Sentence First -- Verdict Afterwards

President Obama wants to cut carbon emissions via a cap-and-trade regime. The Administration's justification is the cost of global warming, though its calculations plainly are flawed. (And even absent carbon control, the U.S. already has a better record on emissions growth than many other countries.) Yet there's no dispute that the price of such plans would be enormous--the equivalent of a stealth 50 percent tax hike.

So before attempting to halt global warming--even if achievable--we'd better be certain warming is real. Which brings me to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's U.S. climate summary for May 2009:

The average temperature in May 2009 was 62.5 F. This was 1.4 F warmer than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 24th warmest May in 115 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

Question: Why are we freaking out over climate change amounting to a degree per century?

(via Planet Gore)