Not amused ridiculous comment every meteorologist heard

Meteorologist Keith Carson at WCSH in Maine likes to give grief in the form of facts to flat-earthers and chemtrail believers, but he just did a report that covers a comment that every meteorologist has heard many times:

It must be nice to get paid to be wrong!

My usual response is to point out that my batting average is higher than the best Major League Baseball player and then ask them if they want to make a little wager on my forecast. A few people over the years took the bet, and here’s why they lost:

Read the story from Dan’s Wild Science Journal - “Not amused ridiculous comment every meteorologist heard.”

Texas 'flat-earthers' opt for renewable energy

Wind turbines take over from
 the oil derricks in Texas.

News that a Texas city is to be powered by 100-percent renewable energy sparked surprise in an oil-obsessed, Republican-dominated state where fossil fuels are king and climate change activists were described as “the equivalent of the flat-earthers” by U.S. Senator and GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz.

“I was called an Al Gore clone, a tree hugger,” says Jim Briggs, interim city manager of Georgetown, a community of about 50,000 people some 25 miles north of Austin.

Briggs, who was a key player in Georgetown’s decision to become the first city in the Lone Star State to be powered by 100-percent renewable energy, has worked for the city for 30 years. He wears a belt with shiny, silver decorations and a gold ring with a lone star motif, and is keen to point out that he is not some kind of California-style eco-warrior with a liberal agenda. In fact, he is a staunchly Texan pragmatist.

“I’m probably the furthest thing from an Al Gore clone you could find,” he says. “We didn’t do this to save the world — we did this to get a competitive rate and reduce the risk for our consumers.”

In many Texas cities, the electricity market is deregulated, meaning that customers choose from a dizzying variety of providers and plans. In Houston, for example, there are more than 70 plans that offer energy from entirely renewable sources.

Read the story in Grist - “This Texas town will get all of its energy from solar and wind.”

U.S. Presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz, has likened himself to Galileo

T

ed Cruz wants to be the U.S. president and wants us to believe the climate is a myth.

U.S. Presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz,
 has likened himself to Galileo.

ClimateProgress has reported that in speaking to the Texas Tribune, Cruz said that contemporary “global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers.”

“You know it used to be it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier,” he said.

In Cruz’s opinion, when it comes to climate change, his denier position places him alongside 17th Century scientist Galileo Galilei, who was also considered to be denying the mainstream knowledge of his day.

According to Cruz’s logic, he is taking the minority view that human-caused climate change is not happening, just as Galileo took the minority view that the scientific method should be trusted over the Catholic Church.

The ClimateProgress story - “Ted Cruz Compares Himself to Galileo, Calls Those Who Believe In ClimateChange ‘Flat-Earthers’” – is reason for concern as a real “flat-Earther” could soon be the most power man on the earth.