Some like it Hot

Dallas Morning News photo
It's not easy to focus on global warming while you are layering your sweaters and worring about natural gas prices and staying warm.

But just in case you had any doubts about whether or not global warming continues to march its changes into our world, the data for 2005 is in.

And it was hot. Here is the story

2005 Continues the Warming Trend

Year's Temperatures Are Among the Highest on Record, Scientists Announce
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A02

This year has been one of the hottest on record, scientists in the United States and Britain reported yesterday, a finding that puts eight of the past 10 years at the top of the charts in terms of high temperatures.

Three studies released yesterday differ slightly, but they all indicate the Earth is rapidly warming. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has concluded 2005 was the warmest year in recorded history, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.K. Meteorological Office call it the second hottest, after 1998. All three groups agree that 2005 is the hottest year on record for the Northern Hemisphere, at roughly 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit above the historical average.

Scientists said yesterday that these differences should not detract from their common conclusion that the world is experiencing serious climate change, driven in part by human activity.

Researchers recently found by drilling ice cores that there is a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than in any time in the last 650,000 years, which reflects that humans are burning an increased amount of fossil fuels to power automobiles and utilities.

The Earth has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, with 1 degree of this increase occurring in the past 30 years. This climate change has brought unusually prolonged droughts in some regions and heavy precipitation in others, while the Arctic's sea ice has shrunk to its lowest level since observers started using satellite records in 1979.

Some global-warming skeptics questioned the significance of yesterday's findings. "Saying that 2005 was a near-record is like saying that a plane that landed safely could have crashed," said William O'Keefe, chief executive officer of the George C. Marshall Institute. "It is trying to make news where none exists."

Now, let me see if I can understand Mr. O'Keefe.

If the hottest year on record is a safe landing,

What is the plane crash that he calls news?

Did the year need to miss a week to make news?

Does the earth need to stop turning?

Comments and excuses from Global Climate Change skeptics, like many other recent administration operations, have become particularly tortured, but this one pretty much leaves me truly puzzled.

I guess some just like it hot.

But actually some just like to sell out.

Here is a look at Mr. O'Keefe and the Marshall Institute and their payments from Exxon. There is little surprise here, given that Mr. O'Keefe's bio at the Marshall Institute states that he has been the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the American Petroleum Institute .

Here is more on the story from Environmental Defense.

So, in calling Mr. O'Keefe a skeptic, the Post got it wrong.

He is a paid professional for the Oil Lobby.

Some might like it hot,

but some just get paid to lie,

So that some might profit,

At the expense of all the rest of us.

And once again,

The Post shows its panties,

Instead of the straightforward reporting we need

from our Fourth Estate.


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