| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Blowing Hot Air
"We cannot say for sure that this is global warming, but the
growing frequency of extreme weather events ties in with
predictions of global warming." --- Asher Minns, a scientist at
Britain's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research,
commenting on the meteorological unpleasantness of late in
Europe.
I suppose that with England experiencing its all-time
hottest ever recorded temperature, the temptation to blame it
on global warming was just too great, especially for someone
who works at a climate research center. One British
meteorologist said that summers like this could become
routine in 50 to 70 years. Talk about worst case scenarios!
Cool, rainy Britain could be transformed into something
resembling West Texas in the period of less than an average life
span. The funding for global warming research is jolly well
sure to pour in now.
Yes, most of Europe has experienced a searing and unusual
heat wave, but it's hardly the first time. News flash to those
whose personal memories don't predate MTV: There have been
heat waves in Europe, and elsewhere, long before global
warming was even possible, had ever been conceived of or had
become the impending cataclysm du jour of the leisured
protest class.
News flash number two: According to responsible
meteorologists--which is to say, those whose weather
observations and forecasts aren't based on personal political
agendas--what's been responsible for the European heat wave
is a ridge of high pressure reaching from west of the Iberian
Peninsula into central Europe, along with a depression from
North Africa stretching into the peninsula. That combination
was responsible for pumping hot air into Europe from North
Africa.
So, in a nutshell, the only thing that can be said for certain
about this heat wave is that it's just something that happens on
occasion.
Nonetheless, you can bet that a fair portion of the teeming
(and perspiring) European masses, particularly the French,
believe global warming has arrived in all its fury and that it is
the cause of the heat wave that has had them sweltering so.
They are probably also convinced that it is ultimately
America's fault. Why? Because of our gas-guzzling SUV's, our
extravagant consumption of 20% of the world's energy and our
bad attitude towards the exalted Kyoto treaty (which, by the
way, was unanimously rejected by the U.S. Senate several years
ago).
There are probably those among us who would be willing for
America to take the rap for global warming just for the
satisfaction of knowing that we are the cause of France's
misery. It's not that we wish the French ill per se, but if heat
stroke cases were to come in such large numbers that their
entire socialized medical system collapsed like a botched
souffle, most of us would somehow be able to contain our tears.
Getting back to climatology, no one seems particularly
awestruck that the normally sweltering southeastern United
States is having what may turn out to be its coolest summer in
decades. For instance, Atlanta (AKA "Hotlanta"), as of this
writing, has officially hit 90 degrees one time this summer. Its
record for least number of 90-degree days in a summer is two.
Why isn't this "evidence" of the ice age that scientists in the
1970s were convinced was fast approaching?
At that time it pretty much became climatological gospel
that sometime in the not-too-distant future, large temperate
portions of the northern hemisphere would return to those old
Pleistocene days of yore when they were useful for little more
than as stomping grounds for woolly mammoths. Back in the
'70s such predictions were all the rage amongst the tonier
climatological circles, but those predictions went out almost as
fast as disco and leisure suits.
The concept of global warming, however, which began to
gather steam in the 1980s, has real staying power and there's a
simple reason for that. If there really was an impending ice
age, there would be absolutely nothing that mankind could do
to stop it. Therefore, there would be nothing to protest. Global
warming, on the other hand, according to its devotees, is
alterable since we are the ones causing it. That makes it
altogether protestable, which is like manna from heaven for
those who make protesting, rather than gainful employment, a
life's avocation.
To placate the fanatical global warming minions, all we
would have to do is get rid of cars, industry and just about
everything else associated with modern civilization. For
whatever wacky reason, this has infinite appeal to the
anti-capitalism, anti-Western civilization crowd whose idea of
utopian one-worldness is everybody sitting around getting
high, eating vegan and listening to New Age cd's in
unair-conditioned huts.
Where the electricity to play those cd's would come from is
anybody's guess.
"We cannot say for sure that this is global warming, but the
growing frequency of extreme weather events ties in with
predictions of global warming." --- Asher Minns, a scientist at
Britain's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research,
commenting on the meteorological unpleasantness of late in
Europe.
I suppose that with England experiencing its all-time
hottest ever recorded temperature, the temptation to blame it
on global warming was just too great, especially for someone
who works at a climate research center. One British
meteorologist said that summers like this could become
routine in 50 to 70 years. Talk about worst case scenarios!
Cool, rainy Britain could be transformed into something
resembling West Texas in the period of less than an average life
span. The funding for global warming research is jolly well
sure to pour in now.
Yes, most of Europe has experienced a searing and unusual
heat wave, but it's hardly the first time. News flash to those
whose personal memories don't predate MTV: There have been
heat waves in Europe, and elsewhere, long before global
warming was even possible, had ever been conceived of or had
become the impending cataclysm du jour of the leisured
protest class.
News flash number two: According to responsible
meteorologists--which is to say, those whose weather
observations and forecasts aren't based on personal political
agendas--what's been responsible for the European heat wave
is a ridge of high pressure reaching from west of the Iberian
Peninsula into central Europe, along with a depression from
North Africa stretching into the peninsula. That combination
was responsible for pumping hot air into Europe from North
Africa.
So, in a nutshell, the only thing that can be said for certain
about this heat wave is that it's just something that happens on
occasion.
Nonetheless, you can bet that a fair portion of the teeming
(and perspiring) European masses, particularly the French,
believe global warming has arrived in all its fury and that it is
the cause of the heat wave that has had them sweltering so.
They are probably also convinced that it is ultimately
America's fault. Why? Because of our gas-guzzling SUV's, our
extravagant consumption of 20% of the world's energy and our
bad attitude towards the exalted Kyoto treaty (which, by the
way, was unanimously rejected by the U.S. Senate several years
ago).
There are probably those among us who would be willing for
America to take the rap for global warming just for the
satisfaction of knowing that we are the cause of France's
misery. It's not that we wish the French ill per se, but if heat
stroke cases were to come in such large numbers that their
entire socialized medical system collapsed like a botched
souffle, most of us would somehow be able to contain our tears.
Getting back to climatology, no one seems particularly
awestruck that the normally sweltering southeastern United
States is having what may turn out to be its coolest summer in
decades. For instance, Atlanta (AKA "Hotlanta"), as of this
writing, has officially hit 90 degrees one time this summer. Its
record for least number of 90-degree days in a summer is two.
Why isn't this "evidence" of the ice age that scientists in the
1970s were convinced was fast approaching?
At that time it pretty much became climatological gospel
that sometime in the not-too-distant future, large temperate
portions of the northern hemisphere would return to those old
Pleistocene days of yore when they were useful for little more
than as stomping grounds for woolly mammoths. Back in the
'70s such predictions were all the rage amongst the tonier
climatological circles, but those predictions went out almost as
fast as disco and leisure suits.
The concept of global warming, however, which began to
gather steam in the 1980s, has real staying power and there's a
simple reason for that. If there really was an impending ice
age, there would be absolutely nothing that mankind could do
to stop it. Therefore, there would be nothing to protest. Global
warming, on the other hand, according to its devotees, is
alterable since we are the ones causing it. That makes it
altogether protestable, which is like manna from heaven for
those who make protesting, rather than gainful employment, a
life's avocation.
To placate the fanatical global warming minions, all we
would have to do is get rid of cars, industry and just about
everything else associated with modern civilization. For
whatever wacky reason, this has infinite appeal to the
anti-capitalism, anti-Western civilization crowd whose idea of
utopian one-worldness is everybody sitting around getting
high, eating vegan and listening to New Age cd's in
unair-conditioned huts.
Where the electricity to play those cd's would come from is
anybody's guess.