In a case of bad timing, last week brought with it more below average temperatures in New York coupled with another chorus of headlines from scientists spelling out dire warnings about global warming. As scientists gathered in Copenhagen for an 'emergency meeting' reported that climate predictions of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from two years ago are being outdone by worst case scenarios -- ice melting!, seas rising!!, rainforests disappearing!!! -- I, along with the rest of New York, was looking at the calendar trying to remember when it gets warm. It's been a long, cold winter here and Spring has barely even registered, so my feeling is, there go hopes that we as a people will get out in support of Congressional legislation and a new UN treaty on climate change. It sounds trite, but here's my hunch: beliefs in global warming rise and fall with, well... the mercury. And that spells trouble for those of us who believe we need to make changes now to head off global warming.
Shame on the public for noticing what the weather is actually like and not paying attention to the IPCC theoretical predictions.
We in the temperate world have the luxury of waiting to act as long as catastrophe isn't affecting us personally, but according to the scientists who met in Copenhagen last week, we need to look beyond our own experience to an array of fast changing global realities. They produced some very alarming evidence, but so far their alarm call is not being met with action. These scientists, after all, research and report using a global perspective, but as far as my fellow New Yorkers and me are concerned: it's time for summer!
Gee, Gabriel. Perhaps the 700 international scientists who are skeptical about global warming are correct after all. However, any such skepticism is ignored by London who worries about the effect of what a mild summer would have on his sacred theory:
It's the same wherever you are: all weather, like politics, is local. Herein lies a major, but little discussed problem confronting those who want action on global warming: We can't agree on whether to act, largely because we experience weather locally rather than globally. From this perspective, the only hope for spurring Americans to care lies not in ad campaigns or celebrity endorsements of the cause, but in a long, hot summer that lasts until December when world leaders meet in Copenhagen to negotiate the new climate change treaty. But if the summer is anything like last year's mild weather in my neck of the woods, then we're in trouble -- and so are hopes for meaningful Congressional climate change legislation and a treaty.
Pay no attention to the actual weather outside your door. Unfortunately for London that is exactly what people are doing which really peeves him:
As it stands with global warming, there's nothing that can elevate our senses the way cold wind on our face or the sun in our eyes can when we step out the front door. Case in point, there's nothing like the fury of a hurricane to get people talking about action on climate change. But the reality is, the weather may not cooperate. We may not have record heat or extreme weather disasters to stimulate public attitudes on global warming.
London's frustration with the uncooperative weather leads him to suggest that perhaps the Weather Channel could become a propaganda tool for promoting global warming to explain why the earth is heating up despite the colder then normal temperatures outside the doors of their viewers:
We in the media, as well those that care in the public at large, need to find a way to couch the debate in a way that doesn't make it so easy to ignore. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what can be done. A recasting of weather forecasting might help. The abysmally flat Weather Channel and accompanying website could spice up their local weather reports with a global warming weather forecast that explained why maybe it was freezing in New York but downright warm in Anchorage. Overall, I wish the news media would inundate us with the reality of global warming -- photos, testimonials, even disasters -- and not with the he said/she said 'scientists pronounce...' 'leaders declare...' 'celebrities endorse...' junk that we get instead of real reporting.
Make me feel global warming, even when it's 30 degrees outside. That's all I'm asking...
Would it help if Tinker Bell sprinkled you with pixie dust, Gabriel? That way you could believe you were warm even when you are really freezing cold.
