Officials at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) announced today that April was a record-breaking month in terms of the overall number of tornadoes, floods, wildfires and drought. If you had any contact with the media during that month you know that the stream of news regarding natural disasters in the United States was a constant and the effects of that weather onslaught will be felt for years to come.
Because of the caustic political climate that exists these days, nobody at the (NCDC) wants to go on record linking the sheer volume of those catastrophic weather events to global warming or its new moniker, "climate change", but scientists at the EPA have continued to push for more strident carbon emission regulations because they assert that greenhouse gasses are triggering changes in climate patterns that mankind cannot control.
Of course, scientists who warn of global warming and climate change are facing stiff opposition from politicians and industries with a vested interest in continuing the use and sale of fossil fuels, and the recent batch of unduly harsh weather does nothing to change those critic's minds. The earth could bake at 200 degrees and some folks would still scoff at the notion of global warming. That's just the nature of ignorance and sticking one's head in the sand.
There's no disputing the fact that the polar ice caps are melting. So are glaciers and mountain ice around the world. Droughts over the past two decades have lasted significantly longer than at any time during recorded history, and flooding has tripled in the past five years. All that melting ice has to flow somewhere!
As a society, we can continue denying the effects of global warming and climate change, but eventually, every one of us will experience a tornado, a drought, a flood or a wildfire. Hopefully, we'll survive that calamity and have the good sense to wake up and address the root causes of the weather we face. Our future and the future of our children depend on it.
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