Dick Storey
Hello Nova—here is another one. Surprised? Strange?
From the Denver Post, letter to the editor, July 9, 2023
Climate change truth inconveniences us all
Re: “Meteorologist threatened after coverage of climate on newscasts,” July 9 news story
“You can’t handle the truth!” shouted Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men.” It seems much of our society, including news media, can’t handle the now-inescapable but “inconvenient” truth that global warming is fact.
Facts are not opinions. Opinions may be political and vary from one person to another. Facts are not subject to majority vote, market share, or “backlash”; they are so or they are not, independent of any opinions. Some facts are unpleasant to face; denial doesn’t change them.
Some folks say climate isn’t weather; however, the two are related. Weather is day-to-day; climate is weather over time. String enough weathers together and you’ve got climate.
Like Des Moines, Iowa, TV weatherman Chris Gloninger, I began connecting the dots and saw that formerly rare events had substantially increased in frequency. When the unusual becomes ordinary, something fundamental has shifted; the old rules no longer apply.
Earth is heating up, adding more energy to the oceans and atmosphere. That energy goes into producing more extreme weather conditions of all types — more and longer droughts combined with more and more violent storms, more and hotter heat waves, and more and colder freezes.
Moreover, 2023 looks like a “tipping point” year when climate change effects transition from subtle and distant to obvious and close.
You’d think Iowans, with their economy so dependent on agriculture — thus weather — would be keenly interested in the facts of climate-caused weather. Apparently, some aren’t, and they’re enough to drive out a fact-telling reporter. If the weather seen this year doesn’t drive home the fact of global warming, one wonders what will.
Ralph Taylor, Centennial (CO)
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