President Trump: Is the Earth Getting Hotter or Is It Just Melania?

Well, America is off to a flying start! You can almost hear the hammers and see a new wall rising along our southern border.

Meanwhile, my Trump-loving friends get mad when I mock the president-elect before he takes office. They say all good Americans should give Trump a chance. I admit I’m slightly inclined. I love this country and hope he aids the average worker—because the average worker truly needs aid. Did you know the average worker in the United States hasn’t gained ground, adjusting for inflation, since 1979?

You know who reported that yesterday? The New York Times. Yeah: the “biased mainstream media.”

I would, however, like to remind my Trump-loving friends, who gloss over all the suspiciously racist birther crap, and also ignore Trump’s response to the election of 2012, how much of a “chance” The Donald gave President Obama. Remember how he called for good people to march on Washington? (I think he was hoping Americans would grab their pitchforks and guns and bazookas, too.)

In any case, I’ve already explained why I fear that President Trump and his GOP pals won’t help the average worker at all.

Today, I’m going to have fun thinking about global warming—which Mr. Trump has called a Chinese hoax. What should we expect from his presidency where matters of the environment are concerned?

It turns out Myron Ebell, an environmental and energy policy expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute is going to help shape the future. 

We now know Ebell and his kind are going to help determine what the world’s climate is like in twenty-five years, when my granddaughter is 28, and your children are 30 or 40 or 55, and I will likely be gone.

Who is he? 

Ebell is part of a group “focused on dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis.” He believes third-, fourth- and fifth-rate scientists have gotten names in the papers by pedaling false alarms. He says kooks like Al Gore “want to turn off the lights all over the world.”

Those dirty, light-bulb tampering rats! 

It’s like when the federal government wanted to take away our Bibles (none taken), and guns (100 million more sold during President Obama’s time in office), and screw with our high-capacity flush toilets (ignore the California drought or the depletion of the Ogallala aquafer), and now this. 

Not to worry! Ebell will save us and we can relax, knowing our lights will stay on and we’ve got our Bibles and guns. But back to global weather! Ebell says that Pope Francis was wrong when he issued an encyclical in 2015, warning about the dangers of climate change. Ebell calls the Pope “morally obtuse.” 

The encyclical was “leftist drivel.”

(This seems to be part of a trend where my right-wing friends say anyone who disagrees with them must be a communist. You like eggs over easy? Real Americans like them scrambled! You are a commie.)

But you know who Ebell does trust? The Murray Energy Corporation, one of the nation’s leading coal producers, which just so happens to donate to Ebell’s research group. (This reminds me of the research funded by cigarette companies, proving that, no, smoking won’t harm you; in fact cigarettes are good for little kids.)

Is there proof global warming is occurring now? Ebell says no.

Senator James Inhofe, another GOP stalwart, agrees. There can’t be global warming because after a heavy snowstorm in 2014 he made a snowball.

So let’s consider what scientists might refer to as compelling evidence. True: you can find stories that show the ice sheet in Antarctic is growing. One of my right-wing friends took the trouble to send me the link; and Ebell would no doubt be quick to point it out. In the same vein, here in Cincinnati, every time we have a cold snap, some fool caller to some right-wing WLW radio talk show opines: “Yeah, I’m freezing my ass off today. Gee, that proves global warming is a hoax!”

Pardon me a moment while I marvel at such ignorance.

And let’s start with an incontrovertible fact. A cruise ship, the Serenity, sailed across the Arctic Ocean this past summer, taking a route that—not counting icebreakers or submarines—has never been open to shipping before, not in all the recorded history of man, and probably not in ten thousand years.

That ship, at three football fields long and thirteen stories high, is larger and more permanent—and its voyage is far scarier in its implications, than Senator Inhofe’s snowball or all the snowballs he ever makes will ever be.

Look climate deniers: They call that a ship.

I know. Trump fans believe the mainstream media is out to get Trump. They only report what is bad. 

Scientists are lying too. 

The liberals want everyone to rot in the dark.

None of this is true. Indeed, we of a liberal slant are quite fond of electrical lighting and keeping appliances running. We simply distrust Big Corporate interests the way our right-wing friends distrust anything Big Government wants to do. In fact, we often distrust Big Government, ourselves.

(That will be a story for another day.)

We do, however, trust scientists generally and thermometers specifically. What was the hottest month of October—not locally, globally—ever recorded? What was the hottest September? Damn those NASA scientists—the same men and women who reported the Antarctic ice sheet had gained volume! They say it was this October. They say it was this past September! In fact, they have all kinds of evidence to support the theory that global warming is real and a growing threat to our future. Globally, what was the hottest month ever? According to NASA again it was August 2016—which, tied with July 2016 for that dubious honor. In fact, those “liars” keep right on, piling up lying statistics. October 2015 started a frightening streak: hottest October (globally) ever (till 2016), followed by November 2015, hottest November (globally) ever (till 2016), followed by all the months of 2016 in succession.

This means 2016 is certain to be the hottest year (globally) ever—like the Gisele Bundchen of hottest weather.

Gratuitous picture of Gisele Bundchen.

What was the previous hottest year (globally)? Scientists say: 2015. 

And before that? 2014. 

And before that? Damn it NASA! Quit reporting! If you would care to, you can go to the NASA website and read how century’s  old ice in the Arctic is melting, meaning the warming trend is accelerating. You can read how polar bears are screwed. You can read how, in the summer of 2015, most of Alaska experienced temperatures 10° above average, or how the entire Arctic was 7.17° hotter.

You can even read about a thaw under Greenland” giant ice cap, a story that should scare anyone with a fourth-grader’s grasp of basic science.

You can figure all the years since 9/11 are among the hottest twenty recorded and mull the fact that the remaining three were during the 90s.

Or, like Trump, you can figure it’s a hoax.

In twenty-five or fifty years your children and grandchildren may rue the day President Donald J. Trump took the oath of office.

***

P. S. My right-wing friends keep telling me about the NASA study showing Antarctic ice increased by 82 billion tons.

In other words: if a story fits their preconceived notions, they believe the scientists at NASA.

So see what the scientists actually say. Go to the NASA website and read everything they post. You will start to sweat a little (pun intended) if you care about the future of our planet.

Also find the study done by European scientists, using satellite images, that indicates Greenland lost ONE TRILLION tons of ice in just four years.

By chance, I just heard a 99-year-old World War II veteran speak about his experiences (he was shot down and a German prisoner for two years). At one point, he and his crew did flight training in Greenland. 

He says if you look at pictures he has from Greenland in 1943 and compare with pictures of the same locations today, it takes your breath away.