OPINION: It's not great weather; it's climate change

By Maria Cortes
Staff Writer

Illustration courtesy of Chris Madden

I had a dream last night that it was the middle of October, and the leaves were a light golden brown. The air smelled like fall and the wind was blowing. Most of all, it was cold. I woke up, looked out the window, and the sun all but blinded me. I walked outside wearing shorts and some sandals and was perfectly fine. That should not happen.

While everyone is rejoicing in the “perfect weather,” I feel like a conspiracy theorist for noticing the effects of global warming on our weather patterns. The truth is that this is not perfect weather. This is unusual and wrong weather for the middle of the last week of October. Right about now we should be bundled up in scarfs and sweaters, trying to find the warmest Halloween costumes possible; not sunbathing in Malibu without a single goose bump on our skin.


People like to assume that global warming is some huge conspiracy theory created by Al Gore and the other environmentalist radicals who chain themselves to trees in the middle of the forest. That is not the case. Every day we are slowly drifting away from our regular patterns into environmental chaos. Glacier National Park in Montana is the number one example of that.

In the 1930s Glacier National Park was completely covered in ice and snow. Now, the sound of running water can be heard all over the park. The glaciers are melting rapidly, and you’ll be more likely to see a very beautiful mountain structure than a very beautiful glacier. The place used to be called the “Crown of the Continent;” now it looks like a lake resort.

Climate change is real, and I say this completely aware of the fact that the majority of the people reading this are rolling their eyes right now. There are a number of things you can do to help like buying energy-efficient light bulbs or becoming an advocate for solar panels in households. The list goes on and on. We should try to help out Mother Nature, and maybe she won’t be so bipolar with us anymore.