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In the meanwhile, conservatives have "experts" like Anthony Watts to come and say that not only are we not in a horrible drought[0], but that our recent showers

• nkurz 12y ago
  I like your approach, but let me see if I can get you to question some of your beliefs. First, Watts is actually only the author of your second link, the other two are guest posts by two other authors. I won't try to rehabilitate Watts, as he's likely already too tainted in your mind, but I'll guess that you don't yet have strong opinions about the other two. Please consider how well they fit the image that you have of them based on the articles you read. The first piece was written by Robert Moore (http://www.nrdc.org/about/staff/rob-moore http://www.nrdc.org/about/staff/rob-moore). Personally, having looked at the actual paper, I thought his article was more accurate than most of the media coverage. Moore does not "oppose efforts to deal with climate change". To the contrary, he's an analyst with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which is one of the largest, staunchest and most effective environmental groups in the US, and lists "Curbing Global Warming" on the top of it's list of priorities. If you look at Moore's credentials, I think you'll be positively surprised -- he's legitimately an expert, and unquestionably an environmentalist. The paper uses a very specific definition of "worst drought". It's a reasonable and defensible one (cumulative deficit on the PDSI scale), but it's probably not what most people would guess. As Moore says, the paper does not say that it's the longest dry spell, or the period of least rain. Would you have guessed from the other media coverage that despite the phrase "worst drought", there have been two other years with less rain just in the last 100 years? That there have been longer droughts? I think Moore believes what he says in the piece: "Do these facts mean that we are in good shape re California’s water supply? No! But we shouldn’t be framing the search for a stable California water supply by starting from a wildly incorrect statement that seems focused on creating public panic." He's bothered (as I am) about the level of hyperbole and inaccuracy in the media reports of climate change, and wrote the piece to counter that. Neither he, nor Watts, nor Tim Ball (the author of the third link) believes "that recent showers are proof that the alarm over the drought is just part of the global warming conspiracy". While I fear that some of the kookier commenters at WUWT might believe that (I don't read the site, although I highly recommend Steve McIntyre's climateaudit.org) many of those you demonize care a lot about the environment and climate change, but disagree on the causes and the approach that should be taken to deal with it. For example, try reading this piece on Urban Forests by Tim Ball to see if he matches the pathological business-comes-first stereotype often associated with "climate deniers": http://drtimball.com/2012/importance-of-urban-trees/ http://drtimball.com/2012/importance-of-urban-trees/