Ignorance and Apathy

"There are none so blind as those who will not see." Global, climate change deniers prove that adage every day. In February 2015 when Eastern United States and Canada were suffering under a polar vortex, Oklahoma senator James Inhofe threw a snowball onto the senate floor in Washington, saying, "It's very, very, cold outside. Very unseasonable."
"This is proof," he argued, " The science  behind climate change is all wrong,"
A few weeks ago,  Mr. Twitter-in-chief, Trump said something similar, noting the cold temperatures in Florida and calling global warming a hoax.
 What is most aggravating about these individuals, is not their 'AHA!' ' I've got you now!', smugness or their incomprehension about how climate and weather work, it's the fact that they willingly don blinders and ear plugs whenever climate issues are discussed.
 The polar vortex that affected us in 2015 and this winter in the continental United States and Canada did not affect Alaska. In fact the temperature in Nome Alaska, the day the senator threw the snowball on the senate floor, and we are speaking of an area near the Arctic Circle, was nearly 36 degrees Fahrenheit,  warmer than it was in Tampa Bay Florida on the same day.
 So what Inhofe and Trump were citing  as evidence against climate change was actually proof of the instability that global climate change creates.

Why was it freezing here while Alaska basked in such balmy weather? Alaska's normally cold air shifted east and sat over our area for an extended period, while the warm balmy air from the North pacific settled over Alaska.
 This is very bad for Alaska, since a lot of that state is built upon the permafrost which is becoming unstable. Houses are tipping and roadways are crumbling as the frozen ground beneath turns to mud.
In 2016 Alaska had the warmest February on record with average temperatures across the state at 10 degrees warmer than usual.
Alaska's warmth has serious implications for the rest of us. Tons of carbon dioxide and methane are trapped in the permafrost. The sinkholes and craters  suddenly appearing in Siberia are evidence of that methane surfacing and escaping into the atmosphere. This reinforces the Greenhouse effect and further heats up the planet.

 The deniers are like people who have turned their backs to a tidal wave and telling you the wave is a hoax as they are swallowed  by the surf.  We, however are facing the wave and watching it come to sweep our kids away. Those kids are going to deal with the consequences of the mess we have made.
 If they regard us with disgust for what we have wrought, it's no more that we deserve.



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