It's not May in March

The news and weather media are abuzz with the undeniable joy of a Spring season come early, even as last week's headlines of devastating weather across the country still sit in the recycling bin waiting to go out to the curb.  Unseasonably warm temperatures are sweeping across the country (20-35 degrees above Mid-March averages in much of the U.S.) this week, "vaulting us into record territory."

Setting records is something to aspire to when you're running a race, or even (god help us) competing to see how many grilled cheese sandwiches you can eat in a minute, but in this case I think it's cause for concern as opposed to celebration.

Displaying the standard myopic approach to the news, media outlets are taking the opportunity to herald the wearing of shorts and the early arrival of golf-and-barbecue season without devoting any space whatsoever to why the weather is so pleasantly odd.  The closest thing to critical analysis I've seen is a few articles on whether or not the unseasonably warm weather is goosing the national economic figures.

In all fairness, I must admit that I too am susceptible to the wiles of springtime.  It's positively lovely out there.  Trees are swelling into bud, the frogs are proudly croaking away in the woods, and it's almost too easy to forget that this time last year, I was slogging around the snow-covered back roads of Geauga county during the apex of a frosty maple sugaring season.

Trying to hold memories of that same time last year whilst walking around today produces a bout of cognitive dissonance that far exceeds my recent ill adjustment to Daylight Savings Time.  And so I'm left wondering... what's going on here?

You would think that Americans would join me in scratching their heads, especially as we collectively waltz out the other side of one of the mildest winters in recent memory (those of us whose towns weren't wiped off the map by severe tornadoes, that is).  But most people seem content to simply shrug and go on about the business of enjoying the comfort they happen to be enjoying at that particular moment, without concern for what comes next.

In a country where the subject of climate change serves as a litmus test of of ideology more often than a topic of serious debate and discussion, the most pressing issues of our time can be easily identified as the ones being most pointedly ignored by the population-at-large.  Most Americans remain hopelessly adrift on a shaky raft of misinformation, politically expedient pipe dreams and industry-funded propaganda that have little support from actual science, but whose soothing tone has reverberated deep enough to muddy the waters of any informed debate on the topic.

Put simply, people hear what they want to hear.

News comes out today that 4 million Americans will (proverbially) be underwater by the end of the century.  I have little doubt these and other numbers will be revised continually upwards, as similar such numbers have been in the past.  Not only do we have a history of underestimating such environmental impacts, but we as a species don't seem to be in any great hurry to stop or even slow the acceleration of the very behaviors that are driving such results.

I continue to hope that at some point, modern society will look up from it's own navel and finally catch the scent of something big happening all around it.  It might be too much to hope that our major news media (whose job it would seemingly be to inform the public) would aid us in that goal, as opposed to just handing us a bottle of sunscreen and commenting in a neighborly way "how nice it is outside."

I wonder if the headlines will retain their chipper tone this summer if we find ourselves in the midst of similarly record-breaking temperature trends... when the results might make us all far less comfortable than an early spring day.