Global Warming: Not Important Enough for ABC Debate

If he were running today, ABC would ask: "Where's your flag pin, Abraham? Do you love your country more than Stephen Douglas?"

Charlie Gibbon and Georgie Peorgie Hannity couldn't be bothered to ask about global warming at the debate this week. (Shame on ABC or All the News That's Fit to Miss) There were flag pins to discuss! And McCarthy-ish guilt-by-association charges to be made! Drudge rules their world and you better not forget it.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Rational, we have these headlines:

TorontoStar.com: Ward Hunt Ice Shelf destined to disappear

WARD HUNT ISLAND, Nunavut–New cracks in the largest remaining Arctic ice shelf suggest another polar landmark seems destined to break up and disappear.

Scientists discovered the extensive new cracks in the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf earlier this year and a patrol of Canadian Rangers got an up-close look at them last week.

"The map of Canada has changed," said Derek Mueller of Trent University, who was amazed to find how quickly the shelf has deteriorated since he discovered the first crack in 2002.

(At ABC, Gibbon and pal are chanting, Flag pin! Flag pin! Flag pin!)

ScienceDaily: Jet Streams Are Shifting And May Alter Paths Of Storms And Hurricanes

Storm paths in North America are likely to shift northward as a result of the jet stream changes. Hurricanes, whose development tends to be inhibited by jet streams, may become more powerful and more frequent as the jet streams move away from the sub-tropical zones where hurricanes are born.

(At ABC, the chanting has turned to a shouted refrain: Ayers! Ayers! Ayers!)

NOAA: The second warmest March on record

[NOAA's National Climatic Date Center report says that] Based on preliminary data, the globally averaged combined land and sea surface temperature was the second warmest on record for March and the January-March year-to-date period ranked eleventh warmest.

March 2008 missed the record for the warmest March (2002) by a whopping 0.07°F. March 2008 was the warmest March over land in the record, beating the previous record by nearly 0.3°F. And it was the warmest March over land and sea in the northern hemisphere on record by 0.2°F .

(ABC's shouts have turned to screams: Reverent Wright! Tuzla! Polls! Electability! We know best! Pay no attention to the weather! Flag pins! Flag pins! Flag pins!)