How depressing is this. It is already 60 degrees here in Southern Ohio and expected to reach the low to mid 70’s today. No I am not trying to be a gloomy Gus on this. I already have the windows open and even been out in the backyard doing some work. I love this time of year and the worlds renew from its winter slumber.

What is depressing is the winter that was err wasn’t. This was a very mild winter over all. This area experienced tornados during the winter months and the temperature barely dipped below 20. Actually in late March, I still expect it to be jacket weather outside or even snow to cover the ground.

This is all depressing because what this season has shown is a shift in global climate. It is a sign of global warming and finally people are starting to understand what it all means.

I have always been a outdoors freak. Rather its negotiating the rapids on the New River in West Virginia, taking a lazy float down the Little Miami River in Ohio aboard a canoe or just hiking and camping, it is always a Zen like feeling to get back to nature.

Many people seem to forget about this great planet we live on. They are too busy rushing the kids to soccer or getting to that important meeting. No matter how busy you are, find a secluded piece of woods away from any roads or traffic and just stop and listen. It is almost like entering a strange world. You do not get bombarded with the sounds of engines humming down the highway or construction workers tapping away. Instead you are presented with a medley of nature; birds chirping and squirrels squirming across the tree branches in search of that tasty walnut.

The truly heart wrenching part is that we live on a planet that is screaming for help. The latest edition of Time Magazine contains an in depth look at this scream in an article entitled “The Tipping Point”. This has got to be one of the top “must read” articles of the year, if not the century. Just the opening of the article is certain to grasp even the most skeptical of readers:

No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you’ve heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.

It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry–a Category 4 storm with wind bursts that reached 125 m.p.h.–exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast–when the emergency becomes commonplace–something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.

We are now at a point where even the President admits there is a problem. That of course leads to another problem – who to blame. Most scientists and all environmentalists agree that man is the biggest factor in the illness that surrounds our planet. Bush and many Republicans would like us to think it is just some normal climate cycle. They of course want us to believe this because in order to make changes it may cost the corporations some money.

What really irks me about this logic is simple. If we do not have a planet that can sustain life then why worry about profits? If there is no one around to purchase the companies goods or services then there is no need to be in business. Of course the people who benefit from those profits are also not around because our planet can not give them the vital ingredients of life.

When someone calls me a tree hugging liberal, I always respond with “thank you”. I am a tree hugging liberal. I realize we owe our lives to mother earth. With out our planet, we would not have food, oxygen or the photo synthesis that our very lives depend upon. We also would not have days like today where we can go outside and enjoy the weather. Our future may be heading towards a day where you have to go outside dressed as a firefighter.

This is why it frustrates me to no end when I see politicians put the environment on the backburner for other issues like tax cuts and war. Last year we were presented with the biggest wake up call of them all – Katrina. The costliest natural disaster in our nation’s history, and we are expecting more lessons. We are now two months away from hurricane season and it is already being predicted to be a bad one. To make matters even worse, we have not started to do anything to try and repair our delicate atmosphere.

People even try to argue that the rash of violent earthquakes last year are not to blame on global warming. How wrong they are. Our polar ice caps are melting and breaking off. Some ice chunks are as large as some of our states. These floating states are moving around in the ocean and bumping things and dragging against the ocean floor. This, as well as the actual balance of our earth being jeopardized, has an adverse effect of the tectonic plates we live upon. Remember back to high school geography and the fact that those plates are like rafts floating on an ocean of molten lava.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, warmer seasons, melting ice caps and rising sea levels are all indicators of a planet in need of help. We need to get the people in charge to recognize this cry and lend the much needed help. Everything we can do must be done to prevent our planet from becoming another lifeless rock floating in the vast vacuum of outer space. If we don’t start now then it will be too late.