Heat in the East...

Yep, its HOT here in NEPA this week. Highs in the upper 90s all week, no rain forecast, and the evenings only cooling to the upper 70s. Some places in PA might even break 100 by Wednesday.

So, what do I see in the local headlines this morning? Yep... global warming.

In the spring of 1778, in response to the defeat of Gen. Johnny Burgoyne at Saratoga the year before, the British had called for Loyalist and pro-British Indian forces to raid the western frontiers of the Mid Atlantic region. On July 3rd of that year, some of these forces attacked settlers and Patriots in the Wyoming Valley (very near where I live right now). By the end of the day, 300 Patriots (including women and children) were dead. The raid did little to further the Loyalist cause, but went a long way to ensure that the frontier of Pennsylvania was firmly and forever more Patriot in its views.

I bring this up because there are several contemporary accounts of the battle that still exist today. These all record the temperature to be higher than 95 degrees (mainly in accounts of how important the removal and burial of the dead was), which I feel shows that the heat we feel today is no different than that felt 232 years earlier by people living in the same county.

Furthermore, in the summer of 1816, in the very same Wyoming Valley of NEPA, there are documented sources stating that the Susquahanna River had enough ice on its surface to interfere with ferry-boat traffic... and that was in the months of July and August. Due to frost and freezing rain, crops failed across this half of the state, and helped to cement into the memory of the population the "Year without a Summer".

If, 200 years ago, the climate had that much of a variable mean temperature, why would ANYONE think that today would be any different? Why must everything be attributed to something society has done WRONG? I would have thought that so much of the Al Gore-inspired hysteria would have washed away with his tears and falling popularity... but it seems that there are still "Chicken Littles" out there, in spite of the evidence.

How sad is that?