Global Warming, it’s Political

Those of us who live in the Northern Rockies or Northern Plains have experienced a great mild winter, so far, but remember it is only the first week of April. Along with the mild temperatures there also hasn’t been much snowfall in some places, so it is dry around most of the country. Being spring, we do need the moisture in the next 60 days or so, as our friend Professor Mike Smith says.
   March was really unseasonably warm, and we had the strong winds to go along with it. But, the warm, mild winter did save on costly hay supplies, and being in agriculture we’re now all talking how dry it is going into spring.
    We’ve already forgotten how tough it was last winter, and the large spring snow runoff we had a year ago, so the finger-pointers out there are talking about global warming again. I’ve never had much faith in global warming, but I do believe in climate change, because from day one we have always had climate change – that’s just the way it is. You should ask those in Eastern Europe, Alaska and northern Canada how their global warming is coming along – they’ve had record snows and low temperatures this winter. It was just the opposite a year ago.  
    This being an election year, some politicians are blaming CO2 as the cause behind global warming, but I was reading a report the other day that shot blaming CO2 down the drain. It started out saying: “What is happening to global temperatures in reality? The answer is: almost nothing for more than 10 years.”
    A study of global temperatures compiled at the University of Alabama from NASA satellite data says, “The latest (February 2012) monthly global temperature anomaly for the lower atmosphere was minus 0.12 degrees Celsius, slightly less than the average since the satellite record of temperatures began in 1979.”
    The writer of the article then made a great statement: “The lack of any statistically significant warming for over a decade has made it more difficult for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its supporters to demonize the atmospheric gas CO2 which is released when fossil fuels are burned.” He goes on to say, “CO2 is not a pollutant. Life on earth flourished for hundreds of millions of years at much higher CO2 levels than we see today. Increasing CO2 levels will be a net benefit because cultivated plants grow better and are more resistant to drought at higher CO2 levels, and because warming and other supposedly harmful effects of CO2 have been greatly exaggerated, nations with affordable energy from fossil fuels are more prosperous and healthy.”  
    He also says, “It is easy to be confused about climate, because we are constantly being warned about the horrible things that will happen or are already happening as a result of mankind’s use of fossil fuels. But these ominous predictions are based on computer models. It is important to distinguish between what the climate is actually doing and what computer models predict. The observed response of the climate to more CO2 is not in good agreement with model predictions.”
    Amen, hear that Al Gore.
    Dennis