Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The same dusty bowl

Pretty scary-looking temperature chart, eh? This is the trace for San Antonio, Texas, sitting right there in Bush's back yard. Notice the clear upward trend. What more evidence do we need?

Well, how about a blizzard of stories of late about record strings of 100 degree temperatures in the south, a record cool high for August set in New York City, record floods in the midwest and a near-record setting hurricane. Is there any doubt the blame lays squarely on capitalism-loving Republicans who refuse to trade their Hummers for Priuses and change the way they live by buying squiggly light bulbs?

Perhaps so. You see, the temperature chart above is from San Antonio, Texas alright, but it's showing the trace between 1880 and 1940. Remember the dust bowl? That was basically it. And do you remember what caused the dust bowl? Neither do I.

By contrast today we must have blame for everything. For 9/11, the economy, bridge and mine collapses, even weather and climate. I recently got an email from a reader who inquired whether I'd seen the anti-global warming video "The Great Global Warming Swindle" that was making the rounds several months ago. I have.

The British-made flick featured appearances from several noted climatologists and scientists, all of whom disagreed that man has singlehandedly triggered the recent temperature uptick. If you haven't seen it it's available here. It was lambasted heartily by the left and their friends in the climate research business.

Even if the video is not 100 percent correct this whole debate really boils down to one of scientific integrity. Those who refuse to tote the party line on the consensus causation of temperature changes have been treated shamefully, sometimes by the very same people who've accused the Bush administration of trying to muzzle them. Maybe with good reason! Coincidentally, just today there was a story about how the Scandinavian Moose might be destroying the planet. Seems a rather fitting summation of the entire debate.

No comments: