiry. I am fascinated with the hubris that imagines we have the power to turn back the forces of Mother Nature. Think sun spots!