It's currently raining during the women's Giant Slalom, too.

A better term is climate destabilization, instead of warming. Floods and droughts, heatwaves and cold snaps, with an overall average warming trend.

It does suggest American nationality, which begs this question, why does this thread start with this assertion (which personally I find offensive):

"The American people are too ignorant to understand or even embrace complexity."

Sam

...people ARE too ignorant to understand or even embrace complexity."

To me, that significant number is in the 20-25% of the electorate.

When generalizing, I often refer to that demographic as "Teabaggers," because that's who I think "they" are.

I'm judgmental like that.

I believe most of the Fox viewers are brainwashed and some in the South are indoctrinated (wrongly) by their churches.

But we hear too often now Americans are dumb, Americans are stupid, and for the most part I see no one standing up and speaking out against those comments. We should not let them stand. All Americans are not too ignorant to understand or embrace complexity. And I asked that question earlier simply to get the poster to ask himself does he consider himself too ignorant, not to insult, but to prompt him to reconsider his phrasing.

Just as the opposition party has been painting Babyboomers as too lazy to get a job, moochers off of society, "takers", we now hear the Millenniums who cannot find jobs labeled as unskilled and lazy. The truth facing both of these generations is that there are not enough jobs for everyone.

When we hear these statements, we should respond to them as well. Congress is not doing its job in greasing the wheels of the economy to promote job growth. For the Republicans, it is an election year so they hope to increase the misery index, thereby prompting people to vote against the Democrats. They have found by blocking for instance The American Jobs Act effective at keeping people unemployed and using insults against those hurt to explain the why of the situation exists. Shame on them, and we need to respond to those statements as well.

Sam

-California

Winter never showed. Might as well call 2014 the year without a Winter.

These unusual winters following baking summers with killer tornadoes and super storms are concerning enough people. When we're baking in brutally higher temps with more super tornadoes and superstorms, don't worry. People will be scared. I actually heard NBC, yes that NBC!, refer to climate change with no equivocation today. Too little, too late. But, hey.

We get winters like this about every 20 years. This winter has set very few cold records but has set quite a few high records.

In other words even tho this winter has been cold, it has been much colder in other winters in the recent past.

Climate change does not make the seasons themselves stop happening. So your ability to point to the pattern of the seasons and say this is evidence it's not happening is wrong. The warming of the entire planet supercharges everything. The different extremes are happening on a global scale.

You don't quite get it do you?

You said this was an unusual winter. It is not. Oh, if it is unusual it is because it is not as cold as past winters.

The words used must be precise: Your main word 'unusual' was wrong. Deal with it and don't make that mistake again. Telling people this winter was unusual just feeds into the idea that it was colder than usual. It was not colder than usual.

Does precise wording mean it has to be worded so as to read like agreement with climate change denial? Because, no.

It was not an unusual winter.

Except in the sense that it did not get as cold as some cold winters have been. It was actually a warmer winter than some so called cold winters.

See, climate change is a long term idea. One year does not make for unusual when it comes to talking about climates. 'Usual climate' is something based on at least a hundred years of weather.

Ice at the north pole melting, sea temperatures rising, and sea levels rising, are signs of global warming. Then the idea is that global warming will change climates.

Climates have many variations of weather. The only way to say a winter is unusual is to be able to look at many year's records. And this winter was not unusual. It wasn't the same as last year and it won't be the same as next.

Having said that, we have had a few recent winters that set records of warmth. Those warm winters could be said to be unusual as they did induce climate changes. This winter was not a climate changer.

Weather changes add up to climates changing.

This idea that we should not be discussing global warming is stupid. Global warming leads to changes in climates. Global cooling could do the same.

The global warming we are experiencing has been scientifically traced back to co2 emissions. Emissions from human activities.

Some deniers are fixed on the idea that it may be warming, but humans are not to blame. But they have no science to back up that assertion.

Our global warming activities are causing changes in global temperatures which over a long term will lead to climates changing. Since we reached the 350 ppm stage some time back, and ice is melting and sea temps are on the rise, global warming has happened and the process is well on its way to climates changing. Weather changes all the time, climates were fairly steady until recently. Global warming is changing that.

We seem to be about a decade after the multi-centennial peak - that means cooling will be even more pronounced than in the ~1950s/60s.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl

The modern maximum is ending, the question is how cold will it get or how 'grand' the minimum will get. The sun already started decelerating (~SC 23).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Maximum
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod

And it could even happen this year, but 2015-2016 is more likely.

Those living in arctic regions know this shit ain't right.