Global Warming: Whether You Believe In It or Not, the Weather Has Changed

Living in the midwest use to mean that there were four distinct seasons with equally distinct weather. When I was a kid, summer was hot and usually humid while winter was cold with snow on the ground the majority of the time. Spring and fall were milder versions of these seasons, with a transitional period midseason. Don’t let me mislead in any way, there were the occasional unseasonal days and Indian Summers. My point is that there wasn’t much room for error for the weather guys. I can remember hearing about tornados but hurricanes were unusual especially anywhere near us! About twenty-five years ago, tornadic activity seemed to increase in our area. The number of tornados, the strength of tornados and the tornados that developed outside of the normal tornado season has left many areas damaged several times. There seems to be much more flooding now than when I was growing up too. The amount of hurricanes that have occurred in the last twenty years has increased dramatically.

If the changes in our weather hadn’t started to really be noticable in the last decade, I might just pass it off as a kid’s ignorance of their surroundings. There have been very significant changes that anyone living in the Midwest can notice. You don’t have to be a meteorologist to know that things are not what they use to be! When you are running your air conditioning in December because it’s so hot outside you mistake yourself for a melting snowman, something isn’t right. This goes way beyond Indian Summer.

We always got some kind of snow toy, sled or snowsuit for Christmas and used them all winter. My kids have about two good days to play in the snow each year. This seems like a pretty big difference in not so long a period of time. Our summers have been unseasonably cool the last couple of years, in contrast. This year, high temperatures registered over ninety degrees didn’t get into double digits. I’m not complaining about that as I’m not such a big fan of the stifling temperatures and humidity.

Even if you are not a supporter of the global warming beliefs and lean more toward the climate change scenario, isn’t this much change a lot to expect from Mother Nature? I don’t picture her as someone who does anything that extreme in a quarter century span of time. She’s been around a long time and probably doesn’t see the need to rush things much. I lean to the idea of global warming because it seems more logical. It seems that the earth’s temperature must be rising because we don’t have the long winter freezes that we use to. Each year I can safely put plants in the ground earlier and earlier. Maybe it’s not global warming, rather Earth warming? Whatever we call it, there’s got to be a stimulus. Whether the human race has solely contributed or there are other factors that are combining with the destructive things that humans have produced, it is hard to deny that something has gone awry.

There are too many theories to count-some quite sensible and others are not. There has got to be a logical reason for what is happening and the sooner we get some answers the better. If we wait too long to act upon what is happening we may not be able to remedy our environmental woes. The proverbial melting pot of american people may become slow-roasted in its own juices!