Dark Pearls of Wisdom

Global Warming Not Cited for Failure To Appear

More stealing from Ace of Spades, but with some commentary by me.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbshear1001nboct01,0,6613717.story

The basic gist of the story is that after reviewing the hurricane season, there hasn't been much to speak of. What they don't mention is that after all the hoopla and hand wringing that Global Warming (trademark, Al Gore) will cause massive superstorms, droughts, alien invasions, and childhood obesity, there hasn't been jack crap to show for it. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were supposed to be just the warmup (no pun intended) for Mother Nature really socking it to us in a fit of Gaia-inspired mayhem. So far, it looks like Mother Nature took a Midol and flopped onto the couch with a bucket of ice cream to watch the Lifetime network.

So, like so many other tales of coming desperate disasters, we're seeing a whole lot of nothing. Does that mean that Global Warming (trademark, Al Gore) isn't real? No, looking at history we can clearly see that all kinds of warming, cooling, drying, wetting, sulfur-emitting and other trends can be seen (and that's just in my bathroom!). The world is a big, big place that's been around a long, long time. When observed in timeframes as short as I've seen cited, it's like diagnosing a death rattle after listening to a single hiccup.

Does this mean that Mother Nature won't wipe a region off the map every now and then in a fit of PMS-like rage? Of course not. Disasters happen with an alarming regularity despite how often we think we've seen the "worst in a century." Their causes are as diverse as seawater-soaked rock being subsumed 100 million years ago (Mt. Pinatubo, 1991) to a gamma ray burst from a star hundreds of light years away (one possible cause of the Ordovician extinction, 445 million years ago).

To sum up, Mother Nature doesn't need a reason to go postal on us and, while our actions do have consequences, take what comes out of the mouths of "people in the know" with a grain of salt. If you don't, you could miss out on a whole lot of nice, sunny days.

posted by Neal5x5 @ 4:53 PM