Climate Changes

Why Are We So Warm In January?

By Dan Richardson, 1-10-07

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about the Gorge is the seasons. We have them; unlike some of the other places I’ve lived, where either summer or winter or some particular sort of weather predominates. In the Gorge, we have summer, fall, winter, spring. Four beautiful stages of the year, as I’ve told friends in other places more than once.

Thanks for making a liar of me, weather. It’s hit 50 degrees or warmer for the past several days here in The Dalles. It’s been pleasant, but disconcerting. You shouldn’t be able to stroll around without a coat in January.

This comes on the heels of the notice that scientists are saying 2007 could be the warmest year ever recorded.

Yes, that’s anecdotal evidence, but still a close-to-home example of global warming. It’s also part of larger pattern, what with recent repeat floods in our backyard, and endangered polar bears up north. And then there’s this: that every year since 1992 has made the list of the 20 warmest years on record.

And thence to politics: For, as a conservative (in the sense of Burke rather than Bush), I shake my head that the political right has abandoned the field. Like many issues in America, we decide that only one political wing can occupy the heights, while the other cedes the ground and seeks other points to seize. So, the left cedes the humane ground of abortion, ignores systemic problems with entitlement programs and leaves school reform to someone else. And the right — well, global warming is a liberal issue, no doubt, so we just won’t say anything substantive about that.

The result is that only those on the left are thinking about the issue of climate change. Proposing ideas. Now, there’s plenty of looniness on the left, and pet causes and silly ideas. But it's the liberals in American political life who, collectively, are acting like the adult on this increasingly obvious issue . (There's a sentence I never anticipated writing.) Conservatives are AWOL, and just when we need energetic, entrepreneurial ideas.

And climate change from global warming is an American issue — a Northwest issue, not just something happening in Antarctica or Bangladesh, but here, with melting glaciers on our mountains, increasing storms, warmer winter temperatures and flooding, and forecasts of increasing drought.

Conservatives argue that global warming is anti-capitalist scare-mongering by zealous, alarmist scientists using faulty research and addicted to public money. There is no doubt that many people stand to profit from global warming. There always are in a given crisis. Do you suppose Halliburton is losing money by contracting services in Iraq?

In truth, I await the day when someone like National Review finally dares to break orthodoxy and get it right on climate change, like that publication did with the militarized War on Drugs. In 1996, that flagship conservative journal published its now-famous cover story, “The War on Drugs Is Lost,” becoming one of the first and loudest on the right-wing to break ranks. As the editors wrote then, “To put off a declarative judgment would be morally and intellectually weak-kneed.”

I wonder how many more years of record-breaking temperatures will have to pass before the political right grows stronger knees about global warming? As one of the anti-drug writers penned then, “Why hasn't any conservative in elective office at least suggested that it be considered?”

For we know this: there is global warming. And we know that human industry is pumping billions of tons of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere each year. Human beings haven’t started climate change, but that certainly doesn’t slow it down.

At the same time, we know that oil is finite. Oil production has leveled off, and global demand for oil — the lifeblood of our economy — is increasingly sharp. Oil will get scarcer, more expensive, and our buying it will continue to prop up the dictators and Islamic madness in the Middle East.

Oh, and that smog in the Columbia Gorge on quiet, calm days? Yeah, petroleum-based emissions are a big part of that, too.

So, tell me why, again, we’re not seeing these two trends — global warming, a growing oil shortage — as a confluence of events? Why, again, would we as a state and a nation fail to aggressively fund a low-emissions energy revolution that would untangle us from the dictators, reduce pollution in our backyard and create jobs galore?

And, why are we so warm in January?

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.