Trusting instincts in the global warming era

With the onset of a “bomb cyclone” winter storm putting much of the East Coast into a deep freeze, some may intuitively wonder why the national media were eagerly reporting that the event was probably caused by global warming.

Al Gore immediately explained how something so cold could be the result of temperatures so hot as to threaten Earth’s survival. He’s been predicting the destruction of human civilization for a long time and explains how this weather event is evidence of such an outcome.

He says this storm is “exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis.”

Then comes along New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio with a solution — he’s suing five oil companies that he blames for climate change. Really. I can’t make this stuff up.

EcoWatch, which identifies itself as a Union of Concerned Scientists, joined the alarming claims but acknowledged the conundrum of confusion.

“With cold temperatures and icy conditions leaving the continental U.S. reeling over the new year, it might seem counterintuitive to say that we are still experiencing global warming.”

The organization’s website displayed a map of worldwide temperatures to help readers understand what was happening.

Happily for our country, the colors were a reassuring blue (cool, not hot) and EcoWatch recognized that “much of the U.S. may be unusually cold right now, but most of the rest of the world is well above average.”

Could that be because our country is actually doing more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than any other? Among the large industrialized countries around the globe, we are indeed leading the way.

Yet climate alarmists and much of the media want us to feel like we are the culprit experiencing a booming economy, record job growth, setting our thermostats where ever we wish for our comfort and selfishly enjoying our SUVs.

So we get news coverage that attempts to convince us that what we are seeing as colder weather should not be evidence that global warming is an unproven fear to relieve our concerns of the threat that our planet is headed toward extinction.

The Washington Post offers this conclusion: “Recent research on winter storms, or cyclones, affecting the U.S. East Coast does suggest the possibility of future intensification due to climate change.”

National Geographic, long known for its support of the theories of catastrophic warming trends, isn’t so sure about the latest “evidence” of the icy storm.

After explaining what they think about the event, their reasoning closes with: “But linking one specific extreme weather event to climate change is tricky.”

Less circumspect in their coverage, The Daily Caller quotes National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist Kevin Trenberth, “Winter storms are a manifestation of winter, not climate change.”

And University of Washington climatologist Cliff Mass said, “The frequency of cold waves have decreased during the past 50 years, not increased. That alone shows that such claims are baseless.”

So what is the average citizen to conclude from this most recent declaration of a bomb cyclone being verification of what Al Gore says is a “climate crisis” leading to disaster?

While not completely dismissing the trend of connecting global warming to just about every weather event that attracts our attention, I somehow come back to the reality of the collective wisdom of my fellow citizens informed by their own instincts and intuitive reaction to what takes place.

That results in direction to our representatives in government to avoid the extremes, use common sense, and make decisions that reflect the public will.

The Pew Research Center reports in their findings of the nation’s top 20 priorities that the public ranks climate change as No. 18 on that list.

This story was originally published January 12, 2018 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Trusting instincts in the global warming era."