hot tamale

Oooh, man, it's hot!

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are saying the month recently concluded was the hottest March ever, ever.

The entire first quarter of 2012 was also the warmest on record, and the tornado outbreaks early in the month gave us the year's first billion-dollar disaster.

NOAA's report goes on to say The average temperature of 51.1°F was 8.6 degrees above the 20th century average for March and 0.5°F warmer than the previous warmest March in 1910. Of the more than 1,400 months (117+ years) that have passed since the U.S. climate record began, only one month, January 2006, has seen a larger departure from its average temperature than March 2012.

Now I realize that there are those out there who take issue with this kind of report, and say that because there's no proof that humans are causing any of this, there's no reason for us to moderate the amounts or types of things that we do when we do things, such as drive cars or co-generate electricity for out-of-state sale at the pulp mill in Port Townsend.

Furthermore, all this alarmism about climate change smells suspiciously like a hoax (they say), perpetrated by opportunistic entrepreneurs who have bribed and connived with corrupt politicians in a plot to rip off a gullible public.

I mean, who ya gonna believe? Your lying eyes? Or the scientifically-based, politically neutral, uncorrupted, and totally objective assurances of spokesmen for the petroleum industry?