It’s time to demystify climate change

A ghost of Spring descended on the greater New York Metropolitan area this weekend. And yes, Sleepy Hollow, despite the laid-back moniker, is part of the New York Metropolitan area, situated as it is in Westchester County on the east bank of the Hudson River, only about 25 miles north of Harlem.

According to the Journal News on-line:

The temperature reached a high of 69 degrees in White Plains yesterday, breaking the record set in 1998 of 52 degrees. Today is expected to be slightly cooler with temperatures in the low 50s, said AccuWeather Meteorologist Alan Reppert.

Global warming? Could be. It could also be just another freaky hiccup of nature.

I've posted here before about climate change. I think there’s little doubt we’re experiencing some very unusual weather; the question is, what’s causing it? Are we humans, in our conspicuous consumption of fossil fuel, to blame? Or are these changes part of a natural cycle that will work itself out?

No matter which side of the fence you’re on, you have to admit it’s pretty lame that, 14 years after Al Gore first helped focus public attention on the global warming controversy with the publication of his book, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, we have yet to arrive at a consensus.

Both naysayers and alarmists wear blinders and omit pieces of the puzzle in laying out their respective positions. Don’t you think it’s high time we found out the truth by bringing earnest, dispassionate, bipartisan science to bear on the issue?

Although global warming remains a fractious issue among Republicans, the Bush Administration can score big points with the American public, and find common ground with Democrats, by taking the initiative here. I sense increasing concern over the weather among many different people I encounter in everyday life. As one young woman—a bank teller—said to me yesterday while the sun shined and temperature climbed, “I don’t know if I should be happy or scared.”