Fact or Fiction – Global Warming ?

Global Warming ?

Global Warming ?  Take a good hard look of this photograph of snow in southwest Missouri and then, tell me that Planet Earth is suffering from Global Warming.  Photo by Samuel Warren

Fact or Fiction

Global Warming

by Samuel Warren

We all want to believe “The Experts.” From the time, we are big enough to understand Mom and Dad’s advice we are told time and again, “Respect, Listen to and Trust” all those people who have all the alphabetical letters after their names because they are “The Experts.”

In our journey through life, we learn in time, some of the so-called “Experts” are just over-educated con-men and women, with fat bank accounts and tailored wardrobes.

I’ve become so jaded in my opinion of “Experts” that if Jesus Christ were to appear before me I’d still demand a form of identification like an I.D. Card.

“Yes, it is nice that the Legions of Angels are descending and taking their place behind you. The growing orb of light inside you around your heart. It really is cool. Especially, how the light expands and becomes a star of light. Honestly, it is all fine and well. I know who you say you are, but I ‘m still going to need to see an I.D. Card or some form of identification. Hey, for all I know, Lucifer and his team could be impersonating you and your guys. Like I said, ‘Do you have an I.D. Card?’”

There are good people and there are bad people in the world. All jobs have their good guys and their bad guys; “Experts” are no different.

Weathermen – Professional Guessers ?

Consult The Crystal Ball

Holy Nostradamus ! Records and technology help, but accurate weather prediction still remaina a “best guess science.”  Photo by Samuel Warren

Despite all the mathematical formulas, calculations and sheepskin parchments – there are some jobs that just remain – guesswork. Try as they might, as of 2010, the Weatherman is still a Professional Guesser, in my opinion.

Granted, all the records and technology have contributed to establishing working patterns that allow meteorologists to walk into the ball park and make some impressive swings. They do hit it out of the park, when it comes to warning people about Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and massive blizzards and storms.

It is those unexpected surprises that come out of left field that continues to limit their credibility and destroys the weatherman’s overall lifetime batting average.

Mother Nature plays The Joker card

Still, at the end of the day, sometimes the Universe or Mother Nature throws down a Joker and the whole weather world is turned upside down in the blink of an eye. A couple of years ago, around 2006 or 2007, Mother Nature played her wild card and tornadoes hit southwest Missouri in January. I’m a half-century old plus and that had never happened.

January in southwest Missouri usually means an ungodly amount of snow. The kind that snaps off tree limbs and crushes power lines that leaves people without electricity for two days to a week. But, there had never ever been – tornadoes in January.

Old Timers would tell us kids stories about bad weather and there were always the tales of the legendary blizzards and snow drifts in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. There were never any tales of tornadoes in January. That kind of weather; doesn’t happen. But, it did.

Global Warming has become the catchall category for Unexplained Weather.

I had begun to believe all the information that attributes all of Earth’s weird weather to Global Warming.

I have never liked the cold.   I Hate Snow !

I didn’t get misty eyed, a few years ago, when I heard that the polar ice caps were melting.

I was curious. When ice melts, then, the water has to go somewhere. I realized that an actual fast thaw could place humankind in a “Hey, Noah, you want to hand me that hammer. The water is rising.” The lyrics of a Johnny Cash song keep playing in my mind: “How high is the water, momma ? Well, it’s three foot high and rising…”

Even Missouri’s traditional moody “roll the dice” weather seemed to be acting in accordance with the reported Global Warming patterns.

When I was a child in the 1960s, winter weather in southwest Missouri is best described as “Alaska’s Lost Continent.”

Hell and Winter were, essentially one word.

When the snow started to fall, you’d battened down the hatches and start praying for Spring. Around the mid or late 1960s, the weather experts started giving us the Wind Chill on TV and radio broadcasts. It didn’t help. We knew it was cold outside. The number just served to rub salt in the festering wound of the winter’s chill.

The Winter Wind makes it a point to hammer on you relentlessly like a world champion boxer whenever you stepped outside. Regardless how bundled up you were with coats, sweaters, socks and clothes, whenever you stepped outside, the wind would strip you- and like Adam without his fig leaf you went dashing for cover.

It was torture to be outside for even a few minutes. Chores had to be done. Ice had to be broke on the pond, so the cattle could drink. Rectangular hay bales had to be busted and the flakes had to be scattered, so the cattle had something to eat. The hogs had to be slopped because they were hungry. Snow wasn’t pretty; it was a nuisance. The picturesque white blanket of snow mainly served to cover-up the dangerous ice below it.

Kill Off The Chiggers, Ticks And Snakes

Snow and ice served one major purpose, besides adding water into the ground, which was that the temperatures from the snow and the ice worked to kill off chiggers, ticks and snakes. The saving grace of a bad winter meant that come Spring, there would be very few chiggers, ticks and snakes.

A bad winter in southwest Missouri is Hell On Earth. There is nothing picturesque about it. It isn’t romantic. It isn’t snow angels, snowmen, ice skating or skiing. Hell On Earth, is the only true description of a bad winter in southwest Missouri.

In the 1960s, Winter in southwest Missouri, meant you stocked up on the “coal oil.” You used the kerosene to keep those lamps lit for light and warmth. When Mother Nature played one of her trump cards, power poles would snap and people could be without electricity for up to a week. Mother Nature usually played more than one trump card, she didn’t hesitate to turn the roads into sheets of slick glass, regardless of whether the road was a gravel country road or state maintained black-top; it became a slippery sheet of ice.

In the early 1960s, Stone County Missouri must not have had snow plows. I don’t ever remember seeing any of those dump trucks going up and down the roads. Momma would complain, “It really doesn’t snow in Houston, Texas all that often, but even they have snow plows and get out and grade the roads as soon as the snow starts to fall.”

Snow on State Highway 176

Snow On The Highway

In 2010, the Missouri Department of Transportation gets the snow plows up and running to attempt to keep the highways clear of snow and ice.  Photo by Samuel Warren

Basically in the early 1960s, you hunkered down in the winter. You did the chores and tried to stay warm until Spring. There were times were the roads and highways were ribbons of glass that simply kept you imprisoned because only a desperate person or a complete fool would venture out on to the slick highways and back roads. The vehicles stayed parked in the yards and people went on foot into the fields and the hollers to check on neighbors and livestock

Step Into The Snow

Southwest Missouri’s Pseudo Artic Snows from the 1900s through the 1960s are legendary for their snowfall and the issues related to winter’s wrath.  Global Warming or not; the wet snowfalls of 2010 can quickly soak into your leather cowboy boots.  Photo by Samuel Warren

Drunken Spring

After a bad winter, Spring would arrive more like a drunk tossed out of the bar. It seemed to take forever for Spring to sober up. By mid April or the end of April, Winter would of thrown her last rage. Spring would eventually get around to turning brown grass green and manage to start the weeds and wildflowers growing.

I haven’t forgot the Miserable Missouri Winters of my childhood. We kids joked “Welcome to Misery,” which was an irreverent play on the Show Me State’s name.

We, Old Timers, who have survived those god-awful Winters of the 1960s and 1970s, hunker down each year and wait for Mother Nature to play her trump cards. Some of the Winters of the 1980s, 1990s and the first years of the 21^st Century have been a pleasant surprise.

I really had begun to believe Global Warming had begun to effect Missouri’s Winters, at least, in southwest Missouri.

Despite all the bad publicity associated with Global Warming, it had seemed that the infamous Global Warming was having a positive effect on Missouri’s weather in southwest Missouri. The winter’s had become mild, in comparison, to past winters.

I believe, 2010, might be the year that Mother Nature cranks up the stereo.

The Kenny Rogers’ 45 spins on the turntable and the lyrics of “The Gambler,” rises in the background. Mother Nature smiles and wearing her best saloon girl costume settles at the poker table and begins to shuffle the deck.

“…got to know when to hold’ em, know when to fold ’em.” I can hear Mother Nature  humming now.

I stand at the picture window and look out at the snow on the ground. A couple of days ago, Mother Nature opened her purse and tossed out some loose change and in a few hours about four inches of snow had fallen on southwest Missouri.

The ungodly Wind Chill has fallen back to those 1960s levels, when the Old Timers would refer to the temperatures as being “colder than a well-digger’s…backside” or “colder than a witch’s …breast” The bottomline is that it is really cold outside and you don’t go outside very long if you can keep from it.

Maybe, there is such a thing as “Global Warming.” Maybe, it is a threat to Earth’s weather.

But, when you look at the snow around you and feel those bone-chilling temperatures getting inside your body; the whole concept of “Global Warming” takes on the importance of a child’s nursery rhyme. You look at the snow before you and realize it is just as easy to believe that Cinderella was a real woman as it is to believe in Global Warming.

Snow On The Mailbox

Global Warming – Fact or Fiction ? Is it a real environmental issue or is Global Warming a smoke and mirrors fiction designed to get governments to fund a fairy tale that allows some people to profit ?  Advocates and critics, please, send me your emails:SamuelWarren55@CenturyTel.net

Global Warming might be an issue, but stand outside in the winter weather of southwest Missouri for a few minutes and ,then, tell me that Global Warming is an issue. Seriously, Global Warming Experts and advocates my email is SamuelWarren55@CenturyTel.net

Salt on State Highway 176

The salt on State Highway 176 helps to melt the snow on the pavement stretching out to Galena, Missouri.  Photo by Samuel Warren

Seriously, I’d like to hear from the advocates of Global Warming, so that I know it is a real issue and not just another politician’s ploy designed to get people to open their wallets and donate to another fictional cause that winds up as a scam to raise taxes.

Sam