Global Dumbening

It seems like half the books I end up reading these days come from a friend who delights in foisting off her library on me. A while back she gave me the first three books in the Maximum Ride series, a generic young adult action-adventure affair. Not really anything I'd recommend, but I went ahead and read the fourth book after this friend of mine shoved it on top of the latest pile of books she's assigned to me. The first three books in the series seemed to stick to an original story line, but this fourth book completely went of the environmental propaganda deep end.

The storyline in the fourth installment of the series completely abandons the Down- with- the- large- corporations- playing- God- with- genetic- experiments- angle and instead adopts a highly irritating We're- all- going- to- die- (because- the- U.S.- didn't- sign- the- Kyoto-Treaty)- unless- genetically- enhanced- fourteen- year- olds- save- the- world- from- global-warming! thing.

Even more irritating is the fact that a strong hurricane, which was rather crudely stuck into the story to show the effects of global warming, is used not only to prove global warming is happening, but also that all hurricanes of our era are the fault of said warming, plain and simple. This is should irk anyone who's informed about the topic of global climate change, but it is especially irking to someone who spent three very boring months researching hurricanes and global warming for science class, spent several weeks bugging local professions for info on this topic, and who had to give a very boring, very LONG presentation about ocean temperature and hurricanes- a.k.a. ME.

There are several things I'd like to point out to the author of this overly dumbed-down, intelligence-insulting piece of propaganda about hurricanes and global warming. I'm anything but an expert on this topic, but while researching I did pick up a few facts about this topic.
A) Hurricanes need an ocean's temp to be about 89 degrees before they can form. Therefore, I would agree with the conclusion that a warmer climate would increase hurricane frequency.
B) Hurricane frequency and intensity are two very different things. There is a good deal of controversy over things that cause hurricanes to become stronger, but several experts have stated that overall temperature most likely doesn't increase hurricane strength. Katrina could have turned out to be a small Cat.1 affair even if it formed at very high temperatures, and if New Orleans had better luck. On the other hand, other research shows that higher temperatures do increase hurricane strength. Neither side has been proved correct yet.
C) In my amateur opinion, ocean temperature is a very small factor when it comes to the dozens of factors that create hurricanes. The wind shear factor is a very important, if not more important, factor. For those of you who don't know, more wind shear = no hurricane...usually. Less wind shear= hurricane...maybe, in the right circumstances. It's VERY complicated.
D) The amount of hurricanes we're experiencing now is not surprising when you look at natural oscillation patterns. The 80's and 90's experienced a sharp drop in hurricane activity, a dip we are now coming out of. Also, long before all this global warming hysteria reared its ugly head, we were experiencing hurricane seasons even more violent than recent ones in the 1920's and 1960's. Roughly. Someone check the exact dates for me. Plus, hurricane data for even a few decades ago is very iffy, and once you go back in time farther than this century, accurate hurricane data is nonexistent.
E) As for the whole global warming side of things, WHY DOES NO ONE NOTICE PARTS OF THE WORLD ARE COOLING DOWN? Like the Pacific? The South? Like parts of North America? Even here in Iowa, our winters are getting warmer, yes, but our summers are getting cooler. In conclusion - the climate has gone screwy, and no one can really say why. We're all grabbing at straws here.

Lastly, while it is all well and good to raise awareness about pollution and conservation, I sat down with Maximum Ride's fourth book expecting some explosions, some flying, and some teen angst that would take me about 45 minutes to read cover to cover. I was not looking for even more of the Mother Nature BS that I get the media throwing at me every day. What ever happened to the plot of the series?