Possumblog

Speaking of Science...

...or stupidity, here's something: Scientists say Arctic once was tropical

By SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It's smack in the middle of the Arctic.

First-of-its-kind core samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor show that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise, three new studies show.

The scientists say their findings are a glimpse backward into a much warmer-than-thought polar region heated by run-amok greenhouse gases that came about naturally.

Darn that Karl Rove and his time machine! Going back to the past to screw around with the weather and building pollution spewing industrial wastelands JUST LIKE HE IS NOW!

But wait, I am chastised for my flippancy--

Skeptics of man-made causes of global warming have nothing to rejoice over, however.

Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to rejoice.

The researchers say their studies appearing in Thursday's issue of Nature also offer a peak at just how bad conditions can get.

"It probably was (a tropical paradise) but the mosquitoes were probably the size of your head," said Yale geology professor Mark Pagani, a study co-author.

That loud buzzing you hear is not a football-sized mosquito, but rather my BS Detector.

Mr. Oh-So-Smart Science Guy, are you going to sit there and tell me that it's warm weather that causes giant mosquitos? Y'ever seen a fossil that big, Sparky? Because it seems that about the only ones that people are able to find are ones like this one from the Eocene epoch (around the time period of your core samples), collected in Utah, that would be a giant only when compared to a Polly Pocket doll. All those mosquitos in amber, like they made the dinosaur movie about? All of them pretty much the size of mosquitos.

So what was the point of saying something so outlandishly stupid? Could it be you have a political agenda that can't be allowed to rest for even five seconds, and causes you to pump your hysterical little sissy fists up and down in the air in order to frighten people with visions of bugs straight out of Starship Troopers? (An aside--Denise Richards--Rrrowwll.)

Look, the earth's climate undergoes periodic changes. I might even be willing to believe humans might contribute to a portion of that change. But saying silly crap to scare people isn't the best way to make your point, even if the reporter is more gullible than a dodo bird and hangs on your every word.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 31, 2006 01:47 PM