Two years ago, it seemed as though people were really starting to pay attention to the Earth’s ailing climate.  Bold rallying cries were sounded, new anthems written.  The Earth movement seemed once again galvanized, against a hostile administration. 

What happened in the succeeding year, once a more friendly troupe had ridden into the White House with full regalia and fanfare?  What could have so retarded the momentum of the climate crusade?

It done snowed real hard.

That’s called weather:  “the state of the atmosphere at any given time and place.”  It’s different from climate:  “the average weather in a given place, usually over a period of more than 30 years.”

Perhaps if it snowed in Washington, D.C. for thirty years straight, then we could begin to refute global warming.  As it is, we party.  And in our fun, we pump out unprecedented volumes of emissions, and the Earth hotboxes itself.  But guns don’t kill people, right?

Regardless of the political climate (ha!), no matter who yells loudest, science toils away in humble obscurity…and records.

The Environmental Protection Agency has put out a report called Climate Change Indicators in the United States, that evaluates 24 measurably impacted aspects of the environment and human health.  The document is meant “to help readers interpret a set of important indicators to better understand climate change.”

Climate change is a fairly simple concept,

Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer).  Climate change might result from natural factors and processes or from human activities.  The term “climate change” is often used interchangeably with the term “global warming.”  Global warming refers to an average increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns.  However, rising temperatures are just one aspect of climate change.

The report essentially reiterates this case for the existence of anthropogenic (human-made) climate change, by revisiting “compelling evidence” in the interdependent elements of climate and civilization.

It illustrates how, in the last century, a number of trends have signaled a rapidly changing climate.  Rising in level are land and ocean surface temperatures, ocean levels, and ocean acidity; increasing in frequency are heat waves, droughts, extreme weather systems, and heavy precipitation events; receding is perennial snow and ice cover; greater are the number of deaths from heat-related causes such as heat stroke and hyperthermia; altered are climate zones, growing seasons, and patterns of infectious disease.  Coincidentally, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and other emissions have increased from human activity, and are known to facilitate atmospheric warming.

(It’s so damned hot!  Fossil fuels were a bad choice…  Photo:  DreamWorks.)

 

Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said,

These indicators show us that climate change is a very real problem with impacts that are already being seen

The report was a collaborative effort, with almost 50 contributors from EPA, CDC, NOAA, USGS, and a number of other U.S. and international agencies.

Some regions are more affected than others. 

(Regional temperature changes in the U.S., since 1901.  Figure:  NOAA.)

 

Yes, with one overdue decade-event winter snowstorm, many interested parties seemed ready and willing to disregard the definition of the words climate and average and long term trend. 

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It takes focus to face reality.  People rarely do the right thing on a whim.  Lord knows, ten days out of ten, I’d rather drink my paycheck than pay my student loan bills on time.  Luckily, in the case of climate change and greater environmental health, we have very smart people paying attention for us. 

Science is a marvelous thing.  It gives romance to rationale.  Our capacity for science, for observation and reason, sets us apart from animals.

All we need is the willpower to listen, and to suspend disbelief that a person would become a climate scientist for reasons other than to perpetrate an elaborate hoax by which to somehow profit off of resultant alarmist pyramid schemes (you don’t need a PhD to become a televangelist).

To see more of what EPA is up to on this topic, visit http://www.epa.gov/climatechange