March in January! Or Is It Mayday? — Washington Post

It’s hot. It’s too hot for me and it’s January. Of course, this makes the eco-nazi’s salivate at the thought of the extra attention their cause-of-the-week will get (not to mention the added donations to fill their coffer$).

Bulletin: A Washington Post editor nearly drove into a black bear Friday night in Prince William County. Official word from the authorities: “Oh yeah, it’s so warm, they can’t hibernate.”

Bulletin: British scientists say there is a 60 percent chance that 2007 will be the warmest year on record.

Bulletin: Ski resorts are struggling to open in the Alps.

Bulletin: Palm trees are growing around a tiki bar in Antarctica.

Drudge has this on his homepage: “FLASHBACK: NYC had record high of 68F on Jan 13, 1932. 70F on Jan 14, 1932 and 67F on Jan 15, 1932…”

This year has such a high chance at being the warmest year on record because first, the trend of warmth over the recent 160 years, and second, this is an El Nino year. I expect this one to be a scorcher, but expect the former played up and the latter played down.

This quote, though, is really the point of this article:

So maybe we made up the last one. Still, we don’t need anyone to tell us that some computer model in some climatologist’s office is showing that a doubling of atmospheric carbon will lead over the next century to approximately 3 degrees Celsius warming in the average surface temperature of the planet, etc. Because we’ve been outside. We can detect climate change epidermically.

Even the most liberal (no pun intended) estimates of global warming over the next century puts the rise in global temperatures around three degrees. We are, in some cases, dozens of degrees above normal. Show me a “scientist” that purports to blame these extreme variants in temperature on the theory of global warming, and I’ll show you a “scientist” that received his Ph.D. in Climatology for $19.95 and a self-addressed stamped envelope.

In all seriousness, there is evidence that the Earth is getting warmer. Whether or not all external factors that could show a variance in temperature from those taken 100 years ago to those taken today have been effectively controlled (in order to make an effective and correct comparison) is still a valid concern. In addition to those factors — of which there are many — it’s a tremendous leap of faith to blame the increase in temperature on greenhouse gases.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: all too often I get to see my beloved sciences be made the whore to the political pimp. In order to arrive at scientific conclusions, the scientific method must be employed over and over again. Unfortunately, all too often that wonderful process is usurped by politicians (and many of their agents in the media) in order to garner a vote.