The Climate Change Broken Record

The younger generation may need to be brought up to speed on the term Broken Record; all they’ve ever known comes via digital.  In the old days of vinyl recordings music was stored on tiny grooves of plastic and a stylus rode these grooves to pick up the music and transfer it to the stereo so we could hear it.  If there was a scratch on the face of the recording the stylus would jump over the scratch and end up playing the same groove over and over until somebody pushed it past the scratch.  That’s how we got the term Broken Record. 

There’s a headline story at the Yahoo site by Becky Oskin, Hundreds of Methane Plumes Erupting Along East Coast, that caught my attention while eating my morning bowl of oatmeal (Kroger brand instant Maple with Brown Sugar with a pat of real butter if you’re interested). 

Scientists were blind sided by the discovery of methane plumes along the Atlantic coast even though they had not tested the gas; but were quite certain it was methane.  I was waiting for the old standby, “It must have something to do with Global Warming”.

“Without more exploring, the researchers can’t say for sure why there are so many methane plumes along the Atlantic coastline.”

You’d have thought at least one scientist would have gathered a sample, put a match to it and said, “Hummm, smells like methane, tastes like methane; sure glad I didn’t step in it”, or something that would have justified calling the gas methane.  Perhaps another scientist could ask if the other scientist had farted under water, pointing and laughing.  Hey, I know…let’s blame this all on Whale flatulence; there are still some pretty fat Global Warming research grants to be had from the government.

A bit further into the article the Broken Record skip began.  You know, the part where mankind is guilty of destroying the planet; drilling for oil, driving big SUVs to the restaurant for a juicy steak with mashed potatoes, wanting to live in air conditioned houses instead of toughing it out in caves like our noble ancestors; these methane plumes must be our fault.

“Methane is a greenhouse gas that disappears more quickly than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but has more warming power than carbon dioxide. Millions of tons of methane are frozen in Arctic permafrost, both on land and in the seafloor. Recently, several studies have warned that rapid warming in the Arctic could upset these deposits, melting them and freeing the gas. This would boost the planet’s greenhouse gas levels and could accelerate climate change.”

I’ll have to find a picture of Al Gore pointing to flames hovering over Arctic Ice, a Polar Bear floating off on the ever shrinking chunk of ice or maybe that old Indian Chief letting a single tear drop fall off his cheek as man destroys the planet.  I know, we can blame this all on fracking and Big Oil or filthy Coal.

“Most of the methane gas dissolves in the ocean before reaching the surface, Ruppel said. The total amount of gas is also much smaller than sources on land, such as cows or gas drilling. “It’s probably on the order of a feedlot of methane,” Valentine said. However, some shallow-water seeps could vent methane to the surface, and researchers expect that future surveys will uncover even more shallow seeps. These regions only received a cursory look during the survey.”

I love the scientific measurements used to assess the threat, “It’s probably on the order of a feedlot of methane,”…  Is that a Kansas feedlot of methane or a Texas feedlot of methane; be specific as the United Nation’s IPCC report will need exact scientific measurements prior to creating a new Hockey Stick that proves mankind is destroying the planet.

Never mind studies which have proven that there’s more Arctic Ice than ever before, never mind the fact that an active volcano spews out more greenhouse gas in one day than the accumulated greenhouse gasses contributed by the human race.  Man made global warming studies get federal tax dollars to scientists, lots and lots of tax dollars to scientists  who’ve signed on to the generally accepted consensus, which just happens to match the policies for handing out federal grants. 

Facts?… the facts they’ll find later; nobody pays attention to facts, at least not anyone pushing the climate change agenda.

Haven’t we heard this all before?  It must be a broken record.

This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.