RUSH: These floods, these tornadoes that are taking place in Iowa, Illinois, and much of the Midwest; it’s amazing to see this. The devastation that’s taking place in Cedar Rapids and all of these places, but as I knew, I knew this would happen, and I’ve been waiting for it to happen, and it’s happened. The Algore crowd is out there saying that all these tornadoes prove manmade global warming, that somehow our continued belching of CO2 is causing all of this. I want to assure — and this is not meant to mollify anybody in Cedar Rapids, it will not, or anybody in other areas that are catastrophically flooded — it’s not meant to mollify anybody. It’s just once again to stand up and say, ‘Stop! Stop lying to people about this.’ The Drive-By Media and the American left have already done more of their share to depress a majority of people in this country. It’s happening all over the world. In fact, in the UK, in the European Union there’s a story today I think in the International Herald Tribune about how people are madder than they’ve ever been and they’re getting in fights with their neighbors and they’re enraged over everything, from mortgages to gas prices. Gee, I wonder why? Who could it be fanning the flames of all of this attitude adjustment that’s supposed to make everybody mad and depressed and feel lost? You add the global warming aspect of this — we’re doomed, we’re causing our own doom — it is ridiculous.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund has put out a short piece of propaganda. It took seven creative people to write this little piece of propaganda. I’m not going to read to you the piece of propaganda. You can imagine what it says. But the first thing that I want you to know is that this tornado season and the Midwest flooding is not due to unusually warm, moist air from global warming feeding thunderstorms. You cannot have tornadoes like this without severe cold air that mixes with warm air. In fact, the air over the southern Plains, the air over the heart of the country, the midsection that’s feeding these severe thunderstorms has been totally normal in temperature and humidity over this time of year. Instead, the tornadoes and these repeatedly heavy rains are due to a persistent and unusually cold air mass over the northern Plains and southern Canada. Canada still has not heard winter is over yet. We cannot have tornadoes like this without unusually cold air. It’s not unusually warm air over these locations causing this. It is in fact just the opposite.
Now, these wackos at the Center for American Progress Action Fund also claim that the National Climatic Data Center agrees that severe weather events have increased in the United States. Well, no. The only evidence of any kind of increase is a possible increase in the frequency of the heaviest rain events, but strong tornadoes on the other hand have decreased significantly in the last 50 years. You know, it is a crying shame to have to sit out here and just do nothing but refute a bunch of lies that are repeatedly told by leftist activist groups and then amplified and promulgated by willing accomplices in the Drive-By Media. Now, you look at all the storm damage — and again, I’m not saying any of this to mollify anybody, because there’s nothing that can. But you look at the storm damage, and everybody is saying, ‘Whoa, look at the damage, hundreds of gazillions of dollars.’ Let me tell you why that is. Do you know why the storm damage increases? Because the wealth of the country increases. People acquire more, they build more, and thus there’s more to destroy. A lot of people also have no geographical foundation in terms of education.
It’s similar to the vanity of humanity and the proposition that I always put forward that, ladies and gentlemen, that most people’s historical perspective begins with the day they were born. And in this case most people think that the geographic formations on the entire planet have been this way from the beginning and are going to be this way forever. That the planet today is the way God created it and that these rivers that are flooding have been there forever. This is how the flow of rivers changes, this is how the path of rivers change. Old rivers are winding and shaping and bending different kinds of routes, and forces far more powerful than us are behind these changes. We can’t control them. We have to live and work and build near water. If you look at a map of where most of the population lives, most of it lives near water, either oceans, lakes, rivers, or what have you. It was necessary back in the old days when technological advances, of course, were not what they are today. Shipping was the primary form of transportation. It was necessary. Rivers and lakes and so forth and oceans flood or have hurricanes. If we’re going to build something near these areas, these kinds of things happen.
People say, ‘Well, it’s a 500-year flood.’ We don’t know that. It’s probably more than a 100-year flood. But you can have another similar flood next year a hundred miles away from Cedar Rapids and you could not draw any conclusions from it. Unless these floods happen in the exact same spot year after year after year, you can’t draw any conclusions that say we are somehow responsible and causing this. Now, the 17 heat deaths that have been reported in the East, any heat waves that we have today are nothing compared to those in the late twenties and the thirties. And besides all that, when heat-related deaths occur the months after the heat wave typically shows a drop in death rates, and that’s because excessive heat tends to cause premature deaths among the frail and the elderly. But most cold-related deaths, however, are from accidents which claim the lives of all ages. So all things considered, warmer is better anyway, but the idea that this is related to global warming and that we’re causing this, if you really believe that, ask yourself if you could have stopped any of these tornadoes.
I went on my computer last night when I saw that another line of huge thunderstorms was heading through eastern Kansas and western Missouri, through Kansas City, and Google has this pretty neat radar service now called Wonder Map or Wonder something or other. You can actually get a Google satellite photo of the area that you want to look at and lay NEXRAD radar over it. You can zoom in right onto your house to see what the storms are doing, or you can zoom all the way out and see the whole continent of the United States. I was watching this stuff go through, and I said, ‘Okay, suppose there are tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, what are we going to do to stop it?’ There’s nothing we can do to stop it. The idea that we’re causing this is just ridiculous. I’m really sorry to keep beating a dead horse here, but every time something like this happens, some catastrophic or supposed catastrophic weather event, it just fits the mold of what has been set up, the template that we’re causing it, these kinds of extreme weather events never happened before, just like the United States and the shape of the United States and the shape of the rivers and the height of the mountains. It’s always been what it is now, all these pristine forests and these pristine redwoods out in California, they’ve been there since God created the planet. It’s all a myth.
The planet’s constantly changing geographically; it’s constantly changing climatically. We’re stewards here, and we’re participants. But it gets frustrating sometimes to have to sit here and constantly do nothing but refute the absolute lies and BS that emanate and flow by the hour from the American left and the Drive-By Media. I did a little research on this today, talked to the official climatologist of the EIB Network, Roy Spencer. And, by the way, this is the last business day before Father’s Day, and if you’re still looking for Father’s Day gifts, I got some suggestions for you. We’ve been talking about ’em all week long. One of them would be Spencer’s book. He has a fabulous, fabulous book on global warming and Jim Nantz, Always By My Side. He’s steadily climbing, his relationship with his dad, great Father’s Day book. Of course there’s Allen Brothers, you can’t do any better than that. We’re here to provide a public service in all realms of life. I was talking to Spencer, I said, ‘What is your take, what would you say to people on these floods?’ He said, ‘Hydrologists really don’t have enough information on past floods to really say whether the Cedar Rapids flood is a 500-year event, but it is probably more than a 100-year event.’ As I said, it would be statistically normal to have a 100-year flood every year as long as it occurs at a different location every year.
I lived in Sacramento, we had a 100-year flood out there. Hasn’t happened since, but just happened here in Cedar Rapids. These floods do not mean that there was more rain on the earth. Doesn’t mean there’s more water all of a sudden that makes up the entire mixture here of things that equal our planet, our geography and climate. It just means that the rain that would normally be spread over a broad area has been persistently occurring over one area. It also means that other areas have had their rain stolen from them. You could say that other areas are not getting their normal amounts of rain because it’s all concentrated in these other areas, and one of the culprits is that unusually cold air mass over the northern Plains — this is another thing. I watch the weather forecasts, and I read Drive-By Media reports, and they always talk about the Plains. I wonder how many Americans know where the hell the Plains are. Do you know where the Plains start and stop? Do you know where the Rust Belt is? If something is happening in the Plains, do you actually know, other than you people who live there, do you actually know where the Plains are, the upper Plains, the southern Plains. Anyway, this cold air mass is still lingering, and the northern Plains, still lingering over Canada, and that’s the root of all of this.