In an alternate universe, where up is down, planets are flat, and hot is actually cold, lives a certain Republican Senator named James Inhofe. He has been known to travel to the US Senate and hold climate change hearings in which science fiction is introduced as โevidenceโ that climate change is a โhoaxโ, and in which individuals with questionable scientific judgment are called upon to profess their agreement with his views.
One tired argument that he and his oily friends have consistently brought up is that global warming is cyclical, and is caused by sunspots. Regardless of the fact that the โsunspots and cosmic raysโ theory of global warming has been conclusively disproved (multiple times), Inhofe brought it up in todayโs Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meeting, citing the Farmerโs Almanac as his โresearchโ source.
Regarding the mark-up on the bills being considered, Inhofe said:
Wikipedia gives a good description of the Farmerโs Almanac as:
Click here to see for yourself. Itโs a quaint publication, with a โtop secret โ formula (and forecaster) used to predict long-term weather. Mainstream meteorologists and meterological researchers tend to question the accuracy of the Almanac.
What is absolutely without question is that the Farmerโs Almanac is a great source of global warming skepticism. For example, we have well-known skeptic Joseph DโAleo writing the climate change section of the Almanac. His introduction ends with:
He continues his discussion with classic skeptic stuff, including the pieces โIs Global Warming on the Wane? The Case for a Cool Climateโ and โIs Global Warming on the Wane? How Solar Goes Polarโ, the latter being a treatise on the abovementioned โsunspots cause global warmingโ theory.
Not surprisingly, Inhofe quoted DโAleo in one of his rants on the Senate floor a year ago:
Doubtless, the Farmerโs Almanac occupies a prominent spot on Senator Inhofeโs desk. And given whoโs writing for their global warming section, itโs no surprise that Inhofe thinks the Almanac is a solid scientific source.
Who knows. Maybe on Inhofeโs planet, it is.
