Climate Change and Your Sinuses

Sinuses bothering you? Got allergies? The warmer it gets, the worse you’re going to feel. For global warming nonbelievers, maybe this should be a final wake up call. Scientists vow that climate change is real. Higher concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere mean speedier plant growth. Warmer temperatures mean earlier allergy season. Last year, spring arrived 14 days earlier than 20 years ago. This year, our daffodils bloomed in February.

I’m an avowed believer in global warming, but Bob Lutz, former vice president of General Motors, isn’t. Last week on Bill Maher’s show he said he bought a house in the Florida Keys. He thinks it was Al Gore who predicted “it’s supposed to be under water – three years ago.” I guess if you’re rich enough, and famous enough, and old enough (Bob Lutz is 80), you can gamble like that, but here are the scientific facts, (and if you can’t believe science, what can you believe?)

Last year, the average global temperature was 14.52 Celsius (58 degrees Fahrenheit). According to NASA scientists, this was the 9th warmest year in 132 years, with each decade getting hotter. It was also the second wettest year on record. While some places had too much rain, others didn’t get enough causing 10 billion dollars worth of damage in the United States alone.

Scientists believe global warming is the cause of trouble in spots like Syria-Turkey and India-Pakistan due to major food and water shortages and dislocation of large numbers of people.  I hope the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas which trains a lot of our military leaders, is taking notice.

Is it already too late to halt the onset of global warming?  Some people debunk the whole thing. (see Bob Lutz above) Others like John Holdren, a climate expert at Harvard, says it has already happened and makes more sense to learn to live with its consequences. According to him, “We basically have three choices—mitigation, adaption and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaption will be required and the less suffering there will be.”

So-you sinus and allergy suffers-it’s best you not take any long walks this spring or in the springs to come. Stock up on tissues and plan to do a lot of reading, a good thing for my Write Brain Trust ebook group.