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Year of global cooling
By David Deming, December 19, 2007,
From Washington Times
Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is
difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures
are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people
died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.
Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has
increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not
unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation.
Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the
mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for
nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the
intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The
2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a
single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.
South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters
in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since
the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In
Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became
infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock
perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of
emergency.
Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in
2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant
snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June
ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville
underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since
1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards
were endangered.
Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost
to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural
employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus
prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster
declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr.
Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global
Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the
climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for
similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.
In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South
Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple
harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21
degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for
April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded
a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records
extend back to 1872.
Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions
to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a
new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date,
record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and
Ohio.
Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in
Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees
Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was
12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in
1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely
to be the coldest in 15 years.
Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a
destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a
million without electric power. People worldwide are being
reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are
inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left
in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric
generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed
particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears,
penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don't seem so awful when
you're in the cold and dark.
If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global
warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive
dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian
Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean
colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words,
all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't
make this stuff up.
Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis
to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.
David Deming is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the
National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of
Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.
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