Winter and Warming

This year’s warm winter has very little to do with the phenomenon of global warming. There is a feeling amongst many that as long as there is snow on the ground then the warming global temperature is not our problem. Colorado is up to its eyeballs with snow after all; it’s hard to tell from there that we have a crisis on our hands. It is important to note however, that the average temperature in Colorado was almost 2 degrees higher than their average for December. The seasons will continue to play themselves out year by year no matter how much carbon dioxide we fill the atmosphere with. Thanks to the tilt of the earth it will always be colder in January than it had been during July. To what extreme and at what level of consistency is the question we are facing with the issue of global warming.
One warm winter does not global warming make. It is the average global trend of temperature change that we need to be worried about. It is cold in Colorado this year, that is certainly true, but the storms they have endured have been unusual to say the least. They are unusual in the same way that Hurricane Katrina was a storm that was damaging and dangerous in a way that we had never seen in this country. It is this factor, weather of the extreme and the unusual, that we must look at as a warning of instability to come. When told that global warming might make average temperatures a few degrees higher most of us shrug with indifference. Golfing and gardening a few weeks further in to the year doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. When feeling the fresh air and warm sun on my face while walking a nature trail in December the first thought is not of peril. Not being able to anticipate what the weather will bring from one year to the next is far more troubling.
Should the Denver municipality allocate more money for snow removal next year or were these series of storms just a fluke? Just how tall should the new levies of New Orleans really need to be? Should farmers stop trying to grow oranges in California? How we respond to the unpredictable weather effects us in a number of ways in our daily life beyond our choice of tee shirt verses sweater. Global patterns of weather are getting harder to predict and far more dangerous when we get it wrong. Each year it has become more difficult for meteorologists to predict weather events. Last years hurricane season was predicted to be one of the worst and instead turned into one of the quietest. This fact does not set me at ease. On the contrary, this uncertainty is the loudest alarm that there is a serious problem facing us on this world of ours.
The problem with global warming is the scope of the issue and our inability to get a proper perspective that encompasses the entire planet. The weather map does not stop at the boarders of the United States. The start of this problem and its solution go beyond the scope of our lives. It is hard for people to quit smoking with only their future health in mind. It’s hard to change our spending habits to prepare for our retirement. How much more difficult it must be to imagine that our choices today could effect the clouds in the sky tomorrow. Most of us think in terms of what is right in front of us. This year’s warm weather has not been much of a problem or burden for us. Unless you’re a ski resort owner or farmer you may have found this extended autumn to be a blessing. What will the weather be next year or next month? It is becoming increasingly harder to say. There is an old saying: “Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.” It is time to start trying to do something about the weather or risk loosing our continued prosperity.