THE STORY OF 2018 WAS CLIMATE CHANGE: “To anyone who worries about making a case for climate action based on the weather, I would simply ask: Do you have a better idea?” – David Leonhardt, New York Times

Our Best Hope May Be the Weather

“For a long time, many people thought that it was a mistake to use the weather as evidence of climate change. Weather patterns contain a lot of randomness,” wrote David Leonhardt, an opinion columnist with the New York Times.

“And yet the weather still has one big advantage over every other argument about the urgency of climate change: We experience the weather. We see it and feel it.

“It is not a complex data series in an academic study or government report. It’s not a measurement of sea level or ice depth in a place you’ve never been. It’s right in front of you. And although weather patterns do have a lot of randomness, they are indeed changing. That’s the thing about climate change: It changes the climate.”

Impact on Public Opinion

David Leonhardt believes that a reason for hope is public opinion. While it isn’t changing nearly as rapidly as he wishes, it is changing – and the weather seems to be a factor! The growing number of extreme events — wildfires, storms, floods and so on — are hard to ignore.

Nothing else measures up to the rising toll and enormous dangers of climate change, wrote David Leonhardt. Future generations may ask why we were distracted by lesser matters, he concluded.

To Learn More:

To read the complete article by David Leonhardt, download a PDF copy of The Story of 2018 Was Climate Change