Columbia Star

1963        Celebrating 60 Years      2023

Make it colder to get warmer

40–Something




 

 

Just when I was about to cruise down I-95 to the warm sun of South Florida as I sprayed aerosol cans out the window of a borrowed 1977 gas-guzzling Ford Bronco doing my part to speed up this global warming process, I learned all this bone-chilling, pony-tail freezing, make-certainparts of-your-body-retreat-intoyour stomach, cold weather is actually…wait for it… caused by global warming.

Apparently, some really smart people say warmer temperatures way up north are melting away arctic ice causing the jet stream to dip further south sending frigid northern air right up our skirts. This “northern invasion” is about as welcome as the one 150 years ago, but I digress.

Who am I to argue? I’m no scientist. So, according to people a lot wiser than me, it’s getting colder because… uh… it’s getting warmer.

Maybe, these same geniuses can explain how “affluenza” can be used as a legitimate defense for felony drunk driving. Maybe, they know why a spoiled teenager was perfectly willing to sue her parents for tuition money. Maybe, they can even explain the whole Justin Bieber thing to me. Who knows?

If some pointy-headed academics can convince me the world is getting warmer while I sit at a computer typing this column in a drafty old office trying to keep my fingers from freezing to the keyboard, then I guess they can explain just about anything to me.

But, again, these folks aren’t just checking the weather apps on their iPhones or walking outside. They’re pouring over tons of data, years of research, and mounds of physical evidence to draw these conclusions. Things like weather and climate change shouldn’t be left to amateurs like me. They should be left to scientists and people with “meteorologist” in their titles because those guy always get it right… right? Anyway, I’m with you, Al Gore. I’m on board.

Yes, it’s come to that. I’ll believe anybody and anything as long as it gets my teeth to quit chattering every time I step outside. I’m tired of being cold.

I’ll park the gas-guzzling SUV and put the aerosol cans away. I’ll never use a plastic bottle again. I’ll screw the curly-fry light bulbs in every single one of my lamps, and I’ll use washing machines that smell funny and don’t work. I’ll throw my life savings into Solyndra. I’ll actually try to figure out what a carbon footprint is. Heck, I’ll even grow my hair out (what there is of it), buy a pair of Birkenstocks, and chain myself to a tree if I can just stick my heavy coat in the back of the closet and not have to worry about it again until next winter.

Al, I promise I’ll take every step imaginable to reverse this awful trend. We’ve got to make it colder so we can get warmer… Right? It’s got to get colder to push the jet stream and its northern air invasion back, and then—hopefully— the south might warm up quicker than it did when General Sherman last paid us a visit.

It’s got to get colder, so I can start wearing shorts again. It’s got to get colder, so the only shade of blue on my daughters’ faces is their eye shadow. It’s got to get colder, so my son can hit a baseball without the cold shock of an aluminum bat hitting him back.

So, join Al and me on this great battle. It all makes about as much sense as dumping a bucket of water on your head to dry off, but, hey, it’s science. If it brings back a warm sun, then I’m all for it, and, if anything goes wrong and a new ice age begins, we can blame climate change. These days it’s perfectly logical.


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