Whose head is beached?
In her assessment, President Trump “seems to have his head in the sand,” Colleen Miyose-Wallis cites “all the extreme weather the mainland U.S. is facing is undeniable” and “all the land being lost due to sea level rises, especially on Oahu’s North Shore, is proof” (of global warming).
I can only assume Ms. Miyose-Wallis is pretty young. I first surfed the North Shore in the winter of 1969. There was pretty big surf that season for those of us old enough to remember. I no longer surf, sadly, just too old, but I still visit the country as often as I can (love those shrimp trucks).
Know what I see, Colleen? The ocean level is exactly where it was 50 years ago. I lived in Waikiki in 1970 and use to walk along the Ali Wai Canal. The canal is a perfect place to assess sea levels. Look where the high tide marks are and compare them to the levels in photographs from the 1950s. No change!
As for “all the extreme weather,” Colleen, again, when you’re my age you’ll come to realize extreme weather is a way of life for this planet. It’s nothing new: droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires. All these have always been with us. But our younger generation has been thoroughly indoctrinated in the “religion” of global warming and believes extreme weather is a new phenomenon.
Al Gore famously predicted by now sea levels will have risen by over 20 feet. They haven’t. And I, for one, was greatly relieved President Trump removed America for the fiasco of the Paris Climate Accords.
He saved us a lot of money that would have been spent on something there is absolutely no tangible evidence of. When I see some unprecedented changes in the weather or actual changes in sea levels, I will acknowledge those changes as being evidence of real climate change. So far, I haven’t!
Dave Chrisman is a resident of Kailua-Kona.