"Experts" at Fox News, Gretchen Carlson, for example, might poo-poo such news. Glenn Beck might peek out from the bunker where he's been hiding lately, and lambaste all those evil climatologists and liberal "tree huggers." But the NOAA says it was noticeably hotter: 4.5 degrees warmer than normal in the 48 contiguous states.
Another record to fall: hottest 12-month period ever recorded in the United States.
Oh hell. Who cares? Evolution, global warming, that absurd notion that the earth revolves around the sun? The right-wingers are used to denying obvious truths. They'll tell you weather has ups and downs; and Fox News will do a hundred stories on Solyndra, the failed solar panel manufacturer, to try to befuddle their easily-befuddled regular viewers. But they won't mention that in 2007 scientists reported 11 of the 13 hottest years in recorded history had occurred since 1998:
- 1998
- 2005
- 2003
- 2002
- 2004
- 2006
- 2007
- 2001
- 1997
- 1995
See the penguins and dinosaurs and people, all cohabiting together, just 6,000 year ago.
Those hard-hitting journalists at Fox News, they wouldn't fart without Rupert Murdoch's permission, and good old Rupert doesn't want you to remember that NASA said 2009 tied for the second hottest year on record.
What do NASA scientists know?
The right-wingers, who spend all their time worrying about President Obama's birth certificate, are too busy to notice that 2010 then tied for the global record for hottest twelve-months ever. That 2010 was the wettest year ever recorded, in part because warmer air has the capacity to hold more moisture, and so freak storms are going to be far more common. They don't know (or don't want to admit) that 2010 was the 34th year in succession with temperatures above normal. Or that 2011 and 2011 continued that trend.
They won't bring any of this up: that NASA statistics showed 2011 squeezed into the top ten "hottest" years ever before it was over. That Oklahoma had the hottest average summer temperature that year, ever, for one state in this country, 86.9 degrees, including nights, worse than the Dust Bowl days of 1934.
But don't sweat it. Looks like 2012 is going to be a good year for right-wingers. Tree huggers? Hate 'em. Solution. Abnormally warm winters out west, huge problem with beetle infestations, insects that now survive winters they never were able to, killing entire mountainsides of lodge pole pines. Then hot dry summers in places like Colorado and Utah. Let's add a little of God's wrath in the form of lightning and watch all the western forests burn to the ground.
That will fix those liberal tree-huggers.
Right-wing apologists will say, "Don't worry." They will tell you there's some evil plot to put the poor coal corporations and oil companies out of business. Pay no attention! Let's focus on the illegal aliens under the bed!
Scientists tell us this is more than a variance in weather. They tell us we're facing serious climate change.
No way, Fox News commentators tell their loyal viewers, keep on living in your safe fantasy land. Look at all the pretty Fox Newscaster babes.
Look at their shapely legs.
If you really wanted, you could look it up. In 2012 the Arctic ice sheet retreated for the sixth year in a row, to record low levels, a million square kilometers less coverage, in Canadian waters, than even 2007, until now the worst year for ice retreat ever. You could read about methane "seeps" in the region, where ice is melting, and gasses trapped for centuries under permafrost are being released, adding to the climate change dilemma. You might read that scientists are surprised by how fast the northern ice sheets are disappearing, that plants extinct for 800,000 years on the eastern coasts of North America are now migrating from the Pacific Ocean region, that a type of whale not seen in the Atlantic for hundreds of years is now returning by way of the Arctic. But if you're a right-wing fan of Fox News, mesmerized by the usual horse manure, well...that would require a whole lot more serious cogitation than you're used to.
Besides, whose afraid of rising sea levels. That's where Noah's Ark will come in handy. You might even get to ride with the dinosaurs.
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| I wonder if Governor Rick Perry, who hates federal interference in his state, will ask for assistance again. He did so repeatedly last summer and this summer looks worse. http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2011/2011-09-06-03.html |
Same rise in temps, for a similar period of time, during the Middle Ages. Then it cooled down again. I find it ironic that the same people who propose Darwinism as "science" spend so much time and effort attempting to thwart it. If we are just evolved animals, we don't know any better anyway.
ReplyDeleteJay Vinson
Jay, I figure God doesn't want us to ruin the planet. There are possible explanations for the trends. The Little Ice Age saw temperatures plummet in the 1300s; and if you go back about 8,000 years (not possible according to some on the right), pastoral people used to graze cattle in what is now the Sahara.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't mean the science on warming isn't pretty compelling. And I'd compare it to the situation in the 70s, where we realized that chloroflurocarbons were depleting the ozone layer, an almost chance discovery. We're still seeing way more skin cancer and using 50-strength sunscreen as a result.
History is pretty well littered with civilizations that damaged their environments so badly they came apart at the seams, Mayans, Angor Watt, the Kush, etc.