Cold Snap, Warm Globe

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Now that global warming ideology is ascendant, its hucksters have taken to claiming that unusual weather of any kind confirms their dire theories. It reminds me of the way local farmers back in the 1950s used to blame extreme weather on atomic testing. Of course, these farmers hadn’t been to college and might be forgiven their superstitious, unscientific outlook. Today’s opinion movers and shakers have less excuse.

In its Sunday Opinion Section, The New York Times noted that delegates to the recent climate talks in Bali decided they needed two years to formulate a· plan for combating global warming. Concerned that “the earth’s changing climate seems unlikely to wait,” the editors commissioned op-eds from writers abroad “to report on the weather in their part of the world.” Of course these literati weren’t expected to know anything about either the weather or global warming; their mission was to create alarmist propaganda.

The writer from China bemoaned the fact that one part of his country had a severe drought, while in another place, heavy rains caused flooding that killed hundreds of people. Very clever, this global warming. A writer from France claimed that global warming was spoiling the olive crop this year with “a warming trend with freak cold snaps.” One wonders, could that be the same as a cooling trend with freak warm snaps?

A Chilean novelist declared – I don’t think he figured this out himself – that”global warming is melting Antarctica, and as a result large quantities of water will inundate our coastline.” (Thank goodness the water will stay down there!) He did some of his own research too: “An exporter I know told me that this season’s uncharacteristic frosts ruined 40 percent of his crop.” It’s uncorroborated hearsay, of course, but a commendable first attempt at journalism for a writer hitherto specializing in fiction.

And worth a good laugh for readers, to see the editors of The New York Times publish, with a perfectly straight face, the finding that global warming is freezing the dickens out of Chilean avocados.

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