Now to the climate with Pat

Pat Robertson has seen the light. Not the heavenly light (we presume that happened long ago). No, it's the troposphereic light of climatic change. He is now apparently a believer in man-made global warming.

[ed--Caveat...this information is based solely on a Reuters story. Use with caution].

Aside from the fun liberals will have with this, wonder if his global warming revelation will have an impact on his conserative Christian following? Just guessing here, but most of his flock probably already believe in global warming of a different kind, one which doesn't necessarily involve carbon.

But his change of heart might have some impact, therefore it's kinda puzzling. It certainly couldn't be because he's running for office again. Could it? He's been known to make controversial statements from time to time, so the possibility of a publicity stunt is real. But it's hard to believe he's ready to jump back in the presidential frying pan.

Maybe he's just speaking his heart. One thing's for sure, the turnaround leads to a very populist point of view that is held by a lot of swing voters. Perhaps he's trying to preemtively reposition his own conservative flock before they get hypnotized by the inconvenient truth folks, who tend to high-five everytime a high temperature record is set:

This week the heat index, the perceived temperature based on both air temperatures and humidity, reached 115 Fahrenheit in some regions of the U.S. East Coast. The 76-year-old Robertson told viewers that was "the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time."

As if a proclamation from him on climate might mean something. It's likely his research consists of watching the Weather Channel and checking his backyard thermometer, but one summer hot streak doesn't a climatic trend make. People tend to have very short memories when it comes to temperature extremes.

It's always hot here in Memphis during summer. Most years walking outside is like walking into a steam room, which induces profuse sweating especially if any physical activity is attempted (such as walking from the house to the car). This year is no different, but we've seen hotter in the past. Only a handful of new records have been set. The real change is seen in the monthly averages, which have been above normal for months. That isn't normal. So yes it's warming, but not alarmingly.

The problem seems to arise when people ask the natural question 'what can we do?'. Talk of 'mitigation' can border on the sanctimoneous, since it usually presumes that if we just buy a Prius and postpone the vacation things will recover back to the good ole days of Aunt Bee, Barney and Sheriff Taylor (except in living color). Not likely.

The half-life of atmospheric CO2 is over 90 years. If the latest weather extremes are 100 percent related to Mann-made global warming we're simply along for the ride. The only way to change the outcome would be to find a way to extract carbon from the sky or change the earth's total reflectivity (albedo), which seems rather risky.

Until that day, or until a few more huge volcanoes blow off and lapse us into global cooling, we seem to be at the mercy of an angry mom. And we know who her daddy is.

MORE 8/3/06

The following is a map of temperature averages from NOAA for July, 1930, presumably the year Pat Robertson was born (he's 76):









The tan states were above normal, the orange much-above normal, and the red states had "record' warmth. It almost looks like the "Bush Country" map. Somehow Pat survived.