by Glynn Wilson

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., April 13 - What will it take to make the American people wake up and actually do something to reverse climate change due to global warming caused by the excessive burning of fossil fuels for energy?

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Sheryl Crow rocks a UAB crowd and preaches on the dangers of global warming.

It would be like preaching to the choir to tell you all, dear journal readers, what it is going to take. If you’ve found this Website and follow it regularly, you already know that we’ve written about it and posted headlines ad nauseam on the subject. As I told a few people at the “Stop Global Warming” virtual tour event Friday night at UAB, I’ve been writing about the issue since the 1970s.

But since no other media outlet in Alabama is doing anything on the subject, it might be worth telling a story about someone who is rich and famous and in the music business, since the American Idol craze has swept Birmingham into a music frenzy in recent years.

The problem is, the people of the Birmingham area are more likely to hear about the issue from a religious nut weatherman such as James Spann of ABC 33/40, who somehow still has his job after making national news recently with his claim that there is no such thing as global warming. He still claims that global warming has nothing to do with creating more violent storms like Hurricane Katrina.

Remember the “it’s all cyclical argument?”

There’s only one fact Mr. Spann needs to know to change his mind, and it’s right there in his weather data. The warmer the ocean water in the path of a hurricane, the stronger the storm will become before making landfall. When Katrina hit the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi on the morning of August 29, 2005, temperature readings showed the warmest water in the Gulf of Mexico ever recorded during a hurricane. So Katrina’s eye wound tighter and faster as it approached land, making it into what real weather experts call “a perfect storm.”

If she had not veered east going up the Mississippi River on that fateful morning, there may have been nothing at all left of New Orleans. Instead, Katrina’s main wrath wiped out the less populated Mississippi coast and simply broke the levees protecting New Orleans, creating the flood that will go down in history. New Orleans will never fully recover from that trauma, no matter what the politicians say.

Will other American cities have to be destroyed before people wake up?

Someone in the audience asked Sheryl Crow how she first became aware of and involved in environmental issues.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Sheryl Crow singin’ sweet at UAB

If you’ve followed her life and career at all, you may know that she moved from St. Louis to LA in the late 1980s, and jump started her music career with the Tuesday Night Music Club, where she met Don Henley, the drummer, singer-songwriter for The Eagles.

In 1990 Henley founded the Walden Woods Project to help protect Walden Pond from development. The Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods was started in 1998 to provide for research and education on arguably America’s first naturalist, environmental writer, Henry David Thoreau.

Ms. Crow said Henley had a major influence on her and she’s been involved ever since.

So earlier this year, Crow hooked up with LA producer Laurie David, now famous as the producer of Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and went on the road drawing crowds at universities across the country to try to jump start the movement against global warming among college students.

“This is the most important movement of our time,” Ms. Crow said on a break from the music to have a dialogue with the crowd of about 500 at the Bartow Arena.

While Ms. Crow helps draw a crowd with her music and celebrity, there is a concrete message there about what people can do to make a difference, from using energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs to driving hybrid cars - and pressuring the university administration to get onboard the green campaign.

In her presentation to the crowd, Laurie David indicated the University of Alabama at Birmingham was chosen as a stop on the tour because it scores high on the use of carbon and because it is the largest employer in Alabama with 35,000 faculty, staff and students.

“Imagine what you could accomplish here,” Ms. David said. “We are asking people to make a change. This is going to impact everyone. The science is all there. This is a problem that is happening now.”

“And this is not ‘belief.’ It is a fact,” Ms. David said in response to a question about the contradictory information being put out by weathermen like James Spann and other mainstream media outlets, who report more on the controversial nature of the subject than the facts about it.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Sheryl Crow “getting down” on the accordian at UAB

Like I always say, “It’s philosophy 101. There are matters of opinion. And matters of fact.”

Too bad public opinion in America these days is driven more by beliefs than facts. Maybe some people will believe Sheryl Crow even if they don’t believe Al Gore or a major consensus of scientists.

Ms. Crow played acoustic guitar, bass and accordion and sang five songs in all, including her own hits, “A Change Will Do You Good,” “Every Day Is a Winding Road” and “Soak Up the Sun.” She also sang the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out.”

Ms. Crow said she will have a new album out in the fall with one song about global warming.

“It’s a sweet little rockin’ global warming song,” she said.

Maybe her story and appearance can inspire others to get involved, according to several members of the Black Warrior Riverkeepers environmental group, one of the best non-profit groups operating in Alabama. The group was instrumental in getting the Global Warming Tour to Birmingham - and signing up more than 5,000 people to get involved in the tour, the most of any local organization in the country, according to Black Warrior Riverkeeper founder David Whiteside.

To get involved, head on over to the StopGlobalWarming.Org Tour Website and sign up. Hey, it’s your world too. Don’t just sit there. Do something…

Tags: Global Warming

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 11:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.