Plus le Climate Change, plus c'est la meme chose

I haven't been much into the Global Warming/Climate Change wars of late, but it's always on my radar.  I have some very real concerns about the climate changing, but they all involve things getting colder.  Even on the equator you can grow food, not so much in the polar and sub-polar zones.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most accurate, up-to-date temperature data confirm the United States has been cooling for at least the past decade. The NOAA temperature data are driving a stake through the heart of alarmists claiming accelerating global warming.

Responding to widespread criticism that its temperature station readings were corrupted by poor siting issues and suspect adjustments, NOAA established a network of 114 pristinely sited temperature stations spread out fairly uniformly throughout the United States. Because the network, known as the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), is so uniformly and pristinely situated, the temperature data require no adjustments to provide an accurate nationwide temperature record. USCRN began compiling temperature data in January 2005. Now, nearly a decade later, NOAA has finally made the USCRN temperature readings available.

According to the USCRN temperature readings, U.S. temperatures are not rising at all – at least not since the network became operational 10 years ago. Instead, the United States has cooled by approximately 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is more than half of the claimed global warming of the twentieth century.

 Of course this isn't news to anyone who isn't blinded by Luddite anti-Western dogma, as it has most certainly not been getting warmer for most of us on the ground for quite a while.  I recall (subjective of course) a time in the mid to late '90s when I did feel it was getting warmer in the summer, particularly the intensity of the sun.  I have felt rather the opposite of that for most of the time since then, certainly this century, and this involves travel to other parts of the world.

This wasn't lost of the powers that be in the Warmist camp, hence the "Climate Change" re-branding.  I would argue that was the beginning of the end for them, as "climate change" is meaninglessly vague and attempts to equate literally any climate event with the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The one thing everyone agrees with is that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing, largely due to human activity.  From there things go off the rails and it gets pretty-much ideological.  Appeals to "science" are common from the Climate Change intelligentsia, but let's look at empirical (testable) effects of CO2.

First, it is half-assed (in scientific parlance) as a Greenhouse Gas (GHG), far outpaced by water vapour and methane.  Specifically, its' IR (heat) absorption window (wavelengths) is overlapped by that of water vapour.  What that means is as Freeman Dyson (a man much smarter than me and likely you) said, CO2 will have most if not all of its' GH effect in cold, dry areas.

"Aha!  That means the ice caps will melt and the sea level will rise!"  Except that that hasn't happened.