"Hot...Ain't It!?!"

Tampa tied a record for the high temperature for the day on this past Thursday. The high temperature record for the day was also tied on Friday and then again on Saturday. Kind of begs the question, "Hot, ain't it?" Apparently summer has settled in with a vengeance in this neck of the woods. The weather lady on one of the local television stations made that same insight this evening and followed up with a most profound observation, "Well, it is Florida, after all." Thank you very much for clarifying that rather obvious fact.

The instrument station utilized to determine the high and low temperatures for the metropolitan Tampa Bay area is located at the Tampa International Airport. T.I.A. for short. I am always skeptical of those readings, as there are acres and acres of concrete stretching in all directions away from where the thermometer is located. I'm no weather expert, but I'm just guessing if you put a thermometer above a concrete tarmac there is a better than even chance that the heat being given off by that substance just might adversely skew the actual temperature. Give me any reliable thermometer and let me stand in full sunlight on a paved concrete parking lot for 15 minutes and then go stand in a grassy field that is in close proximity to the first location, and I'm willing to bet you a buck the temperature gauge will read five or more degrees cooler than were I still standing on the concrete. Another government conspiracy, no doubt.

Here's the bottom line... This area of Florida ties the high temperature record three days in a row and all of the global warming proponents come pouring out into public view like water over a dam. Remember that Thursday's high temperature tied a previously recorded high of 97 degrees. Want to know what year the record was first established? 1907. 101 years ago some dude established that the record high temperature for that particular date in Tampa was 107 degrees. Maybe it's just me, but when there are approximately 31,000 scientist in the world who dispute the notion that mankind is presently having any significant adverse effects of global climate, that it is arrogantly preposterous to think that we have that capability (ruling out global nuclear annihilation, of course) and I tend to think that Al Gore is the latest incarnation of the boogieman, or at least the reincarnation of the panic-stricken chicken who declared with equal conviction that the sky was falling. Hardly...

It is even remotely possible and perhaps probable than mankind could be adding detrimental and compounding effects upon the global climate? Yes. Let's not be so naive as to think that the human race cannot and should not be keenly aware that for every action there is indeed an equal if not proportionately greater reaction. All of mankind should be personally aware and be devoted to making inroads into reducing our consumption of energy, being smarter as consumers of all of our manufactured products. Conservation is not a dirty word. The world does not have a finite supply of natural resources. What we may require in the future to fuel our lifestyle requires today that we limit ourselves to that which we need to sustain our basic requirements for existence. Gluttony is a self-fulling prophecy. A little intentional self-restraint is a good thing.

So, it was 97 degrees in Tampa on Thursday. 101 years ago it was also 97 degrees in Tampa. Pardon me, but I don't detect a cataclysmic trend here. "Well, it is Florida after all." Someone should take the time to break that news to hapless Al.