Sunday, February 12th 2012, 6:08 AM EST
Fifteen years is a hell of long time to have to listen to ever more hysterical pronouncements that the end of the world is nigh -- all without that predicted disaster happening to even the most minimal degree. And yet, according to a report released recently by the U.K. Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, nothing at all is exactly what has happened. These putative climate authorities' data, accumulated from more than 30,000 research stations, shows that the world's temperature has not risen for a decade and a half. The revelation, as one would expect, headlined news across the world.
The problem with this latest report, of course, is that it is in no way revelatory all. Oh, sure, it extends by half again the amount of time that the globe has refused to conform to predictions of behavior made by those who have assured us that they are experts. But so what of it?
It didn't exactly matter when the fundamental claims of Al Gore's fiction An Inconvenient Truth were shown to be false. Rises in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have not driven historic global temperature increases as claimed; rather, temperature actually increased first. And as for that infamous hockey stick, the one that showed temperature increases neatly correlating with industrial development? Well, there's a reason why you don't hear about that anymore.
Nor did it matter when polar bears defied predictions and, instead of going the way of the Dodo, happily increased their numbers.
It didn't matter that historically it has been much warmer, but with CO2 levels much lower, than present averages, nor that during these warmer times, mankind has positively flourished. And it certainly wasn't relevant to the discussion that the amount of energy a country consumed per capita corresponded directly to the liberty and prosperity its citizens enjoyed.
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