Global What?

Perhaps Global WARNING would have been better.

This started off being a light-hearted satirical slam on the marketing team behind Global Warming. It is freezing. The snow won’t stop. The snow days keep coming. Winter Mondays have become the new Summer Fridays.

I’m sure Al Gore probably talked about the difference between the short-term nature of weather and the long-term atmospheric behavior of climate. But, names kind of matter. Didn’t someone somewhere on ‘the team’ offer a less leading suggestion?

Isn’t it about managing consumers (of the environment) expectations. What about creating a more durable brand identity? Less likely to cause confusion, irritation and ultimately, for many, flat out rejection.

Turns out there are a LOT of conflicting opinions.

Global WARRING would now be more accurate.

Respected sources have opposite points of view.

The Space and Science Research Corporation predicts a historic global temperature drop over the next thirty. This average lower global temperature of 1.5° C, translates to declines in temperatures that will be devastating for crop growing regions in the mid latitudes of the planet.

Wow. Okay, well that’s kind of a big deal.

And not what I thought given the future warming as forecasted by CO2-driven climate models.

The Economist magazine reported in March, “The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. Yet, still no warming during that time. That is because the CO2 greenhouse effect is weak and marginal compared to natural causes of global temperature changes.

At first the current stall out of global warming was due to the ocean cycles turning back to cold. But something much more ominous has developed over this period. Sunspots run in 11 year short term cycle, with longer cyclical trends of 90 and even 200 years.”

On the other hand, many still support Global Warming.

“The long-term trends in climate are extremely robust,” NASA’s Schmidt said during a conference call with reporters, noting that any single short-term hot or cold spell doesn’t dispel global warming science.  “Quite frankly, people have a very short memory when it comes to their own experience of weather and climate.”

According to NASA Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.

And yet, there seems to be a lot more supporters of Global Cooling and a lot of questionable interpretation of data by people looking for evidence of global warming.

So, given informational bending, is it Global Warping?

Given the THIRTY YEAR cold trend that seems to be most believable right now, I have become fairly miserable researching this topic.

I don’t like the cold. In fact, I hate it. Do I like being a ski widow? No. Do I like being lame about going sledding for three hundred hours? No. But, I like the cold even less.

My husband keeps asking his parents, who moved to Florida several years ago, if they miss the beautiful snow and the cozy fires. They reply adamantly the same each time. No. Not even a smidgeon of a smidgeon.

I think the term we’re looking for is Global Extremes.

This is, in part, due to radical atmospheric conditions and severe occurrences such as all the tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes we’ve had.

But given the extreme threat of extreme warming and the extreme predictions about extreme crop damage due to the upcoming extreme cooling, I think, perhaps I will not react in any extreme fashion, as I originally had planned.

I will not get on realtor.com and starting looking for homes in South Carolina. Nor will I begin reconsidering our investments based on crops that thrive in cold weather.