For years now, ordinary lay people have been beaten down and subjected to "ringing" indictments of human activity by "scientific experts" who claim to know everything about past climates by reading tree rings. In a manner reminiscent of (and at least as accurate as) the ancient Romans' practices of auguring and divining, they have determined that man has heated up the planet to record levels, and that in the very near future, cities will be flooded, tropical pythons will be living in New Jersey, all the fish will die, etc.

Of course, right-wing spoil sports like me are fond of advancing claims that this, um, methodology, has been substantially called into question (also see Steven Milloy's "Tree Ring Circus").

But now it turns out that the 5000 year cutoff presumption (supposedly there are no trees older than that) is wrong.

What happened is that a particularly stubborn and recalcitrant Swedish tree, age 9500, has defied the overwhelming scientific consensus and lent support to the right wing agenda. That's because its existence demonstrates that it was a lot warmer (and a lot earlier) than the AGWOSC community claims.

The world's oldest tree has been found in Sweden, a tenacious spruce that first took root just after the end of the last ice age, more than 9,500 years ago.

The tree has rewritten the history of the climate in the region, revealing that it was much warmer at that time and the ice had disappeared earlier than thought.

[...]

It had been thought that this region was still in the grip of the ice age but the tree shows it was much warmer, even than today

....summers in Sweden were not only much warmer 9,500 years ago than the consensus view used to be, but ALSO warmer than today...even after all that awful carbon dioxide that man has released into the atmosphere in the past couple of centuries.

Yes, I'm sure media will be all over this story in the coming days...not!

Likewise, according to overwhelming scientific logic, it necessarily follows that if the tree's age lies in defiance of scientific wisdom, then surely its rings must also be lying. That's because only scientific trees tell the truth. And only scientific trees obey the Precautionary Principle.

That is, when their rings are properly interpreted by top scientists like Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann!

All hail the rings of trees!

But alas! Occasionally, there are times in this blog when I have to admit that I've been negligent in upholding the values I claim to cherish, and I'm afraid this is one of them. By my failure to engage in divining and auguring as I should have, I have been severely remiss in my obligations.

Now, while I might be (and have been) willing to analyze some animal entrails as the Romans did, it just so happens that because there's no roadkill handy nearby, I'm literally lacking in guts! Besides, I'm not sure my readers really wish to scrutinize gruesome pictures of possum innards. Moreover, the theme of this post involves plants, not animals, and rings, not guts.

Nor am I willing to rent a chainsaw and cut down one of my trees simply to entertain and enlighten readers. Not only would that cost money and be bad for the environment of my yard, but it would be too much work. (Plus it would upset Coco to no end.)

However, I do have a lovely specimen of Allium cepa, which, by the grace of the gods, just happened to be sitting in a plastic bag inside my refrigerator! Even more remarkably, it had already been cut in such a way that the rings were clearly revealed.

To accomplish my divination, all I needed to do was take a picture, and fearlessly read the rings!

My classical mission is accomplished. And it didn't take much guts.

(Well, maybe a little Gore....)

MORE: Missing from the above picture was Bill Clinton's onion ring. That's because Hillary wouldn't let him have it, of course.