EDITORIAL: No laughing matter

April 21--No, not the snow and chilly temperatures in some cities that greeted the start of baseball season; not the single-digit weather that welcomed the New Year in Greensboro; not a rare blizzard earlier this year on North Carolina's beaches -- none of this means that global warming is a hoax.

Those who use spates of wintry temperatures to claim that climate change is not a problem are showing either ignorance or duplicity. Most of us learned as kids in science class that how cold or wet or windy it is today is weather; long-term trends in daily weather make climate. And a well-documented increase in average global temperatures in recent years suggests an unmistakable and alarming trend toward significant warming.

Scientists have been warning that one of the effects of the warming is that such extreme events as hurricanes, floods, droughts and, yes, tornadoes like the one that ravaged east Greensboro on Sunday -- a week before Earth Day -- will intensify, as we've witnessed in recent months. And while scientists are still studying the phenomenon, many suggest that warming in the Arctic is related to shifts in the polar vortex that have brought severe winter weather to places such as North Carolina.

So when it's the U.S. president who makes light of global warming, it's more disturbing than amusing.

He should read a major report on climate change that, unfortunately, has gotten little attention since it was released in November.

The report, part of the National Climate Assessment mandated by Congress every four years, said the picture is "unambiguous" and sobering: There is "no convincing alternative explanation" other than human activities -- burning fossil fuels in power plants and vehicles, destroying forests and the like -- for the increase in average temperatures.

For anyone who has been paying attention, the report did not come as a surprise. What was surprising was that it was issued by 13 agencies that are part of the federal government, although it contradicts much of what President Trump and his administration have been doing and saying about climate change.

Trump, who has said repeatedly that global warming is a "hoax," has begun withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. He has worked to undo many of the Obama administration's environmental regulations. He promotes the use of coal and other fossil fuels. Scott Pruitt, his Environmental Protection Agency chief, is a climate-change denier who says, despite the scientific evidence, that carbon dioxide is not a major factor in climate change. Rick Perry, his energy secretary, said after the report was issued that the case against carbon dioxide has yet to be made.

News stories said the Trump administration didn't try to suppress the climate change report because it was focusing on tax reform. The White House did issue a statement saying that "the climate has changed and is always changing" and future change will depend upon "remaining uncertainty in the sensitivity of Earth's climate" to greenhouse gas emissions. And the administration has not let the report change its efforts to promote the use of fossil fuels and undo environmental regulations.

Maybe the administration will pay more attention to military leaders, who have been trying to deal with the effects of warming for several years. As Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has told the Senate, rising sea levels, desertification and more access for ships to the Arctic threaten national security. The military also has been finding ways to use more renewable and clean energy, not just out of concern for the climate, but because dependence on fossil fuels makes forces vulnerable.

In late 2017, Trump signed this year's National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a provision saying "climate change is a direct threat to the national security of the United States."

Our military leaders know. Federal agencies know. Scientists know. Global warming is no joke.

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