"Snow Much for Global Warming?" The Joke is on You

Heavy snowstorms pound the mid-Atlantic and the refrain throughout the country is all too trite. Here's just a small sampling of Facebook status' posted within the past hour (found by searching "global warming"):

• "all this snow and cold weather i wonder what would happen if we didnt have global warming lol were is al gore and his yahoos now ( probably on vacation )"
• "Not hearing a lot these days from all those global warming F#$%S now are we!"
• "All of this snow proves global warming doesnt exist..and D.C. got most of it cause god knows obama isn't really a US citizen...haha heard that on WEBN yesterday"
• "is quite surprise to NOT hear any GLobal Warming mumbo jumbo stuff lately"
• "because of global warming!! GLOBAL WARMING!!! LMAO!!!!! They are all trully delusional, they will say anything to push the cap tax and spend, ooops! I meen cap and trade. But its too late, everyone knows global warming is a hoax!!! There in a panic because there going to lose a multi billion $ industry."
• "50 car pileups, zero visibility, airports closed, Gov of Penn. closed 3 interstates, entire northeast snowed in, record snowfalls.........oh, by the way dont forget about global warming, and the billions of dollars being legislated by our government to push this ideology. Give me a break! Thanks Al!"

And of course the old stand-by:

• "global warming my ass"

If the people above (names removed so they don't find this post via search and send me hate mail...or worse) would stop dismissing everything "al gore and his yahoos" say as liberal propaganda they might learn something about our world. They may find ways to improve their daily habits so we can sustain our life on the planet we so gratuitously profit from. They will certainly find the answer to their redundant ridicule of "global warming."

What Al Gore theorized in his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" was that our global temperature is rising at an unprecedented and potentially cataclysmic rate largely due to the emission of man-made greenhouse gases. Leading science academies around the globe have found this theory to be true. "Since 2001, 32 national science academies have come together to issue joint declarations confirming anthropogenic global warming, and urging the nations of the world to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases." Additionally, "no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change."

And yes, I did just cite Wikipedia. But putting together the most convincing, bullet-proof argument for how or why our global temperature is rising not my goal in all of this. I am trying to help people understand the issue, encourage those who are unsure to research it for themselves, and counteract ignorance like this:

Now I'll be completely honest - I generally don't delve into political arguments. It's not so much my cup of tea. It doesn't much bother me if you oppose cap-and-trade legislation - go ahead, it's your right. What does bother me is if you oppose cap-and-trade legislation under the false pretense that "global warming" would mean severe snowstorms like the ones shown above wouldn't happen. This misconception is made obvious by the status' posted above. And most ironically, the truth in that logic is just the opposite.

Thankfully, I am not the only one responding to this quandry (contrary to what the 'Where are the global warming people now?' questioners believe), and today's article in TIME helps to explain it best.

The 2009 U.S. Climate Impacts Report found that large-scale cold-weather storm systems have gradually tracked to the north in the U.S. over the past 50 years. While the frequency of storms in the middle latitudes has decreased as the climate has warmed, the intensity of those storms has increased. That's in part because of global warming — hotter air can hold more moisture, so when a storm gathers it can unleash massive amounts of snow. Colder air, by contrast, is drier; if we were in a truly vicious cold snap, like the one that occurred over much of the East Coast during parts of January, we would be unlikely to see heavy snowfall.

If this wasn't too much "GLobal Warming mumbo jumbo stuff" for you, I hope I have encouraged you to seek a greater knowledge of the issue. And next time you hear someone crack another "global warming my ass," joke - you'll understand that laughing at them makes more sense than laughing with them.

*Ed. note: Eddie Rybarski got an "A" in "Geography 120: Weather and Climate" during his junior year at Western Illinois University. Somewhat sadly, it remains one of the proudest accomplishments of his life.