Once again, it’s Bike Week here in Central New Hampshire, and like always, it’s all eyes on the weather. While some reports focus on the economy and its effect on this, the 86th annual occurrence of the world renowned event, make no mistake about it—the weather is what makes or breaks the week.
As I headed off to work Wednesday morning, the thermometer in the truck said it was 46 degrees outside and, a rare happening as of late—it wasn’t raining. Yes indeed, it’s Bike Week and, as those of us that have been here for any length of time, it ALWAYS deluges at least once during the event (on a good year) and, honest to goodness summer never really starts till the thing is over. This year is really no exception, except that is does seem cooler than some years past.
Enter Barack Obama, ready to rain on the already rained on parade. On the same day I noted 46 degrees, I also read about the Obama Administration’s newly released report regarding global warming… I mean, “climate change.” According to the AP story,
“Rising sea levels, sweltering temperatures, deeper droughts, and heavier downpours — global warming’s serious effects are already here and getting worse, the Obama administration warned on Tuesday in the grimmest, most urgent language on climate change ever to come out of any White House.”
Once again, we are being asked, en masse, to suspend disbelief and firsthand observation and facts in order to get with the program of drastic change prescribed as the fix.
And while the situation gets seemingly worse, nothing has really changed fact-wise since the Bush Administration issued its version of the report.
“The document, a climate status report required periodically by Congress, was a collaboration by about three dozen academic, government and institute scientists. It contains no new research, but it paints a fuller and darker picture of global warming in the United States than previous studies.”
Be afraid, they tell us. Be very afraid. And of course, the desired response will be to see people motivated by fear do EXACTLY what the global warming zealots want them to do.
As the Chinese communists build new coal-fired power plants like there’s no tomorrow to power their growing economic engine, the US is pushing for proverbial “restrictor plates” on its own—calling for closures of existing stations. Why? We are on the verge of cashing in our present standards and quality of life in some quixotic quest to save the planet, while, on the other side of the SAME planet, our efforts are being nullified many times over. Our leaders are tricking the Nation’s citizenry to willingly place its lifestyle on a downward spiral that, even if global warming was a given, will have zero effect because of the actions of others far outweighing anything that we might possibly do, even if we were to suddenly revert to Eighteenth Century life.
As Team Obama paints a “fuller and darker picture of global warming in the United States," let’s consider some facts. I know this might seem off-base when it comes to this issue, but, for the sake of discussion, we’ll do so anyway.
According to a World Bank ranking, no American city is among the top 50 cities in the world for air pollution. Another report –“The Top Ten of the Dirty Thirty,” compiled by the Blacksmith Institute of New York– compared the toxicity of contamination, the likelihood of it getting into humans and the number of people affected. Places were moved up in rank if children were impacted. No US or European sites made the list. Places in China, India and Russia occupied six of the top ten spots. Yet, what does Obama tell THEM about pollution? No, instead, he scolds us for the way WE live. And we accept it, almost without question.
Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post American World writes,
“The combined carbon dioxide emissions from the 850 new coal-fired power plants that China and India are building between now and 2012 are five times the total savings of the Kyoto accords. So you can put in all those curly light bulbs and drive all the Priuses you want: India just ate that for breakfast and China will eat the next round of conservation for lunch.”
According to an article last year in DailyTech.com,
“Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.”
If you think global warming is bad, just consider the alternative. Again, from DailyTech.com:
“Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans — and most of the crops and animals we depend on — prefer a temperature closer to 70. Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.”
Take heart though, all you Bike Week lovers — I’ll bet the Lakes Region could easily host a bang-up “Sled Week,” should it come to that!
