(The conversation about) global warming goes away

Global warming seems to be a dead issue in the United States, which isolates us from the rest of the world. You have to wonder what’s going on in people’s minds when the number of people who believe global warming is real drops from 79 percent in 2006 to 59 percent currently. That’s comparable to 20 percent of the people changing their minds about the sum of two plus two.

Global warming isn’t something to believe in, like God. It’s logical, and it was a logical hypothesis even before the evidence began to mount. It’s supported by more facts than you can shake a stick at. But this seems to be a problem with Americans: when the rest of the world is looking ahead dozens and hundreds of years, we have trouble seeing beyond next week. Shockingly, when renewable, non-carbon energy sources should be our priority, we’re making a big push for a 2,000-mile oil pipeline from Canada and fracking natural gas from deep underground. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry would kill off the EPA and dig up all the coal in the US.

It’s insane and dangerous to think global warming isn’t a settled issue, as Perry and other Republicans claim. While most of us won’t live to see the ultimate penalties for ignoring the climate change crisis, many are already suffering from its consequences. Scientists, always unwilling to make sweeping claims without an abundance of supporting evidence, now seem ready to blame the dramatic increase in violent weather events on global warming.

A colder than usual American winter in 2010 helped to dampen people’s interest in global warming as an issue. It was hardly warmer, right? What people miss is that global warming is bringing about changes in climate patterns. Even as the US experienced more cold and snow last winter, the planet still warmed, and the snowstorms themselves are right in line with what scientists predict — more violent weather, more precipitation. Look at the tornado season that followed. Look at the flooding. Look at the relentless heat in the summer, and the drought that set Texas on fire.

Other countries are looking at global warming as an opportunity to develop and invest in the technologies and industries of tomorrow. Not us. When we finally decide to update our energy infrastructure, we’ll be looking abroad for the parts we need.

After making bold promises about how he would combat global warming during the last presidential campaign, President Obama has gone quiet.  In 2008, discussing the rash of January tornadoes, The Weather Channel’s Severe Weather Expert, Dr. Greg Forbes, wrote that they were once rare — and over the last few years they’re becoming increasingly common. Let’s see what kind of weather January, 2012, brings, then let’s see what Obama has to say about it in his State of the Union speech next January. If he doesn’t bring up global warming in that address, then he’s taken his eye off the future.

Something to think about

There was probably a time when the Earth was ice-free. It was a long time ago, and back then there were probably no ice caps at the poles. Our climate engine was a lot different than it is today. A lot has changed since humans first started roaming the earth, and in that time we’ve adapted to the climate cycles as we know them now, give or take a relatively minor variation or two.

Back when there were no ice caps, there was probably also no coal and oil buried deep below the surface. Coal and oil were not naturally occurring materials in our planets original composition. They formed as the vegetation that was abundant back in those ice-free days died and were buried and compressed under thousands of feet, and even miles, of the changing surface of the earth. There’s millions and millions of years’ worth of compressed vegetation down below — and as we all know, vegetation is stored carbon dioxide.

So here we are, releasing all this stored carbon back into the atmosphere, far more rapidly than it took to store it up. Compare the 200-odd years we’ve been burning first coal and then oil to those millions and millions it took to put it there, and you’ll get the picture.

I would like to say something in person to all those senators and congress persons who think global warming is a hoax, or think it’s just part of a natural cycle, or say whatever pops into their heads to make their campaign donors happy. They’re full of shit, and they’re killing us. Their pea brains just cannot grasp the problem. They just don’t get it. Human activity IS affecting the global climate. Human activity IS changing the biosphere as we know it. Human activity IS rendering the planet inhospitable, and human activity WILL render it inhabitable.

For humans anyway.