I'm from Missouri. Show Me.

It is 79 degrees as I write this July 3 afternoon. Before the day is out, the temperature should top off in the mid 80’s. There is nothing unusual about that. The average high this time of the year is 90.

What is unusual, extraordinary actually, is that we have yet (by date of this writing anyway) to have a day over 90 degrees this entire year. I remember one Easter years ago when it was 95. I remember a Memorial Day when it was over 100. I remember that stretch in 1980 when we had 22 straight 100-plus degree days and lead the nation in heat deaths.

But I do not remember a year when it stayed this moderate this long nor do I recall as much rain. Last Saturday, I planned to go boating at the Lake of the Ozarks, and the high temperature that day, June 30, was 68 degrees, more than 20 degrees below normal. Heck, the highest temperature the preceding two days was 74 degrees. Checking the records, I discovered that the previous record for the latest 90-degree day was set in 1999 when it first turned 90 on June 5.

To be fair, we had a 90-degree day recently on June 15, breaking the old record by ten days, but it did not go over

90 that day and has not gone over 90 any day since last

Fall. Looking ahead on weather.com’s ten day forecast,

I do not see a day over 90 degrees through July 12. 

Two questions you might be asking yourself right now: why don’t I know about this and why does it matter.

The answers are actually related.

The reason you do not know is that the media might not want you to know. They have convinced themselves that we are in the midst of catastrophic, man-made, global warming. Any news that does not fit that scenario will simply not be news.

And it does matter. The people who have not bothered to research the issue of climate change tell themselves that, warming or no warming, conservation is always good policy.  No, it is not.

Unless man is pushing us to extinction in the near future, it made no sense for the Sierra Club and others to tie up KCP&L plans for its Weston power plant with needless and tedious litigation.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many good and smart people in the environmental movement. It is just that there are many others who don’t want to see anything built anywhere at any time.

During the height of California’s economy-killing power blackouts in 2001, something like 12 percent of Californians opposed the building of any kind of power plants in the state.  That is something like 3 million people, all of them crazy.

These same people have made it almost impossible to build anything in California, where the permitting process can last up to three years. As a result only the affluent can afford to buy a decent home in any of the coastal cities, and the middle class who teach their children, fight their fires, and haul their garbage are often forced to live as much two hours away.

That does not do a whole lot of good for the state’s eco-system as you might imagine.

But I am from the Midwest and live in Missouri. If you want to convince me that man is causing global warming, that we should downgrade our economy to solve “the problem,” you have got to show me. 

You have to put all the evidence on the table even when, as in these last few months, it weakens your case.

If you don’t, I’ll trust you even less.

Joe Sweeney

Editor-In-Chief & Publisher

JSweeney@IngramsOnLine.com