Michigan just experienced its coldest July on record; global temperatures haven't risen in more than a decade; Great Lakes water levels have resumed their 30-year cyclical rise (contrary to a decade of media scare stories that they were drying up due to global warming), and polls show that climate change doesn't even make a list of Michigan voters' top-ten concerns.
Yet in an interview with the Detroit News Monday, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) - recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee - made clear that fighting the climate crisis is her top priority.
Earth Changes
© NCDC/NESDIS/NOAA
From NOAA/NCDC
The July 2009 temperature for the contiguous United States was below the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
The average July temperature of 73.5 degrees F was 0.8 degrees F below the 20th century average. Precipitation across the contiguous United States in July averaged 2.90 inches, which is 0.14 inches above the 1901-2000 average.
In his recent column in the Calgary Herald, Prof. David Mayne Reid marched out a squad of seven straw men to explain why "so many" people do not "accept climate change data." Among the reasons the professor suggested were fear of unpleasant truths; a genetic incompetence at managing slow-motion disasters; short-term economic thinking; selfishness; ignorance; excessive humility about the ability of humanity to affect the climate; and misinformation campaigns that buy people off.
Reid offers no evidence in imputing such base motivations to those who disagree with him, dismissing the need to back up his claims with hauteur worthy of Marie Antoinette when he says "I am not going to bother refuting such silliness." Naturally, with the profound egotism of the ivory-tower academician, he does not allow for any possibility that people might disagree with him for perfectly valid reasons, and that they could be both honest and sincere in holding a different interpretation of climate data.
With all due respect for the professor, I'd like to offer up five reasons that people might not accept the catastrophic modelling exercises and horror stories that he seems to have confused with actual climate change data.
Reid offers no evidence in imputing such base motivations to those who disagree with him, dismissing the need to back up his claims with hauteur worthy of Marie Antoinette when he says "I am not going to bother refuting such silliness." Naturally, with the profound egotism of the ivory-tower academician, he does not allow for any possibility that people might disagree with him for perfectly valid reasons, and that they could be both honest and sincere in holding a different interpretation of climate data.
With all due respect for the professor, I'd like to offer up five reasons that people might not accept the catastrophic modelling exercises and horror stories that he seems to have confused with actual climate change data.
Reference
McKay, J.L., de Vernal, A., Hillaire-Marcel, C., Not, C., Polyak, L. and Darby, D. 2008. Holocene fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice cover: dinocyst-based reconstructions for the eastern Chuckchi Sea. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 45: 1377-1397.
Background
Writing about the Arctic Ocean, the authors say that over the past thirty years "there has been a rapid decline in the extent and thickness of sea-ice in summer and more recently in winter as well," but they state there is "debate on the relative influence of natural versus anthropogenic forcing on these recent changes." Hence, they decided "to investigate the natural variability of sea-ice cover in the western Arctic during the Holocene and thus provide a baseline to which recent changes can be compared," in order to help resolve the issue.
McKay, J.L., de Vernal, A., Hillaire-Marcel, C., Not, C., Polyak, L. and Darby, D. 2008. Holocene fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice cover: dinocyst-based reconstructions for the eastern Chuckchi Sea. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 45: 1377-1397.
Background
Writing about the Arctic Ocean, the authors say that over the past thirty years "there has been a rapid decline in the extent and thickness of sea-ice in summer and more recently in winter as well," but they state there is "debate on the relative influence of natural versus anthropogenic forcing on these recent changes." Hence, they decided "to investigate the natural variability of sea-ice cover in the western Arctic during the Holocene and thus provide a baseline to which recent changes can be compared," in order to help resolve the issue.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon
If we fail to act, climate change will intensify droughts, floods and other natural disasters.
Water shortages will affect hundreds of millions of people. Malnutrition will engulf large parts of the developing world. Tensions will worsen. Social unrest - even violence - could follow.
The damage to national economies will be enormous. The human suffering will be incalculable.
The tails of the Perseids point back to a "radiant" in the constellation Perseus
They can appear anywhere in the sky
Composed of dusty debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle
The Perseid shower occurs when the Earth passes through a stream of dusty debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle.
As this cometary "grit" strikes our atmosphere, it burns up, often creating streaks of light across the sky.
This impressive spectacle appears to originate from a point called a "radiant" in the constellation of Perseus - hence the name Perseid.
© Reuters/Graphics
A massive magnitude 7.6 quake struck in the Indian Ocean off India's Andaman Islands, triggering a tsunami watch for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on Monday.
A massive magnitude 7.6 quake struck in the Indian Ocean off India's Andaman Islands, triggering a tsunami watch for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on Monday.
There were no reports of a tsunami or of any casualties from the tremor, officials said. It coincided with a 6.5 magnitude earthquake that jolted Tokyo and surrounding areas of Japan. There were no reports of major casualties from that quake either.
"We all ran out as fast as possible and have not gone back inside, fearing another quake. Everything was shaking, we are all very, very scared," Subhasis Paul, who runs a provision store in Diglipur island in North Andaman, told Reuters by telephone.
© NCDC/NESDIS/NOAA
Oh, the humanity.
As if global warming proponents don't have enough to worry about already, with Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., Fox News and the Heartland Institute, now Mother Nature has thrown them yet another curve: July 2009 was officially the coldest July on record in six U.S. states, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Specifically, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Not one of the coldest, mind you, but the absolute, rock-bottom, chilliest on record. Records go back to 1895. Meanwhile, four others - Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kentucky - had their 2nd-coldest July ever recorded.
What does this mean for global warming? Does this confirm it's a hoax perpetrated by Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi? Well, Fox News ran a headline last week that the cold summer is putting a damper on global warming fears. Meanwhile, the Heartland Institute is sponsoring another conference next May in Chicago.
But "Whoa Nellie" as Keith Jackson used to say. While the Northeast USA was indeed chilling out in July, take a look at these statistics, courtesy of the University of Alabama - Huntsville: For the world as a whole, July was the 2nd-warmest ever recorded, the Southern Hemisphere had its 2nd-warmest month ever (compared to seasonal norms), and it was the 2nd-warmest month ever recorded in Antarctica (again compared to seasonal norms).
© Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection
This blighted tomato plant is from a home garden in Dane County. Late blight has also been found at a Rock County vegetable farm.
This blighted tomato plant is from a home garden in Dane County. Late blight has also been found at a Rock County vegetable farm.
Wisconsin potato growers are on alert for a highly contagious fungus that has been found on tomato plants throughout the state. Officials worry that the fungus - which caused the Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century - could make the leap to potatoes and threaten the local crop.
As of Friday, Wisconsin had at least eight confirmed cases of the late blight fungus on tomatoes in Dane, Rock, Portage and Langlade counties - including at least one commercial vegetable farm, said Amanda Gevens, a plant pathologist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Wisconsin Extension. An additional 20 to 30 suspected cases are being investigated in several counties, she said.
The fungus first appeared earlier this summer in the Northeast, possibly carried by infected seedlings at garden centers. It has spread to other parts of the country since, rapidly killing tomato plants in its path. Spores are carried by wind, rain, people, machinery and wildlife.
In other states, the fungus quickly made the leap to potatoes, which is why Gevens met with Wisconsin potato growers this week to explain the signs and to prepare growers for a potentially devastating crossover. Wisconsin - the nation's third largest potato producer behind Idaho and Washington - last year harvested 2.3 billion pounds of potatoes.
"It has now landed in the center of commercial potato production in Wisconsin, so the risk is great," Gevens said.
© unknown
This year, the prize of gardening — a juicy tomato, ripe by the Fourth of July — has remained stubbornly green and hard.
This year, the prize of gardening — a juicy tomato, ripe by the Fourth of July — has remained stubbornly green and hard.
Talk about frustration.
By now, many vegetable gardeners would be layering fat slices of tomatoes on a plate and eating them like watermelon.
But not this year.
The prize of gardening - a juicy tomato, ripe by the Fourth of July - has remained stubbornly green and hard.
"This is as slow as I've seen it, and I've been growing tomatoes since 1972," said Bob "The Tomato Man" Green.
A Sarpy County farmer, master gardener and longtime competitor at the county fair, Green has 67 plants - 27 varieties - this year at his farm outside Springfield, Neb. And they just aren't ripening.
Blame it on the cool weather, he said. Tomatoes need warm days and warm nights to ripen. So far, though, much of eastern Nebraska is running about 4 to 6 degrees below normal for July.
Comment: Quoting Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.): Scientists mull quiet '09 hurricane season
NOAA Lowers Hurricane Season Outlook
Dr. Gray's updated hurricane forecast 2009: Good news
Still No Tropical Storms? Must Be Global Warming
US: Mild season in Tornado Alley frustrates scientists
Note to NCDC climate report authors: try using the telephone next time
The mental aberrations being displayed in the global warming camp are showing more and more what our leaders are made of - or at least who and what they are.