Weather or climate?

In the course of reporting about the effects of a changing climate on our region for this paper, I have come across countless scientific reports that in essence conclude that a) the earth’s climate is measurably warming, b) that the warming trend has increased since the Industrial Revolution, c) that warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels and other human-induced releases of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and d) that there is limited time left to arrest that trend and the only way to do so is by reducing emissions.
Over the past two weeks we witnessed superstorms forming in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. We see in the news that millions of people are running for their lives from the floods and winds. And at this time, when the writing is on the wall of a 100-foot storm wave, the discussion and action of this nation should be to do whatever we can to  curb our ravenous appetite for dirty fuels. Climate change should not be a dirty word that is scrubbed from the EPA’s website. When Scott Pruitt, the EPA’s director and passionate climate change denier, said that it would be insensitive to talk about the effects of climate change at this time, when people are running from storms, I wonder what blissed-out universe he lives in.
This is the exactly and absoluty the right time to talk about it and take action instead of sticking one’s head in the sand, saying: Climate change? What climate change? —D.H.—
 

The Nome Nugget

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