Editorial on global warming

President Barack Obama celebrated Earth Day at the entrance of Florida's Everglades National Park.

"Climate change is threatening this treasure and the communities that depend on it, which includes almost all of South Florida. And if we don't act, there may not be an Everglades as we know it, " Obama said. "Climate change can no longer be denied... And action can no longer be delayed."

Sunday, in advance of his trip, the president said because of global warming "rising sea levels are putting a national treasure, and an economic engine for the South Florida tourism industry, at risk, "

Chaos throughout the Middle East and problems along our southern border are putting this country at risk. Meanwhile, despite political hyperbole, global warming hypothesis loses credibility by the day.

The federal government spends $22 billion a year fighting global warming, which is twice what it spends on border security. That's $41, 856 each minute. Accounting for the costs global warming regulations impose on businesses, Forbes columnist Larry Bell estimated the annual cost of global warming policies at $1.754 trillion each year — three times the size of the federal budget deficit.

Obama and other global warming alarmists want the country to spend even more.

We must ask ourselves what crisis they hope to solve. NASA reports the world has warmed .36 degrees over the past 35 years. Most of that warming occurred between 1979 and 1998. Since 1998, global temperatures have gradually cooled.

Eight years ago, Al Gore told us global warming had reach such a critical stage we could expect the North Polar ice cap to be gone by 2014. It is still there, and NASA satellite data show the ice cap has grown by as much as 63 percent in recent years.

A Forbes article by James Taylor blew the lid off a widely cited paper claiming a 97 percent "scientific consensus" about a human-caused global warming crisis.

Newsmax reminded us this week about a series of leaked emails in which global warming scientists candidly discussed their skepticism about the hypothesis.

"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty we can't, " said an email from Kevin Trenberth, part of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a lead author of the "Scientific Assessment of Climate Change" report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

We could go on ad infinitum with data and common sense observations that call into question the need for our country to continue hemorrhaging money on global warming — or "climate change, " when temperatures drop. The fact is, even if proved true, the chances our trillions will alter the weather are practically nil.

The Daily Caller News Foundation used the EPA's carbon footprint calculator to determine the environmental cost of Obama's trip to the Everglades. The entourage of planes and cars emitted 90 tons of carbon dioxide, creating the same carbon footprint as 17.2 cars driven over the course of a year.

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