Can Global Warming be put to bed yet?

We've been having a bitterly cold year here in Reno, NV.  It's upsetting for so many reasons, but mainly it's upsetting because even I won't ride when it's 10 degrees outside.  Call me what ever you like but if my hands don't work 10 minutes into my ride, how do I expect to get out of trouble when it crops up?

That's right, I'm calling it a safety issue now just to feel better about myself.  However, safety issue or no, I think even the most hard core of us can agree that winter does not offer the most comfortable riding weather.  Our fans from around the country are writing to tell us how cold it is around them.  Some of them are more hard core than us and they haven't put their bikes up this year.

What this National Weather Service Chart tells me is that when I ride when it's 10 degrees outside, the air that hits me at free way speeds is actually -19 degrees.  I'm sorry, but no thank you.  I'll use the cage.  With a good percentage of the nation experiencing cold temperatures this winter, riding is almost out of the question.  So where is this weather coming from.

When I was a boy, in grade school, I remember having science class which taught "global warming".  Only then it wasn't global warming, but the natural cycle of the earth heating and cooling.  Then one day someone decided that people would panic if he told them the earth was getting hotter because of us.  Not only would the world as we know it become unlivable for all of us humans but before it became unlivable it would flood causing worldwide catastrophe beyond measure.

Well, take heart our efforts really helped and the temperature just about everywhere plummeted this year.  Plummeted!  I'm sorry but I'll take global warming again next year.  Are we really supposed to believe that the time the earth was at it's peak health was during the Ice Age?  Are we also supposed to believe that driving or riding every day will be the cause of the apocalypse?  I'm sorry I just still don't buy it.

Seems to me that we're always looking for something to be afraid of.  Most recently guns, carbon emissions  bird/swine/bug/octopus/monkey/rodent flu of any type, rioting, the Mayan Calendar or any number of other "Terrible Calamities" that would change the world as we know it.  Are we just out of real things to worry about?  Why can't we worry over normal things that effect our day to day lives in more meaningful ways and find solutions to our own problems?  Are our own problems just so mundane that we seek a catastrophe that could end civilization as we know it?

I guess, long story short i just don't get what there is to be so afraid of.  Scientists can barely predict the local weather accurately, how are we supposed to trust them to predict the global weather for the next 1000 years when they can't get this afternoon right?  In any case if Global Warming is a real thing I'm simply going to plan to make the best of it and ride all winter long when its 60 degrees outside.  Seems like that is the change of pace I'm looking for this cold season.

Safe riding everyone,
West