Weathering the Politicians

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan

Yesterday I read an interesting article in Newsweek about the connection between tornadoes and climate change.

Newsweek’s story explained how top climate scientists were concerned about several ominous and fundamental changes occurring in Earth’s weather patterns.

David Fitzsimmons / Arizona Daily Star (click to view more cartoons by Fitzsimmons)

Evidence that Earth’s climate was changing in the wrong direction, the article said, included a shorter growing season in England, higher average temperatures at the equator and an increase in tornadoes like the monster than killed at least 24 people in Tornado Alley this week.

“Last April,” wrote Newsweek, “in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in thirteen U.S. states.”

Newsweek’s article went on to say scientists weren’t sure what was causing the global climate to change and could not predict how it would affect specific local weather conditions.

But the news magazine said top weather scientists were certain of one thing: They were “almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural output for the rest of the century” and result in “a major climatic change that would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale.”

Oh, I forgot to mention a few important facts.

The date on that Newsweek article was April 28, 1975. The headline was “The Cooling World.” And the climate change scientists were almost unanimously worried about was a global cooling trend.

Global cooling, the Big Climate Scare of the 1970s, wasn’t blamed on humans, and weather disasters like Hurricane Sandy and this week’s tragedy in Oklahoma were not politicized by climate illiterates like Babs “The Weather Girl” Boxer and her fellow U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse.

Both Boxer and Whitehouse jumped on the Oklahoma City tornado tragedy this week to exploit it for political gain.

While they were still pulling survivors out of the wreckage, Whitehouse gave an idiotic speech on Monday linking “cyclones” and other extreme weather events to climate change.

Then he beat up Republicans for not believing the myth he and his political soul-bothers believe — that climate change is catastrophic, man-made and only fixable by great climatologists like Al Gore and wise Washington politicians.

Whitehouse later apologized, saying he wrote the speech before he knew about the tornadoes striking Oklahoma. But his climatic ignorance and his crass, opportunistic politics were exposed.

Meanwhile, Sen. Boxer had no excuse. She took a break from her gun control crusade to spend time on her other crusade — climate control.

On Monday she expressed her condolences to the tornado victims, then twisted another natural tragedy into a political issue. She blathered that the tornado was “proof” of climate change.

Sorry, Ma’am, but tornados have been around for a long time. That’s why we call it Tornado Alley, not “Global Warming Alley.” In Florida and the Carolinas we have Hurricane Alley. I live in Earthquake Alley.

Next time a natural disaster strikes, I have some advice for all the climate-control freaks in Washington.

Please shut up. Nothing you say or do will change anything. Oklahoma is not going to get safer if Earth gets cooler.

And Boxer, Whitehouse and their ilk are not going to make tornadoes disappear like Newsweek did.

Believe it not, senators, climate is not something that Washington can control.

It’s ultimately affected — and controlled — by Almighty Nature, not humans and their carbon burning. And certainly not by agenda-driven politicians.

Copyright ©2013 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com.