DENIAL IS NOT A RIVER IN EGYPT

When we have the sort of extreme and record heat and drought in this country that we have had for the last few years, or when we have the terrible tornadic storms that have swept away entire communities, or when violent hurricanes devastate low-lying islands in the Philippines and other areas, we don’t hear the rhetoric against the scientists who are trying to explain the conditions and effects of climate change, and that these changes can be attributed to global warming.  Nor is a word usually spoken when the Arctic ice caps break up and melt away. 

But let there be a bitter winter such as this one of 2013-2014, and those of our society who base their opinions on what they think and feel and believe rather than upon information and documentation and facts – why, those folks point out the record snows and the early and extreme cold spells and shrug and laugh at the scientists - you know, the fact-checkers.  These folks practice denial as if it were a religion, which in many ways, for them it is.

As if we’ve never had the phenomenon of early or severe winters.  As if melting ice caps would not provide more moisture, more fuel, for arctic storms.  As if putting record amounts of carbon from coal and other fuels would not have any effect on our air and our atmosphere.  As if it were far more important to get the last drop of oil, of natural gas, of coal, out of the earth, creating chasms and earthquakes and the fat wallets of the industries which spin these materials into energy and wealth and the devastation of pollution, far more important than developing clean energy sources, than taking care of our only planet, than observing the facts and caring about the future of our children.

Oh, there are some who truly ‘believe’ that climate change, global warming, critical carbon emissions, that none of these are ‘real’.  There are some who totally think/feel/believe that these things are the inventions of people trying to seize power to themselves (for what purpose no one seems to know).  But we as a society and we as a human race need to remember that at one time there were many who ‘believed’ the earth was flat.  That there were many who truly ‘believed’ that beyond the horizon ‘there be dragons’.  They believed that, but never the scientists who tried to show them reality.

For anyone out there who is curious, here's a link to a bit of science about our earth:

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/01/did-global-warming-get-arctic-drunk