Climate Change Decorum

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As North America and Europe face their coldest winters in decades, many climate change deniers are taking the opportunity to do their best Nelson Muntz impression.
 
Well, as one might suspect, the science behind global warming is not actually that simple. I won't discredit myself by pretending I understand the science, but I will direct you to this US News and World Report article, which gives some explanation. Interestingly, the article avoids the conclusions I initially jumped to: extremes and variability.
 
"Scientists say man-made climate change does have the potential to cause more frequent and more severe weather extremes, such as heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and even cold spells. But experts interviewed by The Associated Press did not connect the current frigid blast to climate change."
 
Instead, experts cited a new zigzag pattern of Arctic wind, the result of shifting wind patterns. But they don't know what is causing the shift.
 
This was the best I could find because my news searches on Google turned up so much more inflammatory garbage than reasoned explanations.
 
So, when it comes to this particular period of wild weather, and to climate change more generally, I propose some basic behavioral guidelines.
 
1. Think Globally. It's important for people in the western world, or any place, not to assume that their experiences are felt everywhere on earth. 2009 was Australia's second hottest year on record. And the decade we just said goodbye to was their hottest decade on record, peppered with droughts and brushfires and crop failures. So if it gets icy in London or Boston--and we say, "Where's global warming now? Haha!"--global southerners might raise their hands and point to their crops and say, "We may have something over here."
 
2.  Just Do It. Whether or not we believe that climate change is real, man-made, and potentially devastating (which I do), doesn't really matter in the long run. What matters is what we do. And there are heaps of other reasons why we should green up our acts, including to clean the air we breathe and water we drink, to reduce the diseases we can catch from our food, to preserve precious natural resources and to prevent global species loss, which correlate directly to our ability to survive. 
 
3.  Just Do It Like an Academic. Have you ever tried to interview a climate scientist? I have. Getting a climate scientist to say, "This is definitely the result of global warming," is like trying to get a five year old to spit out their gum. I interviewed Kay Sumfleth, climate scientist and visiting fellow at the International Rice Research Institute here in the Philippines, on the subject of whether global warming is affecting Philippine rice farmers. After much prodding, I finally got him to say: 
 
"I’m not really in close contact to farmers here, but if I talk with people who are really in close contact with farmers, they are really concerned about the changing climate and the changing climate patterns, and the frequency of typhoons, the increasing frequency of extreme events, and even temperature and sea level rise. But from the scientific point of view, it’s really hard to prove the climate change impact on agriculture or on farmer’s fields. There is a big need for scientific data and without scientific data it’s really hard to give scientific statements."
 
I bet this is how scientists feel about correlating this cold snap to climate change. That is not to say that climate change isn't real, human-made, and potentially devastating, or that this cold snap is not related to it. It is to say that if climate scientists don't know, we don't know.
 
So rather than arguing about this on the web or on the street, we might be better served by taking Kay's approach: to say what we know for certain, do everything we can for the greater good, and just generally keep it real.
 
Feel free to remind those climate change naysayers that they don't have any idea either.
 
If you enjoyed this piece on bringing a little decorum to the global warming discussion, check out this piece on how the media covered "Climategate."
 
(Image by Peripitus; C.C. 3.0)