Global Warming: Global Warning
Remember the movie The Day After Tomorrow? When the media
interviewed the Director/Producer of that movie, he claims that it should be
shown immediately as it will become more of a documentary rather than a movie.
The Atlanta governor has declared a state of emergency for
89 counties as a wave of “crippling ice” befalls much of The Peach State in a
storm the National Weather Service warns, “may be of historic proportions.”
This statewide IcePocalypseMageddon occurs a little more than a week after
Georgia’s last devastating ice storm, when the National Guard was called in to
aid thousands of people stranded in their homes, vehicles, and schools. The
polar vortex dropped temperatures from Chicago to Mexico a few weeks prior,
breaking more than 50 records and leaving Minneapolis with sub-zero
temperatures for 62 straight hours.
That U.S. weather patterns seem more at home in the Book of
Revelation than February hasn’t made an impact on Senator Ted Cruz, who joked
to attendees of the Conservative Policy Summit about the nip in the air: “Al
Gore told me this wouldn’t happen.” This sentiment has been echoed across
social media by climate-change skeptics:
Most obviously, climate is different than weather—that’s why
the Midwest and Northeast have faced three snowstorms in the past two weeks
while the drought in California has been so severe that water deliveries from
reservoirs to the Central Valley have been cut to zero. Climate trends are
exactly that: trends. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one blisteringly
cold month doesn’t prove 97 percent of climate scientists wrong.
Another key component of “global warming” is right there in
the name: “global.” North America was colder than average in December 2013, but
Russia and most of Europe were far hotter. Despite what Ted Cruz thinks, the
world extends beyond the continental United States, and most of it has been
crazy hot. For every cold snap in the U.S., there’s a wildfire in Australia so
intense that it creates its own weather.
Yes it’s pretty obvious that it’s really cold outside but, it’s
not nearly as cold as it was generations ago. Between 1780 and 1888, the East River froze at least a
dozen times. In fact, after a particularly hard winter in
1866-1867, frustration with halted ferry service eventually led to the
construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. As webcomic xkcd noted, St. Louis, once
the frozen home to a handful of sub-zero temperatures every year, hasn’t had a
day that cold since the 1990s. Not to mention all those bizarre videos on
Youtube that boiling water became ice instantaneously after having contact with
air.
Hard scientific proof hasn’t been able to melt the resolve
of skeptics, however. According to the Yale School of Forestry and
Environmental Studies, the percentage of Americans who believe global warming
is happening has dropped seven points, a number that’s bound to go up after
this latest deep freeze: The results were “likely influenced by the relatively
cold winter of 2012-13 in the United States and an unusually cold March just
before the survey was conducted.” The number of Americans who
refuse to believe in climate change’s existence at all is a relatively small, fortunately around 16
percent.
You can even observe your own surroundings wherever you are!
Super typhoons, volcanic eruption, flash floods, extreme heat, longer and
cooler mornings, earthquakes, tsunamis, you can even witness a steam devil.
Well, for whatever cost, prayers will still be our best
weapon…
Cheerio!
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