I’m in Tennessee. Nashville. The South. And it hasn’t snowed like this in years. We’ve got 6-inches out there. With a snow-covered Honda stuck on the steepest part of our meandering drive.
Earlier this month we had record cold for days. And Al Gore lives here in his 19,000 sq. ft. mansion, for heaven’s sake (apologies to the super-upscale City of Bellemeade for the inference that they might be in super-common Nashville).
Can’t he do something about this? They might take his Nobel back if it keeps this up!
Oh, but Al would probably say this is just a temporary pause. Like his Google stock doesn’t go straight up or down, it goes in a jagged line, like all stocks. Same with global climate change.
And it was far colder a hundred years or more ago. They say the Cumberland River, which flows through Tennessee and Kentucky, used to freeze over so the barges couldn’t go and horse-drawn wagons could go across without the ferries.
It was the same with the little Ararat River (except for the barges — not enough water) where I grew up in the hometown of Andy Griffith. So I guess the freezing rivers happened all over America.
Confused? A lot of people are. If you’re one of the perplexed, don’t feel alone. Seems in the year 2000, David Viner, senior research scientist at Britain’s Climatic Research Unit, boldly predicted that within a few years “snow in Britain would become a very rare and exciting event.”
Sorry, David. Ten years later it’s not just Tennessee getting covered with record snow, but that whole island of yours!
So which is it? A short term thing, as in tragedy from global warming is imminent, or this has been going on since the Ice Ages and still has a long way to go? The “since ice ages” scenario would sure rule out humans as cause. Which would rule out humans as being able to stop this train. Likewise, the short-term scenario. Because that would mean we don’t have enough time to put the brakes on.
Thing is, the people in Washington plotting big moves better be sure their moves are going to do what they’re supposed to do for climate change. Not just what we know they will do to damage lives and livings.
