It's hot in Philadelphia. Is it global warming or just summer? Without reams of data, it's hard for a person on the street to tell the difference. That might be why it's hard to get the masses motivated about climate change. Indeed, no lesser a Philadelphian than Benjamin Franklin proffered, "Climate change will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." Oddly, he said the same thing about justice. His message resonates in that climate change is easy for most of us to ignore. It may have to get personal.

With a wealth of data provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Historical Climatology Network, some eye candy provided by MATLAB, and Google's handy video service, we can look at the difficulty with assessing global warming.

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