The hunt for Manbearpig continues. Amusing Alarmist predictions have ranged from the apocalyptic to the bizarre, but the latest is downright idiotic. According to a couple of scientists from Columbia University, air travel might be relegated to the trash bin of history in the future because of the supposed global warming that is occurring today. According to Breitbart.com:
The two scientists, Coffel and Horton, looked at a phenomenon known amongst pilots as ‘density altitude’, which affects a plane’s ability to take off. Essentially, on hotter days the air is less dense, making it harder to get a plane airborne.
Okay… So warm air makes it tougher for planes to take flight. (I’m sure you can see where this is going.)
Commercial aviation overcomes the problem by issuing weight restrictions at the airport on particularly hot days. Coffel and Horton sought to predict how many more weight restricted days there will be by 2050-2070, and decided, through use of [climate] models, that the "number of weight restriction days between May and September will increase by 50-200 percent at four major airports in the United States by 2050-2070," and that "these performance reductions may have a negative economic effect on the airline industry."
So, according to a couple of computer models that these scientists worked up (because, clearly, computer models can never be questioned), hotter temperatures in the future will adversely impact the ability for airplanes to takeoff… Thus putting substantial strains on the industry.
Intellectual honesty must not be a prerequisite for becoming a professor at Columbia.
First of all: Their theory is based off of some computer models that they mocked up on their own… Is this anything like the Hockey stick graph, which has been fully and completely debunked? Or maybe it is like the predictions that the Arctic would be ice free by 2014? Or maybe it is like the prediction that we would run out of fossil fuels by the early 2000’s? … I mean, it’s not exactly like these folks have a great track record. If it was that great, we’d still be calling in “global cooling” like we did in the 1970s, and half the earth’s population wouldn’t be around.
Their dubious science notwithstanding, the duo seem to have a precarious grasp of commercial evolution. Coffel and Horton (doesn’t this duo sound like an 1890’s vaudeville act?) apparently believe that the airplane industry will be incapable of any meaningful innovations in the next 50 years. According to their “models”, the airline industry will be using the same engines, materials, fuselages, and practices of today, half a century into the future.
Apparently the last half century of innovation and progress within the transportation industry has hit its limit… No more advances in the technical field of aviation from this point forward. (Of course, with the way this administration is unleashing regulations and rules upon American business, that last statement might not be all that crazy.)
The comical ignorance of Cofel and Horton, apparently, has no limits. Their big “worry” is that the world temperatures will heat up (unlike the last 18 years), and put financial strain on the aviation industry… And yet, they don’t seem too concerned with the immediate impact of new environmental regulations. Where’s the concern over how the airline industry is going to cope with new cap-and-trade rules, jet fuel taxes, or increased EPA oversight?
I guess we’re only allowed to worry about the cost of doing business when it fits in with the Al Gore narrative against Manbearpig.