Global Warming Insanity

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority," Marcus Aurelius opined, "but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." An even worse fate would be to end up in minority status and an asylum. Recent developments suggest this might become the destiny of climate change alarmists.

Now that NASA has corrected its U.S. temperature records, the hottest year on record is no longer 1998, but 1934. Five of the 10 hottest years since 1880 were between 1920 and 1940 — and the 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread across seven decades. This suggests natural variation, not a warming trend.

Plant and insect remains found at the base of Greenland's ice sheet indicate just 400,000 years ago the island was blanketed in forests and basking in temperatures perhaps 27 degrees F warmer than today. Land area temperatures in South America, Africa and Australia have declined slightly over the last few years. Since 1998, sea surface temperatures over much of the world have decreased slightly, while globally averaged atmospheric temperatures have shown no change. Many U.S. temperature gauges are near air-conditioning exhausts, hot asphalt and other heat sources. Their readings are thus too high and must be revised downward — along with claims about rising temperatures.