Sen. Harry Reid this week managed to blame San Diego's wildfires on "global warming" at one moment, and to deny the next moment that he had said it. This gives new meaning to the term "spin". Namely; "'spin', to gyrate around inanely".
No matter, it seems that everything is indirectly the fault of global warming, when it is not directly the fault of George W. Bush.
Take hurricanes. Blame global warming and blame Bush. Post-Katrina, we saw various horrific models of how hurricanes were going to wreck our coastline and coastal cities. And those monster hurricanes the models predicted were coming at any moment. Few meteorologists, to their credit, took part in the hysteria, but that didn't diminish the fulminating media or the liberal pols.
It is interesting, therefore, to see that just as the big hurricane season of 2006 did not quite happen (the predictions of same were a bust, in fact), the 2007 season also has shaped up as something of a bore. Good thing, too, of course, unless you make your living covering such things. It appears that global warming has not yet suited up for the hurricane season.
Hurricane season, by the way, officially lasts six months, June 1-November 30. Only in comparison to baseball is that a short "season". It ought to be possible for Mother Nature to prepare plenty of trouble in that long a span.
Several outfits make annual predictions of hurricanes, in addition to the Farmers Almanac, of course. Those most widely cited seem to come from Colorado State University.
Last spring, perched safely in the Rockies, the CSU team predicted a "very active" 2007 hurricane season, with an anticipated nine hurricanes, five of them "major"--Category 3, 4 or 5, with winds of 111 mph, or more. However, by August, the Coloradoans, their windsocks drooping, lowered their prediction to eight hurricanes, four of them "major".
Two Category 5 hurricanes, "Felix" and "Humberto," did develop in the Carribean, neither of which, however, really hit the U.S. That meant, so far as U.S. media were concerned, they hardly can be said to have occurred. If it doesn't happen here, it doesn't really happen, as we all know. Humberto eventually did cross the Texas state shoreline going 85 mph, and I fully admit that Humberto was a big deal if you happened to be in the way. But, honestly, it was less of a blowhard than some senators I can think of.
By early October there had been seven hurricanes, and only three of them "major". If you were cheering for a really big season and an opportunity to whoop it up for global warming, you had to be disappointed.
Now we only have five weeks left. It would be just my luck for a half dozen historic catastrophes to develop off Antigua, head toward America and blow away my snide comments, not to mention a few thousand people's houses.
But, so far, like Chicago Cubs fans, the storm chasing Left can only pledge, "Wait 'til next year."
