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Lee Pitts: The Everything Excuse

I must divert from writing about cows and cowboys this week to address a subject that’s near and dear to my heart: baseball. A new study from Dartmouth College concluded that climate change is responsible for major league ball players hitting more home runs. According to the Bulletin of Meteorological Study, “Warmer air means the molecules in the air are further apart. And in less dense air there is less air resistance.” The report found that more than 500 home runs between 2010 and 2019 can be attributed to higher average temps resulting from climate change.” (I wonder if the Ivy League wizards ever heard of steroids?)

The Dartmouth professors are full of hot air and their study makes me wonder if they’ve ever been to a ballgame. I didn’t attend Dartmouth but I can make the argument using the same logic that in less dense air the baseballs thrown by pitchers would speed up making it even more difficult for the batters to hit resulting in more strikeouts and FEWER home runs.



I did learn something from the Dartmouth study though, we now have an everything excuse that can be used in any, and all, situations. Instead of a child saying he didn’t have his homework because the dog ate it, he can just blame global warming. Maybe little green eco-warriors stole it.

No more of your sorry excuses like you drew bad, you need a new rope, the steer ducked or your horse is off his feed. Instead just blame a high pressure area. Or a tsunami in Japan caused by global warming. Heck, blame the poor polar bears.



When you miss your next meeting with your parole officer just say, “I didn’t come because the power went out and the grid went down due to climate change so I couldn’t charge my e-car to get here.” Isn’t that more believable than saying you were abducted by aliens for a month? 

If you forgot and couldn’t be there to celebrate your in-law’s 50th wedding anniversary you can always say you had an emergency meeting with John Kerry, the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. Or your non-attendance could be blamed on being asked to go on a  secret spy mission on DiCaprio’s jet and you just could’t say “No,” to the greenie gals from the Lettuce League.

If you’re having an embarrassing flatulence attack there will be no more blaming of the beans, instead just blame it on nasty weather because Al Gore came to town. (This is known as “The Al Gore Effect” because wherever he goes to preach about the evils of global warming there is a tendency that rain, sleet and snow will follow him.) Need more moisture… just call Al. 

  

Next time you’re pulled over by the cops just remind the officer that a little thing like speeding or driving while texting pales in comparison to what Gina McCarthy, former head of the EPA called, “The greatest threat of our time. Climate change.” 

I already know the excuse I’m gonna use if I ever miss a deadline. No, it’s not gonna be because of a faulty alarm clock or a computer virus. I’ll just say I was under the weather. Literally.

Let’s face it folks, we’ve been guilty of using some pretty lame excuses in the past. Come on,  you got struck by lightening, really? No one believed your identity was stolen, that you were mugged, had a sausage emergency, attacked by hackers, or the check for an overdue bill got lost in the mail. No one believed that you didn’t attend your daughter’s dance recital due to a hemorrhoidal crises. 

My column may not appear in the Bulletin of Meteorological Study but it does run in the Kingfisher Times of Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and at the same time I was reading about the Dartmouth study I read a quote in the Kingfisher Times from one of my favorite writers, Thomas Sowell. Thomas has written 49 books and is the first person in his black, sharecropping family to get past the sixth grade. Regarding climate change Mr. Sowell wrote, “Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for next week? If not, then why should this country bet trillions on global warming predictions that have even less foundation?”

But, alas, Thomas Sowell didn’t got to Dartmouth either. No, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard!

Lee Pitts