“Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why.”
Hunter S. Thompson
January was the coldest month I can remember. You might agree, because there were arctic blasts and snow storms all over the US, even in places that rarely see a flake. Our favorite little island off the North Carolina Coast got 5” of the white stuff. To give you an idea how rare this is, the town doesn’t own a plow. Places all over the south logged new records or broke long streaks without snow (e.g. New Orleans 8” and Pensacola 10”). What’s going on?
Global weirding
Climate change used to be more commonly called global warming. But this name really doesn’t tell the whole story. Yes, the global temperature is heating up, but there are all sorts of other things happening. A more apt name is probably global weirding, popularized by Thomas Friedman in 2007. Specifically, weather systems keep getting more and more strange and extreme, like snow in the south and heat at the poles.
Given our experience in much of the US last month, you might be surprised to learn that, globally, it was the hottest January ever recorded. It bested last January by a “sizable margin”. Just wow. Experts had expected this year to cool off a bit from the exceptional warmth of the past two years now that we have moved out of an El Niño pattern, so January’s numbers were unexpected. It’s only one month, and there will be small blips up and down, but the overall trend is continuing in one direction…up.
What can we do?
I truly believe this problem is fixable or I would not be here. One of the most helpful things we can do is talk to others about the weird weather and why it’s happening. Data tells us that 74% of Americans want our government to do more about climate change, but the topic has been politicized making people hesitant to bring it up. Maybe “global weirding” could be a good conversation starter.
Let’s do something about global weirding. Learn about it. Talk about it. Help solve it.