Is it warm in here?

I hear but don’t hear the words.

It’s one of those things where you listen to the problem, you read about it, you discuss it, you worry about it, you come up with ideas to help solve it, and then you hear about it again and again and again. It’s big, potentially end-of-the-world, kind of news, but it gets old just the same.

Everyone’s got an opinion on global warming. Some say it’s too late, we’re out of luck. Some say we can fix it. Others, albeit a minority, argue it’s just not that big a deal. It all just makes me tired — tired of worrying, tired of arguing, tired of running my conscience over the coals every time I throw an aluminum can in the garbage instead of the recycling box.

Then, last week, I was sitting in the doctor’s office for some not-global-warming-related illness, and I picked up the June 5 U.S. News & World Report. There was this story about how King County in Washington is dealing with the effects of global warming.

The gist is this incredibly wet region is facing potential water shortages because its annual snowfall is starting to come down as rain. When it came down as snow, it sat and then melted in an expected way to fill the water reservoirs. The rain just gets lost as run-off.

So the county is handling the problem in a variety of ways, one of which deals with really strict requirements for developments. Some developers, according to the story, don’t like the stiff rules and argue they are curbing development and jacking up housing prices.

I’ll bet they’re right. And you know what? Tough. Global warming is a pretty crummy deal, and we’d be lucky if the worst of it is that some people can’t afford to live in King County.

I don’t think global warming is the end of the world. But I do think it’s real, and I think it’s going to be a little more than inconvenient. I also think, as some in that June 5 article suggest, that we’re going to need to adapt to it.

We’re probably going to need to do that pretty soon. I think we’ll need to give up the concept that, really, we’re just individual people, individual companies in a small spot on this globe that’s entering its sauna years.

And it won’t be good enough to do our small part, hold counsel with our consciences and rationalize out some peace of mind as we bump the air conditioner up to high.

This might just be a bunch of words that you read but don’t read. I understand. I’ve been there.

But, the way I see it, the only other alternative is to end the discussion, and I’ve got a feeling that just isn’t an option.