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Hot temperatures and hot topics
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Location: Blogs Jim's Blog |
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| Posted by: Jim Hansen |
8/14/2006 |
In Rexburg and many other towns, the topic of global warming comes up, even though Congress ignores the topic as too complicated to put into a 30-second attack ad. They also have to raise money from big interest groups that would prefer Congress talk about other things. Of course, with the hot temperatures and the increase in mosquito-born diseases, people still talk about it and expect some leadership.
As I’ve visited with hundreds of different people in Idaho, I have noticed that people are talking about global warming. In big money campaigns dominated by political consultants in Washington, D.C., politicians are not allowed to talk about that issue. Since I don’t have a bunch of DC consultants telling me what to talk about, I go with what people I meet want to talk about. I learn more every time I do. Of course, the consequence of consultant-driven policymaking in Washington is that Congress has ignored the issue too long.
People know that if Congress actually talks about global warming, it will make the corporations that fund their campaign uncomfortable. Temperatures have hit 100 degrees in Idaho several times this summer but that has not stopped me from meeting people face to face. It is a logical opening to what they are thinking about on a global scale. Idaho always experiences range and forest fires this time of year, too – a vivid reminder of how increased average temperatures makes the range and forest lands even drier for fires to spread.
When I was at a gathering of professors and students at Jim and Anne Papworth’s home in Rexburg, the topic came up there too. Several people had a perspective from their time in other countries. One of the consequences of global warming we don’t often think about is that when the average temperature in the mountains increase, so too does the length of the mosquito season. This also allows mosquitoes to survive at higher elevations. Diseases carried by mosquitoes, therefore, spread even further. This year, there are a lot more cases of West Nile virus in Idaho.
The topic of global warming also came up at the Rexburg senior center where some of the folks there are “sunbirds” who spend the summer in Idaho’s cooler climate (renting student apartments) and return to Arizona and New Mexico for the winter. It was when I was in Rexburg that I was encouraged to see the film “An Inconvenient Truth,” so a few days ago I managed to watch it.
People are debating the various causes of global warming, are gathering their own information from a wide range of scientific sources and are discussing what it means. What irks them is that their leaders in Congress seem oblivious and seem to go out of their way to ignore the topic. I guess it does not come up very often at the $1,000-per-plate dinners in Washington, D.C. Since all those highly paid consultants they hire say this issue is too complicated for 30-second attack ads, members of Congress bury their heads in the increasingly hot sand.
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