Cold

I went to my site sit this morning. I looked at the cut vegetation and I felt one sensation, COLD. This got me thinking about whether there is any connection between our society’s dislike of the cold (think about how much they overheat the dorms in the winter) and our views towards global climate change. It seems that climate change is helping to speed up the inevitable warming of the planet (http://www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange/whatis.htm)

I have often wondered, would people be more worried and more stirred to action if climate change was cooling the planet? People often joke that climate change will make our planet into one big beach- a desirable outcome only on the face of it. Only later do we think about the fact that we won’t be able to grow food or have enough clean water to drink. I don’t think that people would be quite so quick to joke if they were told that within, say, 100 years the planet would enter into another ice age. I was unable to find any research to support the idea that we fear excessive cold more than we do excessive heat, but I did notice that we have a lot of phrases having to do with the cold. Google searches brought up cold war, cold shoulder, cold personality, cold feet, common cold, and cold reading. In conclusion to the very scattered post, I think that someone should do a psychology study on cold temperatures and fear. My hypothesis is that there is a connection and it is influencing how we feel about and react to climate change.