Commentary
What’s with this weather? Historic floods and tornadoes in the South come after a winter of record snowfall in the Northeast. Already, May in New York City has seen temperatures nearly hitting 90 degrees.
Not only is it uncomfortable, it’s unsettling.Consider that in an average year tornadoes kill about 60 people, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). Only halfway through this year, more than 500 people have been killed.
Is it global warming? As I’ve written in the past, I’m unconvinced by the theory of man-made climate change. The climate is certainly changing and there are obvious reasons to stem our air pollution as much as possible, but the link between planet-level changes in temperature and man-made air pollution is too tenuous, in my opinion. Also, there are too many other environmental risks that are as serious, if not more, like water pollution and nuclear waste.
Then what is going on with this weather? I’ve always believed in the power of ideas and thoughts. For example, who created our country? The traditional answer is no one person did. There is a long-winded explanation about the sociological and historical factors in the early American colonies and Europe, especially England, in the 18th century, leading right up to the day-to-day politics and war that ensued in the 1770s. Let’s call that the scientific explanation.
From another perspective though, you can take someone at the crux of the entire situation like Gen. George Washington. If Washington did not have one idea or one sustained and coherent thought that beating England was worthwhile, then he would have fled or lost his nerve and gotten killed. Perhaps he would have betrayed the American forces like Gen. Benedict Arnold. Without Washington maybe the entire Revolutionary War would have been lost. We can’t know for sure, but it’s certainly a reasonable possibility.
From this perspective, that one idea in one man’s head created our country. Within that idea, there are a multitude of contributing thoughts and ideas like the belief that a country could exist without a king. Let’s call this the human explanation, since the focus is on forces internal to human beings, not external.
The scientific explanation of the tornadoes in the South comes up short. Scientists don’t actually know what causes a single tornado let alone the 58 that touched down in Alabama on April 27.
NOAA carefully states that they have some good scientific theories but in the end “the way tornadoes form has vexed researchers for decades.”
Then, I offer you a human explanation, not a scientific one. We know for sure that tornadoes are formed by a mixture of unusually warm air and unusually cold air. This meeting of strongly opposing forces, warm and cold, high pressure and low pressure, and dry and wet leads to tornadoes, thunderstorms, and hurricanes.
Could it be that the strongly opposing forces that caused the tornadoes in the South are linked to the strongly opposing forces within America; that the terrible weather is a manifestation of the terrible polarization in political sentiment that seems to currently permeate American discourse?
A report from the Pew Research Center released last month confirms that people have become absorbed in opposing political doctrine to a point that lacks reason. Americans show “extremely strong ideological positions on issues such as the role of government, immigration, the environment, and social issues,” according to the Pew report.
Is it purely coincidence that this extreme political disparity is occurring at the same time as weather events that are formed by elements of extreme disparity?
Whatever it is, I can say with absolute certainty that if all Americans could try to see other people’s perspectives and let go of political ideology it would be good for our country.
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