It snowed a little in Copenhagen Tuesday.   That had some predictable — and unpredictable — impacts on my daughter, the deniers, and the Danish climate conference.  In reverse order:

THE UGLY:   Waiting in long lines that don’t move at the most incompetently managed event I have been to in my life gets even uglier when it starts to snow.  Fortunately, it  was only a brief, light snow.  But as one of the fellow sufferers in line with me said, “Denmark has a lot of wind.  Great for clean energy.  Not great for standing in line outside in December.”  In fact, no planning organization in the world accredits 45,000 people for a venue that can only hold 15,000 — and then puts the accredidation line outside.

How ugly was it?  Even the press got screwed — this report was filed by the AP’s Seth Borenstein:

“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,” he said after waiting 7 hours and 20 minutes to enter the Copenhagen climate talks.

How ugly IS it?  Click here for live video of protests of entry restrictions imposed by the UN.

THE BAD:  Of course, the anti-science crowd couldn’t wait to crow about the weather.  Newsbusters cited the Borenstein piece in their story, “Journalists Freeze Waiting To Get Into Global Warming Conference“:

A group of journalists stood for many hours in near-freezing temperatures Monday waiting to get into the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.Marvelously among them was Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein who regularly reports on the dire consequences of — wait for it! — global warming.

Ironically, his articles are so filled with inflammatory hyperbole concerning Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s favorite bogeyman….

Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.

Doubling the irony, exactly one year ago Borenstein was ridiculed by scientists from around the world for a piece he wrote claiming: “Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.”

Yes, I’m shocked, shocked that it is cold in Copenhagen in December!  But for the anti-science disinfomers, normal weather is evidence that Borenstein’s terrific pieces debunking the global cooling myth are erroneous (see Must-read AP story: Statisticians reject global cooling; Caldeira — “To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous”).

(Dis)honestly, you can make that cooling stuff up!

The only people who really were unaware how cool it is in December in Copenhagen were the U.N. and the Danes for idiotically not handling accreditation at an indoor location.

As for the precipitation, the Drudge Report has been blaring “Forecast for Copenhagen: Heavy Snow…“  In fact, the snow utterly fizzled out.  No accumulation whatsoever.  It’s mostly been a cool drizzle.  I guess it’s just too damn warm here in Copenhagen for much snow.  Hmm.

THE GOOD:   I happened to call home during one of the brief snow showers, and this is a rough transcript of part of the conversation with my nearly 3-year-old daughter, who has named herself Tua:

TUA:  Daddy is in Copenhagen?

JR:  Yes.  And it’s snowing in Copenhagen.

TUA:  It only snows at the North Pole.

JR:  It’s snowing in Copenhagen.

TUA [emphatically]:  It only snows at the North Pole.

JR [pauses until (compact fluorescent LED) lightbulb goes off]:   Copenhagen is near the North Pole.  Daddy is near the North Pole.

TUA:  Daddy is near the North Pole?

JR:  Yes.

TUA [no pause]:  Is Santa there?

A parable for the entire Copenhagen conference?  Maybe not, but at least something for the family holiday letter.

NOTE TO HUMORLESS ANTI-SCIENCE MEDIA OUTLETS:  Yes, I know Copenhagen is not particularly close to the North Pole.

MEMO TO U.N.F.C.C.C.:  You owe the nongovernmental observers, many of whom have been crucial to sustaining forward momentum on climate action when governments dawdled, a huge apology.


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