During the winter of 2014-15, our state experienced a very low snowpack year. Extreme “greenies” jumped at the opportunity to make a host of claims laying the blame at the feet of climate change. Enviros predicted that a combination of climate change and El Nino would lead to another low snowpack winter during 2015-16.
Washington State Ecology Director Maia Bellon – a partisan attorney by trade, not a scientist, told the Seattle Times, “nature seems upside down.” And, as the Washington Policy Center points out, as late as November, Bellon said that extremely low snowpack “could be the new normal.”
Ecology predicted a new “normal range” of 70-80 percent.
But, that’s not what happened.
According to a Natural Resources Conservation Service report released this week, snowpack was at 112 percent of normal. In fact, the snow shed was 93 percent to 137 percent of normal.
So, given its dire predictions and fear mongering, what does Ecology have to say for itself? Nothing, it has yet to comment.
However, the Washington Policy Center’s Todd Myer had a couple pieces of advice for climate change fear mongers. Myers recently wrote:
“First, it speaks to the challenge of predicting weather patterns, even in the short term. We are bombarded with stories about “new” studies that predict environmental impacts 100 years from now. I would take such studies more seriously if we could demonstrate less uncertainty in the near term…
“One year is not a trend. The one year with dramatically low snowpack, however, became evidence that nature is “upside down.” Ignoring eight of the last ten years and focusing only on one year is politics, not science.
“Second, given that uncertainty, policymakers should choose approaches that are more flexible. Spending huge amounts of money to create inflexible and permanent bureaucracies locks in policies that are hard to adjust to changing circumstances. The free market, on the other hand, is nimble and can adjust to changing environmental challenges – up or down.”
If extreme greenies want to be taken seriously, they would do well to stop making wild claims based on little to no evidence that never quite come to fruition.
Incidentally (and this is not an April Fools’ joke, but rather is actually from the Ecology website), Ecology Director Maia Bellon prides herself on her “anything is possible” approach to life. Her bio reads, “When you meet Maia, you will quickly learn that she believes anything is possible!”
Evidently, that belief extends to her ability – along with that of her extreme green friends – to predict weather patterns over decades, when they can’t even get one year right.
Of course, if Bellon focused more on science than on “anything is possible” politics, it might not help her boss Jay Inslee get re-elected. And that won’t help Ms. Bellon keep her job.
