Every August, there are two things you can count on in the Atlantic and Gulf coasts: high humidity and hurricane warnings.
Along with the scenic beauty and abundance of tranquil, sandy beaches comes the risk of hurricanes. Numerous catastrophic storms have hit the Atlantic coast since record-keeping began. The year 1667 has been dubbed the “Year of the Hurricane” for the number of powerful storms to hit the Caribbean and mid-Atlantic, and the “Great Miami Hurricane” of 1926 caused what would today be the equivalent of $90 billion in damage to south Florida.
Coastal residents also face an entirely preventable peril: hysteria. Global warming alarmists (subsidized by the Big Green lobby of wind and solar power companies, corn farmers, carbon traders and off-setters, and simple nanny-staters) and government researchers (who depend on a crisis such as climate change to scare up taxpayer funding) claim manmade global warming is causing more hurricanes. The complicit media fuel these fears while ignoring scientific evidence that strongly says otherwise.
Prominent scientists in the field, including research meteorologist Tom Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have concluded global warming is not to blame for hurricanes. In fact, Knutson says, warming would likely reduce the number of future hurricanes. That prediction is confirmed by a Geological Survey of Sweden study that found unusually low levels of hurricanes in the warmer period between 1970 and 1995. A recent issue of Nature magazine reinforced this conclusion with a study finding warm temperatures are not associated with increased hurricane activity.
Why do these powerful special-interest groups fight so hard against scientific facts? Blame the greenest cause of them all: money. Green energy companies make very healthy incomes off the American taxpayer because of alternative energy mandates and the government subsidies they get for doing research other companies must do on their own dime. These green companies try to convince the American public we are somehow contributing to our own doom, while they lobby politicians for greater subsidies and mandates … and the lobbyists’ pockets get padded even further. The issue-spinning they do puts Hurricane Ike to shame.
Even if warming did cause increased hurricane activity, it would not explain current weather conditions–since 1998, the global temperature has been decreasing. In August an expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico predicted the Earth is on the cusp of the next Little Ice Age, due to decreased solar activity.
The facts line up nicely against the hurricane alarmists. Scientists have proven global warming is not to blame to hurricanes. And even if global warming were the culprit, it wouldn’t explain current hurricane activity, since the Earth has been cooling for the past decade. And hurricanes have been around since far before the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The hysteria brought on by the Big Green lobby will do nothing but line their pockets … and empty ours.
Zonia Pino ([email protected]) is a legislative specialist in environment issues for The Heartland Institute.
