When talking about global warming you will notice that many Germans are “well informed”. One of their most important talking points is often used to shut up anybody who begs to differ:

“Haven’t you noticed that we haven’t had a real bad winter in years?”

Now, I know that Germans tend to be a little pessimistic, but isn’t that a good thing? Haven’t had a real bad winter? What’s there to complain about?

I must admit that in the last ten years I didn’t pay too much attention to the weather in Germany. However, I did find out that my hometown in Germany is covered 4-5 inches in snow right now. And Jürgen, whose job forces him to be apart from his wife during the week was unable to come home this passed weekend due to chaotic weather and road conditions.

For those Germans who might not be aware of this: It’s not even December yet! I think the last time we celebrated a white Christmas in Oberhausen, my hometown, I was a month and a half old. That was in 1968. Maybe there was another one, maybe two, but they surely aren’t common.

So what do we make of this? Global cooling? Are future winters going to stretch well into the summer? By the way, a typical German summer lasts for about three weeks. That’s when the regular rain gives way to heavy thunder storms. After three weeks it will turn into regular rain again, which will eventually turn into snow. Some people like it.

I’m writing this because I just read an article on Breitbart.com. Delegates from 180 countries are meeting in Montreal to “decide the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations’ troubled treaty for curbing greenhouse gases.” The headline reads:

Global warming equals weapons of mass destruction: scientist

I guess it’s important to add scientist to the headline just to make sure that everybody understands the seriousness of the matter. Global warming, global cooling, whatever it is, fact is we caused it. And if we don’t act immediately we are doomed. And Germany, for example, might even face a four-week summer!

Maybe there are tough times ahead of us which will force us to adjust. But if I had to choose an appropriate headline it would look more like this:

Nature dwarfs weapons of mass destruction: Misunderestimated Germans

or:

You ain’t seen nothing yet: God

This entry was posted by Michael Meyn on Monday, November 28th, 2005 at 6:49 am and is filed under Global Madness, United Nations, Ecology & Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or a trackback from your own site.