Global Warming and Weather Prophets

The temperature in Sioux Center yesterday was about 15 below, with a wind chill 7 octaves below middle C.

Weather like this invariably provokes comments about global warming—sometimes aimed at me because I am an outspoken believer in the existence of global warming and its accompanying dire consequences for planet Earth.  “So, what do you think about global warming now?”  someone in  The Fruited Plain might say to me.  In the last week our daily newspaper, The Sioux City Journal, has had two cartoons ridiculing global warming.

What can I say?  

I can remind everyone that we are talking about global temperatures—not Iowa temps or North American temps.  Most Americans can define global in the abstract, but when it modifies “warming,” they seem unable to apply it to the noun.  Here are some examples of why that is significant:
  •        November, 2013, was relatively cold in northwest Iowa, but globally it was the warmest November ever.
  •          Even though in the U. S. record low temps outnumbered record high temps in 2013, globally  2013 will be the fourth-hottest year in recorded weather history.
  •           Scientists predict that 2014 will be an El Nino year, and El Nino years cause warmer weather globally.  (El Niños  occur when the Pacific Ocean surface is .09 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal for at least three months.) The three warmest years on record were El Nino years.


I hope the weather prophets are wrong about 2014 and instead of a little boy (El Nino), 2014 gives birth to a little girl (La Nina) since little girls occur when the ocean surface temperature is cooler than normal. But I fear this old Earth will continue to get warmer and warmer with, as I have said, dire consequences.

Footnote:  This past semester I taught an introductory literature course at Dordt College and my syllabus included a unit on literature about the creation.  When I introduced the unit, I spent some time talking about creation care, especially our involvement in global warming.  The response of my students shocked me. With a couple of exceptions, they reacted with outrage at the suggestion that Christians have an obligation to work to slow down the warming of the planet.  Some of them suggested that it was un-christian to fight against it, though they could not articulate why.  Others said global warming was not happening, though again they could not offer support for their arguments.
I concluded a vigorous discussion by saying that if I was alive in 20 years I would write them all a letter in which I asked them about their view on globally warming.  And I predicted that by then they would all be believers.

My best self hopes I am wrong, that global warming turns out to have been a false bit of science, and I have to eat humble pie.  Unfortunately, my best self is not usually evident.  Often,  my desire to be right, to be able to say “I told you so,” is stronger than my desire for the earth to be as hospitable as it now is.  Pathetic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Santorum Takes His Gospel of Individualism to Dordt College

“You go to Dordt College and you ask me that question?” Rick Santorum said to Ryan Walters, Dordt College freshman, when Santorum spoke in Sioux Center recently. And the question that Santorum seemed amazed at was this: “If not for our [government] social programs, how can we take care of our poor?” Santorum asked the audience who should take care of the poor, and the answer he got first was “the church,” and then, the answer he wanted, it’s up to “the individual” to take care of himself. Before we parse those three answers, I want to comment on Santorum’s amazement at Walters question. Why was he so amazed? I can only speculate. Santorum was amazed because he had been led to believe that Dordt College is a bastion of conservative Republican political views. Where did he get that idea? Again, I can, only speculate. Perhaps his colleague in the House of Representatives, Steve King, told him that. Perhaps the fact that Sioux County is called the most conservative county in the country in
Read more

A "Plumbline" I wrote that will run on KDCR Friday, 3/19

What Glenn Beck Does Not Know Should one even bother to reply to Glenn Beck? Clearly, he does not use reason when he tries to convince folks to think like he does. Often, he attempts to frighten people by using words that carry all sorts of emotional baggage. Sometimes he talks as if he knows a lot about something, but in reality he’s not very well informed. I would hope that people would see through this sort of manipulation, but I hear that Beck has a huge following—even in a town like Sioux Center. So I am going to respond to something he recently said. Beck said that Christians should check their church’s web pages for the words “social justice” or “economic justice” and if they find them, they should resign from the church. Why? Because those words are really code words for communism and Nazism. Now for those Christian Reformed folk listening, if you bother checking the website of The Christian Reformed Church in North America, you will discover—if you did not already kno
Read more

Seed Catalogs and Crookneck Squash

Image
One of the good things that happens each cold, snowy January is the arrival of seed catalogs. Well, good and bad. They are jam-packed with summer—fruits and flowers and vegetables and leafy trees; pumpkins the size of volkswagons and watermelons so red and juicy your mouth waters just looking at them. A seed catalog is a wonderful escape from the plain white world of winter. But it can also manufacture discontent. Three months of mostly cold, dead weather lie ahead of us before we will see growing things. In addition to the seed catalogs that come in the mail, one can find all kinds of online seed catalogs. I spent some time yesterday browsing the Seed Saver catalog online. It contains primarily heirloom varieties and the wonderful pictures make your mouth water. In the squash section I found the Pennsylvania Dutch Crookshank squash that we grew last summer—squash so big that each one provides us with at least four meals. They are supposed to have a curved neck, but most of ours have s
Read more