Monday, February 15, 2010

Climate Change: Proof Positive

When it comes to global climate change...the proof is in the pudding. And by pudding I mean snow. When Al Gore brought this concept of "global warming" to the American public, many were quick to lambaste it as another crazy liberal agenda created to brainwash us into *gasp* caring about the environment (or really anything besides money and how much of it we can make aka 'The American Dream').

Perhaps one of the worst things Gore did was publicize this important scientific reality as Global WARMING...a title that many ignorant people use to theoretically negate the sound scientific principle of what is now being referred to more appropriately as "global climate change". This record breaking winter is seemingly as contradictory to the idea of the earth warming as it gets. Some Republicans have deemed this winter evidence of "global cooling". To which I say, even children who study weather patterns in elementary school have a better understanding of the science behind rain and snow cycles than these guys.

In layman's terms: warmer oceans ---> more water vapor in the atmosphere ---> what goes up must come down ---> snowpocalypse. Global climate change means that something we are doing, and doing a lot of, is effectively changing our global climate patterns. So for places that don't ordinarily get much snow at all to get dumped on like this, is if anything a validation not a contradiction of climate change.

Also snow is not indicative of temperature. It actually hasn't been that cold in DC, mostly 20s and low 30s. The average temperature in Washington in January, according to the National Climatic Data Center, was about a degree warmer than the average for the last 40 years.


To the naysayers that I earlier accused of being ignorant: I fully expect a barrage of angry comments with links to articles that attempt to disprove my point. I know first-hand how divisive this topic can be, almost as contentious as abortion. What I find interesting though, is that whether or not you "believe" (and I use this term loosely, as I refuse to put climate change in the same category as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy) there is evidence of climate change or not, what's so wrong about taking precautionary measures to reduce our short-term and long-term impact on the environment? Isn't it better to be safe than sorry? What's the harm in trying to be less harmful to the planet?

At the risk of sounding like what some would call a dirty tree hugger, I'd like to leave you with a highly applicable and slightly lewd concept I'm sure no one would contest: "Don't shit where you eat". Think about it.

3 comments:

  1. Very well stated...And I do like your closing comment!

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  2. Also, when the polar ice caps melt, the oceans become much colder than usual. That means that the warm water is being held south and the northeastern states will see much colder temperatures and more precipitation than they are used to.

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  3. I believe that pollution from humans has a negative effect on our planet and I am a Republican so don't categorize us all together! I took 4 classes in environmental science out at UCSB and worked for the Community Environmental Council who started Earth Day, yes, the idea of Earth Day was started in my hometown of Santa Barbara. Most people involved in the environmental field believe the terms 'global climate change' and 'global warming' are ridiculous. Those terms were coined by politicians and are for the wacky media to get drunk off of. Watch CNN tonight or MSNBC and tell me if you don't hear it just once! An accurate conclusion is that human pollution will have negative effects on our Earth, but that we also don't know exactly what effects there will be and to what extent these effects take place. We can only compare our advanced scientific measurements of the environment to measurements taken as early as 1950. For example, in the early 1900s we weren't taking measurements on ozone in the stratosphere.
    As stupid as some Republicans sound denying human pollution will have an effect on our Earth, why can't someone like me simply laugh at the term global warming? Democrats also sound dumb like Republicans when discussing 'climate change'. For example, liberals often say a change in weather is global warming, without the facts to support it. The same politician (he who shall not be named) in 2005 said how global warming was the reason of such low snowfall, and this year he says its the reason for high snowfall, yet over the past 100 years there are comparable snowfalls for both the lows and highs. Lastly, the post hoc fallacy needs to be considered in every assumption of some event being caused by global warming. This is why elementary scientists working for the media will contribute an event such as high levels of snowfall being caused only by global warming. While at the same time a professor at UCSB will instead study to what degree human pollution has on an event such as high levels of snow fall knowing that there are many more factors than just 1 contributing to an outcome.
    By the way, 80 degrees and Sunny in Los Angeles :)

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