Last month, I helped facilitate a story that appeared in the Boston Herald regarding efforts by pro-snowboarder Jeremy Jones on behalf of climate change. The story followed Jones, the non-profit group Protect Our Winters, his brother (TGR co-founder Steve) and small posse of concerned industry leaders as they premiered a short film on Capitol Hill about the impacts of climate change on winter environments. The group then met with key lawmakers to discuss their observations of diminishing snow and ice on mountains around the world.

Interestingly the article—published in the ostensibly liberal epicenter of Boston, MA—was met with some of the most vitriol I’ve ever witnessed from any PR effort. Out of the 29 comments posted in response to the article, 24 were maliciously attacking Jones as a pot-smoking, trust-a-farian, out-of-touch-snowboarder-dude who was purposefully perpetrating a massive hoax about global warming (for what reason he would do this is slightly confusing).

The unfortunate truth is that this reaction is not isolated. Recent polls show that fewer Americans say they believe humans are making the planet warmer, despite overwhelming evidence and scientific reports that say otherwise. And although I might find this complete disregard for peer-reviewed science baffling, research (ironically) further proves that we’re inclined to ignore information that threatens pre-existing cultural beliefs.

Explained neatly, the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values. Correspondingly, if the implication of the outcome affirms your values, you tend to think about it in a much more open-minded way. (shocker, right?)

And so we come back to global warming. The science proving its existence is not tough to understand and there happens to be a LOT of it: although you might receive a “snowy” winter in Boston, someone else in Colorado, China or Zimbabwe had a more mild winter—and after all the averages have been added up, the global temperature continues to steadily rise by increments of a degree every year.

While the East Coast got pounded with over 30 inches of snow in January, bratty climate skeptics decided to build an igloo in Washington, D.C. and dedicate it to Al Gore. Having a load of snow was clearly enough anecdotal evidence to prove their point that the whole climate thing is a hoax by idiot snowboarders.

What they didn’t care to recognize (or look into), is the fact that warmer oceans means there is more water vapor lurking around the atmosphere. And with more humidity near a coastline like the East Coast and Washington, D.C., the more snow you are likely to receive. (They also conveniently ignored that this year also happens to be an “El Nino” cycle that pushes cooler air eastward.)

The truth is, at the end of the day what we’re talking about is an indisputable global warming trend of around 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years; honestly not enough to eliminate winter or record-breaking snow storms for that matter.

But the concern shouldn’t be apocalyptic climate doom any more than concern that hippies are trying to trick us for some extra grant money. It’s that the earth is empirically getting warmer due to human activities and we don’t really know what’s going to happen. To this end, we can either let future generations deal with our CO2 or we can proactively recognize that 6.5 billion people can’t rely on a resource that is a) limited in quantity, b) laced with national security issues & international disputes, and c) is making our only place to live unpredictably warmer.

Let’s be proactive. Send your Senator & Representative a note letting them know that they should do the same.

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