A little moment of synchronicity spurred this post

Another synchronistic moment. (is that a word?)

While perusing the internet for a reliable chart of the global temperatures over the past few hundred thousand years, our receptionist delivers to me today's mail, upon which sits a magazine. The cover of the magazine has a picture of a polar bear standing on a piece of ice with the bold titles "This Could Be You" and "Climate Change Legislation". I don't believe in coincidence.

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If I were always doing research on climate change, this wouldn't have been such a "no way" moment. But I'm not. I'm just bothered right now, by a lot of things, but a comment that was made during my irritable state had stuck in my head and I needed to do something to remove it. With all of the snow our country has been getting over the past few months, many of the right-wing conspiracy theorists (they exist on both wings) who have decided that the whole "Global Warming" issue is a hoax created entirely by Democrats to ruin the lives of Republicans are becoming more vocal about it. The comment that set me off was in a conversation thread about this most recent snow, wherein my relative said something along the lines of "Let's see how they backpedal on their Global Warming theory now" (the "they" meaning Democrats, who she outwardly loathes and berates, but still hugs me at Christmas as if I'm not "one of them").

I believe that, according to recent news, the current weather trend is SOUTH of the norm. The northern part of the world, the part above this cold snap/snow machine, is experiencing a drop in the amount of snow they normally get, and this weather pattern is ABNORMAL.  The best chart I have found to accentuate this is from the data.giss.nasa.gov website on the mean temperatures of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres between 1880 and 2000. I believe if it had included the past 10 years, the drop would look similar to the 1960-1980 time span, with an inevitable spike in temperatures again.

What I don't understand is why there is even doubt in people's minds that the weather patterns are changing or that the GLOBAL temperature is changing? So, while we are getting the biggest snow year we've had since the 80's have any of these naysayers checked on the activity in the rest of the world, or does that part of the world not exist? And, if it is OUR government they think is coming up with some climate hoax, why do they not check the science from other countries?

I think the debate should center more around WHAT is causing the climate change, rather than if it is happening at all. It's happening. I could list ten more examples that it is happening, but I have to play taxi-mom now, and sign off. More later.