Blog

Bring on that Global Warming

By Kennedy Maize

Here’s a hoot. The recent global cooling we have seen would have been cooler without global warming.

That’s the claim of Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel of the Union of Concerned Scientists. In a letter to the Washington Post on July 27, Ekwurzel objected to a column by conservative George Will, who has taken up the cause of global warming skepticism. Will wrote, correctly, that the last decade has seen global cooling, not warming. Ekwurzel accepted that analysis, as she must, if she trusts the data.

But that’s only more proof of global warming, she argued. “Because of the natural ocean cycles, 1998 was a warm year,” she wrote in her letter to the editor. “Global warming made it even hotter. Conversely, 2008 was a cooler year, but global warming made it less cool.” Sounds Orwellian to me. Lies are truth. Peace is war.

Her statement, let it be known, is profoundly unscientific. There are no models, and no data, that support the notion that global warming made 1998 artificially warm and 2008 artificially cool. That’s high-degree hokum. The absence of data, she implies, proves her hypothesis. That’s nonsense.

Beyond that, the NASA satellite date make clear that there has been no global warming over the past 30 years. The global warming crowd – they now call it “climate change” so they can incorporate any weather information they want into their ideology – eschew hard data from satellites to maintain their view of the world.

Ekwurzel is a credible scientist who has a doctorate in geosciences and post-doc work at Columbia University and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. But she now works for a lobbying group with a message. That renders her views at least subject to heightened scrutiny. I know what I’m talking about, as I worked for UCS in the mid-1980s, as an energy analyst focused on nuclear power plants in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. I found it common that my views were subject to “politically correctness” reviews, and shortly left UCS.

As for the notion that cool means warm, and wet means dry, let me describe our experience on our small western Maryland farm this spring and summer. Ekwurzel cites anecdotal evidence, writing that “all corners of American are already experiencing the effect of climate change.

So as one of those corners, I’m allowed to comment. We’ve had the best growing period in the 20 years we have lived here. Days have been cool, and rain has been plentiful. Our pastures are lush. Out lambs went to market more than a month earlier than typical. Our tomatoes are really sweet and early. We’ve canned green beans and beets far earlier than usual, and in greater amounts. We’ve eaten and frozen English peas in profusion. Eggplants are delivering bountifully. Peppers are piling up. And so it goes.

Must be global warming.