13 thoughts on “Too Cool”

  1. Actually, a new study was released a couple of weeks ago, stating that the planet is actually cooling.

  2. The Commerce Department wants to know what Minnesota insurance companies are doing to make temperatures in Minnesota colder.

    The insurance companies are wondering what the Minnesota Department of Commerce is doing to promote commerce.

  4. “The insurance companies are wondering what the Minnesota Department of Commerce is doing to promote commerce.”

    Why the Sunset committee was so important?

  5. What they are trying to do is make you believe in something that doesn’t exist. If they can get the insurance company to up your rate by $100/year, and explain to you that it is a ‘global warming surcharge’, you are will be more likely to believe in global warming and work to stop it. They want you to pay for global warming that does not exist (the increased ‘risk’ bad weather never observed).
    But the dollars you pay with will be real & you will think ‘gosh! This global warming stuff is really affecting my pocket book!’.

  6. I would’ve writen this:

    Dear Department of Commerce:

    Global warming if you haven’t heard is a hoax.

    Furthermore it is none of our business to care about global warming if it existed.

    Please only write our company when you have real Department of Commerece business.

    Enclosed is a bill for $1,000 for the time and resources we wasted to answer your illegal request.

    Sincerely,

    Walter R. Hanson
    Owner of company that doesn’t believe in global warming

    P.S. lack of payment in 30 days will result in us filng a lawsuit against your department.

  7. Insurance costs have increased 220% (adjusted for inflation) since 1997, most all of it related to climate-related claims. Given that the insurance industry adjusts its rates every year to offset changes in their claims, the cost of insurance is an economic measure of climate change impacts. The climate-change increase in insurance costs alone will equal 2% of average household income by 2020 – which is like saying there will be a 2% decrease in household GDP.

    North American seed companies have moved their grow zones, one zone north to accommodate for the warmer climate. A couple of issues I’ve read about the growing season. One, growing season is about more than just temperature. If rain cycles change, or more extreme type events occur (especially hail), then there isn’t a benefit and in many areas there would be a negative. Two, geologic action during the last ice age scraped much of the best Canadian soil (creating the Canadian Shield) and dumped it into the United States (the modern corn belt). So, moving the best growing regions north moves them out of the most fertile soil zones.

  8. @Emery: “Insurance costs have increased 220% (adjusted for inflation) since 1997, most all of it related to climate-related claims.” – Citation please and thank you.

  9. Emery, your 6:31 comment is nonsense. What kind of insurance? What caused this increase?
    The linked article says “The questionnaire, developed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), focuses on the assessment of risk associated with climate change. However, it also seeks information on whether insurance companies are working to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, have altered their investment strategies in response to climate change, or have encouraged policyholders to reduce losses caused by “climate change-influenced events.””
    What the heck is a ‘climate change-influenced event? How do you tell an ordinary tornado from a ‘climate change-influenced’ tornado? Why is ‘climate change’ linked to greenhouse gas emissions? The ‘climate change’ prior to 1900 apparently occurred independent of greenhouse gas emissions.
    Perhaps the state should ask the insurance companies if they are properly calculating the risk of riots should Kyoto-style limits be placed on our economy?

  12. Emery,

    I don’t doubt that climate change exists; merely that man caused it or can do anything to stop it. This planet’s history has been an unending chain of climate changes. Hot and cold streaks come and go. Recent history has been mild by historical standards. That seems to be a real consensus.

    So when you say…:

    North American seed companies have moved their grow zones, one zone north to accommodate for the warmer climate.

    Right. Because climates do change. And it’s led to North Dakota becoming a corn producer. When I was a kid, corn was just about unheard-of in ND. It was too cold and dry. It’s still dry, of course – they irrigate, and they raise dry-climate hybrids. People change along with climates.

    But when you say…:

    …geologic action during the last ice age scraped much of the best Canadian soil (creating the Canadian Shield) and dumped it into the United States (the modern corn belt). So, moving the best growing regions north moves them out of the most fertile soil zones.

    That’s so hopelessly broad, only a city boy could have written it. The Shield is prime wheat country. BTW, the glaciers (and their runoff lakes and rivers) dumped a lot of great soil in Minnesota and North Dakota, too. The Corn Belt as we were taught the concept in junior high may well have been a transient historical condition, rather than the agricultural norm.

  13. Weird claim about the growing zone.
    NPR covered the change, noting that ‘USDA officials, while introducing their new map to reporters, insisted that they were making no claims about global warming.’
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/01/25/145855948/gardening-map-of-warming-u-s-has-plant-zones-moving-north
    Less reputable left-wing sites, written and edited by ideologues with no demonstrated understanding of science, have made the claim that Emery echoes in his comment.

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