The Global-Warming God

FOR years, I have been concerned that a major hurricane strike on New Orleans could provoke legislation on global warming that will do absolutely nothing about tropical cyclones, but harm the U.S. economy for decades. We began seeing the shape of things to come when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that Katrina’s severity was related to President Bush’s reluctance to cap carbon-dioxide emissions, and Hillary Clinton declared she wanted to establish a commission to investigate the government’s response to the hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina’s magnitude was not changed by global warming. In fact, despite a hundred news stories to the contrary, it’s not at all clear that any such warming will result in more frequent, let alone more intense, tropical cyclones. Take, for example, the recent rise in hurricane frequency in the Atlantic Basin; it’s as if we have returned to the 1930s, ’50s, and ’60s, when storm activity reached a ferocious height before settling down for several decades.

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Patrick J. Michaels

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Climate Change

Global Warming

FOR years, I have been concerned that a major hurricane strike on New Orleans could provoke legislation on global warming that will do absolutely nothing about tropical cyclones, but harm the U.S. economy for decades. We began seeing the shape of things to come when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that Katrina’s severity was related to President Bush’s reluctance to cap carbon-dioxide emissions, and Hillary Clinton declared she wanted to establish a commission to investigate the government’s response to the hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina’s magnitude was not changed by global warming. In fact, despite a hundred news stories to the contrary, it’s not at all clear that any such warming will result in more frequent, let alone more intense, tropical cyclones. Take, for example, the recent rise in hurricane frequency in the Atlantic Basin; it’s as if we have returned to the 1930s, ’50s, and ’60s, when storm activity reached a ferocious height before settling down for several decades.