Planetary Ruin

Last May, Teresa Taylor was watching climbers pad up to the summit of Pikes Peak in shorts and sneakers. This year, she’s warning everyone that beyond Barr Camp, you’d better be dressed for the worst.

This is the snowiest spring on Pikes Peak in more than a decade. Barr Camp recorded 231 inches of snow this winter. (It only saw 50 inches in 2006.)

Hikers venturing above treeline will find that the peak is more wintry this May than it usually is in January, and they should be prepared.

“The snow is still waist-deep in places, and we just got more today,” Taylor, the caretaker at Barr Camp, said Wednesday. Every day, she warns people that the trail is buried.

Some climbers listen — she persuaded a dozen Texans in jeans to turn back Sunday. But some climbers don’t. Two Air Force Academy cadets headed up to the summit Tuesday. They became stranded above treeline and had to be rescued by helicopter Wednesday morning.

The cadets, Jesse Mortensen, 21, a junior from Michigan, and Jesse Luschen, 22, a senior from Iowa, were out to enjoy a hike during an idle period at the academy between the end of spring term and graduation.

They hiked seven miles up the snowless bottom part of Barr Trail on Monday and spent the night at Barr Camp. Tuesday, they left camp early, expecting to cover the remaining five miles to the top before noon.

They did not have snowshoes, ice axes or winter gear, but they did carry sleeping bags and a tent.

When Taylor said weather was moving in, they assured her they could beat it to the top.

If you get in trouble or get tired, Taylor told them as they left, the last train leaves from the summit at 4 p.m.

“They said, ‘Four? We’ll be there long before then,’” she said Wednesday.

They never got there.

“We hiked for hours and hours. It was very frustrating and hard,” Mortensen said Wednesday.

The cadets pushed through knee- and waist-deep snow. A storm rolled in, pelting them with snow and hail.

Snow obscured the trail. Clouds obscured the summit.

“We could hear the train whistle. We kept thinking we were at the summit. Obviously, we weren’t,” Mortensen said.

The cadets likely took a wrong turn near 13,000 feet, two miles from the summit, and crossed onto a steep flank of the peak called the Bottomless Pit.

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Homes were left without power, downed trees damaged dozens of cars and school was cancelled for thousands of kids as a blast of record snow slammed many parts of southern Alberta yesterday.

Blustery winds and a record 7 cm of snow for this day in history took down trees and electrical and telephone lines, causing power outages for more than 7,000 homes and damaging cars and buildings around Calgary, say city fire and Enmax officials.

The wintry blast topped the previous snowfall mark of 5.1 cm for May 24, set in 1911, with communities on the city’s northwestern edge among the hardest hit.

And such meteorological mayhem is hardly unheard of this time of year, said Dan Kulak of Environment Canada, who noted May weather in the Calgary region can change at a moment’s notice.

“In a couple of hours of driving you can go from tornado weather to snow tires,” he said.

Yesterday’s snow felled more than 12 power lines and wrecked yards around the city, including some where trees punched holes in car windshields, said Enmax spokesman Peter Hunt.

“It was really heavy, wet snow bringing down parts of trees or whole trees down on power lines that was the cause of all the havoc in the morning,” said Hunt.
“We started getting calls at 4:50 a.m. and had almost all the power back on by 9:30 a.m., but the timing of the snow couldn’t have been more disruptive because it was just before the rush hour.”

A handful of customers were still without electricity about 2 p.m., but crews were working to restore full power, added Hunt.

Despite answering 54 calls in the morning, city fire crews reported no injuries, said spokesman Peter Budai.

“Firefighters were cordoning off areas for many of the major incidents such as trees falling onto houses and roadways being blocked off by some good-sized trees,” he said.

Gordon Kennedy said the scene in Carstairs, north of Calgary, was worse than what was reported in the city.

“It looks like a hurricane went through,” said Kennedy.

“Big trees that have been here forever are down, and they came down on cars, houses and buildings.”

Power outages also hit Red Deer, where schools were forced to close.

—

WHITEOUTS OF YEARS GONE BY:

* Snowfall record for May 24, set yesterday: 7 cm.

* Previous record for May 24, set in 1911: 5.1 cm.

* Normal snowfall over the month of May: 9.7 cm.

* Most daily snowfall ever in May: 48.4 cm on May 6, 1981.

It`s May 26th, Memorial Day weekend. Normally, there`d be kids playing on this playground right about now, but instead it`s windy, cold, and there`s snow on the ground.

It`s an unusual way to start your day, at least at this time of year. The snow is already disappearing, but the cleanup is just beginning. This storm wasn`t messing around.

“It started early. Heavy rain, heavy rain. 1:30, snow started blowing, turned to sleet, and everything started crashing,” explains Eddie Weeks.

Wally Keller adds, “I got up about 5:00 then, and everything was white. It was really heavy, wet snow.”

All the extra weight downed plenty of branches which is creating quite a headache for the power company. No outages were reported in Center, but chock that up to luck. There are plenty of teetering wires that were close to breaking. And the trees didn`t just fall on power lines.

“Looks like my propane tank is bent some, and the rain gutter is torn down there part way, and I don`t know about my pickup,” says Helen Berger.

Sure, a lot of people are cleaning up today, probably not too happy about it, but hey, at least one family had a sense of humor. Really, a snow man in May?

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SENATOR INHOFE OPENING STATEMENT
“The Issue of the Potential Impacts of Global Warming on Recreation and the Recreation Industry”
Thursday May 24, 2007
 
Thank you for having this hearing today, Madam Chairman. I have to say, however, that we seem to have hearing after hearing after hearing on climate change – indeed, this is the Committee’s second one this week alone – but we don’t seem to actually discuss legislation. While other Committees without jurisdiction on this issue attempt to write our nation’s global warming policies, this Committee sits idly by talking about tangential issues. I believe that if we do wrestle with actual legislation, then the folly of cap-and-trade carbon legislation will become apparent.                                  

The recreation industry’s true threats come not from climate change – which has always changed and will always change – but from the so-called global warming ‘solutions’ being proposed by government policymakers. Misguided efforts to ‘solve’ global warming threaten to damage the travel and recreation industry. In short, it is a direct threat America’s way of life.  If we cannot fly to remote locations, and if few automobiles are capable of pulling boats, jet skies, and campers, and if RVs become a thing of the past as environmentalists would like, then minor climate fluctuations will have little impact on recreation because Americans will not have the means to recreate.

I will not belabor my views about the scientific underpinnings of global warming alarmism, other than to make a few observations. The fact that climate fluctuates – changes – is nothing new, and should not be feared. It has always changed, and unless the processes of the planet suddenly stopped, it always will. There is little disagreement that it warmed in the Northern Hemisphere from about 1970’s until 1998, and that since that time, temperatures flattened. And there is general agreement that some human activities such as the building of cities and expanding agriculture, have contributed to this. But there remains much debate in the peer-reviewed scientific literature as to the many factors which may influence climate that is of importance to the question of whether climate fluctuations are natural or caused by humans. But regardless of that debate, a healthy functioning planet means constant changes in our climate.

There are winners and losers as climate fluctuates.  A warming period could be a boon for warm weather destinations like beaches and lakes and a cooling period like we experienced from 1940-1970s could be beneficial for cold weather recreation like skiing and snowboarding.  This past winter saw record snows in the Rocky Mountain region as well as an unusually cold spring in Alaska. Currently, we are seeing a Memorial Day snow advisory for the Colorado Mountains. Wyoming being buried in a May snowstorm and parts of Canada are still enduring winter. In addition, South Africa just set 54 new cold weather records with some parts seeing snow for the first time in 33 years as snow and ice continue to fall.  And I am not finished.  A massive snowstorm in China has closed highways and stranded motorists. And finally, winter has arrived early in Australia as the snow season is off to a promising start for the winter recreation industry.

But the most verifiable threat to the recreation and travel industry is the unintended consequences of misguided government policy and environmental activists. The chilling effect of guilt that the climate alarmists are attempting to instill in Americans for owning four wheel drive vehicles, flying in an airplane and enjoying travel is enough to harm the industry. For examples of this promotion of misguided policies and guilt, you need look no further than a proposal in April by the UK-based Institute for Public Policy Research, which called for tobacco-style health warnings on airplanes to warn passengers that the plane flight may be contributing to a global warming crisis.  The group proposed posting signs on airplanes which read “flying causes climate change.”

Another example of unintended consequences by climate crusaders was the recent proclamation by a UK grocery store announcing it would usher in ‘carbon friendly’ policies and stop importing food from faraway nations. This proposal may have been popular with wealthy Western environmentalists, but the idea did not sit so well with poor African farmers. As a February 21, 2007 BBC article details:

“Kenyan farmers, whose lifelong carbon emissions are negligible compared with their counterparts in the West, are fast becoming the victims of a green campaign that could threaten their livelihoods. A recent bold statement by UK supermarket Tesco ushering in ‘carbon friendly’ measures - such as restricting the imports of air freighted goods by half and the introduction of “carbon counting” labeling - has had environmentalists dancing in the fresh produce aisles, but has left African horticulturists confused and concerned.”

The BBC article continues:

“Half of this produce goes to the UK’s supermarkets, generating at least £100m per year for this developing country. The dependence on the UK market cannot be underestimated, says Stephen Mbithi Mwikya, chief executive of FPEAK. For Kenya, horticulture is the country’s second biggest foreign exchange earner after tourism. ‘This announcement from Tesco is devastating’, says Mr Mbithi.”

The recent announcement by travel guru Mark Ellingham, the author of the Rough Guide travel book series, that he was now recanting his promotion of worldwide travel is another blow to the travel and recreation industry. Ellingham now says that our addiction to ‘binge flying’ is killing the planet.

This kind of alarmism should concern the travel and recreation industry, not natural climate fluctuations which mankind has no control over.

There is even more proof showing that the dangers facing travel and recreation are coming from climate hysteria. The Associated Press on May 16, 2007 reported that ecotourism –the type of travel you would expect environmentalists to endorse–is no more Earth friendly than regular travel due to the long plane flights necessary to bring vacationers to exotic locales.  The Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoey is now warning about long distance travel.

“Long distance travel — especially air travel — is a challenge to all of us. We know that it has serious impacts on the climate,” Bjoernoey said. 

I cannot think of a more devastating sentiment to the industry than that.  Reduce air travel because of unfounded fears of climate doom.  That is the authentic threat not only to the travel industry, but the developing world which depends so much on tourism to improve the life its residents.  Clearly, the unfounded fears of a man-made climate catastrophe and the proposed solutions represent the gravest threats to the industry.

Thank you.

Noah’s Ark, built to save humanity and the animal kingdom in the face of a great flood, is being reconstructed in model form on Mount Ararat as a warning to mankind to act now to prevent global warming.

Environmental activists are behind the initiative in the lush green foothills of the snow-capped mountain in eastern Turkey, where the Bible says the vessel came to rest after a flood had wiped out corrupt humanity.

Volunteers are racing to complete the wooden vessel under bright sunshine by end-May, to coincide with a summit of leading countries next month in Germany where climate change will be high on the agenda.

“This is directed mainly at the politicians of this earth, to world leaders who are primarily responsible for the climate catastrophe which is taking place and for the solution,” said Wolfgang Sadik, campaign leader for Greenpeace, which is behind the project.

“The aim is to put on Mount Ararat a memorial, a warning sign that also gives hope, to shake up the world and to say that if we don’t react now it is too late,” he said, as carpenters hammered away at the Ark’s bow at an altitude of 2,400 meters.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned carbon dioxide emissions should at least be halved by 2050 to avoid climate changes which the European Union says would be dangerous.

Rising seas are a central concern of climate change. The U.N. climate panel says seas are set to rise 18-59 cms this century, up from 17 cms in the 20th century.

But there are deep divisions on ways to tackle the threat.

Germany wants G8 countries at next month’s meeting to agree to the IPCC target and promote carbon trading as a way to penalize greenhouse gas emissions.

But U.S. chief climate negotiator Harlan Watson said last week the United States will continue to reject emissions targets or cap-and-trade schemes, and will fight climate change by funding clean energy technologies.

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