Mother is in control

If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute and it will change. I hear that statement in every single state I visit. The bottom line is we humans always need a "normal" to compare to, but normal really does not exist when it comes to weather. I think mentally we would all be a lot better off if we could change that term to average. Truly the average of the past is all we have to compare today to and, as we tell ourselves daily, the weather is constantly changing.

I am writing this on the heels of the one of the hottest weeks endured by the entire nation in recent memory. There again we only remember yesterday so how it compares to last year or 60 years ago we don't remember nor do most of us take the time to research it and find out for ourselves. We seem to be content to rely on the media or some past vice president for interpretation as to what it means for us.

I did notice that several of the records that were broken had been set in the 1930s. For those of us that didn't live between 1930 and 1940, we are far too ignorant about the weather of that decade. If you were ever to wonder why your parents or grandparents were so darn frugal, a quick "Dust Bowl, Great Depression" history would be very enlightening for you. I did do a little checking into the hottest global temperatures on record. I found this list of the seven hottest heat records from the National Climate Data Center to be very interesting:

El Azizia, Libya 136 degrees 1922

Death Valley, Calif. 134 degrees 1913

Tirat Tsvi, Israel 129 degrees 1942

Cloncurry, Queensland 128 degrees 1889

Seville, Spain 122 degrees 1881

Rivadavia, Argentina 120 degrees 1905

Tuguegarao, Philippines 108 degrees 1912

Those figures, and in particular the dates in which they were set, certainly don't do much to help support the global warming theories of today do they? Frequently in today's age of instant information, we hear about some natural disaster and the "fear mongers" are out to let us know that the climate has changed forever.

As an example, none of us may ever forget Hurricane Katrina, but how much do you know about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900?

In the early evening hours of Sept. 8, 1900, a hurricane came ashore at Galveston bringing with it a great storm surge that inundated most of Galveston Island and the city of Galveston. As a result, much of the city was destroyed and at least 6,000 people were killed in a few hours time. Where 20,000 people lived on Sept. 8, not a house remained on the Sept. 9, and who occupied the houses may, in many instances, never be known.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita combined didn't do near that much devastation. And we know the residents of Galveston didn't have three days warning in order to batten down the hatches or hit the road like hurricane victims did in 2005.

In regard to the Dust Bowl era, by the end of 1935, with no substantial rainfall in four years, some residents gave up. Dust Bowlers watched as their neighbors and friends packed up and headed west in search of farm jobs in California. In the spring of 1935, the wind blew for 27 days and nights without stopping. People and animals began to die of suffocation and "dust pneumonia."

I think these excerpts from, "The Dust Bowl, Men, Dirt and Depression" by Paul Bonnifield are worth reading:

"During 1936, the number of dirt storms increased and the temperature broke the 1934 record high by soaring above 120 degrees. On one pleasant June day in 1936, the ground began to tremble. A sharp earthquake shook the land from Kenton to Perryton and from Liberal to Stratford. By the fall of 1936, the rains began to return and the heat wave was broken. The following year, 1937 was another year of unprecedented dirt storms. Day after day, Dust Bowl farmers unwillingly traded farms as the land moved back and forth between Texas and Kansas. And of course there were the usual floods. 1938 was the year of the "snuster." The snuster was a mixture of dirt and snow reaching blizzard proportions. The storm caused a tremendous amount of damage and suffering."

Today, if an earthquake happens in an abnormal location, some are quick to suggest that global warming is changing us forever. I recently read a piece written by David Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute. He expanded on my point in an article entitled "Climate alarmism a perennial":

"The Washington Post announced a "New Ice Age" in 1970, and, in 1974, Fortune agreed, touting a scientist who predicted that a billion people would die from starvation caused by global cooling. Time magazine declared global warming in 1939, global cooling in 1974, and currently believes in global warming.

On the other hand, a scientific paper, posted online in July by the journal Science and generated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, says wildfire season in western states has grown up to two and one-half months longer since 1987 because of warmer spring temperatures and earlier, faster melting mountain snow. The timing of that annual snowmelt, a key source of the West's water, also helps gauge the severity of wildfire season.

I am not here to argue with you that the climate doesn't change. Let's not forget that much of the North American continent is so shaped because of the Ice Age. Obviously, it does continually change every day regardless of which state you may be in. However, I take great issue with the notion that the human footprint causes such changes. I take great issue with the fact that that footprint is causing more severe natural disasters now than at any time in history. I believe Mother Nature has a purpose for everything. Fire, for example, can be beneficial or eliminate us just as quickly. These natural occurrences are quite simply Mother's way of cleaning house when she sees fit. I suppose some humans just want to be control freaks rather than admit that the ole' gal will do it when, where and how she wants to and there isn't much they can do about it.

Editor's note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.FacesOfAg.com, or e-mail Trent at trent@loostales.com.

Date: 7/27/06

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