MSNBC (not Fox!) blames the food riots in Egypt on “speculation” not Global Warming (ie. food shortages due to unusual weather such as the Russian summer heat wave):
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One of my predictions for this year is that blaming every funky weather event on global warming will now get a mocking roll of the eyes not a knowing nod of the head. Happening faster than I thought it would.
Coincidently, I am in a heated debate with a reader over this issue. He blames the food inflation on a series of unusual circumstances that are causing shortages, whereas I ask him why almost all commodities took off in a parabolic surge (a signature of a speculative bubble) just after The Ben Bernank announced QE2 in August. Hard to argue that recent floods in Queensland (coal) or last summer’s heat wave in Russia (wheat) or whatever all caused a spike in commodities of all sorts at the same time. Sure, these events contribute to spikes in particular commodity prices as they occur, and corn jumped a bit after the Russian heat wave, but the parabolic run-up began after the QE2 announcement:
Confirmation bias. You have a set of opinions. You torture the facts until they confirm previously set opinions and proclaim victory. Premature victory.
We have climate records going back over 100 years. The 10 hottest years all took place within the last 15. If you can read a stock chart, you can understand this. Last year tied the hottest year on record. This is not hard to understand either.
Koch Industries underwrites major conservative think tanks and the Tea Party. Of course they dispute climate change. It’s bad for their business. The Koch brothers put private profit ahead of self-evident science and the public good. And the right-wing echo machine repeats their mantras over and over again, no matter how idiotic.