Sunday, January 04, 2009

'Cold Wave in India Attributed to Global Warming'Taken from Newsbusters.orgImagine yourself as a big time editor, and somebody brings you an article with the headline, "Cold Wave in India Attributed to Global Warming."

Wouldn't you strongly suggest a rewrite?

Well, no such sanity occurred at the Indian website Sify on Tuesday.

Instead, that preposterous title actually did get published atop an article of equally absurd and hypocritical content (emphasis added):

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Mumbai: The recent cold wave sweeping across Mumbai and other parts of India could be attributed to global warming, experts said on Tuesday here at an environmental conference. Addressing the ‘Combat Global Warming’ conference at the Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC) here, former Union minister for power and environment Suresh Prabhu said global warming was primarily a problem created and induced by human beings.

He said the increase in emission of green house gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and methane had resulted in the situation, which could prove catastrophic if unchecked.

Prabhu said the cold wave that swept Maharashtra and other parts of India recently could be attributed to the phenomenon of global warming.

Astounding, wouldn't you agree?

After all, the foundation of anthropogenic global warming is that carbon dioxide placed in the atmosphere by man is exacerbating the greenhouse effect thereby making the planet heat up to dangerous levels that will melt glaciers and polar icecaps making ocean levels rise and eventually swamp coastal areas around the world.

Yet, conveniently, now that we have entered solar cycle 24, and the planet as predicted by many scientists is starting to cool, the global warming crowd is blaming it on carbon dioxide.

Which is it, folks: is carbon dioxide WARMING the planet, or COOLING it?

In the end, it's a wonderful position of infallibility these folks have created, for now regardless of what the weather does, it can all be attributed to man.

Sadly, the joke's on us, for poorly educated and biased media representatives not only don't recognize the hypocrisy in this position, but also certainly won't question it.

"Over 50 deaths due to cold were recorded in hospitals across the state in the past week. Most of the victims were pavement dwellers," a government spokesperson told the Indo-Asian News Service, Ians.

The deaths were reported from districts such as Sultanpur, Banda, Jaunpur and Rae Bareli, which witnessed near-freezing temperatures.

Temperatures have plummeted as state capital Lucknow and other main cities such as Kanpur and Agra saw temperatures between 3.6 degrees celsius and 4.4 degrees celsius.

Little protection against cold Beggars and the homeless spent the bitterly cold nights with little protection beyond plastic sheets and sacks, the reports said. They were seen lighting fires to save themselves from the bitter cold.

The thick blanket of fog disrupted air and rail traffic in the state. Even on the roads, vehicles moved slowly to avoid any accidents.

The state home department has issued orders for bonfires to be lit along roads for the homeless. It has also advised the local administrations of various districts to order the closure of educational institutions due to the extreme cold.

Indian weather officials said the cold would persist over the next few days.

"The cold spell will continue for at least another week even though the temperature could rise a little over the next 24 hours," state meteorological department director JP Gupta said. **********************************Chennai:City remains mild after 2 nights of cold before 1-Jan-09.Now the min. temperature is around 19.5°C.For next 3 days the Max temperature will be around 29 deg and Min temperature will be around 19 deg.Mainly clear skies and humidity around 50%, and this might go up after 48hrs.No threat of rain and not even drizzles.