The truth has no place in junk science, especially politically charged junk science

There have been several thoughts running through my mind in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I feel like I adequately expressed my disdain for the looters and the like last night, but I find myself consistently thinking about, and subsequently directing my ire toward, one group of people in particular.

Specifically, the opportunist, environmentalist nutjobs who don't even wait for the flood waters to recede or for the bodies to be counted before they start politicizing the worst national disaster in American history.

For one thing, I'm irritated by their staggering poor taste and utter lack of tact. But even that could perhaps be excused if what they were saying had any sort of basis in, or relevance to, the truth.

After reading blathering articles by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and his ilk about the effects of global warming and how it's responsible for these sorts of disasters, I decided to do a little research, and what I found is quite curios.

First of all, for their theory to be true about global warming being directly related to both the volume and intensity of hurricanes, it would need to be assumed that the number of hurricanes striking the United States in, say, the last century, would have increased, and that these storms were more intense.

But, according to this handy chart put out by the National Hurricane Center, it would appear that the exact opposite is true. In fact, the 1990's were a relatively quiet decade as far as hurricanes go, with only 14 total storms, and 5 major storms -- half the number of major storms in the 1940's! Not to mention the fact that the number of both total storms and major storms have DROPPED since the 1940's.

Huh. Interesting. It's almost as if these people are...um, what's the word...ignoring facts in order to push a political agenda. But, nah...they wouldn't do that, would they?

And even if their theory was true, which it isn't, what would their plan be for dealing with it? Why, the Kyoto protocol, of course.

In doing a little research on that, I've found quite a few interesting tidbits of information.

First of all, it seems to be widely accepted that the global temperature has risen roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius in the last century, give or take. Or, since we're all Americans, 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit.

Even if the Kyoto protocol is successfully and completely implemented (which, as I said last night, it's not even close to happening...) estimates put its reductions between .02 degrees and .28 degrees Celsius, or again, since we're all Americans, somewhere between .036 and .504 degrees Fahrenheit. Wow. Better bundle up out there, 'cause instead of being .9 degrees warmer, it'll only be between .864 or .396 degrees warmer -- in 100 years!

This isn't even taking into account the fact that the United States would have to reduce its energy consumption by 25% in order to comply with the protocol. That's 25% for everyone. Are you going to drive 25% less? Watch TV 25% less? Use the internet 25% less? Heat/cool your home 25% less? Needless to say, that's never going to happen. I mean, I'm not going to do it, are you? Thing is, we don't have to. Because even if we did, it wouldn't matter.

Conceding that global warming is a problem, which it isn't, and even conceding that it affects the weather, which it doesn't, the Kyoto treaty is not going to do anything to stop it.

Global warming, or at least the prospect that human beings have anything to do with it, is absolute bunk. A billion years ago, this planet was a giant ball of molten rock, and not because we drove SUV's. 30,000 years ago, this planet was a giant sheet of ice, and not because we invented hybrid cars.

Natural disasters happen, and not because of anything we did. Between 6,000 and 12,000 people died in a hurricane in Texas at the turn of the century, should we blame that on Global Warming? Maybe it was all the methane from the horse-drawn carriages.

The bottom line is, we're arrogant to believe that we have so much effect over the Earth's weather patterns. But the fact remains that the weather, and yes, even the temperature cycles, are out of our control.

Exploiting a natural disaster as 'evidence' of unproven science, and using it to score political points and place personal blame on politicians is absolutely disgraceful, and might actually even be symptoms of a mental disorder.