Out of the park, into the bubble

From RAW, the online magazine of the Sierra Club:

By Eric Antebi, RAW Contributor

"You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra.

Last year, ex-ballplayer Jose Canseco blew the lid off steroids in major league baseball with his tell-all book: Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big. In his book, Canseco claims that George W. Bush "had to know" about steroid use among his players when he was owner of the Texas Rangers in the early 1990s.

Someday, someone should write a tell-all book about the current administration claiming that George W. Bush "had to know" about global warming when he was President. That book could be called Slick: Wild Lies, Bad Science, Blind Devotion and How Big Oil Got Big Influence.

With every passing day, the lack of leadership from the administration on global warming becomes more astounding. Scientists regularly report new evidence that the planet is going through heating pains -- not that our Bubble-Boy-in-Chief would notice. He proudly boasts that he doesn't read or watch the news. He's hand-fed the information he needs, and that's just the way he likes it.

The one way that outside information might slip into the Oval Office, however, is through the sports page. Bush may not know the price of a gallon of organic milk, but he probably does know who is up and who is down in the majors. He's probably found time on Air Force One to catch a game or two. He knows that the Yankees and Red Sox are neck and neck in their division, and that his Rangers are in the hunt to sign pitching great Roger Clemens. He might also have noticed that hitters recently experienced an offensive surge, hitting an unprecedented number of home runs in April.

Alan Schwartz at the New York Times Sports Desk has an explanation for why the balls are flying out of the park with such abandon. Turns out it's the heat: "According to the National Climatic Data Center, this was the United States' warmest April -- reaching an average of 56.5 degrees Fahrenheit -- since records began being kept in 1895," explains Schwartz. In other words, the players aren't juiced, the planet is.

He goes on to explain how balls move easier and carry farther when the air is hot and humid. The historic record is particularly revealing: "Hot and cool Aprils tended to correlate with high and low offense." Regardless of his falling poll numbers, George Bush is still the President. And the planet cannot afford to have the top brass in the United States continue to be AWOL on an issue as important as global warming. If Bush's own climate scientists can't convince him, maybe the sports page can.