Say It Loud, I'm Warmist and Proud!

Say It Loud, I'm Warmist and Proud!

Guest Columnist: Ann Marie
March 15, 2012

In response to an article recently published in The Huffington Post entitled, "Say It Loud, I'm Warmist and Proud!", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/d-r-tucker/climate-change-denial_b_1319271.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=2796854,b=facebook , I would just like to share a personal observation.

We've had no winter here to speak of, in all places, O-H-I-O. It's been 80 degrees or near there for several days in this month of March and will be for several more days into at least Tuesday of the coming week according to our local long-range weather forecast.

Last month our State, along with several other mid-western states, experienced an outbreak of 95 tornadoes in one day. I am 50 years old, a fact I'll freely admit. But in the life cycle of the planet earth that doesn't even warrant the flutter of an eye.

So, to say that a measly 45 years ago, I quite clearly remember 1-2' of the white stuff sometimes by Thanksgiving and ice skating most of the winter on ponds that were covered by ice several inches thick, won't hold much water for a lot of you scholary folk. But that, to my recollection, is the season that is known as "Winter" and is very often symbolized by a snowflake;

as Fall is symbolized by a leaf,

Summer; a sun,

and Spring, with its life-affirming, lovely flowers.










This should be a glaring fact, and not an opinion, in the point of this whole matter of global warming, climate change or whatever label or "ism" that the group of the day may choose to slap on it.

Having pointed out what seems to my generation of humankind to be the obvious "Four Seasons", I'd just like to share something with my readers something that has so clearly stayed with me since Sixth grade science class.

It is the day when I first heard this whole concept that populations would grow, manufacturing would increase to supply the demand for goods, leading to more pollution. Our air would become poisonous and harder to breathe, making us sick and even killing us. There was a great speculation that all of this excess waste being broiled into our air would block out our sunlight and create changes in our atmoshpere. It was pointed out that eventually, we wouldn't have all of that beautiful (and fun!) snow that we were seeing right outside of our classroom windows and that our perfect litte patch of planet earth would be more like the State of Florida than the lush, green Ohio that we knew and loved.

Sixth grade science class. That was a defining moment in my life and it has stuck with me to this day.

I have looked outside my window all Winter and watched the virtually unchanging occurences in what would normally be the "changing of the seasons", and I've thought, "For the last several years, I have been witnessing a self-fulfilling prophecy. There simply is no time left for government to argue over whose politics are going to either "change" OR "deny" the very facts right in front of us. Our lives are simply not as simple. Our lands are simply not as fertile and abundant. Our natural resources are simply no longer pristine or readily available. Our planet has simply been altered. It is a simple fact that simply cannot be denied."