Back this past spring, all the media were atwitter with the forecasters’ predictions that we’d have another barn-burner of a hurricane season to match last year’s record-breaker (for as far back as we have records, which isn’t all that long). The increased tempo of killer-‘canes was supposed to be the result of global warming, which was the result of Americans driving too many gas-guzzling SUVs. And George W. Bush. Because it’s always Bush’s fault, no matter what it is.
But what do you know? Old Mother Earth doesn’t seem to be cooperating. In fact, the hurricane season so far has been pretty mild and the meteorologists are downgrading their forecasts.
Of course, the global climate change folks will say that, somehow, this is an indicator of global climate change. No matter what happens to the climate it’s an indicator that Americans are nasty consumers who are destroying the planet, whether it’s colder or warmer, whether there are more or fewer hurricanes, whatever.
Similarly, tornado experts predicted that 2006 would be one of the busiest tornado seasons ever, based on a large number of tornadoes at the beginning of the season in March and an “extremely warm winter,” blaming it once again on global warming. What happened? If you listen to disappointed tornado chasers you’ll hear that despite a quick start, it turned out to be one of the quietest tornado seasons ever. Of course, apart from those of you actually living in Tornado Alley, no one heard a peep about the fizzle. Good media hype doesn’t include reporting on what didn’t happen.
The five questions to ask about global climate change
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