The contrast of 2014 as the warm year in recorded history and last winter in the Great Lakes States as the coldest in recent memory suggests a moment of reflection.

While Minnesota suffered in a brutally cold winter last year due to the complex dynamics and mechanics of a chaotic atmosphere charged with heat energy, the climate is warming.

Last year was the hottest year since we began systematic records (1880 in the United States, longer in Europe). Don Wuebbles, professor at the University of Illinois, quoted in a Guardian article suggests it might be the warmest in 1,700, 2,000 or even 5,000 years.

Humankind continues to warm the world.

Of course, some say, God, Protector of the World, would never really let that happen. (Have they never read about the Holocaust?) Others cite natural variability.

I realize folks often latch on to foolish ideas: flat earth, fairies, astrology or intelligent design. Don’t we all harbor a few ill considered assumptions? They add to harmless social noise. I’d have a beer with any of such people.

Others pander such ideas for profit or political power. They embrace a dangerous lack of honesty and honor. They parade about like Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘sumptuously clad’ emperor, we need call out the hypocrisy and swindle.

Hypocrisy, I’ve found, makes a poor drinking buddy.

Serious news organizations and publications no longer assume views opposed to this basic scientific fact are credible. They would no more present such climate views as part of ‘balanced news’ than they would feature an ‘expert’ who says smoking does not cause cancer.

‘Climate change science is robust and credible and there is no debate on the basic facts of climate change.’ To quote the Updraft Blog of Minnesota Public Radio.

The movie Boyhood presents a scene of father and son in discussion. The young boy asks if magic is real. The father skirts a direct answer by asking his son if large whales in the ocean are not somehow magical. The boy persists. He wants to know if the world has real fairies. The father sighs and bluntly says, ‘No! There are no fairies.’

Despite the ice in Minnesota, folks, there are no fairies!