Holy Frijole

Thanks to a bunch of snow this winter, the walls of Facebook (is that the proper terminology?) have been plastered with declarations that global warming (or climate change) doesn't exist.

Well, we'll start with "global warming". The proper terminology these days is "climate change," and for good reason. Climatologists have found in the past decade that our impact (and, yes, there is a consensus in the scientific community) on the environment is causing the usually finely tuned pendulum of weather activity to swing wildly. This leads to more extreme weather events like powerful hurricanes, severe drought and flooding. Surely you've seen this on your television.

The point of this post is to remind you of weather vs. climate. If it's 60 degrees in December, it proves nothing more than if it's below freezing in May. That's just weather. Climate is the weather sample taken over a period of time. You've heard of "don't sweat the small stuff." So, don't sweat the weather. A one degree rise in temperature over a year is a big deal. A forty-degree shift in temperature over a day is a front.

The irony here is that these people pointing to 26 inches of snow in Maryland and declaring the global warming movement dead don't realize the significance of these extreme weather patterns as validation of the climate change movement.

I'm not a climatologist, I don't have a show on Fox News and this blog isn't about environmentalism. However, this PSA is just to clear up a talking point from the nameless, faceless organism that is attempting to debunk climate change discussion at every turn. It seems like there is a clear face to the concerned scientific community (IPCC) trying to raise awareness about the damage our lifestyle is causing. I think there should be transparency on both sides.

If there is no such thing as climate change, then what is the harm in moving away from finite fossil fuels? If it does exist and we continue to ignore it, what good is all that money that we'll (apparently) save not acting? I've still yet to solve that riddle.