So what's going on in California?
I made the above meme this morning and tweeted it out to some legislators from California, with a link to this excellent blog post by Jeff Nesbit on US News & World Report. It features some bracing analysis of the mechanisms by which climate change is affecting the drought in California.
Specifically, it says:
Climate change is linked to California’s drought by two mechanisms: rising temperatures and changing atmospheric patterns conducive to diminishing rains. The first link is firmly established, and there is a considerable and growing body of evidence supporting the second.
More below the cinnamon swingle.
Then I decided to click the next link down in my original Google search, a Washington Post piece which also looked promisingly as though it would support the rather in-your-face conclusion in my meme. This post, however, was careful to stress that:
climate change is best characterized as a drought amplifier rather than the cause of the drought itself
and then go on to say that the background temps continue to rise, noting that atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen by 25% since 1958.
Heading back to Google, I opened the recent (and some say flawed) report by NOAA, which states that the current drought was not caused by climate change, although it was likely being turbocharged because of increasing temperatures. The report does not dispute that CO2 emissions are increasing atmospheric temperatures worldwide. It simply does not support global warming as the CAUSE of the California drought.
That is, the three top hits on my original search for whether or not climate change is causing, or simply worsening, the current California drought turned up three answers - a much more nuanced story than I was in the mood to communicate this morning.
So.... Watt's Up With That? (Climate change denier joke.)
What I think is important to note here - and in every case where your Google search on "X thing + climate change" turns up a lively discussion in the popular media about whether or not climate change is actually "to blame" - is that no one credible seems to be questioning these basic facts:
1) Atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases are skyrocketing and have been rising since the Industrial Revolution.
2) Humans are the proximate cause of this increase.
3) Global temperatures are increasing as a result.
4) The result is climate change.
What more do we need to know? Doesn't it seem obvious?
Yet many members of Congress continue to obfuscate, redirect, and/or outright lie when queried about climate change.
The excellent OFA site dedicated to calling out climate change deniers in Congress is still up and running.
I won't re-tweet my sweet Mad Max meme. It's inaccurate, or at the very least inadequate, and the fight against climate change doesn't need me muddying the waters with flip memes that don't tell the whole story.
But I will continue my daily dose of impassioned hectoring of the likes of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John "Flip Flop" McCain, and their ilk. I will continue to march and tweet and email and sign petitions and send hand-written emails to our legislators in Congress - both those that are lying and deceiving about climate change, and those who are simply doing nothing but pay lip service.
We are running out of time to slash our emissions of greenhouse gases enough to slow the pace of global warming, and if (generally Republican) members of Congress are standing in the way, we need to holler, loud and long. We need to make it clear that their inaction and obfuscation will not stand. We need to be very vocal in the public square. Will you join me? Will you send 'em a tweet?
And then when they will not change - when their cupidity and personal ambition trump their common sense, decency, and intellectual honesty, we will VOTE THEM OUT.
Who's with me?