Those who deny the reality of global warming are having an increasingly harder time of it as much of the country basks in 70+ degree temperatures during the week after Christmas. Thunderstorms and heavy spring-like rains tracked across the South, while Christmas Eve joggers wore shorts and T-shirts in New York’s Central Park, where white Christmases are much more common.
Weather is changeable, I know, and there have been warm holidays before — but facts continue to mount and it’s getting harder to pretend that global warming is some sort of liberal conspiracy. If it is, America’s head-in-the-sand climate-change deniers are about the only ones in the world who don’t see the handwriting on the melting ice caps and rising ocean levels. In recent weeks, hundreds of countries, businesses, and non-state organizations from around the world have signed on to a U.N.-sp
onsored “Paris Plan for Action” to work toward limiting climate change in December. Perhaps there is hope.
More often than not, for the past 20 years, I’ve spent at least part of the week after Christmas at a beachfront timeshare at North Myrtle Beach. The weather is usually decent enough to walk comfortably on the beach in something ranging from a sweatshirt to a winter coat: this year it’s warm enough to wear shorts and go shirtless. The only snowmen around are made of sand, and people are sunbathing and
bouncing in the waves all up and down the beach. Breakfast on the balcony is as warm and pleasant as one could hope for.
There’s no guarantee it will be this warm next year: in fact, I hope it’s not. I believe human-induced global warming is real, but there’s no need to hurry it along.
Times and family needs change along with the weather, and the timeshare is still nice, but not as practical as it used to be. If anyone out there would like to become the proud owner of Week 52 in a 7th floor oceanfront condo at Shorecrest I — with maintenance fees already paid for 2016 — let me know: I’ll happily sell it to you for one dollar and a small contribution toward the maintenance fees.
You may have noticed that Baptists Today is undergoing some branding changes: please note that my new email address, for this and other purposes, is cartledge@nurturingfaith.net.
I’m always happy to hear from you.
Professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, North Carolina, and the Contributing Editor and Curriculum Writer at Good Faith Media.
