In Washington, it’s known as the Rahm Emanuel Rule (Obama’s former chief of staff): You never miss a chance to convert a crisis – even one manufactured to fit a holiday – into political pork for your favorite special-interest group.
That’s why the radical environmentalists are out in force this Christmas, scaring children by telling them that reindeer – the kind Santa uses to pull his magical sleigh on Christmas Eve – are getting weaker due to global warming.
This is not the first time global warming alarmists have pulled this one out of the hat at Christmas, but this attempt may be the most desperate. With our country wrapped in a deep freeze and a new team heading the Environmental Protection Agency, some of the money flowing to those trying to prove this theory may dry up if they don’t pull out all the stops.
“Make the public fearful! Yes! Scare the children into believing that Trump wants to starve Santa’s reindeer. Why, they are barely able to pull all that weight now! Who knows what will happen if all the funding flowing to scientists and universities for global warming is cut? Might have to cancel Christmas!”
These alarmists are promoting a new study by Steve Albon, an ecologist with the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, who asserts that climate change (the newest environmental buzzword) is responsible for weight loss among the reindeer living in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. This is an area susceptible to temperature fluctuations. The average weight of the reindeer he studied born between 1994 and 2010 has dropped 12 percent. Albon blames it on warm temperatures which produce more rain than snow. Thus the rain on the ground freezes and keeps the reindeer from accessing the plants that survive underneath the snow.
However, Thomas Richard, who researches climate news, says that Albon’s theory doesn’t match the temperature and rainfall record during the study period.
The Svalbard islands are an Arctic desert with an annual precipitation rate of between 7 3/4 to 11 7/8 inches. Although close to the North Pole, the area has a relatively mild climate due to the intersection of ocean and air currents that favors snow. In fact, during the winter period, only two days per month get any rain at all.
However, if Santa needs more muscle, he can easily expand his team. The reindeer population in that area has almost doubled in the last two decades despite what the study deemed a “food shortage” during the winter.
It is likely that the increase in the size of these herds and the competition for the food supply that exists in the winter led to the weigh loss. However, this conclusion doesn’t fit the current narrative.
Nevertheless, if Santa still needs more muscle, he can easily find it elsewhere. Reindeer, also known as caribou, are plentiful and exist in many areas around the globe.
It is true that some subspecies are rare and one is extinct, but bear in mind that environmentalists are fond of playing the subspecies game. If a few reindeer are found with a black spot on one ear and that is unusual, they can become the next subspecies.
Since reindeer are migratory animals and adapt to their environment, changes in the species are predictable and common. As weather patterns change, as they variably do, so do the reindeer. Thus some subspecies disappear quite naturally.
One can only hope that as we change administrations, some of the funding that is going to those scientists who have pledged allegiance to the theory of global warming will disappear as well.
Bottom line: There is no reindeer shortage.
It is also important to note that during the Ice Age, reindeer were living as far south as Nevada and Tennessee in North America. Yes, it was much colder here then. It is curious indeed that most global warming theorists begin their computer models at the end of the last Ice Age. Since that time the earth has been warming slightly, and it likely will cool again.
In fact, there has been no global warming for the past decade, and there is evidence to suggest that we have entered a period of global cooling that may last for many years. Meanwhile, brace yourself as we battle a series of winter storms that are sweeping across the country – and keep the children away from the television set.
Santa and his reindeer will arrive on schedule!
Media wishing to interview Jane Chastain, please contact [email protected].
|
