An article (of
faith) in Slate magazine touted NASA’s claim that May 2014 was the warmest May,
globally, in recorded history. “El Nino-fueled ocean warmth is supercharging
the Earth’s temperature, which could help make 2014 the warmest year since human
records have been kept, and probably for
much longer”. Said article went on to
state that “NASA uses a baseline set from 1951 to 1980 to determine how much a
month’s temperature deviates from normal”.
1951-1980? To
paraphrase the Church Lady from old SNL skits, “Isn’t that convenient?”! The
60’s and 70’s were so cold, scientists were penning articles about how Global
Cooling was going to dramatically change
the planet as we knew it.
What if we chose
the same 1951 to 1980 period as our baseline to illustrate culture change? Let’s see, we went from ‘Father Knows Best’,
‘Bonanza’, ‘Little House on the Prairie’ & ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ as popular
television shows during this period to ‘Real Sex’, ‘Californication’, ‘Jackass’ & ‘2 Broke Girls’ today. How
much of a deviation from normal is
that?
This article
closed with the statement, “On our current path of minimal attention,
scientists say warming…could have devastating effects (by the year 2100)”.
Culture change
will have devastating effects long before then.
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