If you live locally (the greater NYC area), tomorrow when you are running around in your short shorts and t-shirt, remind me how we’re experiencing Global Warming. That it took until the middle of January for the temperature to get this low is to me a blessing. Anyone who has to heat a home will tell you the same. The first significant snow (one that sticked) arrived last night, if that is all the snow we get this year, nothing would make me happier. Hopefully, since it’s already the 19th of January, it will be a brief time we have to spend bundled up against the elements.
2 comments:
It won't be a blessing in the summertime.
It won't be a blessing when the storms we do have get more and more extreme.
You can't take just one single favorable aspect of global climate change and use it as a reason to say that said climate change is okie-dokie by you.
Well, you can, but IMHO you shouldn't.
The video and photos from Europe, and from this country's heartland, are frightening. The majority of CA's citrus and avocado crops have now been destroyed from frost. Dozens of people have lost their lives. I'm sorry, compared to that saving a few pennies on one's heating bill is just the luck of the draw, not something to celebrate.
Well, I understand what you’re saying but, I think while there is certainly evidence of global warming, I also happen to think people are in the habit of attributing normal variables in the mean temperature more to global warming than to what would otherwise be considered standard deviation.
Climate science is still not entirely understood and there are a considerable number of variables involved. It’s not just the effect of greenhouse gases which impact the climate, things like clearing large swatches of forest have an effect, volcanic eruptions around the globe have an effect, even forest fires impact temperature and climate - it’s not as simple a thing as people would like to make it out to be.
Here we are over the next few days experiencing what would be considered typical January weather. The Mississippi basin was subject to incredible floods over the last decade - was that the result of global warming, was it the result of El Niño or La Niña? Point is we can postulate but, we’re not entirely sure.
We have been blessed by a mild winter and I am thankful for it. I am particularly thankful because I pay to heat my home and gas prices continue to rise.
We talk about issues like these, they become the cause of the moment but, we fail to address the underlying problems which propel us further down this path. In the US, we live in a society based almost entirely upon consumption. Capitalism’s foundation is built on the premise of conspicous consumption. If there is one major export our country has (to the world’s peril), it is the unrelenting and unstoppable forces of consumption.
Now understand, while it may not apply to you specifically as an individual, it does apply overall to the society you are a part of. You and I are both of the same age group so, I know you can remember the gas lines of the 70’s. Somehow though, something happened over the last 15 years and instead of the people in this country driving smaller cars with better gas mileage, car companies appeal to people’s ‘reptilian brain’ and promote driving bigger and bigger vehicles.
How much the emissions in this country have to do with global warming and how much emissions in developing nations where pollution standards are much more lax is something that is also up to debate but then, I can’t imagine us going to war and enforcing our pollution standards on a developing world that wants to enjoy the same standard of living we currently enjoy.
In the meantime, there is a lot that has to be done before the problem will go away and we have been fortunate to have a mild winter. Is it global warming? Maybe. Is it El Niño? Again, maybe. Is it the normal variance of temperature and the good fortune that the jet stream has stayed north of it’s normal December and January path - more than likely.
In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the milder weather. I don’t think it’s something to get up in arms about.
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