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Weekly John Locke Foundation research division newsletter focusing on environmental issues.

This newsletter highlights relevant analysis done by the JLF and other think tanks as well as items in the news.

1.  17 Year Cicadas Upset to Find Temps Unchanged

Here’s the story as told by one disgruntled cicada. His (her?) disappointment is palpable. I didn’t know it, but cicadas like the warmth:

It maybe mating time, but this cicada is not happy.

We’ve been patiently sucking roots underground for 17 years. Now billions of us dig for the surface and what do we find? Pretty much the same world temperatures we had when we went under and America smack in the middle of one of the coldest starts to spring since humans started keeping records.

For too many of my swarm companions, our sweet cicada song of insect love may be loud, but this year it is wistful at best.

When brood II burrowed underground seventeen years ago, global warming activists assured us we would reemerge to a warmer world than that we left behind. Just the way we like it. Climate computer models predicted it. Activists from warming pressure groups (the one’s with the unbelievably big bucks!) told us the science was "settled" and too sacrosanct to discuss.

That was enough for us. We’re insects after all. We put the word out. No more thinking. We shut any anti-science cicadas we caught questioning right down. A skeptical cicada? Who needs that? You’re head species. You’ve got a peer review process. We trusted you!….. Cicadas like it warm. That’s when we get it on! Cicada love time was coming early — now and forever! We don’t even start thinking about digging out until ground temperatures reach 17.77º C (That’s 64º F)…You promised. So where’s the warming?!? Instead we get an extra cold spring and a serious case of deferred gratification.

2. Ozone Report of 2013

The2013 ozone season began on April 1 and, as in the past, each week during the ozone — often called smog — season, this newsletter will report how many, if any, high ozone days have been experienced throughout the state during the previous week, where they were experienced, and how many have been recorded during the entire season to date. According to current EPA standards a region or county experiences a high ozone day if a monitor in that area registers the amount of ozone in the air as 76 parts per billion (ppb) or greater. The official ozone season will end on October 31. All reported data is preliminary and issued by the North Carolina Division of Air Quality, which is part of the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources. During the period from June 3-9 there were no high-ozone days recorded. For the state as a whole there has been 1 high ozone day recorded in 2013.

The table below shows all of North Carolina’s ozone monitors and the number of high ozone days for the week and the year to date for each.

 

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