Still no explanation

Denver had a record low of fifteen below zero, yesterday, replacing the record of fourteen below set in 1901.

The power's still out in the ice-storm damaged Northeast, with more outages threatened.

North and South Dakota have been hit by vicious blizzard conditions, closing the major interstates.

Symptoms of global cooling in the cycle, right? Not according to some:

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

...

Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding "tipping points."

"We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."

U.S. emissions have increased by 20 percent since 1992. China has more than doubled its carbon dioxide pollution in that time. World carbon dioxide emissions have grown faster than scientists' worst-case scenarios. Methane, the next most potent greenhouse gas, suddenly is on the rise again and scientists fear that vast amounts of the trapped gas will escape from thawing Arctic permafrost.

So, how do they explain the cool year we've had? How do they explain away the earth's down cycle? They don't, at least, not convincingly.

Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Our current weather patterns "actually [illustrate] how fast the world is warming"?!? How stupid do they think we are? A simple weather pattern does not explain overall cooler temperatures worldwide. And I think I can explain the Arctic melt that they're so concerned about--maybe not scientifically, but in a way that anyone can understand.

When, in the summer, we start filling swimming pools--or even wading pools--the water is frigid. It takes forever for it to warm up, even in direct sunlight. On the flip side, once it's warm, it takes forever for it to cool down, even with a week-long clouded over sky following a cool front.

I will not deny that the world has been warmer for a few decades. That's a measurable fact. It probably heated up the all of the oceans, like a gigantic swimming pool. It's going to take a while for that pool to cool off--it probably would take a long time even if we were to go into another ice age.

In fact, if I recall my basic, elementary school history and science, most of the worst effects of the ice ages were mitigated by oceanic currents near the coast, and were only really bad in the interiors of large continents.

But worldwide cooler temperatures actually a symptom of anthropogenic global warming? Please.