HEAT WAVES ARE HERE AGAIN!

HEAT WAVES ARE HERE AGAIN!

(USA Today/Frazer Chronicle)

Man it's hot out there, and in there as well, I mean it's been hard to find a cool spot this spring and early summer. Up here in little old Green Bay, Wisconsin, we didn't even have a winter, no more walking to school in snow hip deep, not much snowmobiling or skiing weather, and the outdoor ice sports had a really short season.

It's been hot, the warmest for the first quarter of the year since those kinds of weather records have been kept. Should we be worried? Well sure, unless you completely do not believe in the global warming, people. Crops are being affected; staged festivals and celebrations are being curtailed or canceled altogether, which effects local economies all over the country.

Some say it's just a weather cycle, other say it's a message of things to come while others are packing their bags for the coming of the end of the world. Whichever you believe, one thing is clear, "It's hot out there."

In this day and age of almost "up to the second" news, sports and weather, I find it almost humorous to be having a conversation about what is going on with our environment and weather. Some of us out there talk about how humans have effected both the environment and the weather, me, well I lump both the environment and weather together.

I'm not one of those "tree huggers," I figure natural resources were created for a reason, one of which is for humans to use them. But I also understand that if we use our natural resources at an every expanding fashion, we need to be prepared, "as a people" to pay the consequences.

Hot dry weather might just be one of the results of using the planets resources, although I don't really care about the future generations, "they can deal with problems the same as I have," I do realize that if we don't conserve (somewhat) everybody we be in trouble "during my lifetime."

THE RUSH LIMBAUGH EFFECT:

Most everybody has heard of Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio conservative.....he's an expert on everything, if you don't believe me just check out his radio show; he'll tell you as much. Limbaugh, and people who share his thinking, figure global warming is some kind of liberal conspiracy. I have never quite figured out what these liberals will gain from winning the debate, and Limbaugh really doesn't have an answer either.

The Limbaugh camp figures that the weather is just going through one of its cycles which happens ever several hundred, or thousand, or million years. And that opinion is fine, in fact I think the idea has merit, it actually makes sense to me.

But Rush "baby" what if you’re wrong, what if the environment is just beginning to "kick up her heels" with the heat wave. What if ice melts and there is little or no snow or rain, how will we survive as a people, how can we make it without moisture, at least to the levels that we enjoy today.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place, without the seasons, without a certain amount of snow, and rain, and cooler and warmer weather, as a people, we would be devastated. The food chain would be broken in a very short time, and I don't know about you, but eating is one of my favorite pastimes.

There is very little advantage that a liberal could derive from pushing a global warming agenda, sometimes I can't figure out some of these "flaming conservatives," if we keep using our natural resources, pretty quick we will run out, if we don't watch how hot we make temperatures to bake things, or how much junk we dump into the atmosphere, we'll make things hotter.....it's common sense.

WHAT CAN WE DO:

What can we do as a nation to survive.....well actually not much, like the man said, "the die is cast," we might be able to slow the process down, but way to many people want to take advantage of all the new innovative ways of making money. And there are too many people like me, not caring about future generations, and what they will be left with.

We want agencies to protect us from.....us, and that's just not possible, we've made this mess, we now have to suffer the results. There is going to be a whole bunch of misery before things will get any better.

Here in the Green Bay area, "emergency cooling treatment areas" will be opened during the height of the heat wave, sadly most will be closed today, July 4^th, but all will be up and running tomorrow. If somebody would have mentioned an "emergency cooling treatment area" 20 or 30 years ago, people would have figured you had been reading a science fiction book.

Hospitals, meeting halls, some office buildings and shopping malls are designated as official "cooling centers." I can't believe my eyes, and my ears, I never thought, in my wildest dreams that I would witness a "cooling center."

Back-up plans, it's what we need, but I'm not sure what plan a person could use to combat bad weather, or no rain, it kinda "boggles" my feeble little mind. I guess self reliance would be a start and a tougher exterior as well as a stronger interior.

But really, until we change our thinking as a nation, and as a world, heat waves are here to stay, and we'll just have to deal with them as best we can. No matter the temperature, I really don't like air conditioning, so except for my wife, I'm fine.