When Junk Science Meets 'Art'

The Tempestry Project is a wall hanging that is displayed at the North Central Michigan College library.

It’s colorful and … political.

Tempestries - a blend of the words temperature and tapestry - are collaborative fiber arts projects that push climate activism.

The one at NCMC is the creation of nine liberal women with ties to the college. The point of all the knitting (very Madame Defarge, by the way) by the ladies is to offer a visual representation of changing local temps from 2009 to 2017. According to the Petoskey News-Review, “The oranges and reds in the middle each year grew and when you hang them side by side viewers could visually see a persistent warming trend.”

And, “The data used [from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration] focuses specifically on weather in northern Michigan … and how changes in coastal areas or the droughts in the west changed the weather in their own backyards.”

Really? In their own backyards? ERG thinks weather is gonna weather. It’s unpredictable and uncontrollable. And if you really care about greenhouse gas emissions, Ms. Fiber Artistes, have you stopped using air travel, sold your car, and downsized to a studio apartment?

The Tempestry Project is just more boring virtue signaling - yet another way to foist global warming alarmism on unsuspecting community college students, since this wall hanging has nothing to do with the mission of a library or with the consent of the governed.

NCMC’s Physical Plant staff, by the way, helped with the mosaic’s placement - taxpayer dollars pay those salaries and staff time.

If you think this is a nothing burger, not particularly irresponsible government in the scheme of things, you may have a point. But still, ask yourself: What if 9 conservative men from the community wanted to showcase a “God Controls the climate” photo exhibit in the library? Backed up not with suspect NOAA data, but with Scripture verses? The latter being eminently more reliable than the former.

Would the NCMC trustees carve out a large spot for it on the campus? Would the woke faculty balk and, falsely, claim it’s a violation of the Establishment Clause? Would President David Ronald Finley defend the gentlemen?

We think you know the answers to those queries.