Since August of last year, my part of the world has endured two major floods, four ice storms, a rare January tornado, and almost no measurable snow. It has been an unusual winter and spring—to say the least. Yet, when I visit with old-timers, none of them lay the blame on “global warming,” while that seems to be all I hear from the media these days.
Even though I’m still just a kid at age 55, I too can remember enough years to recall hotter summers, colder winters, drier years, wetter years, more tornados, fewer hurricanes, and generally “weirder” weather than these past few months. But the constant bombardment from television, newspapers and magazines assuring me that global warming must be the culprit has caused me to do some serious thinking.
I’ve spent several hours on the internet the past few weeks trying my best to get past the “political” aspects of the argument to see if I could be convinced either way on the subject and my amateur research has yielded some not-so-unexpected conclusions….
For every “expert” that is convinced that the earth’s climate is warming up ever so slightly, there is another “expert” that is just as certain that the planet is actually cooling down, while an equal third group of educated scientists state that the long-term records indicate nothing is happening as it is the “normal” cycle of ups and downs in extremes that have been going on since the beginning of time. What’s a guy to think?
Call me a skeptic, but I can well remember the first lecture from my statistics professor as I entered graduate school when he stated, “The number of alcoholics, drug addicts and murderers within any community are directly related to the number of churches existing in that same community.” Being rather naïve at the time, I was just about to buy into the concept that churches brought about these undesirable behaviors until he carefully explained that statistics can be used to prove or disprove almost everything in the world. In other words, the more churches, the higher the population and, thus, the more of the problems. I was relieved. You just have to know how to interpret the results.
I’m old enough to remember when Ralph Nader successfully crusaded for mandatory seat belts in every car and later when my state made it a law to buckle up. I just checked the national records and guess what? There are more traffic deaths today than there were before anyone ever heard of a seat belt. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t ride two miles with my wife without being strapped in, but realistically, the proof doesn’t exist in that one statistical category.
When the “experts” concluded several years ago that drinking coffee was bad for your health, I quit. Then three years later, another group of smart people discovered that the first group had been wrong, so I started again. Later, when another group said, “No, coffee is bad for you after all,” I kept on drinking coffee and sure enough, a few years later it was all right again.
Back to global warming…
Not knowing what to believe, I remembered an old friend from college days that earned three degrees in atmospheric science. Liking the guy, as well as respecting his knowledge, I found out how to get in touch with him. After catching up on the last 33 years of life, I asked him if there was anything to this “global warming” thing.
“I really don’t know, but I want the propaganda to continue either way,” he answered, “because it’s pumped more money into research here in my department at the University than anything I’ve seen in my whole career.”
So, I still don’t know for sure whether it really is getting warmer or not. The only thing I can compare it to is the USDA’s assurance from when I was a boy that multiflora rose bushes would completely replace the need for any other kind of fences by the year 2000.
They would be cheap, easy to maintain, and never spread to unwanted areas.
Jerry Crownover farms in Lawrence County. He is a former professor of Agriculture Education at Missouri State University, and is an author and professional speaker. To contact Jerry about his books or to arrange speaking engagements, go to www.ozarksfn.com and click on contact us.
