New York City's temperature hit a record 103 degrees yesterday. Temperature records were shattered in Boston, Providence and Philadelphia. The Big Apple is currently baking at 98 degrees. Little relief is in sight. The National Weather Service expects the high pressure system to remain over the East Coast until the weekend.
That leads to the burning issue of the day: Where are the global warming deniers?
Senator Jim Inhofe, the leading proponent of global warming as a hoax, had great fun in February when he and his family built an "igloo" on the National Mall to mock global warming. Inhofe's igloo was topped by a sign that read "Al Gore’s Home." The senator posted pictures of the outing on his Facebook. The press lapped it up.
Tellingly, Inhofe's family isn’t currently camped out on the Mall, wearing shorts and bathing suits. Inhofe has called global warming a "hoax," and called for an investigation into last year's "Climategate" affair, which the Oklahoma Republican once called the "greatest scientific scandal of our generation."
Bloomberg reported July 7 that investigators of the British scientists at the heart of Climategate have been cleared of wrongdoing. No word yet from Inhofe.
To be fair, every heat wave is not a sign of global warming. On the other hand, every blizzard is not a sign of global cooling. However, following the warmest spring on record in the eastern U.S., the Project on Climate Change reported that the temperature patterns fit the "long-term trend of more frequent heat waves driven by climate change and are likely to intensify if climate change continues unabated."
The Project is a venture of the Natural Resources Defense Council, World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations Foundations.
The National Academy of Sciences has targeted the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states as vulnerable to heat waves driven by climate change. The Academy has determined that "strong evidence on climate change underscores need for actions to reduce emissions and begin adapting to impacts."
Sadly, those scientific reports aren’t as entertaining to the media as the image of a U.S. senator frolicking in the snow in D.C.
Also, they apparently aren't enough to spur the Obama administration to fight for global warming legislation.