Global Warming Equals Fewer Storms

Environmentalists who claim global warming has caused an increase in U.S. hurricane activity obviously haven't checked with the National Hurricane Center, which has kept statistics on major storms over the last 150 years. That's probably because those statistics yield one inescapable conclusion: If global warming has had any impact at all on hurricane activity, it's lessened - not increased - the frequency of major hurricanes. From 1901 till 1950 - when the U.S. economy was a fraction of its current size and fossil fuel consumption was next to nil - there were 34 hurricanes rated at Catagory 3, 4 or 5 in size on the Saffir Simpson scale. In the latter half of the twentieth century - when U.S. manufacturing exploded, automobile use skyrocketed and rampant consumerism was the order of the day, hurricane activity actually decreased by nearly 20 percent, declining to 28 Catagory 3-5 hurricanes from 1951 to 2000. That's almost as low as the last five decades of the 19th century - when the overwhelming majority of Americans lived on farms, manual power was generated by watermills and cars had yet to be invented. From 1851 to 1900 there were 27 major hurricanes in the U.S. The stunning numbers didn't faze ABC "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos, who attempted to counter panelist George Will when Will raised the Hurricane Center's findings during Sunday's broadcast. "We're only half way through this decade, barely, and we've already got six very intense hurricanes," Stephanopoulos argued, as if to suggest that global warming's impact began in 2001.