Congratulations!
You've just lived a very special day.
Now you've probably lived some special days before.... birthdays, weddings, births and the like.
You've probably seen decades come and centuries go.
But today.... today was different.
Today, something happened that has never happened before in recorded history.
Never.
Not once, since man began to keep records.
Today, there was measurable snow on the ground somewhere in every one of the fifty United States (fifty seven if you're the O-man).
Whether you're in Alaska or Alabama, North Dakota or North Carolina, New Hampshire or New Mexico, you're not far from snow in your state.
And, it's never been that way before in a recorded history that goes back at least four centuries.
Now, you have to understand that there are people that just can't leave this alone.
They're not content to simply marvel at what it is, and must make it a life lesson for the rest of us about how they prefer we live our lives.
They just can't help themselves, and have to explain this phenomenon as part of dreaded "global warming".
Folks, I'm a marketing guy.
I've spent my professional career developing messages that help bring people around to a certain way of thinking, ways of thinking they might not have wanted to adopt without some outside persuasion.
And I have to tell you, timing matters.
You don't try to sell Christmas decorations on July fourth.
You don't try to sell air conditioners in Minnesota in February.
And, you just don't try to sell global warming in the midst of the worst blizzard most parts of the east coast have ever seeen.
Or when for the first time in recorded history there is snow in every state.
In fact, were it me, I wouldn't try to sell global warming at all.
(We can debate whether the concept is valid or not, but this isn't about the concept, it's about the message.)
Because you have no control over the messenger,
You can have facts, figures, celebrities, and politicians (regardless of their validity) all singing the same hymm on global warming, but the message will be ridiculed when they have to cancel their subcommittee meetings on global warming because of snow days.
That happened on Monday and Tuesday of this week in Washington.
See, Mother Nature has been at her job for a whole bunch of eons, and doesn't much react to the whims and wishes of a few mere mortals, regardless of how much they believe their positions.
Mother Nature rather deals in terms of weather cycles, periodic warming and cooling of the planet based more on time passage than human activity.
Whether that human activity is trying to promote global warming or enlarge its carbon footprint.
So trying to promote an intangible concept like global warming, that depends on people being able to feel like it's warming, is a loser whenever Mother Nature decides winter is here.
Instead, the concept of "climate change" is more viable, as at least the daily message about that can be tailored to match what the weather channel is showing.
"Climate change" can be a catch all basket for a whole variety of things, and therefore is a much better focal point for a message than "global warming".
But if you're going to try to make that message work, why not address some much more basic issues?
People don't care about the concept of methane from cows causing global warming, or even climate change.
So, let's take it to a level that they can relate to, and have even experienced themselves.
In 1900, the population of the world was about 1.65 billion.
Today, it's about 6.85 billion.
That's about a 450% increase, or a difference of about 5.2 billion people.
Each of those 5.2 billion has a body temperature of around 98.6 degrees, or for round numbers, 100 degrees.
5.2 billion times 100 degrees is 520 billion degrees of body heat added to the planet in the last 110 years.
Ever been in a meeting where the room got warmer and stuffier as the speaker droned on?
That's the effect of all that body heat being confined within the conference room.
Now, if we've added 520 billion degrees just in body heat to the planet, it would seem that maybe, just maybe, the temperatures here on this little blue marble would have gone up significantly, and stayed that way.
Especially if you add in all that evil ozone layer depletion, increased carbon footprints, and petroleum consumption.
But they haven't.
Research has shown that the temperature variations being experienced are well within the average temperature swings recorded over history as normal climate cycles.
At least the "real", "uncontaminated" research done by real scientists instead of agenda driven bloggers and pseudo-scientists seeking government funding shows that.
Now whether you buy my "increased body heat" theory, or their "carbon footprint / petrochemical consumption" theory, one thing works for both.
Reducing the number of people on the planet would reduce their impact on temperature, either by reducing body heat or by reducing carbon footprint.
So, instead of pushing solutions to the symptoms, the "global warming" people should be attacking the cause and promoting population decreases.
They can start with themselves.
And that will solve two problems.
It will help decrease whatever "global warming" there is, and it will reduce the number of "global warming" people the rest of us have to listen to.
Or, they can keep trying to sell the idea of global warming to people who haven't been able to dig their cars out of snowbanks for a week.
To me, that's a lot like pushing a rope.
"Anything beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind is either illusion or futility." ---- Marquis de Sade
“It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.” ---- Joseph Conrad
