The most recent bout of cold-stunning, the report explained, was caused when an outbreak of cold Arctic air severely chilled the waters of the Gulf of Mexico this past winter.  "Never before have marine biologists had so many sick turtles to deal with," reported Saunders.  And it wasn't just in Florida, nor were the problems confined to sea turtles.

An Assoicated Press report of 10 January 2001 described scattered fish kills in southern Louisiana and in the Perdido River on the Alabama-Florida border.  So great was the danger, in fact, that many of Florida's tropical fish farmers moved their fish indoors or covered their ponds to protect them.  Manatees and pelicans were also hit by frostbite and needed rescuing; and in South Carolina water temperatures dropped so low that they decimated most of the roe that would have produced the state's yearly crop of white shrimp, reducing the estimated catch by a whopping 99%.

Farther west, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department reported people along the Gulf coast of that state finding "an unusual increase" in cold-stunned turtles in one of the area's most extensive and devastating such episodes.  Even in advance of the coldest November-December period ever recorded in the United states, there were cold-stunned turtles washing ashore; and the phenomenon continued throughout the winter.

So why do we call these facts to your attention?  Simply because they once again put the lie to the claim that global temperatures are the highest they have ever been during the past millennium.  How could it possibly be so uniquely and dangerously hot, when, in the words of Cheryl Joyner, as seen on the NBC Nightly News report, "there has never been a cold-stunning this large in the United States"?  It just doesn't add up.  And since fish, shrimp, manatees, pelicans and turtles don't lie, the fib must reside in the temperature data, or at least in the manipulation and interpretation of the data as they pass through the hands of IPCC functionaries.