On Whom Can We Blame the Hurricane?

By Alan Caruba

I am waiting for some moron in Obama’s campaign team to announce that the devastation of Hurricane Ike is the fault of the Bush administration.

Worse yet, I am waiting for some moron in McCain’s campaign team to say something stupid about “global warming” as the reason for the hurricane. Since the Earth has been in a cooling cycle now for the passed ten years, you can be fairly certain that (a) there is no global warming and (b) there’s no connection to the recent hurricanes.

As to what is “causing” them, the answer is the same thing that has been causing them for millions of years, Mother Nature. Those of us on the East Coast and in the Gulf area are now in a “hurricane season” and it will remain in it through October.

What is most evident, however, is that, with the advent of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, these storms are getting larger and more devastating. Anyone who lives in Florida is accustomed to hurricanes blowing through. Once in a decade or so, they get one like Hurricane Andrew that does some real damage, but most just rearrange the patio furniture. Further up the coast in the Carolinas they got a nasty Hurricane Hugo some years ago.

This new century has begun with a bang. Two monster storms in the first eight years suggests that these are not random events, but likely to occur with more frequency. This is very bad news for the Gulf States, but it is really bad news for Americans who depend on refineries in Texas and Louisiana for the bulk of the gasoline and other petroleum distillates they produce.

Now I have a confession to make. For some time now I have been making fun of those meteorologists who have been forecasting how many hurricanes will occur. The reason for this is that they have been mostly wrong for the last two or three years.

In April 2008, however, the Colorado State University team trained and put together by Dr. William Gray predicted at least 15 named storms that would grow into hurricanes, including “four intense hurricanes with winds about 110 mph.” In May I was poking fun at AccuWeather’s Joe Bastardi who had a comparable hurricane forecast. Bastardi has forgotten more about meteorology than I will ever know. I should have listened.

We should all listen when Dr. Gray, now an emeritus professor, tells us that those scientists still claiming that global warming is real are “brainwashing our children.” They brainwashed a jury of British morons who last week delivered a verdict that said it is perfectly okay for environmental activists to vandalize and destroy property in the name of global warming.

Simply stated, there’s no one to blame for Hurricane Ike or any other weather event.

It’s what planet Earth does and if you are still thinking that human beings have the slightest impact or effect on the weather, I have some lovely oceanfront property to sell you in Galveston, Texas. Or New Orleans. Or Biloxi.

The next person who says it’s all because of “climate change” should be dragged out into the street and told not to come back until they grow up.

That’s what the climate does all the time. It changes! Most of the time it’s seasonal. Other times it’s multidecadel. Barely 15,000 years ago, most of the northern continent lay beneath huge glaciers thanks to the most recent ice age.

When winter arrives, I’m betting that the same ferocity we’re seeing this hurricane season will translate into some horrendous blizzards, the likes of which we have not seen with frequency in passed years.

Is it time to build more refineries someplace where hurricanes do not occur with regularity? Yes.

It is time to build more coal-fired and nuclear plants to generate the doubling of electricity we will need by 2030? Yes.

Is it time to explore and extract the vast reserves of oil and natural gas off the coasts of America? Yes.

Can we depend on Congress to do the right thing? No. Not unless and until we begin to elect people to office who understand these very simple facts will we have any hope at all.