Nick Anderson for January 07, 2014

Geeee, it’s cold outside during winter. What a surprise!! And last summer when we were going thru record heat waves?

We should spend billions to figure out why its so cold instead of helping people get jobs and educating our youth.Sincerely,Democrats.

The Polar Vortex, according to several websites including the weather channel and NOAA, is loosely described as an artic ‘hurricane’ where cold temps keep high winds circulating at the North pole. This occurs at the south pole as well, but we are being effected by what is happening to the north right now. Because artic temperatures have been warmer than usual, the vortex is less stable and is breaking off large patches of wind and cold that move south into North America and Northern Europe. NOAA considers this another symptom of climate change caused by global warming. We seem well entrenched into this pattern so, we will have ample opportunity to see if this is a cycle or not. Opinion and research supporting the views of deniers is in the minority. A large majority of scientists and gov’t leaders from other nations are, along with folks like me, being lumped into a group made up of fools, idiots, and doomsayers. We are accused of having an agenda at best or being stupid at worst.I fear we shall learn who was right and I hope that those who think like me are wrong. For if we are right, and things continue as they are, those who stood in the way of making an effort to slow or reverse this pattern will find themselves suffering the same fate as the rest of us.I returned from California last weekend. I saw signs of drought everywhere and the water being used to water the oranges, avocados, almonds, and many other crops by which I drove is coming from many miles away, depleting lakes, reservoirs, and aquifers. I talked to people who make their money off of farming, recreational lakes and canoeing, and they all complained that it has been years since they had sufficient rain and snowmelt.And while many said they didn’t used to believe in climate change, they say they do now.Nothing makes a believer better than being directly effected by that which was once denied.Respectfully,C.

Doc – I don’t get my information about climate change from Al Sharpton. Nor do I go to the various commentators at Fox.

The internet allows for a wide search of actual scientific research by actual scientists trained in the various fields of earth science. Research these reports, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

I have been attempting for past several days to inject a little actual science into the discussion, and I have asked those who don’t believe in the theory of global climate change to post their science in reply. So far I have received zero serious replies from the deniers. Zero. Ziltch. That’s not a single one. I am open to reading serious refutations of the theory. Have a good day — I’m off to work. See you sometime this evening.

Its hilarious your link to a “study” showing no global warming was pushing “holistic dentistry” and cancer cures.

Who would you prefer to be wrong – the pro-business global warming "skeptics’ or the main body of science which sees global warming as a real problem worthy of our concern and remedial action? One problem is the phrase “global warming”. Think of this diabeties analogy: the problem with this health problem is not simply one of too much blood sugar or too little blood sugar; it’s the complex inability of a diabetic’s body to maintain a stable balance between these two extremes. Therefore, a better phrase for our ecological problem would be “chronic global climate instability”. However, this phrase is probably too complex for most of the masses to comprehend.

Look at Glenn McCoy’s today, Nick.

It may please you to know, Lifebyc, that there are many people who read the editorial comics AND the comments under them. For many reasons, they choose not to make comments of their own, but after I posted my sanesaint@hotmail.com email, created to carry on conversations after the cartoons are gone and for folks who want to avoid extremist comments from either side, I received a number of emails from people who just wanted to say hello and thank me for my tone, even when they don’t agree with me.What we write is being read, and how we write it makes the readers decide how seriously to take us. You are not wasting your keystrokes if you are presenting a valid opinion in a civil and respectful manner. I hope 2014 gives you cause for optimism, hope, and many chances to laugh with friends and family. Whenever a person smiles, both hemispheres of the brain open to the maximum capacity according to a JAMA study. Open some minds and create some smiles.@ LisaPaloma13 - Thank you.@ Bruce4671 - Thank you as well. I may not always have my facts straight, but I do strive for civility and respect even when wrong.@ Jeff Kiser - If I read your comment correctly, you are optimistic that our climate is not approaching a ‘tipping point’. If so, I sincerely hope you are correct and look forward to a day where I can gleefully claim I was worried about nothing. Thank you for your tone and presentation. I will read it again when time permits.Respectfully,C.

With what part do they disagree? That major world events can change the climate? That we don’t have hundreds of years of accurate daily temperature measurements from every region of the world? Is it that the data right now is trending up, or that we don’t know if humans are causing the change? Or is it that we are unable to process all the worlds weather data that comes in daily into one database?I being a computer scientist have a good understanding of the last issue and have worked on that exact thing. We used one of the Universities Super Computers and we where able to only upload about 10 years worth of data (which was many thousands of billions of entries) for the Salt Lake Region before it became to slow to work with.

Look up the worlds largest database. You will find that it is the WDCC or World Data Centre for Climate and they are only bringing in a fraction of all the data that is generated on a daily bases.

Right now the air is great but if you look at the history of Salt Lake City it has always had bad air quality since before it was populated.

Simply put humans cover a small percentage of the earth. I find it hard to believe that we are so powerful that we can affect the climate of the earth. It is our responsibility to take care of what we have, but not to go to an extreme one way or the other for something that we understand so little about. Lets try not to be Chicken Little, because I would have a hard time telling my children that they a live in third world conditions due to a science we didn’t understand but overreacted to.

The “perfect” climate is one that allows botanical and zoological life on earth to continue to function. While some adaptation has been going on for millions of years (yep, that “non-existent” evolution) too rapid a change is NOT within biological systems/species to adapt so quickly. We’re looking 100 to even 200 years down the road in projections of what climate change will do to the planet. So therefore, who cares, as “what has posterity done for me?” Cockroaches btw are far more likely to adapt than humans.(our reproductive cycle being much slower.)

Harleyquinn, those Libs actually believe thatthey can do something about global warming or cooling.

Just out! Obama made military decisions according to his political needs, not the affect on our military lives. He sent 30,000 that he thought would fail.

The warming trend ended 15 years ago according to their own data. That’s why they started just calling it climate change.