Commentary: Climate Change Alarmists and Climate Fatigue

Is the world frying to a crisp or are we headed for a long period of cooling?  At this stage of the climate change argument I don’t think any layman or woman can much trust anyone any longer.  Dana Milbank, an Obama caressing columnist at Pravda-on-the-Potomac, commonly called the Washington Post, writes the “deniers” are running scared.  Then there is Greg Jones at the Federalist telling us the global warming alarmists have been routed and have broken ranks and are also burning rubber.

I first started reading newspapers on a daily basis while in the third grade way back in 1970.  The pages were filled with stories of droughts, famines, terrorism and war.  Television news was pretty much the same.  I’m not going to belabor it because every conversation on conservative talk radio about climate always must include the caller who has to remind us about the ice age that never materialized.  The caller usually believes he’s original telling all of us this for the very first time.  You know, scientists were predicting massive glaciation of the Northern Hemisphere.  I’ve sat through so many of those calls I’m about ready to offer mock surprise.  “Wow!  I didn’t know that and thanks for sharing,” but if I come across as being sarcastic I’ll be viewed as mean.  Oh, wait.  I’m a conservative.  I’m already a pisspot.

Maybe it’s why the two sides in the debate are at a stalemate.  One side repeats, “The sky is falling”.  The other side comes up with data showing otherwise and mentions, “The boy who cried wolf”.

Climate is an ever changing mechanism.  While I clearly understand the caller who must always chime in and remind me weather and climate are two distinct things let me respond.  So are inches and yards.  Although you can’t get feet and yards without a series of inches.

California is currently undergoing a lengthy and severe drought and from experience I can tell you the entire Northwestern United States has had a very dry and warm winter.  Spring recently arrived and the thermometer actually cooled.  We’ve had some rain and expect more this week and even some snowflakes early Wednesday morning.  I can’t, however, predict much more about the weather in 2015.  Some summer days will be blisteringly hot and by late fall we’ll have cold nights and at some point some snow.  How’s that?

I believe we’re missing a few important details about California.  In a post last week I mentioned the mountain snows are the lowest on record.  Record keeping about the state’s snow totals began 65 years ago.  Humans have been roving around what is now California for roughly 12-thousand years.  As records go this one is only 45 RPM and is blank on the flip side.  More disturbing than a lack of serious knowledge about past snowfall is the complete lack of human ability to adapt to change.  My guess is for 11-thousand and 9-hundred fifty years most people adapted quite well.  Records indicate human occupation of the region is more or less unbroken since the close of the last ice age.  I’ll grant there are far more people today but as the Mayor of Los Angeles has said Las Vegas and Phoenix are drier and have managed to sustain growing civilizations.  California’s real trouble, according to this piece in the Wall Street Journal, is poor planning.  There isn’t anywhere to store water north of San Francisco and the environmentalists continue dumping billions of gallons into the estuaries leading to the San Francisco Bay.  It’s believed this flushing is good for fish.

There may be people within Golden State government who would favor piping the water to parched southern enclaves but, good golly, it’s illegal.  The possibility of a workable solution is instead a crisis of mammoth proportions.  Who would’ve ever thought there were knuckleheads in California?  It’s news to me!