Things Blamed on 'Climate Change,' Item #457
News of the meltdown in the "global warming" propaganda movement was featured on the front page of the Times last week, but has yet to trickle down to the Home & Garden section last Friday. Not even a benign-sounding story by Kate Murphy, "Shifting Soil Threatens Homes' Foundations," was free of unsubstantiated environmental alarmism:
Steven Derse, the owner of a corporate travel business in Nashville, cannot feel his house move, but he can hear it. "It's an eerie creaking sound," he said, and it echoes throughout his two-story Georgian-style house.
It started two years ago when a severe drought contracted the soil beneath the foundation, which caused it to crack and sink, pulling the house down with it. The noise has continued intermittently, becoming more insistent last year when flooding pushed the already compromised foundation and house back upward.
This seesawing effect was noisy and expensive. Mr. Derse has spent more than $10,000 to install subterranean piers to stabilize his foundation, and he expects he will have to install more to prevent further cracking and crumbling. "You lose your sense of security," he said. "You love your home and then it literally turns on you."
One possible culprit? "Climate change" (the new term for global warming since world temperatures have stubbornly failed to rise for 14 years.)
His is not the only house buffeted by shifting soil. Extreme weather possibly linked to climate change, as well as construction on less stable ground, have provoked unprecedented foundation failures in houses nationwide. Foundation repair companies report a doubling and tripling of their business in the last two decades with no let-up even during the recession.
The Times did not back up the throwaway claim.
(Hat tip James Taranto at Opinion Journal.)
