Changing the Climate, Despite Denials

CLIMATE SCIENCE, like meteorology, is rather complicated, which is why weather forecasting has always been and remains inexact,or, as some would say, unreliable. During my lifetime, however, the local weathermen and women have vastly improved their predictive capabilities, thanks to advances in science, including commputer modeling and satellite launching. The most recent studies,just released,indicate that the warming of the atmosphere is proceeding at a rate much higher than scientists previously believed, particularly in the polar regions, alarmingly. The scientific complexities of climate science might have something to do with why conservatives often reject it, why they reject science generally in preference to blind religious faith. Also, of course, since the stark reality of climate change necessitates great change in human politics and economics to eliminate it, conservatives, by nature opposed to change, clinging to comfortable tradition, are quite naturally resistant to accepting this reality. Science adances. We learn more. One of hte remaining, lingering questions about the impact of climate change has only recently been answered. Does the frequency, intensity, size, and severity of hurricanes and tropical storms increase because of it? The answer is "yes, they do". Because of climate change, what would otherwise have been a "Category One" hurricane in the absence of climate change is now a "Category Two". And a hurricane season which would normally have featured five named hurricanes now features six. The increase in the number of hurricanes has not been verified as conclusively as the increase in their severity. However, it has been established, to the satisfaction of climate scientists, if not evangelical Christian conservatives. NASA scientist James Hanson delivered the first formal, dire warning about human caused climate change to Congress in 1988. Einstein and others were aware of it before World War Two. Einstein even thought it might be a good idea,to increase agricultural output. Some scientists had figured out by 1900 that all the coal dust lingering above European cities in the late nineteenth century would ultimately, inevitably trap heat and cause global warming. European cities were generally inundated in, bathed in smog througout the nineteenth century. In a four day period in London in 1852, several thousand Londoners dropped dead on the streets as a massive cloud of coal smoke lingered over the city, and near total darkness was unbroken by sunlight. Although we can't say that we weren't warned and didn't know, many still do. One of the most prevelant and fatuous conservative claims in denial of climate change is that we used to say that carbon dioxide was the culprit; now we say that carbon is. We used to call it "global warming". Now we call it "climate change". It seems that these minor changes in terminoogy, intended only to offer clarity and greater simplicity to the ignorant deniers, are proof of a conspriacy among scientists, the liberal media, and perhaps the Russians and Chinese to create an artificial crisis, a "hoax", as a pretext for government control of every aspect of our otherwise ideal fossil fuel burning lives. The sheer idiocy of these "objections" is apparent, but typical of conservative thinking. Perhaps the most fatuous of all religious conservative denials of our impending doom is the one which says that since the Lord is going to return to Earth soon, climate change doesn't really matter, and is a "non issue". Most alarming of all is that, as the recent election establishes, these alarming benighted people are soon coming to power in the United States, which will undoubtedly bring to a halt, at least for four crucial years, all American particpation in efforts to solve clear and present danger, the current and encroaching climate crisis. As an ancient Greek philosopher said: "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. Yesterday I moticed that iris shoots have sprung up above ground in my yard, in December. Go figure.