A real temperature reading in College Park, Maryland on Wednesday, July 18, 2019: Brooks Boliek

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Remember the other day when I said it’s not the destination, or the journey, but what you learn from it?

Picture this. A Cherokee and a Polack from Alabama and a redneck Jew from Maryland are standing in an alleyway in a suburban neighborhood. It’s 100 degrees outside with a humidity of 85 percent and a dangerous heat dome hovers over much of the country, headed for the Eastern Seaboard.

The men are discussing what could be wrong with the air conditioning on a Dodge van. A critical thing when traveling under a heat dome. It would literally be murderous to dog and man to move without it.

In between critical parts of the trouble shooting process, considering the weather conditions, the conversation turns to global warming, climate change and eventually other subjects bordering on politics.

“I don’t know about you guys, but it feels like global warming to me,” says the Cherokee.

“You believe in that?” asks the redneck Jew from Maryland. He’s the real mechanic in the alley.

“Oh, yeah, I write about it all the time,” says the Cherokee.

Subject dropped.

Later on, after the AC problem had been diagnosed and fixed, the subject turned to the state of the economy, the politics of health care and the federal government.

The Jew says he went independent doing RV repair since wages have dropped by 30 percent in the private sector for a fully trained and certified mechanic.

“They are driving wages down because they can, more profit for them,” says the Polack.

The mechanic: “I know man, so they forced me to go out on my own for $125 an hour.”

“They will get you on health care too,” says the Polack.

“Well we’re covered there,” says the mechanic. “My wife has a good government job. We have health insurance.”

“Yeah, but they are taking those government jobs too, with everything that’s going on downtown with Trump.”

At that the Jew turned away, revealing that he was a supporter of Trump and the Republicans, his other views came right out of the conservative talk radio and Fox News mega phone.

So the question becomes, how to convince rednecks to stop falling for the rhetoric of politicians and talk radio jocks and commenters who pretend to be journalists on TV who profit politically and financially from false myths, such as the very question: “Do you believe in global warming or climate change?”

First of all, it’s not a matter of belief. Whether you believe in God is about belief.

Rednecks like to talk about having common sense.

Look or walk outside and tell me this heat, this hot, has been around forever?

Not in the summers of my youth.

Not in the record books charting global surface and ocean temperatures over time.

To deny it, you are denying reality itself as it plays out right in front of your face.

Even if you think god is in charge of this stuff, you simply can’t deny it’s happening. Maybe it would help to look at it as God’s wrath, punishment for your careless activities that endangered the Earth’s health?

How can you be willing to sit idly by and do nothing if you have children or plan to, hoping for a better world for them?

If you think this is a funny joke to banter about on Facebook, just wait a little while longer. This is going to get a whole lot worse.

Maybe you didn’t pay much attention in science class in high school, thinking you wouldn’t need that stuff to work for a living, say fixing cars?

Well guess what? The best mechanics use computer tablets with apps and charts to trouble shoot problems with vehicles. You can’t be much of a mechanic these days without a whole lot of science, including the science of designing, building and fixing cars and trucks.

This won’t take but a minute to look at.

Heat Dome Facts

NOAA

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a division of the Department of Commerce, states categorically that “extreme heat waves have become more frequent in recent decades” and provides evidence that it is a growing problem caused by human activities.

The situation over the country, especially the East Coast now, is that this scorching heat is trapped in what is called a “heat dome,” which happens when strong, high-pressure atmospheric conditions combine with influences from La Niña, creating vast areas of sweltering heat that gets trapped under the high-pressure “dome.”

A team of scientists funded by the NOAA MAPP Program investigated what triggers heat domes and found the main cause was a strong change (or gradient) in ocean temperatures from west to east in the tropical Pacific Ocean during the preceding winter. The oceans are in fact warming all over the world.

“Imagine a swimming pool when the heater is turned on — temperatures rise quickly in the areas surrounding the heater jets, while the rest of the pool takes longer to warm up,” scientists say. “If one thinks of the Pacific as a very large pool, the western Pacific’s temperatures have risen over the past few decades as compared to the eastern Pacific, creating a strong temperature gradient, or pressure differences that drive wind, across the entire ocean in winter.”

In a process known as convection, the gradient causes more warm air, heated by the ocean surface, to rise over the western Pacific, and decreases convection over the central and eastern Pacific.

As prevailing winds move the hot air east, the northern shifts of the jet stream trap the air and move it toward land, where it sinks, resulting in heat waves.

Studies have found an increase in the Pacific Ocean’s temperature gradient due to global warming, which suggests the future potential for ever more frequent heat waves.

Redneck Common Sense

So how to convince even redneck Jews in a smart state like Maryland not to believe in guys like Trump and those who deny climate change for their own political and economic gain?

We need a very smart, very famous redneck to tell them on television and on the radio to stop being dumbass rednecks, and get up to speed with the common sense crowd.

Walk outside now, MoFo, and tell me global warming is a hoax.

I’m still out here searching for that high mountain by a cool stream, near enough to town for cell tower internet, to sit in my camp chair and watch on free broadcast TV and the web as the world comes to a fiery end.

With more time and resources, we could do more to help do something about it. Find me a famous redneck who I can video interview who can convince the other rednecks to change their minds and see that fighting climate change is the new cool, like Budweiser and football.

What if Lynyrd Skynyrd told them so in a song? Would they believe it then?

Personally, I would rather try to save the world than hasten its end.

There ought to be a religious reason to take this side of the argument. Maybe some famous televangelist would take up the cause instead of profiting from our demise, false prophets all.

As for the press and other media, stop promoting the hoax argument, please. The only news coming from the mouth of deniers should be fact checked and derided on the spot. We can’t keep reporting both sides and wait for the Sunday op-ed column anymore. This must be our position on radio, television and social media from now on.

The ultimate battle to fight climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels is as big a mission as the moon-mars shot. This may be more important for our survival and certainly deserves as much resources and attention.