Posted by Jonathan Adler:
America "Ununited" When It Comes to Weather:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_01_07-2007_01_13.shtml#1168203435
Today's NYT has [1]an interesting story on how different parts of the
United States can experience quite different weather extremes at the
same time, and how this may influence American perspectives on climate
change.
Western Europe often experiences extremes of weather in a uniform
way, as when a catastrophic summer heat wave in 2003 in a
half-dozen countries caused the deaths of thousands of people.
In the United States, which spans a continent, there is almost
never a shared sense of meteorological misery � as was made vividly
clear when epic snows buried Denver as if two winters hit back to
back while the Northeast basked in warmth that seemed to render the
whole idea of seasons meaningless.
Some climate experts muse that the innately variegated climate
across the country might help explain why it has taken longer for
human-caused global warming to rise to the level of a national
priority here than in Europe.
This is not a testable hypothesis, and the experts note that many
other factors contribute to varied attitudes on the issue, ranging
from contrasting cultural and political biases to different levels
of dependence on oil and coal or the industries that profit from
them. But they do see the climate issue compounded here by how
normal it is to have abnormal � and very different � conditions
around the country.
References
1.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/weekinreview/07revkin.html?ex=157680000&en=697b5dc87a9e11e6&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
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