It’s Hot, Hot, Hot!
We’re entering the dog days of summer and, right on cue, we’re hearing cries of “Climate Change!”, “Global Warming!”, “Climate Emergency!”
Yes, high temperature records have been broken. Yes, TV stations are trying to fry an egg on the sidewalk to prove how hot it is.
Note that this is nothing new – this clip is from 2013.
What we hear from the corporate media are hair on fire (pun intended) stories about high temperature records being broken. But most of these are published for their sensational value. For example, according to PBS, Redding California had a 2024 record of 118.94 F with the previous record of 118.04 F which was set in 1988. Is this 0.9 degree increase statistically relevant? Well, consider these Redding weather records from extremeweatherwatch.com:
What does this tell you? It tells me that 0.9 degree in one year is just statistically not significant. It sure sounds like 1988 was pretty darned hot though!
But is 2024 the worst? No, according to worldatlas.com. 2024 doesn’t even make the list:
Yeah, yeah, I know. The SUVs were much bigger in 1901 and 1936. Plus, the U.S. was more agrarian then so there were many more cow farts back then.
So, besides media sensationalism (without any supporting science), why are things hotter this year?
Have you heard of the massive 2022 eruption of the underwater volcano in Tonga, known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai?
According to NASA the eruption ejected water into the atmosphere "equal to 10 percent of the water already present in that atmospheric layer."
Wow.
In September 2022, Live Science wrote, "50 million tons of water vapor from Tonga's eruption could warm Earth for years." The Associated Press reported in 2022 that the eruption "could wind up warming the Earth."
NPR reported at the time that it usually takes two to three years for "sulfate aerosols from volcanoes to fall out of the stratosphere. But the water from the Jan. 15, 2022 eruption could take 5-10 years to fully dissipate."
On the volcanic explosivity index, Tonga ranked six, putting it in the same league as Krakatoa and making it the most violent eruption on Earth since Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.
Even with the warming caused by biggest blast in decades, our corporate media ignores that science and continues blaming cow farts and SUVs.
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As I’ve said many times, I totally believe there’s climate change. It’s an indisputable fact that, since its birth billions of years ago, the earth’s climate has been changing. The climate today is different than what the climate was when dinosaurs walked the earth. What I don’t believe is that the flyspeck of humanity has any real impact on our climate.
“I’ll believe there’s a crisis when the people who tell me there’s a crisis start acting like there’s a crisis.” — Glenn Reynolds
In The Climate Crisis Crisis I list just some of the dire predictions that have been made by “experts” that have never come true. We always hear about the rise of the oceans, but that hasn’t stopped the wealthy from buying oceanfront mansions in the Hamptons, Malibu, the Delaware beaches or the Jersey Shore, has it? What do they know that the climate experts apparently don’t?
Here’s an interesting graphic. It’s a timelapse of 40 years of satellite images of the Dubai, U.A.E. coastline. Can you see the change?
No? What you can see is the massive development project to build the tree-like Palm Islands artificial archipelagos in the 2002 timeframe. How reckless of those developers (not to mention all the consumers and investors) to spend billions with the imminent threat of the rise of the oceans!
What do you think?
Stay cool my friends.