If you’re one of the lucky few who live somewhere as yet relatively unaffected by climate
change, or you spend all your time indoors listening to Rush Limbaugh and watching Donald Trump on Fox News, I’m here to tell you, global warming is real.
It may be hard to accept that the Earth’s overall temperature is rapidly warming up if your state has just experienced a polar vortex, but if you live in California or the Pacific Northwest you know all too well the drastic effect climate change is having on winter weather—especially if you’re a skier like me.
As an avid powder skier I’ve been closely following the snow reports for the mountains in the western United States and I’m seeing a depressing trend toward shallower snow packs and away from our normal winter wonderland.
Why is this happening? As the San Jose Mercury News reported it, “Meteorologists have fixed their attention on the scientific phenomenon they say is to blame for the emerging drought: a vast zone of high pressure in the atmosphere off the West Coast, nearly four miles high and 2,000 miles long, so stubborn that one researcher [Swain] has dubbed it the ‘Ridiculously Resilient Ridge.’ Like a brick wall, the mass of high pressure air has been blocking Pacific winter storms from coming ashore in California, deflecting them up into Alaska and British Columbia, even delivering rain and cold weather to the East Coast.” Much to the dismay of skiers, this stubborn high pressure ridge is pushing the jet stream, and our winter moisture, along a much more northerly track.
Ok, but what does this, and the lack of winter storms (for us here in the West) have to do with global warming? In an article in ThinkProgress.org, “Leading Scientists Explain How Climate Change Is Worsening California’s Epic Drought,” we learn that “Beyond the expansion and drying of the subtropics predicted by climate models, some climatologists have found in their research evidence that the stunning decline in Arctic sea ice would also drive western drought — by shifting storm tracks…Scientists say this anomaly looks very much like what the models predicted as sea ice declined. The storm track response also looks very similar with correspondingly similar impacts on precipitation (reduced rainfall in CA, increased precipitation in SE Alaska).”
In addition to California’s record-breaking drought and water rationing, you probably heard on the national news about their destructive January brush fires. But even more shocking than those unseasonable fires are a recent pair of 300 acre wildfires on the normally soggy North Oregon Coast, which burned nearly to the beach. January fires in the Pacific Northwest rain forest are almost unheard of, as anyone who has tried to light a campfire in winter there will attest. In an article about the forest fires, The Daily Astorian (North Oregon Coast ’s local paper) reported that the National Weather Service in Portland issued a “red flag” warning in response to conditions (strong dry east winds and humidity as low as 25%) that can contribute to wildfires burning out of control. Instead of the 25% humidity, coastal Oregon humidity on a winter’s day should be more like 125%.
Whether you choose to “believe in” global warming or not, I urge any of you enjoying this mild, dry winter weather to please think snow!
Exposing the Big Game 
Here in the UK we are having severe flooding, far worse than previous years and it’s not stopping. Another symptom of global warming I think. When the icepacks melt the sea rises. And all the moisture you’re not getting others are getting in excess. The weather is a-changin.
That it is.
I am convinced that Canada’s Prime Minister knows that global warming is both real and of human origin, but still thinks it is good for Canada and does not care about the rest of the world, or about those Canadians for whom it is not so good. How ironic that Tunisia has adapted the “right” of viable climate in its constitution while Canada not only fails to show such leadership, but in effect says we won’t do anything that might hurt our economy, short term, until everyone else, especially the States, shows us the way (and, I have no doubt, not even then). I think the problem is that to reach a senior position of political (or social) power one generally does NOT have time to become adequately informed (making the likes of an Al Gore a rare exception).
But yes, anyone still doubting the “realness” of climate change is in idiot, and anyone doubting the severity of its impact on our ability to live, work and survive is, at the very best, ignorant.
If Canada waits for leadership from the U.S. on climate change they may never get there. It’s all about the economy here–nothing else seems to matter as much…
One thing that bothers me when we hear about the Keystone pipeline is we rarely hear about the total environmental degradation going on up there on the tar sands wastelands (formerly fragile muskeg and taiga habitat), only that tar sands crude is dirty.
When we read and see these now-frequent global climate change reports, does it really shake most people? When I make comments on blogs, about how Homo sapiens is destroying the planet, some responses are pure denial. Others, still addicted to the prevailing Humanist thinking, want to believe that somehow we humans will rise to these crises, & “fix it” with our technology. If we as a species could have shed our Humanist thought processes (that we are the most important species, that the Earth is for us to “use”, that animals are “resources,” etc, etc) it might have been possible decades ago to at least mitigate some of what is happening. But, that would have mean’t humbling ourselves, and putting our species at least second to the needs of the planet and all the other animals. Homo sapiens needs to go, but it will now drag everything else down with it.
Homo sapiens crowning achievement is rapidly changing the climate and causing a mass extinction event. Why are people so proud to be human?
I am convinced that many people believe that it is a form of treason NOT to be proud to be human (and American). I am very concerned about Spokane ‘s very mild winters and hot summers.
Spokane is being affected by the same high pressure that’s blocking the coast. It may seem nice now, but wait until summer…
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Michelle, I appreciate your comments. I think you are so right. This is why people get so upset when some of us question Humanism.
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