What if the real problem today is extreme weather, not climate change?

carbon dioxide with our industries, we can hardly decipher our carbon footprint on the ground.

For understandable reasons therefore, I am not a little amused by two recent turns in the global weather and the movies:

First, a front-page story in the Washington Post this week, which reports that while the northeastern United States freezes at 100 degrees below zero, Sydney, Australia bakes at 117 degree—the hottest in eight decades.

Second, a front-page story in the Washington Times, which reported that climate change turned out to be a big yawn at the movies in 2017. While Hollywood tried to save the Earth, moviegoers didn’t buy the eco-messages anymore.

Freezing in America, baking in Australia

Kristine Phillips wrote the report for the Post on January 7, 2018. She wrote:

“In the northeastern United States, temperatures dipped far into the negatives this week. The streets of Boston were flooded with icy waters that carried dumpsters away. Cars in nearby Revere, - parts of New Hampshire could hit 100 degrees below zero.

“In Australia, however, it is summer—and a very hot one. So hot that part of a freeway in Victoria on Australia’s southeastern coast was ‘melting.’ Several hundred miles northeast, in the greater Sydney area, Australians spent Sunday in the most sweltering heat in nearly 80 years.”

Such is the extreme weather greeting 2018 from opposite ends of the globe. As winter in the United States brought a historic “bomb cyclone” that unleashed heavy snow and days of bone-chilling winds to the East Coast, summer in Australia, particularly in the south and southeastern parts of the country, is delivering a “catastrophic” heat wave, with record temperatures hovering in the triple digits (Fahrenheit) and of dry lands.

Australia’s heat wave—and the United States’ bomb cyclone— both come on the heels of the second-warmest global year on record since the 1800s.

A new report, pointing to signs of climate change such as thawing global average surface air temperature in 2017 exceeded 14.7 degrees Celsius (58.46 Fahrenheit), making last year a bit cooler than 2016, the warmest on record. But 2016 included the tail end of a strong El Niño in the tropical - peratures that year, as well as in 2015, according to the report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European agency.

Scientists have said that cold spells like the bomb cyclone do not refute that Earth as a whole is warming or that the average temperature of the climate system is steadily rising.

The extreme weather on opposite ends of the globe has made many skeptical about climate change.

Climate change flops at the movies

was reported by Christian Toto in the Washington Times on December 28, 2017. He reported:

“Climate change got its close-up name-checked Al Gore’s biggest fear or built their narratives around it.

“The timing, in theory, couldn’t be better for Hollywood bean counters. Three major hurricanes. - tinely connected the disasters with a warming planet.

“Yet audiences stayed away from Far, far away.

“Think ‘Blade Runner 2049,’‘Ge os to rm ,’‘ Down sizing ,’‘ An In convenient Sequel: Truth to Power’ and in spectacular fashion.”

Gore’s sequel to his documentary smash “An Inconvenient Truth” paid the most attention to climate change, of course. The 2006 original scored with audiences and Oscar voters, earning best documentary honors. The sequel snared a fraction of the

“Downsizing,” a rare flop from director Alexander Payne (“About Schmidt,” “Sideways”), envisioned a future in which people can shrink themselves to the height of a grapefruit.

2049” touched on climate change in more subtle ways.

Justin Haskins, executive editor at the right-leaning, free-market Heartland Institute, said Holly saving the planet.

“They believe climate change will bring people to the movies,” out of touch with how moviegoers feel about the issue.”

A Pew Research survey 2017 found that “the environment” does not rank among the top 10 public policy concerns of most Americans, trailing behind “terrorism,” “the economy,” “education” and “jobs,” among others.

always this way. Hits such as “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Day After Tomorrow,” the climate change fears, touched a nerve . . . At the time, audiences were genuinely scared about what climate change could mean to the planet, he said. Time passed, though, and many of the frightening predictions made by - ists didn’t come to fruition.

“They stopped believing the problem was as serious as what Al

Could it be that the aforemen wane while sending a message?

- global warming alarmism, calls - nect between show business and its consumers.

the climate scare continues to be nothing more than a big yawn “Lecturing the public on climate change is boring, and ticket receipts prove this.”

A time of extreme weather

These international reports should temper our own alarms about climate change here at home.

In 2017, we experienced a series of pretty devastating typhoons and became a favorite stop of the yearly tropical cyclones, in stark contrast - anao could pass whole years without experiencing a single typhoon.

This may impel climate change believers to intensify their evangelization efforts. They could push the government to spend more money to moderate the weather and do more for climate mitigation.

But the message of the times and the weather may be different. We are going through a time of extreme weather. What has happened in America and Australia and in the Philippines, is a period of extreme weather.

We need fresh comprehension of the climate regime in our archipelago. We should listen less to all those foreign NGOs operating in our midst. We need practical science and native understanding of our island world to cope.

The dogma of climate change is not the answer.