Global Warming and a Wedding
"I read somewhere that the sun's getting hotter every year," said Tom genially. "It seems that pretty soon the earth's going to fall into the sun - or wait a minute ... it's just the opposite - the sun is getting colder every year."
--- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 1925
My oldest got married outdoors this past weekend in Tennessee, so we were watching the weather models and their predictions from the ten-day forecast until the day of the blessed event. The weather models initially indicated 80 degrees and zero percent chance of rain, but during the week the predictions vacillated all over the map. By the day of the wedding, we had a 70 percent chance of rain and a 55-degree high for the day. They were off 25 degrees, and missed the rain.
So I am thinking, if climatologists cannot accurately predict the weather in a three-day forecast, how in the world can we expect them to be right when they tell us the earth is going to warm a degree in 20 years?
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Most of the predictions and models that fuel the global warming hysteria of the left come from academia, but I remain an agnostic on the matter. If there is global warming, at least I look good in shorts. The predictors also make money providing a solution to the problems they foretell. Ask any scientist propagating the global warming narrative about his views and he will say, "Yes, and here is my card. You can pay me to advise you on how to cope with the impending doom, or another professor I know."
What the members of the left do in any political battle is what they have done with global warming: They put someone out there like Al Gore (known for his gassy emissions). Gore, a man no one would listen to otherwise, evangelizes about global warming. If you get stuck on an elevator with Gore he will go into his spiel. I'd rather be on elevator with Beyonce's sister.
Gore and others make a declaration of untruth like "the science on global warming is settled." They then attack anyone who disagrees, or make fun of them using derisive terms like "climate change deniers" or "flat earthers." Most opponents cave. Propagandist-in-Chief Obama says, "The debate is settled" on global warming, and "Climate change is a fact." I guess he is right on "climate change," but we used to just call it the weather. It happens more in the spring, fall, summer and winter, but yes, the climate changes.
Saying any science is "settled" is unscientific. Science is always evolving. Was the science settled on Y2K, acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, cancer protocols, etc.?
This is nothing more than socialism. Predicated on the lies that "if you like your health care plan or your doctor, you can keep them," and that Obamacare would lower a family's health care costs, Obama fraudulently took over one-seventh of the U.S. economy. Health care was taken over with lies; will our climate be next? It is all about being able to tax and control us.
When anything becomes politicized, truth is the first casualty. Those pushing global warming blame any weather on it. Although it was the only big hurricane to hit the East Coast that year, Democrats blamed Hurricane Sandy on climate change. Republicans blamed it on gays being able to marry.
The fact is that lately we have had fewer hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. The leftist media just hypes them now in order to advance their climate change narrative.
Global warming is at best plausible, but it is certainly not proven. Given the Ice Age and pre-SUV climate changes, attributing it to human behavior is a real stretch. Let's not go with Harry Reid's hunch on this one and turn $1 trillion tax dollars and control of the weather over to politicians. Regulation and Obama's taxes have already doubled our cost for a gallon of gas, from $1.80 when he took office to twice that today. Even with a boom in natural gas from fracking, prices have doubled under Obama's "green" thumb.
P.J. O'Rourke said that "fashionable worries" like these make the worrier feel important. If an adult skips down the street singing "Last Train to Clarksville," people call him a fool. But lean over to the person next to you on a subway and ask, "How can you smile while the earth is dying?" and you acquire a reputation for seriousness - and more room to sit down on the subway.
