Our weather is whacked; not just here in East Tennessee, but all over the world. It's obvious that our climate is changing drastically. So, what's the deal? Is it global warming or just a natural 100 year cycle of nature? Most climate scientists agree that the main cause is human activity.
"In its recently released Fourth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there's a more than 90 percent probability that human activities over the past 250 years have warmed our planet."
According to Wikipedia, climate change is defined as "a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years." But climate change is much more than global warming, melting glaciers, and the environmental damage.
Climate change is personal. Climate change affects the quality of life for you and me, our families, friends, and our entire community. It's about mountaintop removal coal mining in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. It's about the repercussions of coal ash spills in East Tennessee. It's about hurricanes, tornados, and droughts around the world and their ripple effect; unseasonably hot summers, mild winters, and temperatures that yo-yo faster than we can say, "Hey ya'll". It's about toxic pollutants, rock slides, and reduced tourism in our beautiful Smoky Mountains.
Climate change affects everything. It affects our health, our economy, our food & water supplies, our social activities, and the environment we call home. It affects the cost of our food, clothes, and utility bills. Hail damage, high winds, and tornados increase the costs of home, car, and property repairs. Our local climate changes affect whether you go out shopping, enjoy our new movie theater, restaurants, and local events, thus supporting our local community or you decide to just stay at home and weather it out.
So maybe it's time to do some research and "get some learnin'". Because all this wacky weather isn't just happening to somebody else "out there". Climate change is happening here and now in Tennessee and it's personal.