In An Attempt to Regain the Front Pages of Newspapers...

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... some meteorologists and climatologists are displaying 'stripes' of temperatures today.

This one is pretty typical.

Some are broken down by states.
Supposedly, blue = good and red = bad.

Warmer weather = bad for humanity = both bad science and bad sociology. Prior to the onset of COVID-19,
  • Meteorological famine had nearly disappeared from the lexicon. The longer growing seasons associated warmer weather, when combined with the Green Revolution, has nearly eliminated giant crop failures. It would be impossible to feed earth's 7.8 billion people if temperatures were to revert to blue levels. 
  • Because far more energy is used for heating than cooling, consumer energy costs have dropped.
  • And, most important of all, extreme poverty is at its lowest rate in world history. 
All of this made possible by a warmer climate. 

On a related topic, this was tweeted earlier today. 
We've dealt with the sea level rise hype a number of times (see this piece about the Maldives, which were supposed to have been completely underwater by 2018). It is discouraging to see it brought up again. 

To explain what I mean, since the above discusses NYC, I did a little checking. Here is the latest sea level rise data from the tide gage at The Battery in NYC back to January 1, 1900. 
click to enlarge
At the current rate of sea level rise, it will take 461 years and 5 months for the ocean to rise to the elevation of La Guardia Airport. 

Global warming is a problem. But, when put into perspective, its true magnitude comes into focus. We have much larger issues in our nation at the present time. Let's focus on those. 

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