When Good Trees Go Bad

By Russ Vaughn

Alas for the poor trees of the world! Those who had previously embraced them without qualification have now suddenly seemed to develop an aversion similar to that of the lied-to lover. In its attempt to put the best possible spin on the latest whitewash of the global warming con artists, the New York Times inadvertently provides readers with this gem:

The issue involved an effort to reconstruct the climate history of the past several thousand years using indirect indicators like the size of tree rings and the growth rate of corals. The C.R.U. researchers, leaders in that type of work, were trying in 1999 to produce a long-term temperature chart that could be used in a United Nations publication.

But they were dogged by a problem: Since around 1960, for mysterious reasons, trees have stopped responding to temperature increases in the same way they apparently did in previous centuries. If plotted on a chart, tree rings from 1960 forward appear to show declining temperatures, something that scientists know from thermometer readings is not accurate.

Most scientific papers have dealt with this problem by ending their charts in 1960 or by grafting modern thermometer measurements onto the historical reconstructions.

Those damned infernal trees mysteriously presented evidence counter to their strategically placed thermostats, so the only conclusion to be drawn by these global warming zealots masquerading as legitimate scientists is that the damned trees are lying. Gotta be! No way these esteemed scientists data could be wrong here is there? Nope, those fickle, dumb-ass trees, after all these years, have suddenly changed their pattern of behavior, millennia in the making, for some unfathomable reason these geniuses just can't quite figure out. So what are we going to do about it? Well, hell, we'll just ignore the evidence of millenniums because it doesn't fit conveniently into our model of leftist global planning.

The Soviet Union employed this kind of politically correct science and look where they ended up. Does an adjective exist in the English language to modify the term underwhelmed to demonstrate an even lower level of impression? There would have to be for me to be able to describe my impression of these global warming fools. Is there no level of foolishness to which liberals will not stoop to achieve their utopia, even liberal scientists? Know what I think? I think all the research thermometers involved are of the rectal type and I think they are correctly and strategically positioned in their global warming zealots.

No wonder they're so fidgety.