January 26, 2002

Summer in January?

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

I got interested in the global warming issue a while back and did quite a bit of reading and came to a sensible conclusion. If you consider all the real scientific evidence, there's about as much argument either way. But if you're looking for scientific evidence to confirm global warming, it just ain't there.

So if you want to believe in global warming, it's a lot like religion. You can believe it if you like.

But -- to carry the religion analogy a step further -- if you do believe it, don't expect me to jump on board because you say so.

A young California dreamer named John Walker Lindh jumped on board a passing theology and look where it got him. I'll stand by the old-time religion because it's tried and true.

I also choose, on the basis of the lack of scientific evidence to support global warming, to believe it's all a bunch of Chicken Little warnings that the sky is falling. But now I'm wondering.

I was coming out of Food Lion the other afternoon, coatless and hatless, enjoying the January warm spell we're in now, when this middle-aged dude -- I can call him that because I'm one, too -- comes sauntering in wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops.

Now there's a sight for January, I thought. Whatever happened to winter, anyway? Just a few weeks ago, we were scraping off snow and ice, and now it's just a distant memory.

Sort of like summer in Minnesota in reverse. A former Minnesota resident told me once they have 10 and a half months of winter and six weeks of bad sledding up there.

Have North Carolina winters been shortened to six weeks, with spring and fall extended on both ends? If so, I would guess we've got maybe another two or three weeks and winter's over.

I talked to a friend in Florida on Saturday and guess what? He says it's downright hot there. Granted Florida doesn't have any winter at all to speak of, but in January they don't expect hot.

January where my friend is in Palm Beach expects to see the Trumps and other high-rollers come to town to escape the winter climes of the north, but the swells don't expect to be sweating.

Another near and dear friend of mine in Pennsylvania tells me the weather up there is also unseasonably temperate, and we actually had our first snow here before a flake fell way up there.

What is going on? I guess if I had any stock in thermal underwear, I'd be selling it. But I don't, and sure as I did, we'd be in snow up to our eyebrows and everybody would blame me.

All things considered, I believe I'll just hunker down here in North Carolina and wait for the folks in Florida to get too hot and the folks up north to get too cold, and all come flocking in.

Now if I only had some swamp land to sell, I'd be set right.