let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 11:56 AM on February 17, 2003

How high is the water mama?

Come spring you will all be glad. This has to be good for the water table. Has there not been some summer drought these last couple of years on the east coast?
I wish we had some of it here.
posted by thirteen at 12:06 PM on February 17, 2003

You're not from around here, are you? It's pretty neat looking outside in Cambridge, MA, but only because I'm looking from inside. As a rail/pedestrian commuter, I don't relish the idea of going back to work tomorrow...
posted by whatzit at 12:07 PM on February 17, 2003

whatzit, NYC had only 3 or 3 and 1/2 inches of snow last year, so this is superb.
posted by riffola at 12:09 PM on February 17, 2003

I would like to note for no apparent reason that I flew a kite and wore shorts today.
posted by Stan Chin at 12:10 PM on February 17, 2003

19 inches of snow. How many cm is that?
posted by ginz at 12:11 PM on February 17, 2003

I would like to note that I also wore shorts today, but as I stayed inside thanks to the 2' of snow in Philly I suspect my reasons for mentioning it are even less apparent.
posted by picopebbles at 12:13 PM on February 17, 2003

48.26, glnz.

I want to see pictures.
posted by goethean at 12:18 PM on February 17, 2003

Bah...this is nottin!!! Its all about the midwest snow storms...In Minnesota, snowed so much that when a path was made, the sides were higher tha you. Plus, when it got real bad, you had to walk with a rope attatched to something up high because people have been known to literally fall into feet of snow to the point where its above their head (the rope was used so people knew where to find these missing people).
I'm also bitter now that I live in Georgia, and we didn't get any snow this year.

I want to see pictures.
of Stan Chin in shorts? Why?
Only if he's drunk...
posted by jmd82 at 12:23 PM on February 17, 2003

goethean: http://www.unowot.com/index.jpg

http://nyctmc.org/images/cams/govt_property/cctv10.jpg
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:25 PM on February 17, 2003

Weatherfilter: where it snows in the winter.
posted by moonbiter at 12:26 PM on February 17, 2003

48.26. Thanks goethean.
I'm jealous.
I want to see pictures too.
Stan Chin in hotpants and snow.
Last "snow storm" we had here was in 1979. snif.
posted by ginz at 12:27 PM on February 17, 2003

One of the great things about the NE United States is that in a given year, at sea-level, we can get 50cms of snow, and yet have beach 38 degree C summers. And the snow storms, even in 2003, are not that predictable. It keeps life interesting. EVERYONE: GET OUT YOUR CROSS-COUNTRY SKIS AND HAVE FUN!!
posted by ParisParamus at 12:29 PM on February 17, 2003

you had to walk with a rope attatched to something up high

Ah, a new version of hangman?
posted by ginz at 12:31 PM on February 17, 2003

SnowFilter!

Actually, I'm jealous...here it is, my first winter in Montana, and we've only had about 18 inches of snow all SEASON -- largest single-storm total was about 6 inches...(bummed)

NYC, PH, and DC, etc, -- enjoy it while you can!
posted by davidmsc at 12:46 PM on February 17, 2003

Hey, Stan, I mowed the front lawn Sunday before last. God, the grass got long since the last time in--was it December or this year?

I go for walks when it's nice now, and I hear a horizon of robins chirping away. It sure feels like Spring. The one downside to this winter is that we haven't had a hard freeze and it gets less likely we will with each passing day. The slugs and bugs and cut worms are going to hell on gardens this summer.

And the young people here--you know, under 30--wear shorts all year round. The last time it snowed here to even a fourth of what you're getting--we're talking decades. And my girlfriend wants me to move to New Jersey...
posted by y2karl at 12:49 PM on February 17, 2003

Weatherfilter: where it snows in the winter.

Hmm, 49 degrees--man, it's nippy here today!
posted by y2karl at 12:52 PM on February 17, 2003

jmd82, much of Minnesota has gotten less than a foot of snow this year. It's been a very dry winter.
posted by mrbula at 12:54 PM on February 17, 2003

No snow, still cold as hell, can't buy liquor on Sundays. In summation: Minnesota sucks.
posted by norm at 12:59 PM on February 17, 2003

I'm too lazy to shovel and when you have a 4x4 and a wall of snow who can resist plunging in rear first which seemed like a good idea at the time but now I'm stuck.. d'oh! [links 300k ea] .. shot of the Chesapeake Bay frozen (nuclear powered Lighthouse in the background)
posted by stbalbach at 1:00 PM on February 17, 2003

now I'm stuck.. d'oh!

You need a bigger SUV. Maybe a Ford Leviathan or a Dodge Humongous. That, or maybe a drill truck.
posted by moonbiter at 1:13 PM on February 17, 2003

My woman just convinced me to take a "fun walk" around Queens. Ha, ha, wet socks! Ha, ha, frozen beard! Ha, ha, almost run down by snow plough! Thanks, but I'll have my fun inside now.
posted by muckster at 1:19 PM on February 17, 2003

my fucking neighbor keeps plowing my car in. i dig it out, he plows it in.

oh well, guess it gives me an excuse not to go to work tomorrow.
posted by goddam at 1:27 PM on February 17, 2003

One of my pet peeves is when people assume I care about the weather in New York. David Letterman assumes this, as does the nightly news. Both are wrong.

But since it's riffola, I guess I won't fly into a rage. THIS TIME.
posted by Hildago at 1:32 PM on February 17, 2003

I meant pictures of NYC
not your fucking truck
posted by goethean at 1:35 PM on February 17, 2003

I'm in Western NY, and it looks like we're just getting the edge of this storm [**looks out the window at snow coming down; thinks about shoveling the driveway yet again**].

However, as a native Southern Californian, I must say that I've got deep philosophical objections to the whole concept of "seasons." Me, I go for "less warm" and "hot."
posted by thomas j wise at 1:35 PM on February 17, 2003

i washed my car today.
posted by quonsar at 1:37 PM on February 17, 2003

Take that global warming!
posted by shepd at 1:39 PM on February 17, 2003

21 inches here (SE Penn.). It's great (especially because of no school tomorrow), except for all the back-breaking shoveling... *rubs sore back*
posted by thebabelfish at 1:42 PM on February 17, 2003

Hildago, is Seattle feeling (a) little envy?
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:46 PM on February 17, 2003

As a Canadian resident of the Great Lakes area, I feel like I have an obligation to scoff at your whining/bragging about snow

*scoff*

Of course, we aren't getting that much snow right now. It's just bitterly cold.
posted by grum@work at 1:54 PM on February 17, 2003

Trapped in Brooklyn (stop) Running low on cigarettes and booze (stop) Cookie supply is holding out (stop) Pictures to come (end message)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:59 PM on February 17, 2003

Times Square is beautifull right now. virtually NO CARS! If they only made it a pedestrian mall, all the time. But despite the snow there is still a crowd for TRL. those fans can't be stopped.
posted by Duck_Lips at 2:00 PM on February 17, 2003

stbalbach, nice pics!
posted by eddydamascene at 2:06 PM on February 17, 2003

A few pics here, but the best ones (of us standing hip-deep in snow in the middle of the street) aren't up yet.

It was crazy to go out at noon and find they hadn't (apparently) even ploughed Broadway yet...
posted by Raya at 2:09 PM on February 17, 2003

We're even feeling this weather down in the south, in Richmond -- not snow really, but a couple of inches of ice that has me trapped in my house. Since no one around here can deal with any amount of ice or snow, most everything is/was shut down.

But hey, it got me out of work and school, so I'm not complaining.
posted by katherine at 2:12 PM on February 17, 2003

is Seattle feeling (a) little envy?

Speaking for this Seattlelite...YES!
posted by vito90 at 2:14 PM on February 17, 2003

Hildago, is Seattle feeling (a) little envy?

Maybe. I doubt I'd be complaining if New Yorkers had to be regaled with every little bit of trivia about what was going on in Seattle, but that still doesn't mean it makes any sense for CNN to be reporting local news to a worldwide audience. Grrr. I don't care if a new restaurant just opened 3000 miles away.

But this is off topic.
posted by Hildago at 2:23 PM on February 17, 2003

Spent an hour digging out half my driveway, and then my neighbor came by a gas-powered snowblower, finished the rest of the job in 15 minutes. That thing rocks, but it felt like the emissions were the equivalent of smoking two packs of unfiltered Camels.
posted by MattD at 2:29 PM on February 17, 2003

but that still doesn't mean it makes any sense for CNN to be reporting local news to a worldwide audience.

that's because we here in the new york metropolitan tri-state area are more important than the rest of the world, silly.
posted by goddam at 2:33 PM on February 17, 2003

We've noticed...
posted by Wulfgar! at 2:44 PM on February 17, 2003

19 inches...

We get 3 here and the country grinds to a halt.

Oh I love England...

[/sarcasm]

Do they get Metafilter in New Zealand...? ;)
posted by twine42 at 2:51 PM on February 17, 2003

Or Canada...
posted by twine42 at 2:52 PM on February 17, 2003

muckster: Hey, we may have passed each other! Did you go to Astoria Park? My wife also likes tramping around in the white stuff. But she knitted me a mile-long scarf for Xmas, so my beard didn't freeze. They haven't cleared our street, and according to Mayor Bloomberg they may do Queens side streets in a couple of days... or never. (I'm sure glad I've got the day off from work.)
posted by languagehat at 2:53 PM on February 17, 2003

Goddamn right, goddam.

Watching cops and buses squirming around is so worth the inconvenience of being stuck inside my office. (Don't ask.) It warms my cold expat Canadian heart to look down on these people from my window. Mmmm.

I took some lovely pictures of people skiing along 42nd street, which I intend to use as desktop wallpaper come July.

[Also, there's lots of local news from Chicago and Seattle and SF (not to mention London and Melbourne and lots of non-English speaking places) that gets posted, both on MeFi and on our local media outlets, all the time. I think it's cool. But then again, I live in the center of the universe now, so I'd understand if you outlanders scoff at my biases.]
posted by chicobangs at 2:55 PM on February 17, 2003

I've only been a resident of the East Coast since last July; before that I lived in Nebraska and Michigan, both of which get a fair amount of snow in the winter.

This is the most snow I've seen in some time (I'm in New Castle, DE, which got the brunt of the storm yesterday--the governor declared a state of emergency at 9:20 am--the last time I went out and measured, there was over 20 inches of snow out there), the only other storm which is comparable is the storm that hit Detroit New Year's weekend in 1999.
posted by eilatan at 2:55 PM on February 17, 2003

We're about to get the motherlode here in Beantown...
posted by owillis at 3:09 PM on February 17, 2003

Exclusive! Pictures of New York snow. It is very different from other snow.

¡ªA man using a snowblower at 19th Street and Fifth Avenue around 10 a.m., (76K).
¡ªLooking down the middle of Fifth Avenue a minute later,(68K).
¡ªCar buried by snow plows on 19th Street at Broadway, around 10:30 a.m., (80K).
¡ªEckford Street in Greenpoint Brooklyn, in front of my apartment, at around 5:45 p.m., (76K). You can see that the prevailing winds are to the North, although due to currents, we had snow coming in the bathroom this morning. What a nice shower that was: steam poured in the windows and the cats batted at it.

Yeah, we have a lot of snow. I left at 8:30 a.m. to visit a couple of clients, but their offices were closed for the holiday, so I went to the Strand bookstore which was uncrowded (sweet) and scored some recent arrivals, spent some hours a coffee shop where I got a little writing done, visited a friend and helped with a computer problem, and have just returned home. State of emergency is relative: most of the subways are still working (those which are completely underground), and some of the buses. I might go see a movie later. Such is life in a city where people walk.
posted by Mo Nickels at 3:10 PM on February 17, 2003

If Giuliani were still mayor, all this snow would have been arrested days ago.

Also, despite the fact that NC has generally received no more than 6 inches, Governor Easley has declared a state of emergency. Just goes to show.
posted by gsteff at 4:00 PM on February 17, 2003

Hm. Wore shorts yesterday. Opened up the house this afternoon to let the spring-like air in. Considered refilling the bird feeder, which the little bastards have already emptied since last week (I suspect squirrels).

Haven't seen snow yet since I moved to Austin. I love it here in the fall and spring. The summers are suck, but I have learned to wear a hat, sunglasses and keep water about. Oh, also Sonic Route-44 iced drinks are good.

I miss snow. I lived in Connecticut until I was eight. The problem is that I don't like cold anymore... it's so, uh, cold. At least when it's hot you can get naked (almost). (On that note, Austin boasts the only nude beach in Texas, but I haven't gone. The rumors of the overweight hairy gay folks taking over have somewhat dampened my desire to visit.)

Thanks for the pictures, all. You especially, stbalbach, thanks for doing the fun thing rather than the safe thing and then sharing the joy. Reminds me of my childhood, making snow tunnels.
posted by Jonasio at 4:20 PM on February 17, 2003

Austin has five seasons: Spring, Summer, Super Summer, Summer, and Fall.
posted by Jonasio at 4:22 PM on February 17, 2003

Drove home today after a foot fell while I was at the office. Took about 25% longer than usual. But I'm in Buffalo.

After the Blizzard of '77, takes a lot to impress me. Enjoy the snow day, NYC.
posted by sacre_bleu at 4:33 PM on February 17, 2003

People have this funny notion that Minnesota is winter nine months out of the year when in fact it is ten.
posted by pedantic at 4:36 PM on February 17, 2003

You city people have it easy with your on-call plow trucks and salt and cinder trucks, all working overtime to get all of you dug out and make your paths clear. Out here in the sticks, my attempt to make a last-minute grocery run (in a 4WD SUV) at about 9:30 yesterday morning -- before the worst of it came down -- was a disaster of unpassable road, and I ended up driving 1/4 mile in reverse to get back home. The road was clear enough to get out later in the day, but it was obvious on the way home that it was going to be unpassable again rather soon.

Then this morning, I made the mistake of sending my dogs out into the yard before I took a good look to see how much more snow fell overnight. The lhasa was chicken and wouldn't even try, which was a good thing in retrospect. But the malamute is in his glory in this weather and went bounding out and the adventurous poodle set out to follow him. The poodle promptly sank in snow twice as deep as he is tall, and he's 11" at the shoulder. He foundered a bit and I had to run down and fish him out before he created an avalanche on himself. Poor thing. I had to shovel out a place for the little dogs to do their thing outside.

We're not going to be able to go anywhere until the county plows the main road so that someone can get to the access road to plow, which will allow someone to get to the rural road to plow, then someone can get down the rural road to us, and can plow our driveway to set us free. That'll probably be Thursday or Friday, but perhaps not until after the weekend.
posted by Dreama at 5:08 PM on February 17, 2003

I think that New York received more snow today then Wisconsin did all winter. I kind of miss all that white, but the way everyone is reacting reminds me of the midwest adage, "It's only news when it happens in New York."
posted by drezdn at 5:17 PM on February 17, 2003

it's showing no signs of stopping, but i've got some corn for popping
posted by adampsyche at 5:19 PM on February 17, 2003

Yeah... we got like 20 inches down here in Philly. NJ, Maryland, and Delaware all cleared the roads... although one has to wonder what kind of people would hit the roads in conditions like we had today and yesterday...

Snow day tomorrow!!! Woohoo!
posted by ph00dz at 5:28 PM on February 17, 2003

is Seattle feeling (a) little envy?

Speaking for this Seattlelite...YES!

Speaking for this Seattlelite... NO! I also washed my car today, and went for a two mile walk by Lake Washington.
posted by jessamyn at 5:47 PM on February 17, 2003

New Yorkers, a bunch of whiners. Well I remember '78, just outside of Providence on I-95, National Guard pokin' rifles barrels in the snow hopin' to feel the thud of the landau roof of a car. 24 inches in Central Park - heh.
posted by dchase at 6:05 PM on February 17, 2003

Now doesn't snow make you glad internet exists ?
posted by elpapacito at 6:07 PM on February 17, 2003

I was outside Albany for Christmas and we got probably 2.5+ feet, all on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Apparently there was some kind of stay-off-the-roads advisory, but we didn't hear about that and decided to drive across town to a nature preserve to go hiking. Lots of fun.

Then I came back home to coastal North Carolina, and we got an inch. Maybe an inch and a half. Every bank in town was closed. I got off work (went anyway, because it's two blocks away and if I'd actually stayed home I could never have showed my face in the Northeast again). The first cigarette store I tried was closed, and let me tell you, if I'd had to go without cigarettes because some damn Southerner was scared to death of an inch of snow, things would've gotten ugly. (The second store was open.) And the cops were driving around with snow chains. Yes, snow chains. You could hear them rattling a mile away.

I need to move back somewhere civilized.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 6:43 PM on February 17, 2003

Global Warming = more energy in the climate system: a tendency towards bigger storms.

I've been shoveling the driveway all day, but I just learned that - because it's fluffy and the wind is strong - I can just fling it off my shovel straight up into the air:

Then wind pick it up and it all just blows "away".
posted by troutfishing at 7:30 PM on February 17, 2003

I was driving back from Quebec City (to Somerville, MA) with friends after spending the holiday weekend there (and having fun at the Carnaval). We were in southern Vermont at about 5:30, at which point I started getting cell phone reception again and called a friend in Boston. He told me I should probably get off the road and find someplace to spend the night. I'm happy I didn't. It is rather gorgeous in Boston tonight, even if I did have to push the car out of a snowdrift at one point.

And Quebec City was so cold that Boston currently feels like the tropics.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 7:47 PM on February 17, 2003

But troutfishing, for years I was told by scientists that global warming would lead to a warmer environment (the greenhouse effect). Is it now that there will just be more storms? When it first came out it was going to lead to things cooling down... have we timewarped?

Or is it actually that global warming is simply an easy thing for people to blame the effects of more accurate weather predictions and recording on?

And all this time people have said how mild the weather has been. But if having mild weather isn't global warming, then is global warming a localised effect?

I just bring it up on a topic like this because it really seems to me that scientists are changing their minds on the definition of global warming far too often. It seems to be as much a science as meteorology...
posted by shepd at 8:39 PM on February 17, 2003

shepd - is this a troll comment? I have a hard time believing that you are serious. Last year (2002) was the 2nd warmest ever recorded.....have you not noticed the welter of record-breaking destructive storms, heat waves, droughts, and so on: Global weather has not been mild.

[By Paul R. Epstein and James J. McCarthy, Op-ed Column, The Boston Globe, Jan. 28, 2003 ] - "First, if you had any doubts, we are in an unusually deep cold spell, with snow and records falling across the South. Driving conditions are hazardous (and sometimes tragic) as pedestrians and the homeless face bitter winds and icy ''orthopedic weather.'' Ice dams are blocking Latvian ports, winds and storms are battering Europe, Portugal is freezing, Vietnam has lost one-third its rice crop, and the cold has caused close to 2,000 deaths in usually temperate South Asia.

"As several scientists have warned, global warming will be full of surprises. Warming over the past half-century has already brought more erratic and extreme weather. Some climatologists are increasingly concerned about the stability of the climate system itself and the potential for abrupt shifts - to warmer or even much colder states. Can we make sense of the present cold snap?

Part of the explanation comes from changes to our north. ..."


Meanwhile: "ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, September 26, 2000 (ENS) - As the global climate changes, extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heat waves, heavy rainfall, tropical storms and hurricanes are expected to increase, a team of scientists said Friday. The team, led by David Easterling of the National Climatic Data Center, reached this conclusion after reviewing hundreds of studies that used data and climate models to examine past and future changes in climate extremes. Their work, which includes reviews of studies using observations, modeling, and impacts, is reported in the September 22 edition of the journal "Science."

"Our review shows consistency between our climate models and what we have observed in the 20th century. Models of 21st century climate suggest that many of these changes in climate extremes are likely to continue," Easterling said. "We also found that extreme weather events have had increasing impact on human health, welfare, and financial losses. This trend is likely to become more intense in the years to come both as the climate continues to change, and society continues to become more vulnerable to weather and climate extremes." Recent years have seen weather events cause large losses of life and tremendous increases in economic hardship. Losses caused by catastrophes, defined as greater than $5 million, have grown in the U.S. from about $100 million a year in the 1950s to $6 billion per year in the 1990s. The annual number of catastrophes grew from 10 per year in the 1950s to 35 per year in the 1990s"
posted by troutfishing at 9:17 PM on February 17, 2003

Northern Neck of Virginia, we have 13 inches of snow and 2 inches of ice on top of it. Fun, fun.

I was 2 during the blizzard of '77 in Niagara Falls, NY. My parents have pictures of the snow piled higher than the roof of our house.
posted by SuzySmith at 9:26 PM on February 17, 2003

Think "water cycle". A warmer climate means greater evaporation translating into higher percipitation.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:22 PM on February 17, 2003

No, troutfishing, not a troll, just my view of the culmination of ideaologies on what "global warming" represents. I remember an old Time article I read 6 or 7 years ago that described it in terms that the earth would simply warm up till we're frazzled and drowned. And then there's the old idea from a Newsweek article that says the earth was going to cool down. And now there's the changing weather patterns idea.

Last but not least, measurements that the earth is warming aren't consistent with satellite data. Which leads me to believe that we don't have the ability to properly asess the earth's actual overall temperature yet, and tells me to suspect anything using this argument as a basis for a scientific theory.

So, overall, putting that together helps lead me to be somewhat doubtful of what many scientists say about global warming. It doesn't mean that I think pollution is a good idea. Just that scientists would do well to more thouroughly research a topic as serious as global warming before chatting it up with the general public. It isn't as if keeping a lid on it for another decade while quality results can be gathered, instead of speculation based on current events, would destroy humanity.

This article describes my position better than I can. Although it is a little old and doesn't discuss the new element of "global warming is drastic changing in weather patterns", I think the author's opinion would remain unchanged.

If you think they're whackos themselves, how about the "Hoover essay in Public Policy?".

Advocates of curbing greenhouse emissions and ratifying the Kyoto Protocol contend that global warming will bring disease and death to Americans. Is this is likely? Should Americans fear a health crisis? Would a warmer world bring an epidemic of tropical diseases? Would Americans face increased heatstroke and summers bringing a surge of deaths? Would global warming bring more frequent and more violent hurricanes wreaking havoc on our citizens? Is it true that warmer climates are less healthy than colder ones? Would cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as the Kyoto Protocol requires, improve the health of Americans? This essay will show that the answer to all those questions is a resounding no.

Another scientist has this to say:

No one should be surprised that a National Academy of Sciences panel concluded that global warming is an important problem and the planet will warm somewhere between 1.4 and 5.8? C by the end of this century. That¡¯s the same range projected by the United Nations¡¯ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in a report to be released with great fanfare some 60 days from now. The same people produced both reports, and with the same process: groupthink. Here¡¯s how it works: To produce whatever you want, all you have to do is select the right people, but include a few dissenters who can then be listed as participants even as they are ignored by the dynamics of the larger group.

I'd quote more, but there's an entire treasure trove of professional, scientific, accredited, global warming debunking available here. In short, chicken little, global warming is.
posted by shepd at 10:24 PM on February 17, 2003

shepd, the Global Climate Coalition that you link to at the end of your post is a well-known business lobby group ('a voice for business in the global warming debate') that is now defunct, claiming that 'The industry voice on climate change has served its purpose by contributing to a new national approach to global warming. '

Whether this is linked to the $60 million in political contributions made by member organisations between 1989-99 is a moot point. It is certainly disingenuous to suggest that it is a source of unbiased scientific opinion as you do in your last paragraph.

A more critical review of the GCC can be found here.
posted by barnsoir at 4:28 AM on February 18, 2003

groupthink. Here¡¯s how it works: To produce whatever you want, all you have to do is select the right people, but include a few dissenters who can then be listed as participants even as they are ignored by the dynamics of the larger group.

It makes very little sense to discuss the product of these scientists as Groupthink. In the original research on the Groupthink there were several key elements the were required for groupthink to emerge. Among them was shared sense of invulnerability. I hardly think a bunch of scientists who are warning that the sky is falling have a shared illusion of invulnerability. Nor is advocating pollution control a huge risk taking decision. If anything the research on Groupthink would suggest the label belongs to the 'no global warming here move along group'.

Plus he is displaying a willful ignorance of the research on what happens when there are 'a few dissenters' in a group. In many experimental situations the dissenters have been found to wield disproportionate influence and almost always raise the quality of group output even if their positions are not adopted.

Patrick J. Michaels is one of the Lomborg style scientists who have been popping up lately who tap into a powerful North American archetype by rhetorically positioning themselves as underdog mavericks. This is highly effective despite the obvious contradiction of being darlings of deep pocketed industrial associations, think tanks and CNN and the fact that their ideological position is essentially let the status quo be.
posted by srboisvert at 5:55 AM on February 18, 2003

Even if we consider the long-term health effects of global warming to be ambiguous, the epidemeology of lung disease associated with automotive air pollution is not.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:03 AM on February 18, 2003

I would like to start a movement to shame and harass all people who live in the Northeast US, and yet complain about snow. Snow is a wonderful gift. It is as divine as a blue sky or a tropical beach. It makes me happy. It makes people, generally, more civil. More snow, PLEASE!
posted by ParisParamus at 10:37 AM on February 18, 2003

I agree.

The wonderful thing about snow is how it makes everyone friends when it's first falling--strangers talk to each other because they have a common subject to discuss and everyone is friendly.

That, at least, is how it is here in Seattle. Firetrucks block the arterials on all the hills and people ski and sled down the empty streets. Of course, since it only snows here twice in a decade, it's a much bigger deal. If we get six inches, nobody goes to work the next day.
posted by y2karl at 11:03 AM on February 18, 2003

It's still snowing here in Maine. We'll have gotten about 14 inches out of this when it's all over. This is the third time this winter we've had snowfall of more than a foot from one storm. Schools were closed till noon today, but overall, no one thinks it's a big deal.

To the fine citizens of New York City, on behalf of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, the northern Midwest, upstate New York, and all of Canada, I would like to say: "Pussies."

I drove out to Manchester, New Hampshire yesterday. The snow started around Kittery, ME and was quite blizzardy out to Manchester, and all the way up to Kennebunk on the way back. As I sped along the snowy highways at 60 mph with all the New Hamshire folk, we rolled down our windows to enjoy the wintery air and hollered back and forth between cars about how funny it was watching the New York centered news organizations freak out whenever it snows a little.

Ok, maybe I exaggerate a tad. But not much. :-)
posted by rusty at 12:04 PM on February 18, 2003

Oh, I know they're a business lobby group. There's scarce little information that isn't being used in a highly political manner. I trust these guys no further than I trust greenpeace or any other fringe group.

And therin lies the problem. With all this evidence tainted by these fringe groups (and the fact that the scientists often belong to one or the other) there's just not much left to go on.

So I'm left with saying that _maybe_ there _might_ be global warming. And that's just not good enough for me, unfortunately.

But pollution does make a mess, certainly has been proven beyond a doubt to cause lung cancer, ask KJS says, and a host of other problems (asthma, etc), so for _those_ reasons, cleaning up the air is a good idea. But just to do it on the whim of ever changing global warming/cooling/climate change arguments doesn't sit well enough with me.

Sorta see where I'm shooting from here? If greenpeace didn't exist, I'd actually be a lot more inclined to accept global warming as a fact, since I'd dismiss the buiness lobby group as a fringe group and be more trusting of what scientists who aren't allied with them say.

>Nor is advocating pollution control a huge risk taking decision.

Isn't it? What if we find out that without some pollution things are worse on the planet? When it was called global cooling, well, then you'd want lots more pollution assuming you believe the current figures from greepeace.

What if without that same pollution we have to set ourselves back technologically by decades?

And what of countries that produce things that are supposed to harm the environment (logging and oil in my country)? Are we to ignore the economic risk of that?

I think there's as many risks to the current state of humanity to stop as there are to continue. A balance must be struck, and neither of these groups has it right (statements from environmentalists would have us living in mud huts -- no-thank-you, no-siree, but statements from business would have us living in a vinyl "paradise" -- again, no thanks). And since far too many scientists ally themselves with one or the other group, well, I'm staying on the sidelines unless one of the groups tries to grab control, which happens all the time (Kyoto being the #1 example -- why does Canada need to pollute as Japan??? We're a few thousand times larger...)
posted by shepd at 12:08 PM on February 18, 2003

Thanks for letting me slide Hildago!
posted by riffola at 3:54 PM on February 18, 2003

Shepd - "I think there's as many risks to the current state of humanity to stop as there are to continue. A balance must be struck, and neither of these groups has it right (statements from environmentalists would have us living in mud huts" - why don't you just try doing a little basic reading in the field? I'm confident that you are smart, but your stubborn refusal to learn about that which you are spouting on is embarassing. A papal encyclical from the 16th century would be better informed on the subject.

Please - read. Then talk.
posted by troutfishing at 9:40 PM on February 18, 2003