Now that New York Fashion Week is finally over, we can take some time to reflect. Those of you that were there, know this, but for those of you keeping updated from behind the safety of your screens, WE EXPERIENCED A BLIZZARD!

And it wasn’t just some general snow storm, it was actually record breaking! A lot of the news stories I watched from my hotel room, as the snow pilled upon Manhattan, focused on the victims who were still not back together after Sandy, and now, here comes snowstorm Nemo!

As a Science Writer, I can’t ignore this. Hopefully it will make you stop and think for a second, “Two record breaking storms unlike any other the East Coast has experienced in such a small lapse of time?” “Hmmm….”

As we begin to experience more and more of this “unusual” weather patterning, we must come to begin to accept the idea of climate change.

In a country so strongly rooted in religion and politics, it is hard to get a scientific and natural issue at the forefront of concerns. Members of Bush’s administration have been know to rewrite scientific documents and climate change statements made by experts. They do this to fit their political agenda, and it’s actually, very morally wrong. We’re living in a country where just under a century ago, people thought it was a sin to perform heart surgery because it was “God’s will” to have them die.

How silly does that seem to us now? If we have a problem, that we can fix with science, we must do our best to fix it! There really isn’t any point denying climate change, unless you’re a politician or heavily religious, etc. The CO2 getting trapped in our atmosphere isn’t “God’s Will,” and it’s certainly very silly to dismiss it off as such.

And, as Andrew Revkin, New York Times blogger, points out, we are also a country heavily rooted in appearance. That means that we’re quick to dismiss this “climate change thing” as a granola, tree-hugging, recycling-people type cause. We say “oh that’s not my problem, i’m not really earthy,” or “i’m not really into science.” This isn’t just science and this isn’t just earth. As Revkin says, this is the story of our time. This is our planet, and it’s changing.  Sadly, our egos are one of our main challenges when it comes to combating climate change.

Revkin also points out that we find information to fit our beliefs. This means that if we want to believe the climate isn’t changing, we can find lectures and articles and videos that say so. “More knowledge doesn’t necessarily make things better,” he says. We have different reactions to risk. We have access to information to accompany the things we want to believe to be true.

My point is this, I’m not trying to scare you, or lecture you, but  climate change is a very, very real thing. It’s happening. And the sooner we can accept that reality, the sooner we can do something about it.