I’m staring at the snow a November blizzard dropped on Chicago and feeling, in my toes, the freezing temperatures that linger.
And I’m harrumphing at the idea of global warming.
“Global warming,” I harrumph, with a hint of added harrumph-itude. “More like ‘global colding’!”
I savor my hilarious joke and ignore the difference between weather — the day-to-day state of the atmosphere — and climate — the long-term average state of the atmosphere. Acknowledging there’s a difference, that an early blizzard can happen while average global temperatures continue to rise, would make my harrumphing seem ignorant, and I refuse to waste a perfectly good harrumph.
No, I choose to believe global warming is a bunch of poppycock cooked up by money-hungry scientists hellbent on convincing me it’s bad to leave my SUV idling in the driveway overnight so it’s warmed up for the morning commute.
I choose to embrace the view of President Donald Trump, who is, per the Constitution, the nation’s chief meteorologist. Last week he tweeted: “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS — Whatever happened to Global Warming?”
HAH! That’s right, you liberal clean-air enthusiasts. Where’s your global warming now?
To really stick it to the kale-chomping eco-warriors out there, I’ve devised a deliciously inefficient way to clear the blizzard snow off my driveway.
I’m going to print out a dozen or so copies of the Trump administration’s new 1,600-page climate change study and burn them so the heat melts the snow. It’ll save my back the pain of shoveling, and help dispose of a report the administration released on Black Friday in a sensible attempt to bury its damning conclusions!
The Fourth National Climate Assessment is a congressionally mandated report put together by 13 federal agencies. If you get a look at what it contains, and I certainly hope you don’t, you’ll find it has the potential to make my global-warming harrumphing look downright irresponsible.
So it must be burned to clear my front walk and driveway. That’s the only way I can preserve my worldview and continue to make hilarious blizzard-related global-warming jokes while dooming future generations and ensuring that Florida becomes the nation’s first subaqueous state.
If we don’t burn the climate assessment for snow removal, or at least ignore it while shopping for outstanding holiday bargains, people might learn things like this, which is labeled “Key Message 1” in the report:
“Global climate is changing rapidly compared to the pace of natural variations in climate that have occurred throughout Earth’s history. Global average temperature has increased by about 1.8°F from 1901 to 2016, and observational evidence does not support any credible natural explanations for this amount of warming; instead, the evidence consistently points to human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse or heat-trapping gases, as the dominant cause.”
Or they might be forced to learn this: “In the absence of significant global mitigation action and regional adaptation efforts, rising temperatures, sea level rise, and changes in extreme events are expected to increasingly disrupt and damage critical infrastructure and property, labor productivity, and the vitality of our communities. … With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century — more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many U.S. states.”
Midwestern folks chuckling about the early blizzard might have to face the report’s prediction that temperatures in the Midwest will increase more than the rest of the country, and that heavier rain and higher humidity will increase the threat of hungry pests and crop disease.
That’s enough to make people think that even a broad group of government agencies operating under President Trump agree climate change is a serious issue. And that would suggest that Trump’s decisions to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and do away with Obama-era environmental regulations and embrace fossil-fuel emission as a harmless nothingburger run against the country’s best interests.
I refuse to believe such a thing. I refuse to gaze out at a snow-blanketed driveway and not roll my eyes and make a pointed joke about global warming. I refuse to hold in my harrumphs.
And that’s why we must clear our streets and walkways using only the heat from a burning stack of the Trump administration’s National Climate Assessment reports. We must help the administration cover up something that might reveal its own hypocrisy.
And we must never let anyone know that the report is available online at nca2018.globalchange.gov.
If people find out about that, and take the time to read it, all our harrumphing may be for naught.
Rex Huppke is a Chicago Tribune columnist. Readers may send him email at rhuppkechicagotribune.com.