WHAT GOES up must come down, spinning wheel’s got to go round… as the old song goes. I was hoping to find a weatherman expert’s view on perhaps several probable reasons why we’re presently having quite a spell of scorching weather lately.
What greeted me instead was a dose of double-speak, sugar coating, and the usual drops of runaround. On one, I chanced upon a NASA page where it only touched on a comparison between global warming and climate change, and still, one had to read twice to get what they were driving at.
For starters, it explained that the term weather is not the same as climate. Though that was simple enough as an intro, the hook that was laid out was when it dropped names and continued on, that both global warming (as espoused by one Al Gore of long ago) and climate change (as championed by Greta Thunberg) are not necessarily synonymous with each other. However, to confuse us further, the causes for the two are one and the same.
“… human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which in turn increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere.” If one still remembers the supposed contention-dash-excuse of a hole in the ozone layer (which comfortably retreated into the background until it was forgotten), this new and unfounded hack is its version two.
For the everyman, why can’t these runarounds just be so easily explained like ‘what goes up, must come down’? Or as “down-to-earth-y,” if one’s trying to be pun-y.
Let the bottom line be clear: we blew it, people. Be it weather, climate, temperature, or the rapture, we are the culprit.
While others (especially those from the west) may still put the blame on vapor trails in the wake of jets overhead, industrial smoke from factories, and then on car exhaust from our highways, in the end, everything still falls squarely on our laps.
Meanwhile, on the local shores of ours, teachers still say the “kaingin” (slash and burn) practice of people in the hinterland contributes much to what karma has given us in return.
As part of the consequential fallout, the incidences of red tide and acid rain, plus other after-effects like flash floods and erosion, appear as mere tributaries that stretch out in all directions, emanating from only one main vein. And that is the ocean of man’s greed, arrogance, and gross discontent.
Back to the original query of why it is so hot all of a sudden these days? Go figure.
