Drew...last year was not one of the coldest winters ever. It was cold here in our zone, sure. The Almanac was likely referring to our area perhaps...as you say, but you must understand climatologists are speaking in terms of global temperature, and in that regard it did indeed rise. The USA makes up I think around 3% of the Earth's surface, so when you consider the entire northeast for example it is such a small slice of the total picture as to be nearly neglible.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the power of political interest and self interest. If you really look at it there is far more interest monetarily speaking in refuting climate science than embracing it.
As far as making stuff up...well...yes, you can make that stuff up.

Climatologist say that melting polar ice disrupts thermal ocean currents, which changes cyclical weather patterns.

Last year it was central North America, but the year before that it was parts Europe in an unusual deep freeze. It's diffulcut to say if it is global warming because there have been plenty of colder winters on record before global warming concerns. If global warm is the cause and this is just a preview, then it appears that planting fruit trees according to zone ratings and historical norms will become roulette.

Been thinking the same thing about the fruit tree roulette rockfarmer. Global warming or more accurately climate change has always called for unusual periods of extremely cold weather in different regions based on modeling. The "global warming" verbage is that overall global temperatures are trending upwards. It is this simple fact that confounds drew and many others.
When folks are misinformed and misguided whether intentional or not, their failure to comprehend the big picture forces them to leap to conspiracy theories.

A few statements of fact do not make a conspiracy theory.

for example?